Detailed Full Review of MailerLite: All you need to know (2024)

For this MailerLite review, we tried and tested the tool. Get ready to discover all the features, pros and cons, and pricing of MailerLite.

What is MailerLite?

MailerLite is an email marketing tool that allows users to create and send email campaigns in a simple and effective way.

The company was founded in 2005 and has grown impressively. Over 800,000 businesses use MailerLite every month. So they're very popular, but is MailerLite the best email marketing service for you?

It offers features such as creating signup forms, managing contact lists, predefined email templates, and detailed analytics of campaign performance.

It is often used for newsletters, email marketing,marketing automation, such as CRM and for landing pages.

Who is MailerLite for?

MailerLite is primarily aimed at businesses and professionals looking to automate and optimize their email marketing campaigns.

It can be used by a wide variety of professionals in areas such as e-commerce, retail, travel services, financial services, technology, software, and more.

MailerLite can also be aimed at freelancers, small businesses or startups that want to improve their communication with existing customers and attract new prospects.

MailerLite is suitable for use by all business sizes and all levels of marketing skills.

Features

You may be asking yourself: “What does MailerLite email marketing do?”

Well, for a simple email marketing service, it does a lot. MailerLite has a few cool features up its sleeve. Here are MailerLite's most notable features:

1. Send email campaigns. Create email newsletters with MailerLite, send promotions by email, or use RSS to automatically send summaries of the content of your Blog.
2. A/B testing. Optimization of e-mailing campaigns thanks to A/B testing split on subject lines, email content, etc.
3. Expand your audience. Create targeted forms and pop-ups from MailerLite on your site as email list builders and get more subscribers.
4. Segment your subscribers. segment your subscribers to deliver the most relevant messages to them. You can group them according to their characteristics (for example, age, gender, country), their activities (emails clicked, opened) and create lists.
5. Create your website and landing pages. With MailerLite, you can not only create emails, but also Landing pages, registration forms and (mini) sites. They can even host them for you.
6. Marketing automation. Start with a simple automatic flow of welcome emails. Or, set up a 10-step onboarding process, with multiple flows, for new customers. Powerful marketing automation tool.
7. Excellent price and value for money. MailerLite is very cheap compared to its competitors. You get what you pay for. Check out our price comparison here
8. Solid support. 24/7 live chat support to resolve issues you may encounter on all paid plans.

1. Sending email campaigns

Of course, MailerLite allows you to send classic email campaigns, but more advanced features are also available. Let's go over to the MailerLite review... Let's review the four types of email campaigns you can send:

• Email campaigns : Your standard email. Give the campaign a name, target a group of subscribers, and create an email to send to them.
• A/B split campaigns : Optimize your emails. Test one email against another, whether in terms of subject, content, or author name, to optimize your email campaign.
• Automatic referral campaigns : Similar to a normal campaign, but the campaign is sent back to those who did not respond to your first submission. Practical for increasing openings and clicks.
• RSS campaign : Do you have a blog? Automate the sending of new campaigns as soon as you put your new content on your website. Great for bloggers and low-maintenance email newsletters.

Email editor, templates, and flows

To get your campaign started quickly, you can use one of the more than 60 free newsletter templates that MailerLite offers you in the Pro plan.

There is a lot of variety, and the templates have modern, mobile-friendly designs. It's easy to create a beautiful email quickly.

If you want to create your own model, no problem.

Your business is unique, damn it!

Most will start with the drag-and-drop email editor, but you can also import custom HTML. Once completed, you can reuse previous emails as an email template for future campaigns.

The MailerLite email editor is the main playground.

There are over 20 pre-built modules. You can drag them from the left to the canvas.

Dynamic content blocks

Now that we have our email template, let's get to the fun stuff. In MailerLite, you can make content dynamic. Show a block only to a group for instant customization. If you want to show one block for men and another for women, you should use two blocks - you cannot have “variations” of the same block without duplicating them. It is not a problem.

Special drag-and-drop blocks include:

• Video blocks with animated GIFs
• Product characteristic blocks
• Social media posts
• Countdown
• RSS templates
• Survey blocks

Your header and footer can easily be standardized across emails. So you don't have to change them individually every time you update them.

