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With so many email marketing services to choose from, it seems like a good idea to specialize in something and do it really well. So perhaps the fact that Omnisend specifically focuses on email marketing for online stores is a big point in their favor. Let’s dive in and take a closer look at Omnisend to see if that’s the case.
Launched in Lithuania in 2014 under the name of Soundest, Omnisend has come a long way in recent years. They now employ over 200 people and cater to over 125,000 ecommerce brands.
With a rating of 4.7/5 on the Shopify app store, we knew Omnisend was popular among Shopify users. We even ranked it as the top email marketing service for Shopify. But how does it do overall? And what do you need to know before signing up?
Review Summary
Omnisend is an email marketing solution directed toward ecommerce users, we even awarded it our 2025 Best Email Marketing Tool for Ecommerce. It offers a free plan that comes with all features and its paid plans start at $16/month for an unlimited contact list and contact reach of up to 500 per month.
Note that if you’re an existing Klaviyo customer looking to migrate, Omnisend will take care of the migration for free! Check out the offer here. You can also take advantage of a 15% discount for the first 3 months, using code EMAILTOOLTESTER15 (can’t be combined with other promotional offers).
Pros and Cons
Pros
Cons
Pros
Ecommerce centered
If you have an online store, Omnisend is a great choice. It integrates seamlessly with all popular ecommerce platforms, and the email editor includes unique features like their product picker, scratch cards, and gift boxes. Recent updates also allow for greater control over sales attribution across multiple channels.
Free plan includes all features
Though Omnisend’s free plan has a very limited sending allowance, it does come with advanced features, and you can store unlimited contacts.
Automation
You’ll save tons of time and no doubt see your revenue increase with its range of automation workflows. There are plenty of triggers, filters and conditions to choose from and the editor is really easy to use.
Sales tracking
This is available for email, SMS and push notifications. Web-tracking filters make it possible to segment your users by the pages and products they have or have not looked at. Users can now access more detailed engagement reports and lifecycle maps to track customer retention.
SMS marketing
SMS marketing can be very important for ecommerce brands. With Omnisend, users can text to join your list, really simplifying the opt-in process. Omnisend supports all international country dialling codes.
Cons
Limited integrations
All the main ecommerce platforms are there, but it’s missing key integrations with platforms such as GoogleAnalytics and CRM software.
Deliverability
Omnisend may require a little extra effort to achieve excellent deliverability rates. It’s essential to follow deliverability best practices.
Only available in English
Those looking for a multi-language platform will need to look elsewhere.
Is Omnisend the right newsletter service for you?
Recommended if:
Not recommended if:
You have an online store
There’s no doubt that Omnisend is a great email newsletter platform for online store owners, especially those on Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Magento, OpenCart, Drupal Commerce, or Volusion, as Omnisend has a direct integration.
You’re serious about ecommerce automation
Aside from abandoned cart automation, you’ll have templates for cross-selling, customer reactivation, transactional emails, and order follow-up. These will save you plenty of time and no doubt lead to more conversions.
You want modern designs
Omnisend comes with about 350 attractive email templates and a number of cool form designs. They’ve just added a variety of modern holiday forms to the mix so that you can add seasonal discount popups to your store.
You want to check your performance against that of industry peers
Using the last 30 days of brand data, the health check feature uses contextual benchmarks and evaluates your brand’s overall performance compared to its industry peers in each of the following areas: Customer retention, Campaigns, Workflows, Cart abandonment, and Sign-up forms.
You need advanced tracking
Though the reports offer a good amount of data (including revenue generated), you won’t be able to see where your subscribers are based.
You need a higher sending allowance but don't want to pay
500 emails a month to 250 subscribers isn’t very much. You’ll find other free email marketing services offer much more generous sending allowances.
Rating Details
Ease of Use
Omnisend is pretty easy to use. It has a clean, modern interface design and everything works smoothly. Recent updates have enhanced the platform’s usability – smoother navigation, clearer reports, and helpful error messages for forms and deliverability.
Editor Info popup
The drag-and-drop editor makes featuring your store products and their prices easy. You can use the “product picker” to seamlessly drag your e-commerce items into your email template. The ‘Quick Add’ section speeds up editing by providing easy access to your most-used content blocks. You can also duplicate blocks and sections, streamlining your workflow even further.
The color picker now includes a wider selection of preset brand colors, helping customers to achieve design consistency across campaigns. Additionally, AI-powered tools like the built-in text assistant help refine grammar and assist with copywriting, making the email creation process smoother than ever.
Personalization Info popup
Omnisend has added email personalization options in the form of a drop-down to every input field (e.g. links, buttons etc.). This lets you personalize just about everything easily. The only thing that is more complicated is conditional personalization (if/then/else rules).
What’s more, you can decide what you show on different devices. You can show a specific item for mobile or desktop users by clicking on the “Layout” tab and scrolling down to “Display settings”.
Email types Info popup
All email types are available: Classic newsletters, autoresponders, A/B testing, recurring newsletters (e.g. birthday emails), SMS, push notification and advanced automation.
