5+ Most Elastic Email Alternatives & Competitors With Better Deliverability. How do I know this? Well, for starters, you arrived at this blog. And next, I too have been in the same situation as yours. You see, Elastic Email has become a leading choice of email marketing software or SMTP service provider for startups or small businesses. Thanks to its quick onboarding, simple marketing features, and most importantly, cheaper pricing plans.
5+ Best Elastic Email Alternatives & Competitors With Better Deliverability
In this article, you can know about 5+ Best Elastic Email Alternatives & Competitors With Better Deliverability here are the details below;
The pricing plans are cheaper enough to compete with the pricing of Amazon SES. But when it comes to email deliverability, it is a major disappointment. Hence, in this article, we are going to talk about some of the most reliable Elastic Email alternatives & competitors with better email deliverability.
What Is Elastic Email?
Elastic Email is an email marketing software and an SMTP service provider that offers its services to marketers, bloggers, freelancers, eCommerce store owners, startups, and other small businesses.
Elastic Email
It was founded way back in 2010 and at that time, Elastic Email was just an SMTP service.
The service was used by marketers and businesses to send marketing emails. And, also by developers and SaaS companies for sending transactional emails.
But over the years, Elastic Email was constantly developed. And now, it has evolved into a decent email marketing service.
But the characteristic that made it a popular choice is its cheap pricing plans. To give you an idea, you can start using the email marketing suite by just subscribing to the $15/month pricing tier. This tier allows you to add/import 5,000 contacts and send unlimited emails.
Similarly, for the SMTP service or Email API, you are allowed to send 1,000 emails for just $0.10 (plus $0.40 additional daily charge).
Clearly, Elastic Email goes overboard when it comes to bulk email sending.
Now, you must be wondering – if Elastic Email is so stacked with features and has a very reasonable pricing structure, why does one need its alternative?
Why Do We Need An Alternative To Elastic Email? (Cons Of Elastic Email)
Now that you know that Elastic Email is liberal with bulk email sending and that too a relatively cheaper price, the software has been misused by many users.
It’s safe to say that a lot of its users used Elastic Email for sending mass spam emails. Due to this, its IP reputation has deteriorated significantly. This ultimately leads to poor email deliverability.
So if you have chosen to send emails either via its Email Marketing plans or Email API plans, you will be allotted the same pool of IPs that were earlier used to send this huge volume of emails. Hence, poor deliverability once again.
Even if you get a dedicated IP address for yourself, it does not guarantee any improvements in email delivery.
Regardless of this, to give you an even clearer idea about the performance of Elastic Email, I decided to check for its performance report on EmailToolTester. Unfortunately, I could not find any report or information on this platform.
With all due respect to Elastic Email, it is not considered to be the “best” or even reliable email marketing and SMTP server.
Besides this, if you look at the review-based platforms like Capterra, G2 Crowd, and Trustpilot, you’ll see that Elastic Email has mixed reviews.
But one of the most common cons of Elastic Email is its deliverability.
Apart from this, a lot of its users have reported that the email builder of Elastic Email is buggy and not smooth.
At last, customer support is also not up to the mark. However, this is just a matter of personal experience and time zone difference.
With that being said, now is the perfect time to explore all the top Elastic Email competitors.
Let’s start with…
1. Sendinblue
Sendinblue is one such marketing tool that has been extensively featured by a lot of bloggers. The reason behind this huge popularity is its suite of multi-functional digital marketing tools. Just like Elastic Email, Sendinblue was primarily known for its SMTP. But as of now, it has grown to become one of the best email marketing software with additional modules like CRM, live chat, SMS marketing, Facebook ads, and landing pages.
Due to this array of highly advanced marketing features, it is almost certain to term Sendinblue as one of the best Elastic Email alternatives. Not to forget, the email deliverability is significantly better than what you get in Elastic Email. Additionally, you’d be glad to know that Sendinblue has a huge user base of 175,000+ users spread across 160 countries.
Features That Make Sendinblue The Best Elastic Email Alternative
- Sendinblue offers a expansive range of options for setting up SMTP servers. You are able to use the API, SMTP relay, eCommerce plugin, or the marketing automation module to send transactional emails.
- Just like Elastic Email, Sendinblue also has a drag & drop email editor. The email template building process is far more simple and smooth. In addition to this, Sendinblue also offers a plethora of ready-made email templates.