Integrating YouTube into emails

Video in emails is in fashion.

MailerLite makes it easy to embed a YouTube video. You enter the URL and the email editor turns the video into an animated GIF. That's pretty cool, I would love to have this feature in Marketo.

Send preview

Once your email is complete, share it with colleagues along with a delivery preview, so they can check it before sending your email. You can also share a link, or download a PDF. Email reviews are desktop and mobile. However, customization is not included in these previews.

Sending programs

Now we can move on to selecting our email subscribers. MailerLite has advanced logic to target your email exactly to the right segments. You can schedule it to be sent at a fixed time, or based on the subscriber's time zone (so that all subscribers receive the email at the same local time).

Final notice

Most of the time, email marketing software is dedicated to creating emails, so it has to be good. MailerLite does not disappoint.

• A solid email marketing platform with lots of features
• Powerful email editor with over 60 modern email templates
• Easy to use, and several advanced features (YouTube embeds, yes please!)

Overall, I am impressed with what you are getting for the price here. The email editor comes with a lot of features. With email templates, you'll have a head start when it comes to creating beautiful email campaigns. It's very easy to use (Mailchimp users will feel right at home) and at the same time, you can do some pretty advanced things.

I know a lot of big businesses that don't take advantage of half of this feature. So it will take some time for you to go beyond the platform for email editing and campaign deployment.

2. Creating forms and pop-ups

With MailerLite Forms, you can design your “conversion tools” - newsletter subscription forms for site visitors and pop-up windows announcing a sale.

There are two types of forms: pop-up forms and forms integrated into the website. Although the templates are different, the way forms are created in MailerLite is the same.

Editor

When creating a website pop-up, templates are the perfect starting point. You can also go directly to the editor and create exactly what you want. Creating a form or a pop-up window is quite simple.

You can customize fonts, text, colors, and add images. You can add form fields to get more than just an email address. Ask for customer preferences, names, addresses, anything you want.

Forms are easier than the newsletter generator. You choose a format (by default, horizontal, or map with image) and that's what you get.

Automation

After creating the signup form, you add the tracking flow. Maybe you want new subscribers to confirm their subscription and then send several automated follow-up emails (MailerLite marketing automation).

It's good to be able to choose double-opt-in form by form. You don't need to specify it for your entire instance. It is an appreciable element of flexibility. You can create a European form for GDPR legislation, and another for the United States, where email laws are a bit more, say, free...!

We can now define when your pop-up appears, based on the time of day, page/depth of scroll to the bottom of the page or/only on certain pages. Exit-intent pop-ups are very effective. They show a pop-up when someone starts to leave a web page.

There are Mailerlite WordPress plugins and a Shopify integration, so the form and snippet for pop-up windows can be added automatically on these platforms.

Final notice

MailerLite's forms are included in all plans and are quite advanced, so you won't need separate software for pop-ups. Pop-up forms have multiple triggers, and you can automate just about anything that happens after a form has been filled out.

A marketer can use this feature to develop advanced campaigns in which a user fills out a form and goes through a series of emails that are designed to convert on a particular product. Couldn't do better for this price.

3. Creation of websites and landing pages

MailerLite has a website and landing page builder. But are MailerLite's landing page features competitive with a CMS like WordPress?

You can host MailerLite landing pages and websites either on their domain (.mailerpage.com) or display them on your site. So, if you've already set up a website, you can use MailerLite's landing page builder to add a few more landing pages.

If you don't have a website, you can also use the website builder tool to create your own mini-site. Quickly get a page up and running with MailerLite hosting, and in the future, you can migrate to something else.

Let's look at the functionality.

Landing page editor

You can create a landing page from scratch, or use one of MailerLite's 30 landing page templates. (on the paid plan).

The page editor is identical to the email editor (as it should be!). You can add modular “content blocks” using the drag-and-drop editor.

