Benchmark Email vs. MailerLite

For low volume non-profits, Benchmark Email provides a respectable free service. Ease of use is high and customization of the email is good. The discount for 501(c)(3) organizations and fully free use for non-profits that help children is commendable. Although the GUI editor is flexible and easy to learn, it does have some issues with certain detailed formatting concerns, like properly showing the newlines between paragraphs. Image/photo processing and presentation is similarly both easy to use, but frustrating due to some capability gaps and quirks, like specifying image sizes and display on hi-resolution devices.

Overall, Benchmark Email provides a good service that is easy to learn to expand your communication reach; however, the ROI and satisfaction may not be as high if paying fees comparable to other offerings.

Incentivized

The tool is really very complete. I have created regular campaigns, Workflows, and A/B tests in my campaigns and I have not had any limitations. I have tried other platforms that are not as complete in the free version like MailerLite. This makes me want to upgrade to the premium version and I'm sure you will get the same benefits.

Incentivized

• 2,000 contact list space available with no time limit to those who can't upgrade.
• The AB Testing feature helps to improve the performance of your emails by experimenting with different content and send times to determine what works best. Thus great emailing objectives are easier to achieve.
• There is a feature where website and email engagement trigger an automatic email series. For example, the automatic flow of a subscriber from a leads list to a customer list upon making a purchase is awesome.

• Offers a user-friendly interface, making it simple to create beautiful forms, group subscribers, and automate emails.
• Includes email automation workflows in their free plan - the only provider I know of that doesn't charge you after one month or hit you with "transaction fees".
• Excellent video tutorial library so you can learn email marketing as a beginner without feeling overwhelmed.

• List maintenance -- navigating multiple lists is a cumbersome activity.
• Analytics about user engagement could be better. It's not super robust, especially if you're used to Google Analytics.
• Customer support is kind of slow to get back to us.

Incentivized

• I would add more types of inbox previews so people can see their campaigns across more channels
• Mailerlite could definitely use a few more default fields, and more field types. This is an area where we get stuck writing more custom fields than we like. I want to see a variety of fields, from text box, to radio buttons, drop downs and more date options.
• Custom fields should be able to be organized according to the list type. Custom fields that are added show up on ALL subscriber profiles, so if you were building a list that had a field for the type of pet someone had because you run a Dog Walking Business, but also had a list that only served Sponsors, that dog walking option would show up on all your subscriber types. If there's a way to change this and I missed it, my bad, but I haven't yet found that to be the case.
• I'd really like to see Mailerlite have the option of adding a subscriber midway through the process, and a RESEND option, whether that is to non-openers or people who are new to a list. While you can set up drip campaigns or triggers to send certain emails when people change their status, it seems a bit too time consuming.
• I'd love to see a date specific reminder email template for meetings. That would be awesome and speed things up quite a bit.

Incentivized

Mailerlite is awesome and it does everything I need and then some. They're always innovating and adding new features, and their team is flippin' amazing. Can't see myself ever switching. They may not have everything, but looking at how well their team works, they'll get there for sure and I'm willing to wait.

Incentivized

Overall it's super simple to get started and use the service. For those who need a bit more help, the support team is accessible.

Incentivized

Timely responses, quality answers to my questions, showing that the support are knowledgeable and cares about my results. I've had other experiences with competitors, so I'm delighted that this team cares about my business. It's good to know there are real experts ready to jump in when you need help

I stated this plenty of times in my previous responses but we moved to Benchmark from Mad Mimi. Mad Mimi's feature set is extremely basic and only suited for start-ups or very small businesses. Benchmark provides enough customization to take the next step in your email marketing program. It's also fairly affordable

Incentivized

The company I wanted to mention isn't in your dropdown list: BEACONS. While they're more like LinkTree, they also have a great feature to build a newsletter following and their AI prompts encourage you to send more newsletter blasts and then help write the e-mail for you with the blogs/YouTube videos already embedded for example.

• If we think particularly on the ROI then benchmark email gives you a definite amount of ROI. But it takes time, you will see the results after a six month span of time. Because sending an email itself is a slow and steady process to follow.

Incentivized

• Gives us the ability to track the popularity of content in our email as well as who has read the content.
• The customizable layout gives us the opportunity to be creative and have our culture shine through our company communication.
• The ability to see who has un-subscribed helps our HR department to see who isn't receiving important company information so we can ask them to re-subscribe.
• Helps our company to be more transparent and communicate more effectively.

Incentivized