An Email Marketing Agency’s Take on the Best (and Worst) Email Platforms

Here’s the truth most agencies won’t tell you: even the most brilliant email marketing strategy can fail if the platform can’t execute it effectively. We’ve seen promising campaigns derailed by platforms that promised the world but delivered frustrating limitations.

When evaluating platforms for our clients, we focus on five critical areas that directly impact campaign effectiveness:

Even the most brilliant email marketing strategy can fail if the platform can’t execute it effectively. We’ve seen promising campaigns derailed by tools that promise the world but deliver frustrating limitations. Having built and scaled campaigns for clients from startups to ecommerce giants, we know what makes a platform truly effective.

When evaluating platforms, we focus on five critical areas that directly impact campaign success:

1. User Experience and Interface Design: A clunky interface drains productivity. If your team spends more time navigating the platform than creating compelling emails, you’re at a disadvantage. The best platforms make complex tasks feel seamless, letting marketers prioritize strategy over software.
2. Automation Capabilities: Robust automation elevates campaigns from good to exceptional. A strong platform supports seamless workflows, like triggered emails and drip sequences, delivering the right message at the right moment. Weak automation limits your potential and leaves revenue untapped.
3. Integration Ecosystem: Your email platform must integrate smoothly with your CRM, ecommerce tools, analytics, and other systems in your tech stack. Poor integrations lead to data silos that hinder personalization and reporting, weakening your strategy.
4. Segmentation and Personalization: Generic emails no longer cut it. Consumers expect tailored content, and platforms with advanced segmentation and AI-driven personalization deliver results. Marketers leveraging AI for personalization see 41% higher revenue and 13.44% better click-through rates.
5. Support and Reliability: When campaigns are time-sensitive and budgets are on the line, platform outages or sluggish support can derail your efforts. Reliable uptime and responsive support are essential for campaigns that can’t afford delays.

Select a platform that excels in these areas, and you’ll harness the full power of email marketing, without the frustration.

Having worked on countless email marketing campaigns across a wide range of platforms, we’ve identified four of the most frequently used tools by businesses in 2025. Each platform offers unique strengths that make it a go-to choice, but also comes with limitations that could impact your strategy. Whether you’re a startup sending your first newsletter, an ecommerce giant scaling sales, or a B2B operation with complex workflows, here’s our breakdown of these widely adopted platforms, based on hands-on experience and real-world performance.

Brevo: Versatile Automation with Scalable Value

• Strengths: Brevo, formerly Sendinblue, is a favorite for its powerful yet accessible automation tools, enabling businesses to create multi-channel campaigns spanning email, SMS, and WhatsApp. Its drag-and-drop automation builder simplifies complex workflows, with a visual interface that makes campaign flows clear and manageable. Brevo’s pricing is highly competitive, offering generous contact limits and affordable scaling, ideal for growing businesses. It supports robust segmentation, real-time reporting, and integrations with over 100 tools, including Shopify, WordPress, and Salesforce, making it a versatile choice for diverse needs.
• Weaknesses: Brevo’s advanced features may fall short for businesses requiring highly specialized automation or deep customization compared to niche platforms. Some users report occasional delays in customer support response times for complex issues.

Klaviyo: Ecommerce Precision with High Impact

• Strengths: Klaviyo is a powerhouse for ecommerce, built to drive online sales with seamless product-triggered flows, behavioral tracking, and purchase-based segmentation. Its detailed customer profiles drawn from purchase history, browsing data, and engagement metrics, enable hyper-targeted campaigns. This allows segmenting by product interests or customer lifetime value. Pre-built templates for abandoned carts and post-purchase follow-ups are quick to deploy and highly effective, often generating 30-40% of email revenue for ecommerce businesses according to recent reporting from Backlinko.
• Weaknesses: Klaviyo’s ecommerce focus makes it overkill for non-retail businesses, and its steep pricing can be prohibitive for those with large, low-value contact lists. The platform’s complexity may also overwhelm smaller teams without dedicated technical resources.

Mailchimp: Beginner-Friendly but Limited for Growth

• Strengths: Mailchimp is a go-to for small businesses, offering an intuitive platform with AI-driven tools and real-time behavioral data to boost engagement. Its sleek interface and professional templates make launching newsletters or promotional campaigns effortless, while features like predictive segmentation and a mobile app for managing contacts and analytics enhance usability. With over 300 million emails sent through Mailchimp every two days, it’s a trusted choice for basic campaigns and startups.
• Weaknesses: As strategies scale, Mailchimp’s automation tools feel dated, struggling with advanced workflows. Segmentation often requires workarounds, and pricing becomes less competitive as lists grow, especially compared to platforms with more robust features. Some users also note limitations in handling complex automations without significant manual effort.

