So, how much does email marketing cost? Costs vary widely, but mid-sized businesses typically spend up to $1000 per month for self-managed email marketing and $300-$1500 if working with an agency. To learn more about email marketing pricing, just keep reading! Email marketing allows you to connect directly with customers and potential customers, and it yields an extremely high ROI — $36 for every $1 you spend.
How much does email marketing cost?
Email marketing costs vary widely depending on the platforms you use, the number of subscribers you have, the complexity of your campaigns, and whether you work with an agency or manage your email marketing yourself. Typically, mid-sized businesses spend $10-$1500 per month for email marketing.
With a very basic campaign and a do-it-yourself approach, you can send email newsletters for free, but most businesses will spend up to $1000 for self-managed email marketing, depending on the platform and number of subscribers. Mid-sized businesses that work with an email marketing agency typically spend $300-$1500 per month.
A well-designed and well-executed email marketing message reminds prior and existing customers, as well as potential customers, to visit your website and gives them the incentive to do so. At the heart of any successful email marketing campaign is customer retention and relationship building, and we configure every email marketing campaign with that end goal in mind.
By staying at the forefront of your customers’ minds, you significantly increase the likelihood that when it comes time for your email recipients to make a purchase, they will choose you over your competitors.
Reports show that 82% of marketers spend between 0% and 20% of their marketing budgets on email. However, it’s recommended that you dedicate 16% of your total marketing budget to email marketing. The exact amount you allocate to email marketing will depend on a number of factors, including:
- Annual revenue
- Percentage of overall revenue generated online
- Your industry
- The product/service you sell
- Your overall digital marketing goals
Ultimately, you will need to choose an email marketing budget that works for your company and goals. That being said, email marketing is an extremely cost-effective strategy, and it can earn you an incredibly high ROI — $36 for every $1 you spend.
So if you’re looking for a way to reach more customers for less money, email marketing is a great option.
What factors impact the cost of email marketing?
There are a number of factors that will impact the cost of your email campaigns. Four major factors are:
- The quality of your current email list
- The complexity of your email design
- The frequency of your campaigns
- The platform you use
Quality of current email list
If your email list of full of inactive subscribers, you will need to take some time to clean it up in order to get the best results for your email campaigns.
Tools like Kickbox, NeverBounce, and BriteVerify can help you identify faulty email addresses and inactive subscribers so you avoid sending to those people.
Here’s how much you can expect to pay for each of these services.
Kickbox
Kickbox offers users 100 free verifications. After that, here’s what you should expect to pay to verify subscribers’ email addresses:
- 1k verifications: $10
- 5k verifications: $25
- 10k verifications: $80
- 25k verifications: $200
- 50k verifications: $400
- 100k verifications: $800
- 500k verifications: $2,500
- 5mm verifications: $4,000
You can check out more info about Kickbox’s pricing here.
NeverBounce
NeverBounce offers volume rates, so the more emails you verify, the less you will pay per email verification. Here’s what you can expect to pay for NeverBounce:
- Up to 10k verifications: $0.008/email
- Up to 100k verifications: $0.005/email
- Up to 250k verifications: $0.004/email
- Up to 1mm verifications: $0.003/email
This means that if you want to verify 100k emails, you can expect to pay $0.005 per email or $500. For more information, you can check out their price calculator.
BriteVerify
With BriteVerify, your first 250,000 email verifications each month cost $0.01. BriteVerify also offers tiered discounts, so the more emails you verify every month, the less it will cost. Here’s a breakdown of their volume rates:
- 5k verifications: $0.008/email ($40)
- 20k verifications: $0.0075/email ($150)
- 30k verifications: $0.007/email ($200)
- 50k verifications: $0.0065/email ($320)
- 100k verifications: $0.006/email ($600)
- 250k verifications: $0.005/email ($1250)
- 500k verifications: $0.0045/email ($2200)
For more information about BriteVerify’s pricing, you can check out their price calculator.