- When connecting or setting up SMTP servers of Sendinblue, the software ensures that you add SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records in your DNS settings for better email deliverability. Also, the software has a better SMTP infrastructure.
- The email marketing suite of Sendinblue comes with advanced features like contact management & segmentation, sign-up forms, landing pages, email personalization, A/B testing, etc.
- Sendinblue has a wider range of integration options when compared with Elastic Email. It seamlessly integrates with major CMS like WordPress, Shopify. Etc. Additionally, you can also connect Sendinblue with lead capture modules.
Sendinblue Pricing
To give a strong competition to Elastic Email, Sendinblue offers a very generous forever free plan. This certainly makes Sendinblue one of the free Elastic Email alternatives. In this plan, you’d have the flexibility to send 300 emails/day to unlimited contacts. You also get to use the SMTP relay in the free plan.
But to remove the daily sending limit and get access to other email marketing features, you’d have to subscribe to its premium plans. Keep in mind that the pricing is based on the number of emails sent in a month.
Sendinblue Pricing
Free – As said earlier, you can send 9,000 emails/month with a 300 emails/day sending limit.
Lite – You will have multiple pricing sub-tiers and offers features like custom branding, no daily sending limit, etc. Additional premium add-ons available are A/B testing.
- 20,000 emails per month – $25 per month
- 40,000 emails per month – $32 per month
- 65,000 emails per month – $45 per month
- 100,000 emails per month – $65 per month
- Premium – In this plan, you will unlock advanced features like marketing automation, landing pages, ads for Facebook, etc.
- 20,000 emails per month – $65 per month
- 40,000 emails per month – $79 per month
- 60,000 emails per month – $94 per month
- 100,000 emails per month – $124 per month
- 150,000 emails per month – $169 per month
- 250,000 emails per month – $229 per month
- 350,000 emails per month – $289 per month
- 500,000 emails per month – $379 per month
- 750,000 emails per month – $499 per month
- 1,000,000 emails per month – $599 per month
Enterprise – If you want to send more than 1 million emails in a month, you’d have to get in touch with the sales team for custom pricing.
2. Pepipost
If you are looking for just an SMTP service that offers better email delivery than Elastic Email, your search will end at Pepipost. It is an Indian company that offers SMTP services to a majority of top Asian businesses like Ola, MakeMyTrip, OYO, Swiggy, etc. And, the feather on the cap for Pepipost is its high rating and positive reviews on platforms like Capterra, Trustpilot, etc.
One thing to keep in mind before opting for Pepipost is that, unlike Elastic Email, it does not have a native email builder. Although, it is flexible enough by allowing you to integrate it with any open-source email marketing platform. This way, you get access to a third-party email builder. Other than this, Pepipost offers all the essential SMTP features and better emailing infrastructure.
Features That Make Pepipost The Best Elastic Email Alternative
- To reduce latency, Pepipost has its SMTP servers deployed across the globe. As of now, Pepipost has 6 server locations. A couple in the USA, one in Europe, and three in Asia.
- When it comes to integrating Pepipost via API, the team behind this software proudly boasts about its compatibility with multiple development frameworks. It includes Node.js, Perl, Ruby, Python, PHP, Java, and C#.
- Additionally, Pepipost also enables integration via SMTP relay and webhooks. For the majority of email marketing software, the SMTP relay option would establish a connection within few minutes. And, webhooks are essential when integrating Pepipost with any SaaS.
- One of the most notable characteristics of Pepipost is its near-to-perfect email delivery. To achieve such high deliverability rates, Pepipost enforces you to add SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records in your DNS settings.
- Also to keep your sender reputation high, Pepipost offers automatic bounce handling. To take a step further, the service also manages your suppression lists. This way, you don’t send emails to those subscribers who have decided to opt-out of your mailing list.
Pepipost Pricing
Another most important factor that makes Pepipost one of the most reliable Elastic Email competitors is its pricing. Unlike Elastic Email or any of its alternatives, Pepipost takes a different route in the pricing.
For starters, Pepipost offers 30,000 emails for free for the first 30 days. After exhausting your 30,000 email credits or crossing the 30 days mark, you will get 100 emails per day, forever.
Now, if you want to get higher monthly emailing credits, you’d have to subscribe to monthly or yearly pricing tiers. Speaking of which, Pepipost is extremely flexible with its pricing structure. You can calculate your own pricing with the sliding calculator available on its pricing page.
