Email can be an incredibly powerful marketing strategy for Shopify stores but in order to run any campaigns, you are going to need to install an app.
And as with everything on Shopify, there are lots of apps to choose but which one is the best?
Well, we’ve gone through and tested all of the popular options to find what we think are the best options for your store.
Best Shopify Email App
Omnisend came out on top in our testing due to it:
- Having a good selection of features
- Being easy to use and not having too steep of a learning curve
- Being reasonably priced
It feels like an app that will grow with your business as it is designed to be used with stores of all sizes.
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Testing The Apps
Testing out email apps is quite challenging as we don’t have numerous active stores to build email lists on, so we took a look at:
- The features they offer
- The pricing
- What they are like to use
And this allowed us to come up with a list of the 7 apps that we would choose for our own store to give you an idea as to what you can use for yours.
1. Omnisend – Free to $59/month+
Omnisend has become one of the prominent players when it comes to email marketing software that is focused on ecommerce websites and naturally, this has included Shopify with them having one of the most popular and highly rated email marketing apps.
One of the reasons for this is that it comes with a good selection of features that includes:
- 250+ Templates – to help you get started, they have a range of over 250 pre-built, professionally designed templates that you can customize for your store
- Email & SMS Marketing – Omnisend is set up for both email and SMS marketing, allowing you to contact customers in a variety of ways
- A/B Testing Tool – to help you optimize your campaigns, Omnisend includes an A/B testing tool so that you can see what works and what doesn’t for your list
- Pre-built Workflows & Segments – to help you get started as quickly as possible, they have included a selection of pre-built workflows that you can adapt to fir your requirements
- Popups & Landing Pages – to help you grow your list, they includes a range of popups, signup forms and landing pages to help you effectively build your list
- Reviews – the app also includes product reviews, which can help you sell more products
The Omnisend dashboard is also very easy to use from getting started to creating and sending email campaigns and the integration with Shopify is also very good.
Pricing for Omnisend (and all email marketing apps) might be a little confusing as they offer three plans:
- Free – for up to 250 contacts & 500 email a month
- Standard $16/m – up to 500 contacts & 6,000 emails a month
- Pro $59/m – up to 2,500 contacts & unlimited emails a month
But these are from prices depending on the size of your email list as you can stay on the Standard plan with more than 500 contacts but you pay more than $16/m and the same for the Pro plan, you can have more than 2,500 contacts but you will pay more than $59/m.
Omnisend do have a calculator on their site to help you figure out how much you will be paying a month.
As an overall package, we really like Omnisend as it is an email marketing platform that is designed for ecommerce.
2. Automizely – Free to $179/month+
The Automizely Email Marketing app is one of the many post-purchase and marketing apps that are offered by the team at Aftership and it is a good one as it is one of the highest rated and most popular email marketing apps for Shopify and is definitely worth considering if you are using one of their other apps.
The app comes with a good number of features, including:
- Professional Templates – the app offers a range of pre-built templates that can be easily customized using the drag-and-drop builder
- Automated Email Flows – automate your email setup with an email flow builder, abandoned carts and subscriber welcome emails
- Newsletter Campaigns – create professional-looking, mobile responsive newsletters to your subscribers to generate traffic and sales
On the higher tier plans, you also get additional features that includes:
- Customer Segmentation
- A/B Testing
- AI-Generated Product Recommendations on Upsells Popups
Automizely does integrate well with Shopify but you do access the service through the app, rather than directly in your Shopify dashboard but it works really well and is easy to use, plus if you use multiple Aftership apps, you can manage them all in one place.
When it comes to pricing, Automizely offers a selection of 4 plans, which are:
- Free to Install – up to 3,000 emails for up to 300 contacts
- Essentials $11/m – unlimited email for up to 500 contacts + additional features
- Pro $119/m – unlimited emails for up to 10,000 contacts + additional features
- Premium $179/m – unlimited emails for up to 10,000 contacts + all features
As with many other email marketing apps, these are from prices and the monthly price will go up the bigger your list gets.
