Item: MailerLite
Rating: 10
Author: Alexandra Renée Poelstra

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We flippin' love Mailerlite. We use it for several of our communications, whether that's regular emails to clients, promotional materials, or hiring. We use it across several brands and services, as well as design and implement campaigns for other organizations. It makes communicating with large groups so easy, and it integrates with so much that it makes it easy to create a number of lists that originate from different applications.

Pros and Cons

Design Features are by far one of Mailerlite's greatest assets. I can truly design the campaigns I want and stay on brand with their design software, better than any of the others. The amount of customization is amazing and it really helps campaign pops.
I also love Mailerlite for its Zapier integration. It can play nice with everything and that makes a big difference when you're gathering data from several places. Things like DKIM and Domain Validation are also helpful and those are included on all the plans. Really helps with deliverability.
Another reason Mailerlite is a favorite is for ease of use and smooth interface. When we set clients up, we don't have to assist them for very much after getting them going. They find it easy to send emails on their own, and empowered to do great things.
Mailerlite's blocks that are within the designer are THE BEST bar none. There are so many items in there I want to come up with campaigns just to use them. I especially love the event RSVP module that allows people to respond instantly and segment them based on their response. This is a big one I use for clients as well. There's just so much you can do here it's crazy.
When it comes to features and quality, NO ONE can beat out Mailerlite on price. NO ONE. This tool gives you the most bang for your buck, covers almost all my clients' needs and because of the value, I almost recommend it exclusively. The value for the money is incredible.

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.

Return on Investment

We had a client who'd never done email marketing before. We set him up on Mailerlite and within his first formal campaign he earned over $5,000. That was something he'd never done before.
Mailerlite has made hiring for our new creative agency a breeze by allowing us to communicate with new applicants more efficiently. This saved us a ton of hours.
Mailerlite is our go-to for all new brands we setup. We have several accounts and that level of organization with the ability to add multiple users at no extra cost has made operations so much more clean. Hosting multiple accounts is critical with different users and the custom permissions make this particular aspect very helpful.

Alternatives Considered

Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Emma, Campaign Monitor, Sendinblue, AWeber, GetResponse, ConvertKit, Twilio SendGrid and Benchmark Email

Aside from ConvertKit which I feel is very much a different type of tool, Mailerlite kills the competition on price, design, functionality and features. I have used several email marketing tools trying to find out which one would work best for me and my business, as well as clients. Mailerlite does the job so well, I pretty much don't really look for other tools anymore. I still work out of several other email marketing tools with clients, so I can stay up to date on features, but that's really when I do now. Just reviewing other tools to see if they've released anything that makes a huge difference. Sometimes, clients have specific tools they are using that don't integrate with Mailerlite, so then another recommendation will come into play, but for the most part, Mailerlite covers everything. While it's not a feature I particularly care for but is quite useful, the ability to do custom mailing like Mailchimp would give it an edge.

Key Insights

Do you think MailerLite delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with MailerLite's feature set?

Yes

Did MailerLite live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of MailerLite go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy MailerLite again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Webflow, ClickUp, Cognito Forms

Likelihood to Recommend

If you need to send regular emails to more than 3 people and or you want your emails to look BOMB, Mailerlite can do it well for you. I've even used Mailerlite just to send regular meeting reminders. While it's great for marketing, a number of our use cases are well beyond promotional. Event registrations, hiring notices, meeting reminders, custom notifications, and more are all ways that Mailerlite exceeds standards beyond your regular email communication. Quite frankly, I haven't found a place where it doesn't work well. They're constantly adding new features and I'm especially hyped on getting to make use of their new Rich Text editor. The only area I can really see that can be improved are more processes to speed up the development of email campaigns, like more default and custom fields, varying automations, and being able to make changes to campaigns midway through before having to go back and add them in their appropriate section (like tags, etc.).

Users and Roles

5 - Marketing, Design, Administration, Operations and Personnel.

Support Headcount Required

5 - If you're pretty good with computers, you should do well with Mailerlite. As a designer, it's important to understand how Mailerlite works to design campaigns that are both effective and on brand.

Business Processes Supported

Company Communications
Reminders and Updates
Marketing Products and Services
Event Notifications

Likelihood to Renew

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.

Products Replaced

Yes - I was in love with the monkey for quite sometime. Then when they did their little switcheroo to a "full service marketing suite" they made it so much more difficult to put new users on. Hated the way they handled the switch as well, so from a service standpoint, I thought it was lame. The loss of multiple users on a free account and no custom permissions was a huge deal breaker as well. What my clients could do on Mailerlite for FREE would cost them 50 bucks or more on Mailchimp. Mailchimp's free plan is NOTHING compared to Mailerlite's free plan. With Mailerlite, we got ALL the features and the pricing was only based on subscribers, which I am a big fan of with software. The switch from Mailchimp to Mailerlite was literally the difference in being able to send or not send campaigns.

Key Differentiators

Price
Product Features
Product Usability

Price and features. I wanted the most bang for my buck and Mailerlite delivered.

Evaluation Lessons Learned

I have a very thorough process, so nothing about that would change. I'd been following Mailerlite for years before I was even using it. I was an early adopter and dropped my usage several years ago for a lack of features in some of Mailerlite's earlier version. I felt it had potential but at that time it couldn't get the job done. I continued to re-evaulate the tool year after year. It was awesome to see how they progressed. Now they're my favorite :)

MailerLite Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Immediate help available Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response	None

Premium Support

Mailerlite's support team is amazing. Well, the team in general is amazing. We almost never use support because we rarely have problems. And most of what occurs with support is something new to be learned, not anything that's not working...

Exceptional Examples of MailerLite Support

Mailerlite held a breakdown webinar for our Nonprofit clients, teaching them to use every area of the tool. That was PHENOMENAL. This team cares and they are AWESOME.

And yes, I am a hardcore fan. Not just of the product, but the team in general and how their business is run, under the Remote Company. Being able to watch them over the years, I can't see myself going anywhere else...

Support Rating

If you need something they'll bend over backwards to make sure you get it. Extraordinarily helpful.

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar	None

Easy Tasks

Using the Editor is a breeze

Difficult Tasks

Subscriber profiles could use a little smoothing out

Usability

Simple, easy and functional. I have several older clients use the platform and they rarely require assistance after an initial walkthrough.

When it comes to features, functionality and price, hands down, you need to choose Mailerlite.

Overall Satisfaction with MailerLite