Nevertheless, here’s a brief breakdown of its monthly pricing tier –
Pepipost Pricing
- 150,000 emails in a month – $25/month and additional $0.60 per extra 1,000 emails
- 400,000 emails in a month – $85/month and additional $0.55 per extra 1,000 emails
- 600,000 emails in a month – $145/month and additional $0.50 per extra 1,000 emails
- 1,000,000 emails in a month – $245/month and additional $0.45 per extra 1,000 emails
- 2,000,000 emails in a month – $445/month and additional $0.40 per extra 1,000 emails
- More than 2,000,000 emails in a month – Get in touch with the unit for custom pricing
3. MailerSend
Ever heard of MailerLite – one of the best email autoresponder tools? MailerSend is the latest creation of the team behind MailerLite. It is basically a transactional email service that excels in terms of email delivery. Naturally, it is logical to classify MailerSend as an ideal alternative to Elastic Email.
The MailerSend was created by a team that has experience of 10+ years in the email marketing field. To further strengthen the performance of MailerSend, the team includes a powerful infrastructure within the application so that it can effortlessly scale with emailing volume while maintaining a good deliverability rate. That is why it has quickly become the most sought-after transactional email service for SaaS and eCommerce business owners
Features That Make MailerSend The Best Elastic Email Alternative
- MailerSend extends its ways of using the application by offering you multiple modes of integration. You can connect MailerSend via RESTful Email API or through the SMTP Relay option.
- It is one of the only transactional email and SMTP services that offers an in-built drag & drop editor for your email templates. The MailerSend builder is efficient to create templates for lost passwords, order confirmation, and other transactional emails.
- Just like the majority of other Elastic Email alternatives, MailerSend also provides a real-time analytics dashboard. You can keep an eye on important email metrics like opened, clicked, delivered, rejected, etc.
- MailerSend is also efficient enough to handle all the transactional emailing needs for multiple brands via just a single account. It allows you to add multiple domains in one account. And, to maintain its high delivery rates, it encourages you to add SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records.
- The application is also capable of handling your suppression lists as well. This feature collects all the email addresses that are either bounced, unsubscriber, or marked your emails as spam. And, ultimately prevents you from sending them emails again.
MailerSend Pricing
When it comes to pricing, MailerSend proves to be one of the free Elastic Email alternatives due to its forever free plan. In this free plan, you have the liberty to transmit 12,000 emails per month for free. Although, if you cross this limit, you will bear an additional charge of $1 per 1,000 emails. Also check Flipsnack Alternatives
Besides this, the free plan offers access to all the basic but essential features like SMTP relay, Email API, webhooks, suppression management, analytics, and drag & drop builder.
To get advanced features like multiple domains support, user management, deliverability consultation, prompt customer support, and higher email sending limits, you’d have to subscribe to its premium plan.
There’s only one premium plan but it has multiple sub-tier in it –
MailerSend Pricing
- 50,000 emails/month – $25/month + $0.90 per 1,000 extra emails
- 100,000 emails/month – $55/month + $0.80 per 1,000 extra emails
- 250,000 emails/month – $85/month + $0.70 per 1,000 extra emails
- 500,000 emails/month – $225/month + $0.60 per 1,000 extra emails
- 750,000 emails/month – $475/month + $0.50 per 1,000 extra emails
- 1,000,000 emails/month – $550/month + $0.45 per 1,000 extra emails
- 1,500,000 emails/month – $725/month + $0.40 per 1,000 extra emails
- 2,000,000 emails/month – $975/month + $0.35 per 1,000 extra emails
- 2,500,000 emails/month – $1,250/month + $0.30 per 1,000 extra emails
- 3,000,000 emails/month or more – Get in touch with the sales team for custom pricing
4. SendPulse
SendPulse has grown in popularity tremendously in the past couple of years. Earlier, it was known for its SMTP services but now, it has expanded its services to email automation, CRM, chatbots, web push notifications, and SMS marketing. This development of the software has helped SendPulse to achieve the tag of a multi-channel marketing automation platform.
Naturally, SendPulse qualifies to be one of the top Elastic Email alternatives. Besides this, SendPulse is flexible enough to integrate with any leading CRMs, CMSs like WordPress, and eCommerce platforms like Shopify. As of now, it offers 40 integration options. Furthermore, SendPulse assures you of providing better features and efficiency than Elastic Email.