We did like Automizely as it offers a good range of features and works well with Shopify, we also like that it is part of a suite of apps you can use on your store as using apps from the same developer can reduce the chances of problems with apps not working well together.
3. Yotpo – Free to Install
The Yotpo email app is from another developer that has created a suite of Shopify apps to help you manage your store and the email marketing one has the most reviews out of all the email marketing apps, with a very high average score, so they must be doing something right.
What makes Yotpo very appealing is that all users get access to all the features, this includes:
- Email & SMS – create and personalize your email and SMS messages, you can also conduct unlimited A/B testing to optimize your campaigns further
- Automation – automatically send emails and/or SMS when customers sign up, abandon their carts and many other email flow automations
- Segmentation – manually segment your audience or use predictive segmentation based on customer data to optimize your lists
- Detailed Analytics – see detailed reports and analytics to find out how well your campaigns are performing along with potential insights as to how to improve future campaigns
Having all features available to all users does make Yotpo very appealing to users and the app integrates really well with Shopify and you can manage everything directly in your Shopify admin area, which also makes your user experience a lot better.
But the one thing that is going to make Yotpo very attractive to many store owners is the pricing.
This is because Yotpo is completely free to install and their pricing is based on the number of emails you send every 30 days, you get 10,000 free and are charged at approximately $1.50 for every 1,000 additional emails that you send up to 1 Million, when it drops to approximately $1 per 1,000 emails.
They also charge $0.0165 per SMS message you send.
This basically means that Yotpo operates on a pay as you go basis, meaning the more emails you send, the more you pay but for quiet months, you won’t be charged as much, which gives store owners a lot of flexibility.
We do like the Yotpo app as it offers a lot of very good features and the pay as you go pricing makes it a great option for stores, especially seasonal ones as you aren’t paying for things you aren’t using and Yotpo make a lot of very good apps that feature on many of our best apps lists.
4. SmartrMail – Free to $99/month+
SmartrMail is a dedicated email marketing app for Shopify stores, with the team behind the app focusing on helping you create high-converting email automation and funnels to help you get the most out of your email marketing efforts and it comes with some good features, including:
- Email composer – build custom emails by using multiple different blocks that includes text, products and video, some blocks also use AI to help speed up the process
- Unlimited email flow automations – create as many email flows as you like for things like welcome emails, abandoned carts, back in stock notifications and review requests
- Smart segmentation – create rules to help you automatically segment your email list so that you are sending targeted emails to the right subscribers
- Sign-ups and popups – multiple options to allow people to subscribe to your email list
One of the things we like about SmartrMail is that you get access to over 90% of the features on the free plan, which makes it great for small or new stores that don’t have a huge list but still want all the features.
SmartrMail has good integration with Shopify but as with many of the email marketing apps, you have to manage the app through their dashboard rather than being able to do it directly through your Shopify dashboard but it is still an easy to use dashboard to help you set up your emails.
When it comes to pricing, SmartrMail offers 3 plans:
- Free to install – up to 250 contacts and up to 1,200 emails a month
- Essentials Plan $14/m – 250 contacts included + up to 12 email per contact each month
- Pro Plan $99/m – 5,000 contacts included + up to 24 emails per contact each month
As with many of the other email marketing apps, these are from prices as it depends on the number of contacts you have on your email list, with each additional contact costing $0.01.
We liked the SmartrMail app and we do like that they are focused on one thing, which is helping you create effective email marketing campaigns.
5. Sendivo – Free to $101/m+
Sendivo is one of the few email marketing apps that is ‘Built for Shopify’, which does give it some advantages in terms of useability in Shopify and even though it isn’t as popular as some of the other apps, it is one of the highest rated and comes with some nice features, including:
- Email automation – create email workflows using Sendivo’s pre-built templates for things like abandoned checkouts, thank you emails and receipts
- Customizable templates – customize the pre-built templates to fit your business and branding using the drag and drop builder
- Popup and signup forms – multiple customizable forms and popups to help you get people signed up to your email list
- Segmentation tools – use rules and conditions to organize your list so that you can send targeted and personalized emails to your customers
The one thing that we really liked about the Sendivo app is the because it is ‘Built for Shopify’, it means that you can set up and manage the app directly in your Shopify dashboard, which can make workflow easier as you aren’t having to jump between tabs.
