Email marketing is one of the fastest, most reliable ways for small businesses to grow. It’s cost-effective to set up, easy to automate, and infinitely scalable.

But success hinges entirely on choosing the right email marketing tools. A platform that handles traditional customer newsletters (nurture) is fundamentally different from the one built for B2B cold outreach (acquisition).

This guide shows you what to look for in email software, how to pick the right platform for your workflows, and the best free and paid email marketing platforms for small businesses today.

3 Important Factors to Consider When Choosing an Email Tool

There are hundreds of email marketing tools available on the market that are ideal for small businesses. To avoid choice paralysis, let’s go over the essential features to look out for:

Automation that Fits Your Needs

Every email marketing tool has some form of automation, especially today. The question is, what automation do you need for your business?

Some businesses want to focus on nurturing existing customers through newsletters, while others aim to find new ones through cold email marketing.

Whichever your needs, you'll need an email marketing tool that has automation for:

• Personalization: Automatically tailor each message with dynamic variables, such as {{first name}}, {{company}}, or {{industry}}, so every recipient feels personally addressed.
• Scheduling and Follow-ups: Set specific send times, delays, and sequence logic so emails are sent at the optimal time and stop when a prospect replies.
• List Segmentation: Automatically tag, score, or group contacts based on engagement or behavior to deliver more relevant messaging.
• Performance Tracking: Automatically collect insights on opens, clicks, and replies, allowing you to refine campaigns without additional setup.

Dedicated Features and Use Cases

Many tools market themselves as a one-size-fits-all solution for every email marketing need. But these often fall flat on delivery. Your best bet is to choose an email marketing tool built for a specific purpose. 

For example, Instantly.ai is designed and built for cold email automation. It’s got all the features and fundamentals needed to scale outreach campaigns. But it’s not a good fit for traditional newsletter functionality (you won’t get any fancy design templates here).

Does the Cost Fit Your Budget, and Will Scaling Be Expensive?

Budget is a crucial factor, especially for small businesses. Some tools offer cheap entry points, but then costs would balloon once you start scaling.

Take HubSpot, for example. It’s one of the best email marketing platforms for nurturing customers. Their starter plan for the Marketing Hub starts at around $15-$20/month (varies by region, seats, and contacts) for a small number of users/contacts. But the Marketing Hub Professional tier starts at $890/month.

To help you find a tool that fits your budget, here are some things you should be mindful of:

• Contact-based pricing: Many tools (like HubSpot) charge based on the number of subscribers or “contacts.” Ensure you understand how pricing scales as your list grows.
• Seat or user limits: Some platforms charge per user or per seat, which can add up quickly once your team expands.
• Feature restrictions: Entry-level tiers often lock essential features, such as automation workflows, A/B testing, or advanced segmentation, behind higher-tier plans.
• Annual vs. monthly billing: Annual plans typically save you money in the long term, but they also lock you in. Be certain you’ll use the platform before committing.
• Upgrade path: Check what the jump looks like between tiers. A small monthly saving now might lead to a huge jump later once you need key features.

Best Email Marketing Tools for Small Businesses

To help you save time and narrow your search, we’ve selected five of the best email marketing tools for small business owners.

Our criteria for selection include ease of use, features, use cases, and pricing. Find the one that fits your needs best and try it out for yourself. 

Instantly.ai: Best Email Marketing Tool for Cold Outreach

G2 Rating: 4.8/5 ⭐ from 3,861 reviews

Instantly.ai was built with small businesses in mind. The platform makes cold email accessible to everyone. There’s no complicated setup, expensive onboarding, or feature bloat. Just everything you need to launch, track, and grow your cold email outreach campaigns efficiently.

From buying domains and warming up accounts to launching your first campaign, all cold email needs are under one roof.

Instantly’s Growth plan is the best entry point for small business owners at only $37/month. You already get unlimited accounts, warmups, and 5,000 emails. 

If you want to go from “I have no list” to “I am running full cold campaigns” using both Instantly Email Outreach and SuperSearch, here's what the actual cost looks like:

• Small business setup: Growth Plan ($37/month) + Nano Credits ($9/month) = $46/month. This is sufficient to begin sending 5,000 emails per month, utilizing 1,000 uploaded contacts and 150 SuperSearch credits for targeted lead sourcing.
• Recommended setup: Growth Plan ($37/month) + Growth Credits ($47/month) = $84/month. This provides you with 5,000 emails, 1,000 uploaded contacts, and 1,500 SuperSearch credits, allowing you to maintain a steady flow of fresh leads every month.
• High-volume setup: A complete cold email setup with approximately 10 domains, 30 email accounts, and more advanced sending costs $544 for the first month, followed by $394/month.