Features That Make SendPulse The Best Elastic Email Alternative
- Just like Elastic Email, SendPulse offers an email marketing suite with all the important features like drag & drop builder, subscriber segmentation, automation, sign-up forms, etc. Additionally, you can separately access its transactional email module.
- As said earlier, SendPulse also offers an SMTP service that can be used to send transactional emails. You can connect the SMTP with your SaaS, website, or other software through the email API or SMTP relay configuration.
- To boost email delivery and prevent your emails from landing in the spam folder, SendPulse authenticates your domain by asking you to add SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records in your DNS settings. You can also avail dedicated IP addresses to maintain your own sender reputation.
- SendPulse, just like Elastic Email, comes with a suppression list management system. With the help of this feature, SendPulse tracks and removes email addresses from your email lists if they bounce, unsubscribe, or mark your email as spam.
- You can get the complete performance analysis of your sent emails via the reporting module of SendPulse. The report depicts and measures key email metrics like open, click, inbox placement, errors, and spam complaints.
SendPulse Pricing
Since SendPulse has multiple marketing suites like email marketing and transactional SMTP server, it’s fair that they charge you separately for it. But to start things off, SendPulse offers a forever free plan for both applications.
SendPulse Email Pricing
Talking first about the email marketing plans, you’d love to know that there are 3 premium plans and 1 forever free plan. The pricing is based on the number of subscribers added and as you go higher up the plan hierarchy, you’d unlock more limits and features access.
There are numerous sub-tiers in each plan. Exploring them in detail would be difficult but here’s a breakdown of the pricing for SendPulse Email –
SendPulse Email Pricing
- Free – This is a forever free plan that allows you to send 15,000 emails/month to 500 subscribers.
- Standard – Similarly, the Standard plan starts at $8/month and allows you to import 500 contacts. This plan goes up to 5,000,000 subscribers and would cost you $7,000/month.
- Pro – At the same time, the Pro plan would cost you $9.6/month for 500 contacts and $8,400/month for 5,000,000 contacts.
- Enterprise – For advanced emailing needs, you can pick Enterprise plan and start at $13.44/month for 500 subscribers. It goes up to 5,000,000 subscribers and will cost you $11,760/month.
Keep in mind that there are different feature access and limits in each plan. Check out its pricing in detail for more information.
SendPulse Transactional Email Pricing
Just like Elastic Email offers Email API plans for its SMTP usage, SendPulse also offers dedicated pricing for its SMTP servers.
Again, it offers a forever free plan and three premium plans with multiple sub-tiers in total. Here’s the breakdown of the pricing –
SendPulse Transactional Email Pricing
Basic – In this plan there are 3 sub-tiers.
It includes a forever free sub-tier for sending 12,000 emails/month.
- 25,000 emails/month – $8.85/month
- 50,000 emails/month – $16.85/month
- Pro – There are three sub-tiers in this plan as well but it also includes one dedicated IP address.
- 100,000 emails/month – $74.85/month
- 200,000 emails/month – $124.85/month
- 300,000 emails/month – $174.85/month
- Enterprise – This plan would be ideal for you if you are looking to send more than 500,000 emails/month. You also get a dedicated IP address. Unlike other plans, there are multiple sub-tiers but to give you a general idea, here an overview of the key milestones of this plan –
- 500,000 emails/month – $274.86/month
- 1 million emails/month – $524.85/month
- 2 million emails/month – $924.85/month
- 5 million emails/month – $1,824.85/month
5. TransMail
TransMail is yet another transactional email service that can be used by employing its SMTP server or email API. If you don’t know it yet, TransMail is the latest addition to the array of SaaS applications offered by Zoho. If you are looking to send marketing or promotional email campaigns, you can use Zoho Campaigns. But if you are just trying to find some of the better Elastic Email alternatives with better deliverability, TransMail is the best option. Also check Wix Alternatives
Just like Elastic Email’s API, TransMail can integrate with any software and website. The primary characteristic of this transactional email service is its high-speed delivery. And, to put cherry on the top, TransMail assures you to place your emails right in the inbox despite its lightning fast email delivery.
Features That Make TransMail The Best Elastic Email Alternative
- As we all know transactional emails require fast sending, TransMail does it efficiently. So now, you can automatically send welcome emails, password reset emails, order confirmation emails, etc. to your customers and subscribers.
- When it comes to deliverability, TransMail surpasses Elastic Email and offers better email delivery. It uses a pool of IP addresses that already have a high sender reputation.
