The winner – Omnisend
Life-changing superhero
In this comparison, Omnisend wins seven out of eleven rounds. Other four rounds end in a tie. Continue reading to learn about the situations where Omnisend outperforms Mailerlite and why.
What Omnisend features are better than Mailerlite?
- Marketing automation
- Ecommerce reporting
- Ready-made segmentation
- Email + SMS + web push notifications
- Pricing (better value for price for ecommerce)
- Pretty basic marketing automation for ecommerce cases
- Pretty basic reporting
- Pretty basic segmentation
- Emails only
- Pricing is good for small businesses and nonprofits
It’s no secret that email marketing ROI is huge for businesses. Omnisend reports that brands get an ROI of $72 for every single $1 spent on Omnisend.
However, with limited resources at hand, you want to ensure that you’re investing your time and money in the correct tools and strategies.
But with so many email marketing platforms, making the right choice can be a challenging task.
Ideally, the platform you choose will boast features like marketing automation, A/B testing, reporting and analytics, audience segmentation, strong integration capabilities, and more.
Two software that really nail it in terms of their offerings are MailerLite and Omnisend.
But which one should you pick?
Let’s get all answers being answered.
MailerLite vs Omnisend: An overview
Both Omnisend and MailerLite are highly sought-after platforms and can do a lot to ramp up your email marketing efforts.
The tools are similar in that they’re both geared toward people of all skill levels, appealing to both startups and big businesses. With that said, there’s a high chance you’ll benefit more from one of the two.
One of the major differentiators among the two is that Omnisend has a particular focus on ecommerce. It also offers a host of advanced features including pre-built automation workflows, customer lifecycle-based segmentation, a sophisticated email builder, and international SMS capabilities.
On the other hand, MailerLite is widely touted for its high deliverability rates and generous monthly email limits. It’s a spectacular tool with a simple interface and affordable pricing, making it fit for small businesses.
However, making an informed decision about choosing the right tool warrants an in-depth comparison.
In this article, we’ll be doing just that. Keep on reading to find out more.
MailerLite vs Omnisend: A side-by-side comparison
Now, let’s take a deeper look into the two platforms’ features and capabilities.
MailerLite vs Omnisend: Feature by feature comparison
In this section, we’ll compare and analyze the key email marketing features offered by MailerLite vs Omnisend.
Ease of getting started
When it comes to the ease of getting started, both Omnisend and MailerLite rank pretty high. Signing up on both platforms is straightforward, even for beginners.
Additionally, both provide a number of articles and tutorial videos to help new users get familiar with the interface.
Signing up on both platforms is straightforward, even for beginners.
Building an email campaign
When the ease of building email campaigns is in question, both Omnisend and MailerLite are excellent tools.
Launching marketing campaigns on Omnisend is a breeze—thanks to its visual automation workflow builder, and the ability to build targeted campaigns without any coding knowledge required.
While MailerLite also features automation workflows, we found it to be less intuitive than Omnisend, especially when you want to create complex campaigns. That being said, the platform’s drag-and-drop email builder is said to be one of the best in town.
Some capabilities you’ll find in both tools include a variety of customizable templates, personalization options, and more.
Let’s compare:
Omnisend is the winner here. Although both tools offer similar features, Omnisend’s unique tools such as the Product Recommender and Product Picker make it more lucrative. Moreover, MailerLite’s advanced features are only included in its paid plans.
Marketing automation
Here’s a head-to-head comparison of the automation features offered by both tools:
What’s more, Omnisend’s Automation Editor is especially strong. It enables users to build custom workflows using data from loyalty & reward programs, help desks, and even shipment tracking services.
Omnisend also makes cross-selling possible, thanks to its dynamic recommendations.
Whether you invest in MailerLite or Omnisend, automation will be a major part of the features you enjoy. However, Omnisend is definitely a more complete tool in this regard.
Signup forms and landing pages
If you’re looking for an email marketing platform, you are also probably on a mission to build your email list.
Lucky for you, both MailterLite and Omnisend are strong contenders in this regard.
While there are several overlaps in the features offered by both tools, there are also key differences.
Let’s take a look at these:
Both MailerLite and Omnisend have strong list-building capabilities. However, Omnisend has the upper hand in that it offers the ability to leverage text marketing. If that’s not something you’re looking for, both tools are equally good.