MailerLite: Email Marketing Simplified

G2 Rating: 4.6/5 ⭐ from 1,076 reviews

Email marketing, especially for small businesses without a dedicated email team, can become complicated. MailerLite aims to simplify the process by providing an intuitive newsletter campaign experience, which you can try for free for 14 days.

Their free trial includes a drag-and-drop editor, email automation builder, 10 landing pages, and sign-up forms and pop-ups. You can also send up to 12,000 emails, but you’re limited to 500 contacts. The good news is that their paid tier starts at $10/month (varies with subscriber count).

With a paid plan, you can sell digital products, get access to unlimited templates, create dynamic emails, and build unsubscribe pages. That means you’re covered for the entire inbound sales pipeline from lead generation pages to outreach. 

AWeber: Faster Growth for Less Work

G2 Rating: 4.2/5 ⭐ from 638 reviews

Email marketing can take up a chunk of your time, especially if you’re new to it. AWeber addresses that by helping you create professional-quality emails in minutes.

But design alone won’t help you grow. How you convey your message is just as important, if not more. AWeber recognizes this and helps its users automate subject line generation, personalize email copy, and automate workflows based on subscriber activity.

Instead of typical {{first name}} personalizations, you can use dynamic variables to create content based on subscriber info. You can get started for as low as $15/month with their Lite plan, which includes:

• 1 Email list
• 3 Landing pages
• 3 Email automations
• 3 Users
• 1 Custom segment

Pricing increases depending on the number of subscribers as well. And, the number of emails you can send monthly is also tied to your subscriber list count and plan tier.

For example, a Lite Plan with 500 subscribers gets 10x email sends. Meanwhile, the Plus tier gives 12x sends.

GetResponse: Omnichannel Email Marketing

G2 Rating: 4.3/5 ⭐ from 813 reviews

Email is the primary communication channel for most businesses. But not every subscriber will open your emails. That’s why many small businesses are also shifting toward an omnichannel approach.

GetResponse covers you for both email and SMS marketing. One particularly attractive feature of GetResponse is that they don’t cap the number of emails you can send.

The Starter Plan costs $19/month and already gives unlimited sending. You also get AI content generators, a welcome email series, sign-ups and forms, and a landing page builder. 

If you'd like to test out their SMS marketing plans, you'll need to contact their sales team. They boast a 98% SMS open rate, so it may be worth some consideration if your business engages in SMS marketing.

SmartrMail: Scale Your eCommerce Stores

G2 Rating: 4.7/5 ⭐ from 22 reviews

SmartrMail was built for eCommerce shops just starting, as well as those scaling up and enterprise-level stores. You get integrations with platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce.

Aside from newsletters and email automations, SmartrMail also has a recommendation engine that automates product recommendations for your customers. This feature is best paired with a strong email segmentation strategy.

If you have fewer than 200 subscribers, you can start a free plan, which includes three emails per subscriber. The good news is that you already get all their essential features.

If you have 500, you can get the Essentials plan for $16.25/month and bump sends to 12x per subscriber. 

Key Takeaways

Email marketing is arguably the most scalable and cost-effective growth vehicle for small businesses. It’s easy to set up, automate, and scale. To recap, here are the email marketing tools we recommend to small businesses to help them get started:

• Instantly: Best for launching B2B cold email marketing campaigns, personalizing email copy, and scaling outbound. 
• MailerLite: A Simple and intuitive email marketing platform that helps you build your sales pipeline from lead generation, landing pages, to drip campaigns. 
• AWeber: Great for email automations, generating personalized email copy, and creating newsletters built for conversions.
• GetResponse: Omnichannel outreach tool for email and SMS marketing.
• SmartrMail: Grow your eCommerce stores with email automations, cross-selling, and upselling recommendations. 

If you’re looking to scale your small business through B2B cold outreach, there’s no better option than Instantly. Set up email infrastructure, get leads, and automate campaigns. Start your free Instantly trial.