Top 3 best Campaign Monitor alternatives in 2023

Campaign Monitor’s user-friendly interface and extensive integration options make it a popular option for businesses seeking an effective email marketing solution.

But is it the best out there?

Not really. Campaign Monitor comes at a higher price than many other tools and doesn’t provide a free plan. Additionally, it lacks essential features like a landing page builder and ecommerce-related functionalities.

Several Campaign Monitor alternatives address these limitations and provide more advanced features and a better price.

Three notable alternatives are Omnisend, Constant Contact, and MailerLite.

Let’s find out why these platforms are considered top alternatives to Campaign Monitor.

Best overall: Omnisend

Omnisend is an exceptional email marketing solution specifically designed for ecommerce businesses. It caters to those seeking affordable email marketing solutions and advanced features. 

This Campaign Monitor alternative distinguishes itself by offering unique features. These include gamification in the signup forms, the generation of exclusive discount codes, split automation, and Campaign Booster.

Omnisend goes the extra mile by offering advanced features even in its free plan. This is a decent option for small and medium ecommerce businesses, beginners and advanced users.

What’s more, the tool is well-regarded for its award-winning customer support. This makes it one of the best Campaign Monitor alternatives out there.

Omnisend pros and cons

Runner-up: Constant Contact

Constant Contact is an ideal alternative to Campaign Monitor, especially for ecommerce businesses and beginners. Its user-friendly interface and specific features are highly regarded.

The platform enables you to create engaging emails and offers additional functionalities. You can use dynamic links to personalize interaction, create landing pages, and even access SMS marketing as an add-on.

Constant Contact allows users to manage and promote events, including event registration, invitations, reminders, RSVP tracking, and information collection. This feature is unique.

With its excellent performance and affordable pricing starting at $12 per month, Constant Contact secures its place as one of the top Campaign Monitor alternatives.

Constant Contact pros and cons

Best cheap alternative: MailerLite

Regarding affordability, MailerLite stands out as the top alternative to Campaign Monitor. Its free plan allows users to send up to 12,000 monthly emails to a maximum of 1,000 subscribers. The paid plans are reasonably priced, starting at just $9 per month.

With user-friendly interfaces and a wide selection of responsive templates, MailerLite allows you to create visually appealing emails, forms, and landing pages.

What’s more, we found MailerLite to be remarkably user-friendly with a clean navigation system. There are very few Campaign Monitor alternatives that cater to businesses with small budgets like MailerLite.

MailerLite pros and cons

Best Campaign Monitor alternative in a nutshell

Omnisend: features that stand out

• Product Recommender and Product Picker
• Automatic brand asset application
• Unique discount codes
• Customer lifecycle-based segmentation
• Gamification
• Omnichannel marketing
• International SMS
• Free plan with valuable features

Building email campaigns

Omnisend has introduced a new email builder that enhances the campaign creation process. Users can experience a 50% increase in efficiency when creating email campaigns compared to using its previous builder.

The updated builder offers a broader selection of templates and layout options, making it one of the best Campaign Monitor alternatives.

Campaign Monitor also receives praise for its templates, but you cannot access them for free like with Omnisend.

What unique features does Omnisend offer? Although the list is pretty long, here are a few:

• Product Recommender: Get customized recommendations based on the customer’s shopping history and preferences.

• Campaign Booster: Automatically resend the campaign to non-openers

• Product Picker: Easily incorporate products from your store directly into your emails.

• Unique discount codes: Get auto-generated special coupons for each of your recipients.

Campaign Monitor comes with a few unique features too. For instance, it can lock template sections, giving you control over what your team can update. This feature is not available on Omnisend.

Marketing automation

Omnisend’s marketing automation capabilities are among the best in the market. Additionally, we assess them positively because of copy-ready templates. Typically, email marketing tools don’t offer such templates, but they significantly help marketers save tons of time.

For starters, it offers 25 pre-built automation workflows for most usual ecommerce cases. These can be launched within seconds, because, as already mentioned, they are rules- and copy-ready.  In comparison, Campaign Monitor fares poorly because it only has one pre-built workflow for welcome email.

Omnisend also provides various options for triggers, conditions, and filters. This allows you to deliver targeted emails to your subscribers.

Its omnichannel capabilities ensure a consistent brand experience across multiple channels, including SMS and web push notifications.

In contrast, you can’t add any other marketing channels to your workflow on Campaign Monitor.

Omnisend lets you further customize your workflows with hyper-personalization tools such as conditional content blocks, dynamic recommendations, automation splits, etc.

Forms and list management

Omnisend offers a variety of subscriber collection tools, including signup forms, popups, the Wheel of Fortune, and teasers. It’s also equipped with a landing page builder. This feature is missing in Campaign Monitor.

Moreover, Omnisend provides over 80 pre-designed templates for landing pages and signup forms. Campaign Monitor only comes with a simple, customizable setup.