ActiveCampaign: Advanced Automation with Cross-Channel Power

• Strengths: ActiveCampaign is a favorite for businesses with sophisticated strategies, offering a robust automation builder with over 900 integrations, including Facebook, Shopify, and Salesforce. It powers personalized email, SMS, and WhatsApp campaigns, creating seamless customer journeys across channels. Its AI-driven tools, like predictive sending and intelligent segmentation, optimize message timing and relevance, helping businesses in over 170 countries drive results. For B2B companies with long sales cycles, its CRM and automation capabilities can transform engagement, with users reporting significant efficiency gains.
• Weaknesses: ActiveCampaign’s complexity can be daunting, with a steep learning curve that may overwhelm new users. Advanced features often require training, and some users note inconsistent customer support, with response times varying and certain plans lacking online support.

Not every email marketing platform is a good fit for your strategy. While we focus on recommending tools that drive results, some platforms have limitations that can derail campaigns. Drawing from our experience managing high stakes email programs, we’re highlighting key pitfalls to avoid, backed by real world insights, to help you steer clear of costly mistakes.

Deliverability Concerns That Kill Campaigns

Even the smartest email strategy falls flat if your messages never make it to the inbox. As shown in the chart below, based on Email Tool Tester’s January 2024 Deliverability Study, performance across platforms varies dramatically—and poor deliverability can have lasting consequences. It’s not just about open rates. A damaged sender reputation can take months to rebuild and impact every future campaign you run.

• Benchmark Email: Consistently underperforms, with an average deliverability rate of 47.1% in 2024 tests, the lowest among 15 platforms. A staggering 14.8% of emails were flagged as spam, and 22.3% went missing entirely, making it a risky choice for campaigns where inbox placement is critical.
• SendPulse: Achieved a 62.8% deliverability rate in 2024, with 12.7% of emails landing in spam folders and 14.3% going missing, significantly below the industry average of 83.1%. This poor performance can jeopardize engagement and conversions.

Why It Matters: Platforms like ActiveCampaign (94.2% deliverability) set the benchmark for reliable inbox placement, ensuring your emails reach subscribers and protect your sender reputation. Poor deliverability doesn’t just hurt one campaign—it can take months to rebuild a damaged sender reputation.

Customer Support That Vanishes When You Need It

Email campaigns run on tight schedules, and technical glitches can disrupt critical sequences. Platforms with slow, inconsistent, or chatbot-heavy support leave you stranded during time-sensitive moments, like a Black Friday launch or product rollout. Examples of platforms with concerning support include:

• Zoho Campaigns: Users frequently report slow response times, with some accounts not approved without explanation, stalling setup processes. Support for free plans is particularly limited, frustrating smaller teams.
• Benchmark Email: Beyond deliverability issues, Benchmark’s support is often criticized for delayed responses, with some users waiting days for resolutions to technical issues, which can halt time-sensitive campaigns.

Why It Matters: Responsive support is non-negotiable when deadlines loom. Platforms like Brevo and Mailchimp offer faster, more reliable support, with dedicated teams or live chat options that resolve issues quickly, keeping your campaigns on track.

Outdated Technology That Limits Growth

Some platforms, once industry leaders, now lag in modern functionality, with clunky automation builders, limited integrations, or outdated templates. These constraints can stifle businesses as their strategies evolve. Platforms to watch out for include:

• AWeber: Despite an acceptable 83.1% deliverability rate in 2024, AWeber’s automation tools and templates feel dated, lacking the flexibility for advanced segmentation or behavioral triggers, which can hinder scaling businesses.
• Campaign Monitor: Its automation capabilities are basic compared to competitors like ActiveCampaign, and its integration ecosystem is limited, making it less suitable for businesses needing robust, modern workflows. 

Why It Matters: Growing strategies demand platforms like Klaviyo or ActiveCampaign, which offer advanced automation, AI-driven personalization, and extensive integrations to support complex campaigns without bottlenecks.

The Hidden Costs of “Budget” Solutions

Low-cost platforms can seem appealing but often come with hidden expenses such as restrictive free plans, steep pricing jumps, or workarounds that drain time and resources. Examples include:

• Mailchimp: While beginner-friendly, Mailchimp’s pricing escalates quickly with list growth, and its free plan limits automation and segmentation, forcing costly upgrades.
• Moosend: Marketed as affordable, Moosend’s free plan restricts advanced features like automation, and its pricing becomes less competitive as lists grow, with additional costs for removing branding or accessing premium features.