Segmentation
Next, let’s talk about customer segmentation.
Omnisend offers 23 pre-built segments, whereas MailerLite offers none.
Here are some of the options for segmentation offered by both tools:
Some of the options for segmentation by both tools
- Interests
- Email engagement
- Geography and timezone
- Signup forms filled
- Shopping behavior
- Email campaign activity
- Contact properties
- Web browsing activities
With Omnisend, users can even expand their targeting across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Google with its built-in audience sync. On MailerLite, this feature is limited to Facebook audiences.
Also, since Omnisend caters to ecommerce users, it allows advanced segmentation based on a range of transactional events and purchase behaviors.
And that’s not it.
Omnisend’s customer segmentation intelligence automatically assigns each customer a lifecycle stage, allowing you to prioritize valuable shoppers and personalize retention strategies.
Speaking of MailerLite, users can manually create interest groups, which is a list of subscribers with no particular criteria in common. This is a great feature for those who want to add and omit subscribers based on their wishes.
Omnisend takes the cake with its advanced segmentation features.
Analytics
Analytics plays a crucial role in helping you understand and analyze the impact of your email campaigns.
So which one is right for the job — Omnisend or MailerLite? Let’s compare:
One drawback with Omnisend’s analytics features is that it only displays data from the past 18 months. Similarly, for MailerLite you’ll need third-party apps to experience the full potential of its analytics.
Omnisend has a slight edge here. This is because its features are more advanced, and it also reports data from several channels.
Customer support
Understandably, this aspect is often the dealbreaker for many users. After all, you’d want help to be accessible when you need it.
Omnisend truly shines in this round. Here are some reasons why:
- The platform’s award-winning customer support is available via both live chat and email all day, every day.
- Both email and live chat are accessible to users of all plans, including the free version.
- The team’s average response time is three minutes or less and covers all time zones.
Also, customers that pay over $400 per month are given access to a dedicated Customer Success Manager.
The only drawback? There’s no phone support.
Similarly, MailerLite offers 24/7 email and chat support. It’s also available in multiple languages. However, free plan users only get access to this for the first 30 days.
Both platforms also provide other resources such as podcasts, video tutorials, blog posts, guides, and ebooks.
Because Omnisend has bagged awards for its customer service two times consecutively, it fares better than MailerLite. Also notable is the fact that it offers support across all plans.
Integrations
Platforms with strong integration capabilities make it easy for businesses to respond to market demands and other needs that may come up as they expand. They also eliminate the need to switch between platforms needlessly.
Ecommerce businesses typically need multiple third-party services, and Omnisend offers integrations to over 130 apps. All of these can be integrated for free with just a few clicks.
Some of the areas these apps will help you with include:
- Email capturing
- Customer support
- Shipping and logistics
- Capturing and following up on customer reviews
- Ad targeting
Like Omnisend, MailerLite also allows you to connect to 140 third-party apps and web services. These include CRM platforms, social media platforms, ecommerce platforms, analytics and tracking tools, etc.
However, integrations with ecommerce sites look pretty poor and have low ratings on the Shopify App Store.
In this round, both tools win. That said, MailerLite does offer more integrations than Omnisend. But, on the other hand, Omnisend has a better rating on ecommerce platforms.
Compatibility with other channels
Finally, let’s compare MailerLite vs Omnisend in terms of compatibility with other marketing channels.
Omnisend is a rockstar on this front because you can integrate SMS and web push notifications into the workflow on it. As if that weren’t enough, you can retarget cart abandonment with Facebook, Instagram, and Google ads.
On the other hand, MailerLite may not be the best choice if you want to leverage omnichannel marketing. At the moment, it only allows Facebook retargeting under its Advanced plan, although other channels can be accessed through third-party apps.
Omnisend is the clear winner. The name Omnisend itself implies that it’s a strong tool when it comes to omnichannel marketing. On the other hand, MailerLite is more heavily focused on email marketing.
Generative AI tools
Both platforms have AI assistance to offer. Mailerlite offers an assistant for subject lines and email copywriting. Also, it has Canva integration installed for image generation.
Meanwhile, Omnisend offers AI assistance for email copy, subject line, segmentation, and analytics.
We find both offerings decent. So in this comparison, it’s a tie.
Both platforms will help you to generate email copy and subject lines.
Price comparison
On both Omnisend and MailerLite, you’ll have two paid plans and a free version to choose from.