Omnisend provides a well-organized automatic contact synchronization process as well as a simple migration from the several most popular email marketing platforms.  

Additionally, you can apply tags and filters to segment your lists. 

So migrating from Campaign Monitor to Omnisend, you will feel a significant improvement in your daily tasks with contact management.

Compatibility with other marketing channels

Omnisend is a beast in this department. It caters to diverse communication channels, offering reliable SMS, push, and social media marketing features.

You can access user-friendly SMS templates and receive free SMS credits with every plan, including the free one. Integrating push notifications with email marketing is also seamless.

Additionally, Omnisend provides a variety of workflows and triggers specifically designed for push notifications.

Price

Now, let’s compare the price of these two platforms.

Both Omnisend’s pricing plans unlock the same features except for advanced reporting which is available only on Pro. Also, Pro plan includes more SMSes per month. 

Compared to Omnisend, Campaign Monitor’s plans get pretty expensive as your subscriber list grows. Moreover, the features it offers are quite limited and most of the advanced features are available on the Premier plan only. 

Why choose Omnisend instead of Campaign Monitor

Omnisend is the perfect solution for growing ecommerce ventures. Its generous free plan and exceptional customer support make it an excellent choice for beginners.

Why choose Campaign Monitor instead of Omnisend

Campaign Monitor is a good option for businesses focused solely on email marketing functionalities. It’s easy to use and to the point, making it especially sought-after among beginners.

Constant Contact: features that stand out

• Out-of-the-box automation templates
• Massive library of free images
• Mobile app for iPhone and Android users
• Dynamic links
• Excellent compatibility with other marketing channels

Building email campaigns

Both Constant Contact and Campaign Monitor come with an easy-to-use email builder. They allow users to create visually appealing emails.

However, Campaign Monitor’s email builder is quite limited. For instance, it’s missing elements to do with products and dynamic recommenders.

Constant Contact’s email builder includes those, and more. Let’s take a look at some of its features:

• Hundreds of email templates for different occasions.
• BrandKit to add your brand logo and style to emails automatically.
• Huge library of free images for paid plan users.
• Several campaign options include regular, promotional, automated, and A/B split test.
• Ability to personalize emails using recipient-specific information.
• Dynamic links to personalize the interaction.
• Many options to build engaging emails — polls, RSVP buttons, product content blocks, social sharing, etc.

That being said, some of Constant Contact’s email templates are a bit outdated. On the other hand, Campaign Monitor boasts modern templates for various needs but doesn’t have so many different options in the email builder.

Marketing automation

Constant Contact offers a beginner-friendly solution for marketing automation. It allows users to create customized workflows easily. You can also set up triggered emails based on specific actions or events.

In comparison, Campaign Monitor’s list of triggers is quite limited. Moreover, it lacks the ecommerce-focused triggers offered by Constant Contact. These triggers cover scenarios such as:

• Welcoming new subscribers
• Requesting a review
• Showing items in the cart
• Cross-selling
• Wishing customers a happy birthday

Constant Contact also provides 15 suggested automation templates. These can be easily edited as per your needs. With Campaign Monitor, the only pre-built workflow you get is a welcome email.

Constant Contact’s marketing automation also lets you create automated series of emails, known as drip campaigns. You can use these to nurture leads, provide educational content, or guide customers through a specific sales funnel.

Forms and list management

Constant Contact fares a bit better than Campaign Monitor in this department as well.

It comes with a signup form builder and a landing page builder. There’s a range of options for signup forms, such as pop-ups, flyouts, banners, and inline.

However, there’s one area where both Constant Contact and Campaign Monitor are lacking.

Templates. With signup forms, you only get one basic form design that you can edit according to your brand style. No templates are available for landing pages either, meaning you can only create fundamental ones.

Regarding segmentation, Constant Contact provides users with four pre-built options: most engaged, least engaged, somewhat engaged, and everyone else.

Although this isn’t as good as other tools in the market, it beats Campaign Monitor, which only offers basic segmentation for the highest-tier plan users. 

Compatibility with other marketing channels

Regardless of the plan you are signed up under, you can use Constant Contact’s dashboard to post on social media platforms. Furthermore, on high-tier plans, you can even integrate with social media and Google ads.

You can access SMS marketing with Constant Contact if you’re in the United States. It’s available as an add-on with any paid plan, starting at $10/mo for 500 messages.

Campaign Monitor also recently introduced SMS in the United States. You can contact the platform’s sales team to receive a customized quote.

Price

Just like Campaign Monitor, Constant Contact doesn’t offer a free plan. At most, you can test out the features using its 14-day free trial.

However, note that many features are locked in the free trial. For example, you can’t access advanced automation features or publish signup forms.

The starting price of Constant Contact is a bit higher than Campaign Monitor, but it grows slower than Campaign Monitor’s. 

Constant Contact is renowned for its exceptional customer service, providing support through various communication channels — phone, live chat, email, help center, tutorials, etc. But one drawback is that support isn’t available on weekends.