On the last page, you can change the landing page settings. These include:

• Page title
• The URL of the page
• SEO settings such as page metadata
• Social sharing descriptions and metadata
• Google Analytics tracking codes

Website creation tool

The MailerLite website builder allows you to create simple websites that have multiple pages.

The only quirk is that when you create a MailerLite site, you need to connect it to a group of subscribers. It doesn't have a negative impact, but it's a bit confusing at first. Forms can be connected to multiple groups.

Site templates are based on different industries and use cases. For the test, I chose a real estate website: a five-page template with featured properties on the home page, individual listing pages, and a “Meet the Team” page. I haven't sold a house yet, but who knows:D.

The editor is the same as the one on the landing page. The models are pretty good - you don't need to change much.

Final notice

This feature is really great. You can create a very elegant website using a feature included in your email marketing software. The best parts?

• Website creation tool wholemeal
• Possibility to take payments (soon via Stripe)
• Usability and inclusion of a series of useful models

While its email marketing features are similar to those of MailerLite's competitors, those of its landing pages and website are better. It encourages users to go beyond email marketing. The use of MailerLite like WordPress for their CMS and hosting. Not everyone will use it, but if you do, you will save quite a bit of money.

4. Segmentation

Let's go through the “Subscribers” section of MailerLite. This is where you'll manage your email list, create segmentation groups, create new fields, and report on your list. Let's zoom in on email list management features.

Start with the “all subscribers” section.

This is where you'll find all of your subscribers. Filters allow you to access subsets. Filter on any field in the database or on behavioral filters such as campaign member/number of emails sent, and so on.

You can combine filters to go further. After making your selection, save the segment for use in other parts of MailerLite.

Add new subscribers as they sign up. Other options include downloading a CSV/TXT file, copying and pasting from Excel, or importing from a linked Mailchimp database. If you're migrating from Mailchimp, it's very convenient.

Segmenting your subscribers in MailerLite

Segments and groups are powerful in MailerLite. Here you can create dynamic or static automated groups of your subscribers. For Mailchimp users, MailerLite groups are similar to Mailchimp lists. MailerLite segmentations are similar to Mailchimp segments...

So how do you use segments? You can create a segmentation or a group based on:

• Membership in an existing group (static lists)
• Any field in the database
• Any other segment
• Adherence to the emailing campaign
• Automation membership (see email automation)
• Behavioral (number of emails sent, opened, or clicked)
• Purchases (with integration with your online store)

You can combine all of the above segmentations. This should allow you to solve any segmentation problems you may encounter on...

Email analysis in MailerLite

The reports on your list are located in the statistics section. You can run the statistics for “all subscribers” or for a specific group. MailerLite will gather all of the data in this group and give you a detailed overview.

The email statistics available are: list growth, average open and click rates, and unsubscribe metrics. In addition, you can see the main email domains and clients.

Cool feature: Automatic removal of unengaged subscribers

The last tab is a nice feature called “Clean up inactive ones.” It allows you to quickly find and unsubscribe people on your list who haven't opened an email in six months. This will help you keep a clean and engaged list, improve deliverability, and reduce the risk of falling into the spam box. Of course, getting you into the inbox and improving email deliverability is in everyone's best interest.

MailerLite Subscriber Management

MailerLite's subscriber and list management features are solid, but not too strong.

• Group subscribers dynamically (via segments) or statically (via groups)
• Create your own new fields
• Email Subscriber Report

These are the segmentation features that allow you to do more sophisticated email marketing. Compared to Mailchimp, MailerLite's subscriber management and reporting are solid.

We would like to see tag segmentation integrated soon, as is the case with Sendinblue, for example.

5. Email automation

MailerLite Automation brings automated email flows to your subscribers. For example, set up a series of welcome emails using MailerLite autoresponders. You first access the MailerLite Automations dashboard.

We're going to create a workflow and build our automated flows in the automation editor. Start with a trigger. What starts this workflow?

Automation triggers available in MailerLite:

• When a subscriber joins a group
• A link is clicked
• When a subscriber fills out a form
• When a subscriber field is updated
• The anniversary of a date
• The exact match of a particular date in your database.

