MailerLite Review (2023): Uncovering All Its Pros and Cons

• MailerLite Review
• MailerLite Tutorial

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MailerLite Screenshots

MailerLite Pricing

MailerLite is one of the more affordable email providers on the market.

The prices you see here refer to the Growing Business plan. They also have a higher tier called Advanced that adds unlimited account users, Facebook integration, promotion pop-ups and multiple automation triggers. For subscriber lists of 100k and more, they offer the Enterprise tier, where you get access to dedicated IP addresses and deliverability consultations.

If you’d like to learn more about their prices and plans, check our MailerLite pricing guide.

Pros and Cons

Is MailerLite the right newsletter service for you?

Rating Details

A More Detailed Look at MailerLite’s Top Features

As you can see from this MailerLite review, it offers a good range of features, and gains points for being so user-friendly. Let’s take a closer look at the pros and cons of its key features:

MailerLite Landing Page Builder

We’ve done extensive testing on MailerLite’s landing page builder, and recommend it very highly.

The fact that you can build and publish up to 10 landing pages for free is a big plus, especially when you consider just how expensive a dedicated landing page builder can be ($40-$90/month).

Note that if you wish to publish your page on a custom domain, you’ll need to move up to the Growing Business paid plan ($15/month).

So what’s so good about the MailerLite landing page builder? 

What’s not so good?

With the addition of features such as the ability to sell digital products and recurring subscriptions on top of the website and landing page builder, MailerLite is definitely heading towards all-in-one marketing platform territory.

MailerLite Templates

As I mentioned above, MailerLite’s paid plans come with 200+ landing page templates and 50 newsletter templates. And to access these, you’ll need to be on one of the paid plans.

It’s definitely disappointing that no templates are included for free, though you won’t actually be starting with a blank canvas. The screenshot below shows what you’ll be working with if you select ‘Start from scratch’ in the newsletter editor. I’d say, then, that the free plan actually includes one template to help get you started.

We rate MailerLite’s templates very highly, as they’re all responsive and were clearly made by experienced designers.

You can sort by category and edit the content with ease. You can also create your own template and save it for future use.

If you want to insert your own custom code or password protect your pages, you’ll need the Advanced plan ($21/month).

Drag and Drop Editor

The drag and drop interface is one of the best editors we’ve used (and we’ve tested a lot!). It’s fast and provides you with tons of content elements (video, testimonials, image carousels, quizzes, etc.) so you can make your campaigns as engaging as possible. Dynamic content means you can make your emails ultra-personalized, too.

Pros of Mailerlite’s Editor

Cons of Mailerlite’s Editor

List Management

MailerLite doesn’t limit the number of lists you can have, and this may be a key reason why Mailchimp users, for example, migrate to MailerLite.

There are two kinds of lists you can build with MailerLite: Segments and Groups.

Segments: This is a dynamic group. Each segment has at least one rule or condition that subscribers must meet to be part of this list. Once the rule is met, the subscriber is automatically added to the segment. This allows you to send targeted communications to those contacts who it’s most relevant to.

Groups: This is a static group. Think of these as interest groups. Here, you manually add and remove contacts, and they don’t need to meet any kind of criteria. One subscriber can be part of multiple groups.

An example for a (dynamic) segment in Mailerlite

Segmentation filters include if a subscriber has opened/clicked on a certain campaign, if they are in a particular time zone or have been inactive for a certain amount of time. These segments can be used in your marketing automation campaigns.

Subscriber Fields: An important limitation we found in MailerLite is that its database fields can only be text, number, or date fields. Unlike other email service providers, MailerLite does not offer dropdown fields or radio buttons, both of which make it easier to collect structured subscriber data.

Consider a scenario where you are collecting ‘Country’ information through a free-text field. This could lead to inconsistent entries such as ‘USA’ or ‘United States’. While both refer to the same country, the inconsistency hinders effective data segmentation.

ActiveCampaign (left) also offers dropdown fields, which MailerLite (right) doesn’t

So compared to pro email marketing tool ActiveCampaign, MailerLite’s list management tools are not as sophisticated. They are much easier to use, though.

Mailerlite Deliverability

We’ve included Mailerlite in our bi-annual deliverability tests over the last five years. We’ve found that MailerLite’s deliverability is consistently excellent, scoring 90% or above in most of the rounds. It’s clear this is an area MailerLite takes very seriously.

In our latest round, they came first place with an impressive 95.85% deliverability rate and an average of 95.4% over the last three rounds. Due to these impressive scores, we presented them with two awards – great job Mailerlite team! Here are some of the awards Mailerlite has won for email deliverability over the years:

Find out how Mailerlite performed over the years, and how it compares to other emailing services in our detailed deliverability analysis.

Conclusion

MailerLite really shines in the areas of user experience and simplicity, and it has enough features for the needs of most small businesses’ email marketing strategies.

Of course, being cheaper than a lot of other tools means that there are some drawbacks, for example, MailerLite’s automation capabilities are a little thin, and spam/design testing isn’t available.

We used to be big fans of their ‘Forever Free’ plan, but are a little disappointed that they’ve limited some of its features now, including access to email and landing page templates and the HTML editor. However, if you have fewer than 1,000 subscribers, it’ll do the job quite nicely.

MailerLite also sports a mobile app, though sadly, it’s only currently available on iOS. It allows you to create and schedule newsletters as well as checking your campaign stats.

Note that MailerLite is a little stricter on their approval process than other providers – you’ll need to make sure that your list collection and email sending practices are above board.

Basically, their excellent drag and drop editor and beautiful designs make MailerLite one of the best email marketing solutions for newsletter creation. So if that’s what you’re after, then you don’t need to look any further.

Try MaillerLite now for free for up to 1,000 recipients.

Check out our MailerLite tutorial for a quickstep guide on setting up your account.

Not enough high-quality contacts on your list? Check out our complete guide to how to build an email list.

Other tools by MailerLite include:

MailerCheck, their email verification tool to help you improve your deliverability

MailerSend, their transactional email service. Find out more here.

MailerLite Alternatives

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Brevo is one of the top MailerLite alternatives we recommend, offering great value for money. It’s available in 6 languages and comes with advanced automation options and a built-in CRM. The most important difference to Mailerlite is that Brevo charges based on your email volume rather than the number of subscribers you have in your database (there is no limit).

ActiveCampaign stands out for being one of the platforms with smarter automations – the options available to you are much more advanced than with MailerLite. They are not only very powerful, but also straightforward to use. Learn more about MailerLite vs ActiveCampaign in our guide.

GetResponse is a powerful alternative to MailerLite with loads of pro options (e.g. Conversion Funnel) and good automations. Unlike MailerLite, they offer their platform in more than 20 languages, and their design and testing tools are top-notch.

We also found MailerLite to be one of the top Mailchimp alternatives, as you can see in our MailerLite vs Mailchimp comparison. We also have an in-depth comparison to ConvertKit.

Still not sure which is the right newsletter tool for you? Try our Smart Finder.