Why choose Constant Contact instead of Campaign Monitor

Constant Contact provides a wider range of integrations with other marketing channels and more options for segmentation, list-building, and automation. All in all, it’s a more advanced tool for the very similar price.

Why choose Campaign Monitor instead of Constant Contact

Campaign Monitor is the right pick for a straightforward email marketing platform with basic functionalities. Also, if you need only entry level features, Campaign Monitor is more affordable.

MailerLite: features that stand out

• Beautiful designs
• Automatic resending of unopened emails
• Interactive email blocks
• iOS app to create and manage campaigns on the go
• Option to collect leads offline during events
• Website builder

Building email campaigns

MailerLite provides users three distinct campaign builders: a drag-and-drop editor, a rich-text editor, and a custom HTML editor.

On the other hand, Campaign Monitor comes with a drag-and-drop email builder and a classic email builder.

You can enjoy the following features when using MailerLite’s email builder:

• 90 modern email templates.
• You can include surveys, quizzes, products, and countdown timers in your emails.
• Personalization of email subject lines, preheaders, and content.
• Standard, A/B testing, auto-resend, and automatic RSS email campaigns.
• Option to embed social media posts into your emails.

Campaign Monitor also offers features such as countdown timers. However, they are only accessible to high-tier plan users.

Moreover, managing campaigns on the MailerLite mobile app is incredibly convenient, especially for users who are frequently on the move.

Marketing automation

Unlike the other Campaign Monitor alternatives on this list, marketing automation isn’t MailerLite’s primary focus.

However, it provides 15 automation templates, including welcome, retargeting, membership renewal, and more. Please note that these templates only offer the logic, and you must manually add the content.

In addition, on Mailerlite you will find transactional emails, just like on Campaign Monitor.

Forms and list management

MailerLite comes with a variety of list-building tools. These include 24 responsive signup templates and 49 landing page templates. This is considerably better than Campaign Monitor’s offerings.

With MailerLite’s drag-and-drop editor, you can easily create interactive signup forms, landing pages, popups, embedded forms, narrow bars, and promotion popups.

One of its list management features we like is MailerCheck. It’s a tool that keeps your email list clean through a three-step process. Also, you will find signup form analytics.

However, it should be noted that MailerLite, similar to Campaign Monitor, doesn’t offer gamification features for lead collection.

Compatibility with other marketing channels

Besides Facebook integration, which is only available in the highest plan tier, MailerLite doesn’t support additional marketing channels like SMS, push notifications, or WhatsApp.

Price

This is one area where MailerLite truly shines. Let’s find out why.

MailerLite is one of the cheapest Campaign Monitor alternatives to exist.

Even with the free plan, users can send up to 12,000 emails monthly.

Its paid plans are also competitively priced, making it a popular choice for those looking for an economical email marketing platform. 

Like Campaign Monitor, MailerLite offers 24/7 email support to all its paid plan users. Additionally, advanced plan users enjoy unlimited chat support. So when switching to Mailerlite, you won’t miss anything of this aspect.

Why choose MailerLite instead of Campaign Monitor

MailerLite is a cost-effective solution offering the most basic email marketing features. If you own a nonprofit organization, you can benefit from an additional 30% discount on paid plans.

Why choose Campaign Monitor instead of MailerLite

The opportunity to send SMS with Campaign Monitor is the only reason we see to use this platform instead of Mailerlite.

Campaign Monitor alternative to avoid: Drip

Evidently, Omnisend, Constant Contact, and MailerLite are strong Campaign Monitor alternatives to consider for your email marketing needs.

If there’s an alternative to Campaign Monitor you must avoid, though, it’s Drip.

While it offers powerful automation and customization options, its learning curve is steeper than most Campaign Monitor alternatives.

Moreover, Drip’s pricing is considerably high. It offers just one plan, which starts at $39 per month for up to 2,500 contacts. There is no option for businesses with a smaller subscriber list or basic needs.

What’s more, as your contact list expands, you’ll notice a significant escalation in pricing. For example, an email list with 10K people will cost you $154 monthly. ​​The same thing on Campaign Monitor’s base plan will set you back $89/mo.

Campaign Monitor alternatives: Summary

To summarize, when evaluating alternatives to Campaign Monitor, three standout options emerge, e.g., Omnisend, Constant Contact, and MailerLite.

Omnisend is a great pick for ecommerce businesses and those who want to take an omnichannel approach to the market. Consider Constant Contact if you are looking for an easy-to-use email marketing tool. Finally, MailerLite is ideal for users with a small budget and basic needs.

No matter what, assess your requirements and budgets closely. It’s also advisable to consider your long-term strategy and pick a Campaign Monitor alternative.

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Our team strives to be accurate and unbiased in reviewing email tools. However, we recognize that mistakes can happen, and it’s essential for us to stay up to date. If you come across any errors or things that need to be reviewed again, please let us know.