Email Marketing Automation Startup? 🤔
Hey Devs!
After reading some of your threads, I've come to the conclusion that SaaS founders need a better email marketing automation solution.
Thus, I've set a goal to build a new SaaS startup in 2021 that would address some of your pain points. Which are they? The price? The features? The customer service?
Share your thoughts which I will incorporate into the new SaaS paradigm.
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The price, big time!
I'm actually in the market right now looking for an email marketing alternative for my product ruttl. Can't tell you how frustrating it got with Mailchimp after the numbers started to grow, it's almost too expensive to sustain in the long run.
That's true. We had the same frustration with MailChimp as well.
I'm a longtime Mailchimp user that's looking to switch. I'm looking for an ESP that can do marketing campaigns and automation. Currently at the top of my list are Mailerlite and Sendinblue. There are so many options out there though, I have just begun to scratch the surface in my research.
When you say you want a "better" solution, how do you mean?
For me, Mailchimp's pricing is a bit high, but more importantly, their UI is cluttered and frustrating, and their API/dev experience is mediocre.
For you, I'd be concerned that the space is just really crowded and the feature set needed will be quite large.
I like what EmailOctopus is doing – they are really affordable (like 1/4th the price of Mailchimp) and their UI is clean and their API is good. It just lacks customization and more advanced automation and webhooks. But I think those things will probably happen in the next year or two.
Yeah :(
Email marketing automation tool is more helpful to reach your audience, Mailchimp got costly as we grow big, then now the tool i use is Mailshake (new to market though but, so far good for me)
Mailshake doesn't have a monthly subscription plan. Annual subscription is too pricey.
Create a free plan to try out your service and add monthly billing with easier option to cancel.
interesting... do you have a community around this project already? how did you come to the ocnclusion?
Ok, I'm a bit shocked at what this poll implies...
MailChimp is... the benchmark? Really? Are indie SaaS founders honestly still relying on MailChimp as their go-to default ESP in 2021, even when there are SO MANY demonstrably better alternatives out there?
I feel like we need to have a conversation about what the default is, and what it perhaps should instead be, here in 2021 for what ESP is the right choice for indie SaaS founders.
But first, someone should do a poll to find out what the zeitgeist is around indie SaaS ESP in the 0->1 phase of growth.
Ken, what are your top ESP picks?
It really depends on what you're wanting to do with your email marketing. 🤔
Do you want just a simple onboarding sequence, or do you also have a bunch of event-driven sequences that users will go through, waitlists, launch events, newsletters, reminder emails, and follow-up sequences? You have to take an honest look at what you're wanting to do, willing to do, and what will really move the needle for your project.
That said...
My top 4 for an indie SaaS founder to consider are (based upon my own experience and understanding of each platform, YMMV):
👉 ConvertKit
👉 SendLane
👉 ActiveCampaign
👉 UserList
My runners-up are these two, which primarily market to e-commerce companies, but each do an outstanding job for SaaS because of their extensive email automation options and robust APIs:
• Drip
• Klaviyo
If you're going to be programming all your automated email sequences from scratch in your app and don't need fancy workflow design tools or all the CRM-y stuff that often comes with the bigger packages, take a look at Postmark. It's not just transactional emails anymore.
P. S. I'd still really love to see a poll on IH about what tools/products all the founders here are using for email marketing, and how extensive the email marketing actually is that each founder is pushing through that product. My hunch is everyone will admit they're not doing enough email marketing, and some none at all.
I think we can all agree that no tool is worth the money if it stays in the toolbox unused.
MailChimp is better than nothing, especially considering most founders aren't ever emailing their lists.
Hey Ken, thanks for your reply. I'm currently shopping for a new ESP so this info is really helpful.
I've been using Mailchimp for years, and I think it's actually pretty good but I do think the pricing is a bit high for what you get. The UI has gotten really cluttered and annoying, and the API/developer experience has been mediocre.
I'm currently looking at Mailerlite and Sendinblue as my top choices, but still kicking the tires on a lot of other services.
I may check out ConvertKit again based on your recommendation. I wasn't initially impressed with their UI (lots of weird quirks that annoyed me) and had difficulting integrating their signup form inside my React app and I was annoyed I couldn't try their automation without a subscription.
Never heard of Sendlane, will check it out.
Initially dismissed ActiveCampaign because it seems super-pricey. Their Lite plan pricing is more in line with Mailchimp's Standard plan. Maybe I don't need ActiveCampaign's "Plus" features, I should revisit that.
Userlist is also quite expensive, and I thought they were more of an Intercom competitor than an ESP.
I also really like the direction EmailOctopus is going, but their automation and feature set is too basic right now... they could be a really good option a year from now.
Here's my quick research on pricing for 25k subscribers:
Mailchimp Standard: $230/mo
ConvertKit $199
Sendinblue (based on 4 broadcasts per month): $124
ActiveCampaign (Plus): $399
Mailerlite: $120
EmailOctopus: $65 (so cheap!!!)
Drip: $369
Obviously price isn't everything. If your business has a high conversion rate and/or customer LTV, then the price doesn't really matter for the "expensive" providers.
But the last business worked for, our Mailchimp costs were literally our biggest expense (other than salaries), more than 3x our Google Cloud costs that ran all our apps. Our mailing list conversion rates were low and our LTV was low, so justifying the Mailchimp bill was always a struggle.