In terms of pricing, Sendivo offers four plans, which are:
- Free to Install – for up to 250 contacts and up to 500 emails every 30 days
- Starter $14/m – up to 1,000 contacts and up to 3,000 emails every 30 days
- Growth $41/m – up to 10,000 contacts and up to 30,000 emails every 30 days
- Business $101/m – up to 30,000 contacts and up to 90,000 emails every 30 days
And as with many of the email marketing apps on this list, these are from prices and the more people you have on your list, the more you pay plus if you want to use their SMS service, all plans include 165 every 30 days and you can purchase additional ones as you grow.
Sendivo offers a really good app and the fact you can manage it directly within your Shopify dashboard is a bonus, plus you get pretty much all the features on all the plans making it a very viable option for Shopify stores.
6. Shopify Email – Free
This is the first time that we have added an app created by Shopify to any of our lists, as they usually aren’t very good! But the Email app is the one exception we found as it actually does an ok job and includes the following features:
- Send targeted emails – you can send targeted emails to the customer segments that you create in your Shopify dashboard
- Multiple email templates – for things like abandoned carts, email campaigns, welcome emails and discounts
- AI tools – use AI to help you generate subject lines, body copy and choose the optimal time to send your emails
It isn’t the most feature rich app and is more of a no-frills approach to email marketing, so you need to know what you need from your email marketing app before using this one.
The one area where the Shopify Email app does really shine is that it integrates really well with the Shopify dashboard and it can all be managed directly from here but some of the workflows aren’t as optimal as some of the other apps.
When it comes to pricing, Shopify Email is very simple as they only offer one plan:
- Free to Install – includes 10,000 emails a month and then $1 for each additional 1,000 emails
So you very much know where you stand in terms of pricing and we do like the app as it is simple, pretty easy to use and cost effective but you may find that you need some additional features as your store grows, meaning you may need to move to another email platform at a later date.
7. Klaviyo – Free to $20/month+
Klaviyo is an email marketing app/platform that is definitely targeted towards and more suited to larger Shopify stores as it is more of an enterprise level solution that comes with a lot of bells and whistles, including:
- Precise segmentation – create precise audiences using multiple custom rules and as much data as you need to create highly targeted emails
- Multiple integrations – Klaviyo integrates with over 350 different partners, meaning that it will probably work with your Shopify tech stack, whatever that may be
- Drag an drop automation builder – quickly and easily build email automations by using the drag and drop builder either from scratch or customizing one of the pre-built templates
- Forms – use Klaviyo’s range of form to help you build your email list and gather data about your subscribers
This is just a small selection of features, with many more using AI to help you optimize your email marketing efforts but all of these features mean that Klaviyo does have a steeper learning curve than many of the other apps, which is why we think it is more suited to larger stores.
In terms of pricing, Klaviyo offers 3 standard plans:
- Free to Install – up to 250 contacts
- SMS $15/m – up to 1,250 SMS/MMS credits a month (upgrade as you grow)
- Email $20/m – up to 500 contacts
Like many other apps, the monthly prices do increase as you gain more subscribers and Klaviyo is one of the more expensive options when just looking at the monthly cost vs the size of the list.
As we’ve said above, Klaviyo is more of an enterprise-level solution and may not be suitable for smaller stores, especially if you are new to email marketing as it does have a steeper learning curve than many of the other options on this list.
Conclusion
Choosing an email marketing app for Shopify can feel a bit overwhelming due to the amount of options and they all seem to do similar things but after trying them out…
Omnisend did come out on top due to it:
- Having a good selection of features
- Being easy to use and not having too steep of a learning curve
- Being reasonably priced
- It is scalable and suited to Shopify stores of all sizes
It is also very highly rated and as Omnisend works with multiple platforms, if you choose to move on from Shopify, you can easily take your list with you.
Hi, I'm Paul, the Owner and Founder of EcommerceGold.
I ran my own Ecommerce Business for over 7 years and now help others start their own online retail empires!