Email marketing has long been dominated by a few select players who entered the industry in the late 90s. For a new player to make a mark and establish itself takes time, effort, and fortitude.
As such, it has taken SendPulse and ConvertKit considerable amount of work to reach a position where they can challenge big players such as AWeber, Mailchimp, Constant Contact, and GetResponse.
ConvertKit is a powerful email marketing software that is often compared with premium inbound products such as Infusionsoft because of the advanced email automation functionalities it offers. Compared to other email marketing tools out there, ConvertKit does a few fundamental things such as list management and automation a little differently. It spices things up by giving advanced segmentation and automation options to users.
On the other hand, SendPulse is an integrated platform which allows you to send bulk email, bulk SMS messages and web push notifications to your subscribers. You can use any of these or all of these functions to engage your subscribers and nurture your email list. SendPulse also uses a unique AI functionality which is designed to increase email open rates. It was among the 3 finalists of The Next Web SCALE program of 2016 and was recognized as one of the best startups of 2016 by The Next Web.
In this article, we’ll compare these two email marketing tools in terms of pricing, ease of use, email automation, email templates, and unique features and help you decide which is the one service you need to absolutely sign up for.
ConvertKit vs SendPulse: Which is the Better Email Marketing Service for Bloggers?
1. Pricing
SendPulse has four options to choose from:
- Free Plan
- List-Based Plans
- Pay as you go plans
- VIP Plan
SendPulse’s free plan allows you to send up to 15000 emails per month to up to 2500 subscribers. The best part of the free plan is that you are given access to premium features such as web push and email automation. You don’t have to spend a dime if your email list and emails per month doesn’t exceed 2500 and 15000 respectively.
ConvertKit onе the other hand offers the following plans. There is no free plan and they rarely offer a trial. Here’s a glimpse of ConvertKit’s list-based plans:
- 1,000 subscribers: $29/month
- 3,000 subscribers: $49/month
- 5,000 subscribers: $79/month
- 8,000 subscribers: $99/month
- 10,000 subscribers: $119/month
ConvertKit is not just more expensive than SendPulse, but it’s one of the most expensive ESPs in the market. So if price is a concern while choosing an ESP, go for SendPulse.
Winner: SendPulse
2. Email Templates
ConvertKit has a slightly different approach to email templates. They offer only text-based templates. That’s pretty much it. There are no fancy templates to dazzle your subscribers and there’s very little scope for customization in terms of design.
SendPulse offers both text-based and HTML email templates. The templates offered are not as exhaustive as the ones offered by Mailchimp or AWeber, but they do the job with some bit of customization possible.
Below is a sample of email templates that you’d be using with SendPulse:
Winner: SendPulse
3) Email Automation
Email automation plays a key role in growing and engaging your email list. As such, it’s an important functionality that should be taken seriously by bloggers and small businesses alike.
ConvertKit takes email automation to a whole new level. With ConvertKit, automation is based on a simple “if this / then that” sequence. There is a bit of learning curve involved here, but you’ll eventually get used to it. And this is the feature that sets ConvertKit apart from other ESPs in the market. You can determine who receives sequence emails and when they receive them by setting up a number of ‘triggers’ and ‘actions’ that will execute when the trigger’s condition occurs.
With SendPulse, the email automation options are basic, but do the job. The most amazing aspect of SendPulse is that the tool allows you to leverage the power of autoresponders even under their free plan. No other service provides this all-important feature for free. So if you’ve just started your blogging journey and want to see the true potential of automated emails, you should probably opt for SendPulse’s free plan.
Winner: ConvertKit
4) Ease of Use
No contest here. SendPulse is one of the most beginner-friendly ESPs in the market. Beginners and pros alike will find it easy to learn the basic functionalities of the tool and even master premium features such as web push, resend to unread, etc. within no time.
ConvertKit, on the other hand, has a steep learning curve. Getting a hang of the complex automation features takes time and can be a tad frustrating at times.
Winner: SendPulse
5) Unique Features
The one thing unique about ConvertKit is how you can play around with the automation options. We discussed that in detail in point (3).
But if we are looking beyond email automation, ConvertKit really fails to offer services which you’d usually expect with a $29/month price tag.
On the other hand, SendPulse being an integrated platform offers not just bulk email, but also bulk SMS messages and web push notifications to engage and nurture your email list. In addition to these, you can also measure the effectiveness of your email campaigns by doing A/B testing and resend emails to subscribers who haven’t opened your email with the click of a button.
Winner: SendPulse
Final Verdict
Despite being popular among professional bloggers, ConvertKit falls short of expectations. SendPulse wins 4 out of 5 rounds here and offers better bang for buck especially for bloggers who are starting out new and as such, wouldn’t want to spend on an expensive solution like ConvertKit.