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Describing themselves as ‘“An intelligent and easy-to-use tool” for successful campaigns, this French provider, also known as Sarbacane, serves over 10 000 small-to-medium companies, however, because of its price tag, Mailify’s target is clearly big companies and enterprises.
Mailify Sunrise, was a strong attempt to expand their reach back in the day. Packing in new features such as marketing automation, SMS, a modernized interface, and - perhaps most significantly - a web version of the application, turning itself into an ‘all-in-one marketing platform’. If you prefer, though, you can still manage all data locally (if you’re prepared to upgrade to the highest plan - Exclusive - and to fork out the cash) and switch off data upload to the cloud.
But how well does it deliver? And how does it compete against other more established tools in this space? We take a look in our review below.
Mailify screenshots
Mailify Pricing
Mailify price their service differently to other providers, which can be both a good and bad thing, depending on your requirements. Rather than charging based on the number of subscribers (these are unlimited), they instead charge a minimum fee based on the number of emails sent per month. If you go over that limit, you can purchase additional credits, or upgrade to a higher plan.
That makes it a little hard for us to compare it to the pricing of other tools. However, if we work off the assumption that you’ll only be sending one email a month to a relatively small list, that puts Mailify somewhere towards the higher end of the pricing scale. It gets more cost-effective when you’re sending larger volumes (25,000+ per month), although, in this case, its prices still sit in the mid-range.
The lowest plan, Essential, starts at $69 /month for up to 5,000 emails. If you compare this to Sendinblue’s lowest paid plan (10k emails/mo = $25), you see that it’s not so affordable.
A yearly discount is also available for all plans.
Unfortunately, you won’t be able to access their pricing information unless you sign up to their free trial, as they don’t display their prices openly, which is quite off-putting.
Pros and Cons
Unlimited contacts:
Mailify is one of the few newsletter tools that allow you to upload an unlimited number of recipients. On the flip side, pricing is charged based on the number of emails sent per month, and users will need to pay for a minimum of 5,000 emails.
Templates:
With over 100 modern, mobile-responsive templates to choose from, you should be able to find one that’s right for you
Form/contact fields:
Only a few basic fields come as standard. If you want to add a country field, for example, you have to do so manually.
Landing pages:
Adding forms to your landing pages isn’t the smoothest experience, as you can’t build them directly in the landing page builder. It would be nice to have this option as well as the import option.
Segmentation:
Though you can segment contacts based on a limited number of fields, viewing/accessing these segments is not very intuitive.
Pricing:
Our general impression is that you pay quite a lot for using Mailify, and don’t really get much in return – especially if you’re sending relatively small volumes of email a month. Tools like GetResponse and SendinBlue have similar pricing but offer way more in terms of features and performance.
Confusingly, there is a difference between the number of emails you can send on the monthly plan and the yearly one – the allowance changes from 5,000 to 60,000 emails!?
Bugs in the system:
When trying to change the settings, you are not allowed to leave the page until you have added your address.
Is Mailify the right newsletter service for you?
Recommended if:
You don’t have your own templates:
Mailify has some pretty decent-looking (and mobile-responsive) email templates, and a wide selection to choose from. Having a flexible and easy-to-use editor is a big plus, too.
You are a large company with a big budget:
Considering the price tag, we’d have issues recommending this service to smaller companies. Larger enterprises might find the offline data housing option useful, along with the dedicated coach and 3 dedicated IPs.
Not recommended if:
Your email volumes change from month to month:
With Mailify, you pay for a certain number of emails a month, which is different from most other providers, who charge based on how many contacts you have. If your email volumes fluctuate, it’s better to go for a tool that offers more predictable, subscriber-based pricing.
You need advanced list management and automations:
Mailify offers these features, but only at a basic level. If you need advanced options like automated segments and flexible email workflows, check out ActiveCampaign or GetResponse.