Choice and Flexibility of Template Designs Info popup
There are about 350 mobile-responsive templates available across all plans. These are very modern and work especially well for ecommerce. There are various themes you can choose from that change the color palette of your email.
You can also create your own HTML design by importing the code or pasting it in.
You can also use the “Manage your brand” option to upload your company logo and colors so that they are automatically added to your emails and in line with your branding.
Email Marketing Automation Info popup
A number of automation workflow templates are available. Omnisend’s automation features are especially good for those with online stores on platforms such as Shopify. There are plenty of options related to triggers, filters and conditions, and automations can include SMS and push notifications. A/B testing is also possible.
Another great update: you can now restore deleted workflows within 90 days — so if you accidentally delete something, there’s no need to panic – the new undo button has got you covered.
List Management Info popup
You can create lists by tagging contacts. To remove them from the list simply remove the tag. If you unsubscribe a contact, this is from all lists. There are tons of filters you can use for segmentation, e.g. contact field criteria, behavior (clicks, reads, purchases, etc.). When setting up your segments, suggestions that are most commonly used with your chosen event are offered, which saves you time. You can also set up an automation to tag a contact when they perform a specific action like viewing your pricing page, purchasing a product, etc. Users can opt in to receive SMS from you by simply texting a keyword. An Email List Cleaning solution scans contacts with subscribed and non-subscribed statuses and gives you recommendations to optimize your audience. This is priced at $0.20 per 100 contacts and a minimum of 0,50¢ per clean.
Registration Forms/ Opt-in & Opt-out- Process Info popup
Omnisend offers a variety of form templates, including seasonal options, with a drag-and-drop builder for easy customization. Forms are automatically added to your store and can be displayed based on device type, time on page, exit intent, or scroll depth. New multi-step forms make data collection smoother, and contact tagging can be set directly within the builder for signup forms, cross-selling, and promotions.
Recent updates include advanced scheduling for precise start and end times, auto-disabling countdown timers, and a customizable Wheel of Fortune, where users can adjust slice colors, add images or text, and remove losing slices.
Deliverability Info popup
Users have previously complained about vague error messages relating to domain verification issues. Given how crucial SPF and DKIM are, it’s surprising that clearer error messaging wasn’t introduced sooner. However, recent updates to deliverability reports now offer better insights and troubleshooting guidance. Hopefully, this improved error messaging should help users quickly identify and resolve deliverability-related issues.
Reports and Analysis
Email analytics are cleanly laid out and easy to read. They include click map, open/click rate, revenue, unsubscribed and issues. With the ability to track geo-location, you can translate the language of your emails, send your campaigns during your customer’s time zone, national holidays and more. With Omnisend, you can track your sales on the following channels: email, SMS, push notifications. A new feature gives users a lifecycle map, highlighting which contacts need nurturing, are at risk, are loyal customers, etc. You’ll also gain access to a customer retention report.
Languages Info popup
Only available in English.
Omnisend now provides translations for default texts in campaigns, automation, and forms such as unsubscribe messages, etc. Users can set their preferred language in Store Settings > Language & Translations and apply translations to campaign messages. However, keep in mind custom text still requires manual translation.
Spam- and Design-Testing Info popup
You can preview your email campaign on desktop and mobile and send a test email. The Dynamic Preview feature lets users see how emails appear with actual contact data for both campaigns and automations. However, despite its name, it’s fairly basic— it’s still not possible to see how your emails will appear on specific email clients. Spam testing is also still not available.
On the bright side, pardon the pun – Omnisend has recently introduced a dark mode preview, which enables you to check how your emails display in two modes: full dark mode and partial dark mode. It’s a useful addition, helping to make sure your emails look good across these different settings.
Bounce Management Info popup
Hard bounces are shown in reports. If the emails to the same subscriber are soft-bounced three times in a row, Omnisend counts it as a hard bounce and does not send any emails to this address anymore.
Blocklist Info popup
If you don’t want to send emails to contacts in a specific segment and the one you’re sending to, you can do that by using the ‘exclude segment’ option. For eg. You can send an email to US customers, but not to those who didn’t open previous emails.
Storage available for data and images
Unlimited
No limit on quantity of stored images. Max size of uploaded images is 5 MB.
Authentication Info popup
SPF, DKIM and DMARC.
Own Domain Info popup
Available on Pro plan.
Different levels of account access Info popup
Levels are as follows: content creator, campaign coordinator, analyst, manager, admin and owner.
Integrations
Omnisend integrates with all the popular ecommerce platforms: Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce (WordPress), Magento, OpenCart, Drupal Commerce, Volusion. Integration with Facebook Lead Ads allows you to pass leads collected from Facebook & Instagram to Omnisend. Other types of integrations are limited, but you can always fallback on Zapier.
Landing Page Builder Info popup
Limited designs. The free plan allows for unlimited landing pages.
Customer Support
24/7 email and chat support is available on the Standard plan and access to email support is on the free plan. The support agents are friendly and do their best to help you. A detailed knowledge base is also available. Another plus is that you’ll have access to free online courses within the Omnisend Academy. On top of this, Omnisend hosts and records webinars and events to help you learn the ins and outs of the tool.
