MailerLite Review: Benefits, Features, and Pricing (2023)

The arrival of MailerLite into the email marketing and automation market in 2010 made three points apparent. First, email marketing shouldn’t cost any business or individual a fortune. 

Second, anyone, irrespective of their skill level, can set up and run effective email campaigns. And lastly, Lite doesn’t mean unscalable!

What started as a simple email marketing tool a decade ago is now on the verge of becoming a powerful all-in-one marketing platform. While still retaining its simplistic yet modern aesthetics, MailerLite has become more feature-rich, template-packed, and, best of all, business-centric. 

What’s more, the company recently launched a new version. You can now create landing pages, websites, multi-trigger automation, and more on MailerLite.

In this in-depth MailerLite review, we’ll dig deep into the features and benefits of MailerLite. We’ll also explore the pros and cons so you can decide if the software is right for you.

What Is MailerLite?

MailerLite is an easy-to-use email marketing software designed to help users create professional and personalized email marketing campaigns. The software makes growing businesses and connecting with audiences through email faster and more efficient.

With the redesigned version of MailerLite, you don’t need a separate tool to build landing pages and websites. There’s a drag-and-drop editor with tons of templates for almost all use cases. So you won’t have to start from scratch. You can integrate payment and other interactive elements directly into your emails.

Who Uses MailerLite?

While MailerLite’s email marketingg service is primarily built for small businesses, the recently redesigned version has been given robust feature lifts to accommodate almost all marketers’ needs. 

MailerLite’s over 1 million global users include:

Benefits of Using MailerLite  

An email marketing service like MailerLite can be beneficial to your business in many ways. MailerLite offers the following benefits:

Ease of Use

One advantage MailerLite has over most email marketing platforms is its simplicity. You can set up email campaigns with the tool without going through lengthy documentation. 

Its interface is intuitive and easily navigable. The variety of templates at your fingertips makes every task you want to achieve effortless.

Cost-Effective

You can start using MailerLite without any commitment and only upgrade when the need arises. The free plan allows you to run campaigns for up to 1,000 contacts. You can use this feature for years, so long your subscribers’ count stays under 1000. 

Straightforward Pricing 

MailerLite has a transparent pricing structure that’s based on the number of subscribers. The best part is that MailerLite won’t charge you for inactive subscribers. 

For instance, if you have 1,000 contacts and 500 of them are bounced or unsubscribed, you won’t pay for all. Only the 500 active subscribers will count for your invoice. 

High Deliverability 

Email deliverability can make or break email campaigns. MailerLite has a strong reputation when it comes to email deliverability.

MailerLite has maintained a high ranking in several deliverability tests. In a recent email test, MailerLite got a whopping 96.5%, better than popular email marketing services like Mailchimp.

Better Audience Insight

Knowing how your audience interacts with your content can help you plan for a more efficient strategy. MailerLite gives you all the information you need to do that. You can track your audience behavior, including open rates, bounce rates, and click-through rates. 

MailerLite A/B testing allows you to experiment with different elements of your campaigns. This feature is available for MailerLite emails, landing pages, and pop-ups. You can test multiple subject lines, images, and call-to-actions to see what’s working and what’s not. 

Key Features of MailerLite 

Now that we’ve shown you the benefits of MailerLite, let’s go over some of the best features of MailerLite that can elevate your email marketing game.

Email Editor

MailerLite email builder is designed to help users create beautiful campaigns irrespective of their skill level. 

Whether you prefer the ease of a drag-and-drop email editor, the flexibility of a rich-text email builder, or the advanced feature of an HTML code editor, MailerLite has all three options. 

The drag-and-drop editor is well-suited for beginners who want to create professional-looking newsletters in a snap. This editor comes with pre-built content blocks you can edit, customize, and even save for future use. 

You can use these blocks to insert videos, social media buttons, and other interactive features like carousels and accordion tabs directly into your email.

The rich text editor is for users who prefer plain text editing but would love HTML formatting capabilities in their email builders. 

The custom HTML editor is for advanced users who want to build their emails from scratch.

Website and Landing Page Builder

MailerLite has a drag-and-drop landing page and website builder that allows you to create beautiful websites without coding or web design experience. You can create an online store, personal blog, or website in a flash using one of the available templates. 

If you sell digital products, you might want to consider the MailerLite website builder because of its seamless integration with MailerSend, the company’s transactional email service. It auto-delivers digital products, processes payments, sends order confirmation, and more.

A landing page or website you create and host on the MailerLite server will have the extension “.mailerpage.com.” You can only link to your custom domain if you are on a paid plan.

MailerLite  Templates Library

MailerLite has an extensive library of modern templates you can use to build a complete marketing campaign. These templates are not only aesthetically pleasing, they are also responsive and customizable.

At the moment, there are 200+ landing page templates, over 60 email newsletter templates, and 70+ website templates on MailerLite. 

The exciting part is that these are not just generic templates. They are intently designed templates for various niches, campaigns, and audiences. You can filter by categories to find the best match for your needs.

The only drawback here is that these templates are only available for paid users. 