This means you can trigger workflows on obvious things like filling out forms and registering, but also when a free trial ends (based on a date), when they join particular groups, etc. Unfortunately, you can't trigger flows based on web page visits.

You use modules to guide people through the flow. There are four options for a module: email, deadline, condition, and action.

Here is an example of a registration flow that takes Canadians and Germans through a registration confirmation stage. Everyone else will not receive this email.

By adding decision steps in MailerLite, you can build quite advanced automation. That's more than enough for those who don't have super complex needs. And who reviews MailerLite for automation, it has automation tutorial videos available to get you started.

Final notice

MailerLite's email automation is a great value for money. It is included in each plan. You can use automation to power fairly sophisticated configurations. In the comparison between Mailchimp and MailerLite, MailerLite wins the automation award, but is not as advanced as ActiveCampaign, for example.

If you're looking to do more triggered email marketing and autoresponders, you'll get great value from MailerLite's automation.

Integrations

Introduced in 2010, the MailerLite service had around 10 years to create integrations with various third-party services. Well, judging from how things look, it seems that its developers have been extremely busy. The platform can now be easily integrated with dozens of popular applications.

When it comes to CMS and e-commerce platforms, for example, you should be able to integrate MailerLite with all dominant systems. There is a plugin for WordPress users, as well as a Shopify app compatible with MailerLite for online stores (Shopify integration).

Alternatively, you can also integrate the email marketing service with e-commerce stores on Squarespace and WooCommerce (via the WooCommerce Zapier plugin).

Second, since you might need to improve your email marketing strategies with social media, MailerLite can comfortably connect to all major platforms. You can integrate it with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.

Additionally, MailerLite offers integrations for MiloTree, ConvertPlay, BookFunnel, SendOwn, Couponcarrier, and Gravity, among others.

Now, in the unlikely event that you're unable to find a specific application integration, here's a trick you can use. Just integrate MailerLite with Zapier and go from there. Zapier essentially acts as a pipeline to connect Mailerlite to hundreds of other popular applications.

Customer Support

MailerLite has so far only invested in two support channels. You can use live chat or email.

Personally, I would prefer phone support, but it turns out that's not an option here.

The bright side is that at least the live chat and email channels are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. So you should be able to access MailerLite's customer service staff at any time of the day or night, even while on vacation.

But make no mistake about it. These channels are not available to everyone. Users on the free plan can only use email support, which I think is fairly fair. Live chat support is only available when you upgrade to a premium plan. And yes, that's right, any premium plan will do.

Please note, however, that MailerLite does not guarantee instant responsiveness. So you may have to wait from time to time, especially when the support team is dealing with multiple requests simultaneously.

If that doesn't seem like something you're ready to do, maybe you can buy a dedicated account manager for an additional $100 per month. This way you will benefit from specialized assistance and you will not have to wait in line every time you request a service.

But if you think about it, $100 seems like a high price for customer support. Ironically, it's even a lot more expensive than MailerLite's premium plan, which has 15,000 subscribers and costs $50 per month.

Nevertheless, all things considered, I advise you to always favor the self-service route. As it turns out, MailerLite is generous enough to set up a very comprehensive knowledge base. It contains all the basic documentation you might need for quick troubleshooting.

Pricing

MailerLite's pricing is based on the number of subscribers. You get unlimited emails and all the features of the platform.

If you want to try the software, Mailerlite is free for up to 1,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month. You get most of the features of the free plan.

Once you start using MailerLite, you'll also have access to 24/7 live chat support, email templates, and automatic email sending. Full pricing information can be found here.

MailerLite's prices and packages are extremely cheap for what you get. It's worth jumping on the free plan and taking a look at their email marketing, forms, site building, and marketing automation tools.

Do you want to know how it compares to the competition? Compare the costs between MailerLite and similar software.

Alternatives

1. MailChimp

Both MailerLite and MailChimp present themselves as email marketing tools that are easy to use and suitable for beginners. So we decided to compare them.

Both programs are in fact easy to use and navigate. But MailerLite gets the edge because its dashboard has all the tools and features you need. MailChimp's tools are scattered across different pages, making it hard to find them if you're not familiar with the app.