Both free plans are pretty good but are generous on different fronts.
With Omnisend, you get 500 monthly emails, 60 SMS, and 500 web push notifications, plus the ability to add up to 250 contacts. Most importantly, there are no feature limits on the Free plan.
On the other hand, MailerLite allows 12,000 emails per month for up to 1,000 subscribers.
That said, Omnisend seems a lot more appealing when it’s the capabilities and functionalities in question.
Here’s a quick overview of the free plan features:
Overview of the free plan features
- Email automation builder
- Unlimited segmentation
- Email A/B split testing
- Newsletter editor
- 24/7 live chat support for the first 30 days only
- Limited email automation templates
- Image library
- Analytics and reporting
- Email and SMS automation
- Unlimited segmentation including customer lifecycle stages
- Email and automation A/B testing
- Pre-built popups, signup forms, and landing page builder
- 24/7 email and live chat support forever
- Email and landing page templates, pre-built, copy-ready ecommerce workflows
- Unique tools such as Product Recommender, Product Listing, and discount coupon codes
- Sales and performance reports for all channels
The features included in Omnisend’s free version are excellent. Small businesses with tight budgets or those in the experimentation phase will find the tool very valuable.
Now, let’s move on to the paid plans.
Which tool gives users more bang for the buck?
Both platforms come with a pricing calculator to help you work out the exact monthly costs, which look like this:
MailerLite’s paid plans offer additional features like:
- Unlimited email templates
- Dynamic emails
- Unlimited signup forms and popups
- Facebook custom audiences
Still, most of these features can be used for free with Omnisend. And if you opt for a paid Omnisend plan, you can access the same features at a much larger scale.
That being said, the tool tends to get more expensive than MailerLite as your subscriber count grows.
All in all, Omnisend triumphs over MailerLite even when its paid plans are in question. And given that you’ve got award-winning customer support to help you through it all, it’s the clear winner in terms of pricing.
However, if you are just starting out, MailerLite’s free plan is great as it helps you send emails in bulk for free.
MailerLite vs Omnisend: Who wins?
Evidently, both MailerLite and Omnisend are powerful options for your email marketing needs.
Here’s a quick summary of everything we’ve discussed in the article:
4.0
4.8
Free plan – Yes
500 subscribers – $10
1,000 subscribers – $15
5,000 subscribers – $39
10,000 subscribers – $73
50,000 subscribers – $289
100,000 subscribers – $440
Free plan – Yes
500 subscribers – $16
1,000 subscribers – $20
5,000 subscribers – $81
10,000 subscribers – $132
50,000 subscribers – $413
100,000 subscribers – $900
- Limited automation features
- Full reporting
- 12,000 email sends
- Unlimited contact list
- 1 website
- Up to 10 landing pages
- Unlimited popups
- Segmentation
- 24/7 live chat and email support for the first 30 days
- All Pro plan features (automation workflows, unlimited segmentation, gamification, landing pages, etc.)
- Reach up to 250 contacts (unlimited contact list size)
- 500 emails per month
- Up to 60 SMS
- Up to 500 web push notifications
- 24/7 email and live chat support
- Very easy to use even for beginners
- The price is very affordable
- Nice and clear design
- Beautiful email and landing page templates
- Lots of nice elements to include in your emails and signup forms
- Robust automation
- Advanced analytics
- Beautiful signup forms
- Modern looking newsletters
- Strict new account approval process
- Lack of advanced reporting and automation features
- Doesn’t provide geopolitical reports
- More expensive than generic email marketing tools
- Bloggers
- Solopreneurs
- Non-profit organizations
- Startups
- Complete email marketing beginners
- Ecommerce stores of all sizes
- Both beginners and advanced users
- Ecommerce businesses
- Experienced marketers that wear many different hats at their daily work
- Solopreneurs
- Bloggers
- Governmental and non-governmental organizations
MailerLite is a highly suitable platform for newbies, owing to its simplicity and cost-effectiveness. It’s a straightforward tool with limited features, making it perfect for those with basic email marketing needs.
On the other hand, if you’re looking for something more advanced, Omnisend would be the better choice, despite the higher prices. And if omnichannel marketing is on your radar, don’t even look the other way.
Still doubtful?
Go ahead and experiment with both platforms by signing up for the free plan and make a better decision based on your experience.
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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.