Email Marketing Automation

MailerLite allows you to create trigger-based automation workflows. You can set up drip campaigns to be sent at specific intervals or events. You can also create autoresponders that respond to particular subscribers’ actions, such as clicks, opens, etc.

Overall, MailerLite email automation is on par with most tools on the same table, only that it lacks some advanced features, such as triggering automation based on website visits. 

Email List Management

There’s no limit to the number of lists you can create in your MailerLite account, free or paid. Lists allow you to create targeted and personalized campaigns. 

Lists on MailerLite are broadly categorized into two parts: Groups and Segments.

A group is a static category that you manually create to organize your subscribers. They are most times based on demographic parameters such as age, location, interest, etc.

Segments, in contrast, are dynamic categories that auto-update based on some preset criteria. A subscriber will be automatically added to this list when they take a specific action. 

Integration

MailerLite integrates with 141 third-party applications and web services. It integrates with e-commerce platforms such as Shopify and Woocommerce. This integration allows businesses to sync customers’ data across all their channels.

In the past, the lack of CRM integration has been one of the greatest undoing of MailerLite. Today, MailerLite connects seamlessly with popular CRM systems such as HubSpot and Zoho CRM. This integration makes it easy for any business to integrate MailerLite into its existing tech stack.

MailerLite’s integration with Zapier means it can connect with thousands of other marketing and business tools via API integration. 

Form Options

MailerLite provides a range of form options that allow you to capture new leads and grow your subscriber base. Pop-ups, promotional, or embedded forms, MailerLite lets you create all. Plus, you don’t need to build from scratch; MailerLite has templates for all types of forms.

When you create a landing page in MailerLite, you don’t need to direct users to an external page for opt-ins. You can easily embed it into your page. If your landing page or website is hosted elsewhere, you can create custom forms that blend with your website branding.

Reporting and Analytics

MailerLite has straightforward reporting and analytics features so you can read and understand the performance of your campaigns. This analytics can be accessed by visiting individual campaigns or subscriber lists for stats on each.

The report is presented in graphical form and divided into categories. You can filter subscriber reports with metrics such as link activity, new subscribers, bounces, etc. For campaigns, you’ll see stats on open rates, clicks, click-to-open rates, and more. 

MailerLite also allows you to track links via click mapping and gives geolocation reports, but its e-commerce tracking is limited to Woocommerce and Shopify.

MailerLite Pricing

MailerLite offers one free and three paid plans:

All three plans give you great value for money.

The free plan is a free forever plan but limited to 1,000 subscribers and 12000 emails per month. For the same number of subscribers, the Growing Business plan and the Advanced plan are $13.50 and $27, respectively, but they come with unlimited emails per month.

You can use the pricing scale on the MailerLite website to calculate your investment. The scale ranges from $9 for 500 subscribers on the Growing Business plan to $1,710 for 500k subscribers on the Advanced plan.

If you have more than 100k subscribers, you’ll have to contact MailerLite for Enterprise pricing. That said, let’s look at what feature each plan has to offer. 

Free plan

MailerLite’s free plan allows only one user and offers 24/7 email and chat support for the first 30 days. Other features included are: 

Growing Business

The Growing Business plan allows up to three users and offers everything in the free plan, plus:

Advanced Plan

The Advanced plan lets you add an unlimited number of users. It offers all of the features in the Growing Business plan, in addition to 24/7 email and live chat support and:

Enterprise Plan

MailerLite Enterprise plan has everything in the Advanced plan plus the following:

Pros of Using MailerLite  

Alongside its intuitive email editor, MailerLite has the following advantages:

Easy Monetization Options

MailerLite allows you to monetize your content and get paid on auto-pilot. You can automate payment and the delivery of your digital product or paid newsletters.

Responsive Customer Support

While paid users enjoy priority customer support, MailerLite has a reputation for its swift response to customers’ queries, even for free users.

Affordable Pricing

For what it offers, MailerLite paid plans are some of the most affordable you’ll ever come across in email marketing tools.

Generous Free Plan

12,000 emails, email automation, and landing page builder amidst other features for a free plan is an absolute steal.

Cons of Using MailerLite 

MailerLite has a few drawbacks; the most important ones you should be aware of include:

Limited Automation

MailerLite has limited advanced automation features compared to other email marketing tools like MailChimp and ActiveCampaign. 

Basic Analytics

MailerLite’s analytics is also considered basic when compared to other tools. It doesn’t have a dedicated reporting page.

Strict Review Process

MailerLite puts users through a rigorous review process before approval. This is to maintain high deliverability and prevent misuse.

Lacks Spam and Design Testing

MailerLite suffers from the absence of spam and design testing tools. You can’t preview your email to see how it will appear on different email clients and you can’t run your campaign through a spam check before launching.

In Summary

This MailerLite review shows that it’s definitely a powerful email marketing software, but it does have some gray areas.

If you are a new business owner, content creator, or startup looking for an easy-to-use email marketing service that lets you create functional campaigns on the fly, MailerLite is for you. 

But if you are looking for an email marketing solution that offers advanced automation and in-depth analytics, MailerLite is yet to get there. 

Frequently Asked Questions