When it comes to email templates, both offer a good selection. MailChimp offers over 100 templates, while MailerLite currently only offers 62. Some would say that MailerLite's email templates are more modern and professional.

MailerLite offers statistics on openings, clicks, devices, spam, and unsubscribes. It also comes with plugins for WooCommerce and Shopify that allow users to keep an eye on their sales. MailChimp goes a step further by providing social media and email client statistics, as well as direct integration with Google Analytics to make it easy to track conversions.

It's good to see that both programs offer a free subscription plan. But MailChimp's paid plans are more expensive and provide limited emails. On MailerLite, you can enjoy unlimited emails during the annual subscription when you have less than 100,000 subscribers.

2. Sendinblue

For a comprehensive review of MailerLite, we also looked at the differences between the platform and Sendinblue.

Both programs have common qualities. They are easy to use and offer a wide selection of email marketing tools, including A/B testing, drip campaigns, automation, templates, and an image library.

However, one of the main differences between them is their price. Sendinblue, just like MailerLite, offers a limited free plan. However, its paid plans start at $25 per month, which is more than double the price of MailerLite's cheapest plan.

Another difference is their customer support. While MailerLite offers 24/7 support, both via email and livechat for paid plans, the Sendinblue support team only offers email support during business hours.

In particular, Sendinblue is superior in terms of the availability of its platform. Both programs have mobile apps, but MailerLite is only available on iOS devices. The Sendinblue mobile app is available for both iOS and Android devices.

3. ConvertKit

ConvertKit is another big player in the industry, making it a direct competitor to MailerLite. Let's see how they compare.

If price is one of your main concerns, then MailerLite is your app of choice. While both platforms offer free plans, ConvertKit's paid plan starts at $29 per month, which is way more expensive than MailerLite's $10 per month.

If you're looking for features that go beyond email marketing, ConvertKit is the software for you. Besides its email marketing tools, it also comes with additional features, like its deliverability reporting dashboard and free SparkLoop account, that can help businesses and content creators go further.

Both programs offer email templates. But the biggest difference is MailerLite's drag-and-drop editor, which simplifies the campaign creation process.

FAQs

Is MailerLite free?

There is a free MailerLite plan that you can use until you have 1,000 subscribers.

It allows you to send up to 12,000 emails per month. You can check the difference between the free plan and the paid plans here. Paid plans are based on the number of subscribers you have, starting at $10.

How do I sign up for MailerLite?

Signing up for MailerLite's email software is fairly easy.

Create a free account, then enter a few more details like your website address, how you collect leads, and where you heard about the product.

You can start using the tool and get approved to ship in a day or two.

Can I create segments in MailerLite?

Yes, you can create segments in MailerLite - based on subscriber information (e.g. gender, age, etc.) or behavioral information (e.g., number of emails opened).

Through integrations, you can also get information about purchases.

Is MailerLite a good email marketing service?

Yes, MailerLite is a great email marketing service.

It may not be as refined as some of its competitors, but it still offers a lot of features, especially for its price, which makes it on our top list.

And let's not forget that it also offers a free plan.

Which is better, MailerLite or ConvertKit?

When you compare MailerLite to ConvertKit, MailerLite narrowly wins.

While ConvertKit offers slightly better automation capabilities, MailerLite is easier to use with its drag-and-drop editor and simple interface. MailerLite also has a free plan, which ConvertKit doesn't.

Final Verdict

MailerLite is a email marketing service, with a lot more punch than a simple blast email software. For $10 per month, you can create email campaigns, automate a process for welcoming new subscribers, and create and host your landing page. It's unbeatable.

• MailerLite is simple and effective. It's a newsletter software that gets the job done.
• The MailerLite email editor is easy to use, and the whole system is easy to set up.
• They have a great free plan and the paid plans are cheaper than those from competitors like Mailchimp.
• Automation is effective, but not as elaborate as comprehensive marketing automation tools.
• With all the features you'd expect, MailerLite is certainly worth its weight in gold.

And if you're just starting out, they offer a free plan for up to 1000 subscribers and 12,000 emails.