The total cost of ownership, factoring in migrations, integrations, and lost opportunities, can make “cheap” platforms expensive. Platforms like Brevo offer scalable pricing and robust features, delivering better long-term value without surprise costs.

Context Matters in Platform Selection

Not every limitation impacts all businesses equally. A small business sending simple newsletters might not notice AWeber’s outdated automation, while an ecommerce brand would struggle without Klaviyo’s advanced triggers. Similarly, teams with technical expertise might handle Zoho’s complex setup with greater ease.

How to Choose Wisely: Test platforms thoroughly during free trials, focusing on your specific needs – deliverability, support responsiveness, automation, and integrations. Run demo campaigns, stress-test support channels, and verify integration compatibility to catch red flags before committing. Additionally, consider consulting an email marketing agency like Clue to ensure the platform aligns with your marketing goals.

An agency’s expertise helps identify tools that support your strategy, and their familiarity with your chosen platform, whether it’s one we recommend or not, means glitches can be resolved swiftly, reducing downtime and stress. At Clue, we know every platform inside out, even those we don’t endorse, so our team can always step in to troubleshoot issues, sparing you the burden of managing challenges alone. This proactive approach ensures your platform drives results without costly surprises mid campaign.

To help you make an informed choice, here’s a simple breakdown of the platforms we recommend based on different business needs.

Real-world platform selection depends heavily on business type, technical resources, and growth stage. Our recommendations reflect thousands of hours of hands-on experience across diverse industries and business models.

For Ecommerce and Service-Based Businesses Brevo consistently proves its versatility across different business models. For ecommerce brands, the platform handles product-triggered campaigns effectively while maintaining the simplicity that makes ongoing management feasible. Service-based businesses benefit from its robust segmentation capabilities and professional template library.

One of our most successful implementations involved Master Plumbers, a trade association that needed sophisticated member communication capabilities. Using Brevo’s advanced list management and segmentation features, we created targeted communication streams that deliver relevant content to different member categories—from apprentice plumbers to established business owners.

The platform’s ability to create detailed segments based on member status, location, and engagement history allows Master Plumbers to send highly relevant communications. Training announcements reach the appropriate skill levels, local event notifications target geographic segments, and business development content focuses on members with established practices.

This level of targeted communication has dramatically improved engagement rates and member satisfaction. The key advantage is Brevo’s combination of powerful segmentation with an interface that the Master Plumbers team can manage independently.

For High-Volume Ecommerce Klaviyo’s specialised features become invaluable. We recently implemented a comprehensive email automation system for Create Amor, a Texas based medical scrubs ecommerce business, that demonstrates Klaviyo’s strengths perfectly.

The setup includes sophisticated product-triggered flows that respond to specific browsing and purchase behaviours. Abandoned cart sequences that adjust messaging based on cart value, post-purchase flows that vary based on product categories, and replenishment reminders that factor in usage patterns all work seamlessly together.

The results speak for themselves. Automated email sequences now generate a significant proportion of the company’s email revenue, with individual flows performing significantly better than generic campaigns. The investment in Klaviyo’s higher pricing tier is easily justified by the improved performance and automation capabilities.

After managing email campaigns across dozens of platforms and hundreds of clients, one thing is clear: a strong email marketing strategy needs the right technology to support it. The potential for ROI is real, but getting there takes more than compelling content. You need a platform that can reliably deliver, automate, and optimise your campaigns with minimal friction.

At Clue, we stay platform agnostic – no hidden agendas, no kickbacks, just honest recommendations based on what actually works. That said, if we had to name an MVP right now, it’s Brevo. Time and again, it’s proven to be the most dependable across a wide range of businesses, balancing powerful automation with ease of use and pricing that makes sense.

Of course, every platform comes with trade offs. The key is understanding what you’re gaining, what you might be giving up, and how those decisions align with your business needs and internal capabilities.

We know firsthand how overwhelming it can be to compare platforms, interpret the sales jargon, and make a confident choice. If you’re feeling stuck, we’re here to help. Our team can provide clear, practical recommendations based on your goals, and support you through setup and optimisation to make sure your platform works for you, not the other way around.

Need expert input? Get in touch. We’ll help you cut through the noise and make a choice that sets your email marketing up for long-term success.