To maintain a quality email list, we recommend cleaning your email list once per quarter or every three months.
Mailchimp advantages for email marketing
Mailchimp is a widely used email marketing platform known for its user-friendly interface and a range of features that help businesses create, manage, and analyze email marketing campaigns. Here are some of the pros of using Mailchimp:
- User-Friendly Interface: Mailchimp is known for its intuitive and user-friendly interface. It’s easy to navigate, making it accessible for both beginners and experienced email marketers.
- Email Templates: Mailchimp offers a variety of customizable email templates that make it simple to create visually appealing and professional-looking emails without the need for coding skills.
- Automation: Mailchimp allows you to set up automated email campaigns, which can save time and ensure that your subscribers receive timely and relevant content based on their behavior and preferences.
- Audience Segmentation: You can segment your email list based on various criteria, such as location, behavior and purchase history. This helps you send targeted emails to specific groups of subscribers, improving engagement and conversion rates.
- A/B Testing: Mailchimp offers A/B testing features that allow you to test different subject lines, content, and send times to determine which emails perform best. This helps you refine your email marketing strategy over time.
- Reporting and Analytics: Mailchimp provides detailed analytics and reporting tools, allowing you to track the performance of your email campaigns. You can see open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and more to assess the effectiveness of your efforts.
- Integrations: Mailchimp integrates seamlessly with a wide range of third-party applications and e-commerce platforms, including Shopify, WooCommerce, and WordPress. This makes it easy to connect your email marketing efforts with other tools and platforms you may be using.
- Free Plan: Mailchimp offers a free plan with basic features, making it a cost-effective option for small businesses and startups looking to get started with email marketing.
- Scalability: As your business grows, Mailchimp offers pricing tiers and additional features to accommodate your needs, making it suitable for businesses of all sizes.
- Education and Resources: Mailchimp provides a wealth of educational resources, including guides, webinars, and a blog, to help users improve their email marketing skills and stay up-to-date with industry trends.
- Multichannel Marketing: Mailchimp has expanded beyond email marketing to offer tools for social media management, landing page creation, and marketing automation, allowing you to manage multiple aspects of your digital marketing efforts in one place.
- GDPR Compliance: Mailchimp takes data privacy and compliance seriously and offers tools to help users comply with regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
While Mailchimp has many advantages, it’s important to consider your specific business needs and budget when choosing an email marketing platform, as there are other alternatives available with different features and pricing structures.
Complexity of email design
If you want to send intricately designed emails, you can expect to pay a higher price. Generally, the more complex and customized your email design, the higher your design costs.
To design custom email templates, most agencies charge either a flat or hourly rate.
You can expect to spend anywhere from $100 to $2000 per design, with templated designs at the lower end and complex, custom designs at the high end of this range.
Explore pricing for our email newsletter design services
Frequency of your campaigns
The frequency of your campaigns will also impact the price you pay for email marketing.
For example, you will pay less if you send one monthly newsletter as opposed to weekly email blasts.
If you pay a distribution cost of $0.03 for every recipient, and you send to 100k subscribers, you can expect to pay $3,000 to send one monthly email. However, if you send a weekly email to 100k subscribers for $0.03 per recipient, you can expect to pay $12,000 per month.
This should go without saying, but generally the more emails you send, the more you will pay.
Platform you use
The email platform you choose will also impact the amount you spend for email marketing.
Most platform providers offer various plans with pricing that varies by plan and number of contacts.
Let’s take a look at a few options. For the sake of comparison, we’ll list the pricing for 10,000 contacts a month for each platform.
- Mailchimp: $87-$299/month
- Constant Contact: $105-$180/month
- Campaign Monitor: $89-$249/month
- GetResponse: $65-$163/month
- ActiveCampaign: $139-$424/month
- Keap: Starting at $289-$449/month
These are just a few of the email platform options available to your business, and each has pros and cons. You’ll need to research each option in order to make the best choice for your business and budget.