Rating details
| criterion | rating | comments |
|---|---|---|
Ease of Use |
| It’s relatively easy to navigate, though some items feel a little hidden. We like the dynamic transitions between screens, and the big, bold pop-ups that prompt you to confirm before making any major changes – very handy indeed! |
Newsletter Creation | ||
Editor |
| You can drag and drop elements, and there’s a lot of flexibility. For example, it lets you position text and buttons on images, and add different content elements you like to columns. Text is edited within the email, however, the formatting options sometimes obstruct part of the text you’re editing, which is very annoying. Navigating back and forth while creating a campaign (e.g. from contacts to editor) is easier than in a lot of other tools. |
Personalization | | Standard personalization (e.g. inserting first name) is available. There is a very simple ‘Generate title’ function where you can insert titles according to the assumed gender of contact (based on first name), but it’s not very accurate. |
Email types |
| Newsletters, HTML, plain text, A/B testing, automatic/triggered (birthdays, registrations etc.), SMS |
Choice and Flexibility of Template Designs |
| There are around 100 templates to choose from, all of which are mobile-responsive. Apart from being able to change elements, they can also be edited for different layouts and color schemes. |
Email Marketing Automation |
| They include multi-path workflows that allow you to send emails based on triggers like email clicks, page views, abandoned cart and bounces. However, it’s still not possible to build more complex workflows involving tags and segments. |
List Management |
| While it does have a useful feature of autocorrecting email addresses upon upload, the list management options are quite basic. And while you can create ‘targeting’ groups within lists based on contact fields (equivalent to segments), it’s way too complicated to access them. |
Registration Forms/ Opt-in & Opt-out- Process |
| There are options to create subscription forms (where you can enable double opt-in), invitation/event registration forms, and surveys, which are all customized in the visual editor. You can also have forms displayed as a standalone page, embed them on your site, or have them appear as a pop-up. While fields can be added and customized, only a handful come as standard. |
Deliverability |
| Unfortunately, Mailify didn’t do so great in our deliverability tests back in 2019. We’d advise you to monitor this. |
Reports and Analysis |
| You have your standard reporting available, plus more advanced reports like geotracking, heatmaps, reading time, devices used and email clients. However, we found there was a bit of a lag with opens and clicks data getting updated. While integration with Google Analytics is available, there’s no social media, conversion or ecommerce tracking. |
Languages |
| Mailify is available in 5 languages, although confusingly, the French version is only available as a separate tool (Sarbacane). |
Further Features | ||
Spam- and Design-Testing |
| Spam testing is available (using Spam Assassin), however design testing isn’t. |
Bounce Management | | Bounced email addresses can be manually added to the bounce list, and hard bounces are also automatically added by Mailify upon each campaign send. |
Blocklist | | Import and export both available. You can create multiple blocklists to exclude from campaigns |
Storage available for data and images | Unlimited | There doesn’t seem to be an overall limit for storage, but per campaign, a 5 MB limit for images applies. |
Pro Features | ||
Authentication | | SPF, DKIM and DMARC are supported. |
Own Domain | | This is possible. You can also order a domain name through Mailify directly on the Premium plan. |
Different levels of account access | | This is available, but you need to use ‘user credits’. You can set different levels of access, enable/disable campaign sending, and also set maximum credits for email/SMS. |
Integrations | | Google Analytics, Magento, WordPress and PrestaShop. There are also APIs and webhooks enabling you to connect to your own systems. |
Landing Page Builder | | You can create ‘landing pages’, with options for responsive or mobile-only pages. Something slightly confusing – you can’t add forms to these. Instead, you’d need to create a form and select the ‘dedicated page’ option, which isn’t as flexible in layout. There are only 3 templates available. |
Customer Support |
3/5 | Their knowledge base is adequate, but it’s missing a lot of internal links. Much of the content and videos also seem to relate to the older version of the tool, so it’s in need of an update. Email support is available, and responses usually come back within a few hours. Phone support is available. |
Overall rating |
3.4/5 | Mailify offers a good range of features, including a good amount of templates, marketing automation and useful analytics. However, list management and segmentation options are still a little basic, and user experience could be improved |
Conclusion
On paper, Mailify looks like a complete email marketing solution, with features that cater to many digital marketing needs – marketing automation, landing pages, forms, reporting, and even SMS. Packaged in a modern interface, it’s easy to be dazzled at first.
And we do have to say – in some areas, it does pretty well, for example, with their advanced reporting, complete with data on geolocation, devices and reading time.
However, it’s important to be aware that other features lack the sophistication of more well-known tools. Their automation, for example, could be a little more advanced, offering the option to use tags. And they should really simplify the process of setting up segments (‘targeted groups’) to make them easier to use. In fact, most of our other reviewed tools do a much better job here.
Their prices are significantly higher compared to other newsletter providers for those sending fewer than 10,000 emails per month. We’re not really sure how they can justify this, especially when more powerful tools like GetResponse and SendinBlue are similarly priced, or even offer a free plan, which Mailify doesn’t.
Mailify Alternatives
About Inka Wibowo
Latest Updates
7 Jan 2019 - Deliverability rating updated
11 Mar 2019 - Updates for new features