- TransMail leaves no stones unturned when it comes to email delivery. Therefore it supports industry-standard authenticating techniques like adding SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records in your DNS settings.
- Just as I have mentioned earlier, TransMail is very flexible in terms of integration. The application offers an extensive Email API for deeper integrations. Additionally, for simpler integrations, you can connect it via the SMTP relay configuration.
- TransMail also allows you to configure webhooks. With the help of these webhooks, TransMail also offers you elaborate reports of your emailing performance. You can track opens, clicks, unsubscribes, bounces, etc. in real-time.
TransMail Pricing
Apart from features and efficiency, another characteristic that Zoho excels in is pricing. The same is the case with the pricing of TransMail.
Although, unlike any other Elastic Email competitors, TransMail does not offer any free plan. But it does offer a free trial. In this free trial, you will be awarded 1 credit. And, with this single credit, you will be able to send up to 10,000 transactional emails for free.
TransMail Pricing
As you can tell now, 1 credit in TransMail = 10,000 emails. And, each credit is valid for 6 months from the purchase date.
Naturally, it also means that Zoho only offers “Pay As You Go” plans for TransMail. Once your free credit is expired, you can acquire new credits at the cost of $2.5 (or INR 150) per credit. In simple terms, you get 10,000 emails per $2.5 (or INR 150).
6. SMTP2GO
SMTP2GO according to me is one of the most underrated SMTP services. Despite its low popularity, it is providing top-notch emailing services to marketers, bloggers, business owners, and SaaS developers. You have guessed it right, SMTP2GO allows you to send transactional as well as marketing emails with its SMTP servers. Hence, it qualifies to be one of the best Elastic Email alternatives.
One thing to note here is that SMTP2GO is purely a SMTP service. For creating email templates, you’d have to employ third-party software. Regardless of this drawback, I assure you that if you use SMTP2GO, you will be blown away by its email delivery. Furthermore, the team at SMTP2GO claims to be constantly evolving the emailing technology and standards used in the software.
Features That Make SMTP2GO The Best Elastic Email Alternative
- SMTP2GO has an extensive network of data centers spread across the globe. This ensures that if you are sending bulk emails, all of your emails are sent at a lightning fast speed despite major internet outages.
- To ensure that your emails land in the inbox rather than the spam folder, SMTP2GO also authenticates your domain by adding SPF and DKIM records in your DNS settings. It also helps you stay off the blacklists.
- In addition to simple SMTP relay configuration, SMTP2GO also offers email APIs. The API is available in five different development languages and is supported by detailed documentation.
- This SMTP service provider also automatically handles your suppression requests. So if your subscribers unsubscribe, mark your email as spam, or bounces, SMTP2GO will never send any emails to them again. Additionally, you also get real-time reports of your email performance.
- It is the only application mentioned in this blog that offers you the ability to test your emails against major spam filters. In addition to this, SMTP2GO also enables you to view how your emails would look in 40 different email clients.
SMTP2GO Pricing
If you are looking for a free Elastic Email alternative, SMTP2GO is yet another option for you. It offers a forever free method that allows you to send 1,000 emails/month for free.
For more monthly emailing volume, dedicated IP addresses, and different types of support options, you’d have to subscribe to its premium plans. These plans are available at monthly and yearly subscriptions.
SMTP2GO Pricing
Free Plan – As said earlier, you’d get 1,000 free emails in a month, forever.
Starter – This plan has two sub tier of pricing and offers 30 days of reporting –
- 10,000 emails/month – $10/month
- 40,000 emails/month – $15/month
- Professional – In this plan, you’d get higher emailing volume and dedicated IP address. It has four sub tiers of pricing –
- 100,000 emails/month – $75/month
- 250,000 emails/month – $170/month
- 500,000 emails/month – $280/month
- 1,000,000 emails/month – $520/month
- Premier – To be able to send more than 3,000,000 emails in a month, the SMTP2GO team asks you to get a custom pricing quote.
Which Is The Best Alternative To Elastic Email? – The Verdict
After exploring all the Elastic Email alternatives, I hope that you have found a reliable replacement.
If you still haven’t found what you have been looking for, I would suggest you sign up for their free trials. Most of the emailing and SMTP services offer a generous free plan.
Hopefully, after using the software, you’d be able to make a better decision.
But if you want to skip this process and are looking to jump straight to the best option then I would suggest you go with either Sendinblue or MailerSend.
Both the services are very experienced and offer better features, usability, email deliverability than Elastic Email.