Overall rating
4.1
Omnisend has a great deal to offer email marketers with its wide range of advanced features. We hope to see spam and design testing features added in the near future, as well as a stronger deliverability rate.
A More Detailed Look at Omnisend’s Top Features
As you can see from what we’ve already covered in this review, the Omnisend email marketing solution offers a good range of pro features for ecommerce marketers. Let’s break those down and assess what works and what could be improved:
Omnichannel Marketing
Omnisend is an omnichannel marketing automation platform, meaning you can retarget your audiences with the right message at the right time.
It means a seamless customer experience across all touchpoints (e.g. web, mobile, social media, customer service, etc.)
While multichannel marketing uses all these channels individually, omnichannel marketing goes much further. It integrates those channels, so the messages you send to your customers are customized to their current buying stage.
A good example would be a customer who added an item to their shopping card, abandoned it and later received an email reminder about the missed purchased as well as a retargeting ad on Instagram.
An email marketing strategy that involves various channels is the key to success for many ecommerce businesses, so being able to set this up through Omnisend’s omnichannel software is a big plus.
Google Customer Match allows you to sync your segments and continue engaging with this audience across Google Search, Shopping, Gmail and YouTube.
You can do the same with Facebook Customer Audiences, using social media campaigns to retarget your audiences across Facebook & Instagram.
The great thing is that this feature is included on all Omnisend plans, even the free one. Typically, these kinds of features would be reserved for higher-tier plans, so this is a big advantage to using Omnisend.
Ecommerce Automation
Automating your email campaigns with personalized messages is key if you want to increase customer engagement and sales.
Ecommerce businesses will be happy to hear that Omnisend does an excellent job of ecommerce-specific automation.
You can filter the automated email workflows by type (welcome, abandoned cart), goal (build loyalty) or channel (email/SMS), and there are plenty of templates to choose from.
Note that all the templates are catered toward ecommerce business requirements, so you may be missing some more content-based automation templates. If you’d like to learn more about how to implement these workflows and other automation features, you can check out our detailed guide on getting started with Omnisend.
We compared the automation features against other marketing automation software and found it to be very good value for money. For example, split automations are something some providers reserve for higher-paying customers, whereas Omnisend includes this feature on all plans.
Customer Lifecycle Map
Omnisend’s Customer Lifecycle Map is a handy report that uses AI to sort your email subscribers into different segments based on how much they spend, how often they buy, and when they last made a purchase:
This helps you figure out who your best customers are, and who might be slipping away. Once you know this, you can send them messages that suit them better and encourage them to shop with you more.
You can use these groups in your email campaigns and automatic messages. Omnisend even gives you ideas on how to keep each group interested with retention strategies specific to their stage:
But here’s the trick: It works best when you have at least 100 customers, and around 5-7% of them have bought from you recently. That way, Omnisend can really tell who’s who. If you have fewer customers or fewer recent buyers, it will make guesses based on general rules, not your store’s unique data.
Overall, it’s a unique feature that we can’t say we’ve seen in many other email marketing services, empowering you to personalize your campaigns based on what may arguably be the most critical factor: your customers’ spending habits.
SMS Messaging
Omnisend allows you to send SMS messages on all plans. In fact, a certain allowance is included at no extra cost, whereas other email marketing and SMS tools will require you to buy credits on top of your paid plan.
If you need more than the free allowance, you can purchase additional credits at a very reasonable price. For example, if you’re sending to the US, each SMS will cost you $0.015.
Brevo does offer SMS sending slightly cheaper at €10 for 1,000 SMS, however, you’d be missing all the niche ecommerce features that Omnisend comes with.
Omnisend Reviews
In May 2024, Shopify announced the end of their reviews app. Suddenly, thousands of ecommerce store owners were unable to collect or publish customer reviews. Fortunately, Omnisend offers an alternative. In my opinion, it’s even better than Shopify’s discontinued software. For one thing, customers can add up to 5 images per review- Shopify Reviews didn’t allow any.
I tested Omnisend Product Reviews in my Shopify store, and was pleased to find that setup was very simple.
Omnisend walks you through these steps:
Adding the Omnisend Product Reviews widget to your store’s theme (you can choose where on the page you want reviews to appear)
Importing reviews from Shopify (or another reviews app)
Setting up an automation to ask customers for a review after purchase
In one click you can activate a marketing automation to collect reviews in Omnisend
Omnisend also integrates reviews seamlessly with email, SMS, push notifications, automation, and segmentation. That means you can highlight top reviews in your emails, retarget based on star ratings, or create automations triggered by customer feedback—all within Omnisend.
Review collection is unlimited on all plans, though the number of published reviews depends on your pricing tier. On the free plan, for example, you can publish up to 50 reviews per month. Due to high demand, Omnisend also added a review export feature, making it easier to analyze feedback and track trends.
Omnisend Migration Services
When it comes to switching to Omnisend, they offer dedicated migration support for users on their $400/month plan or higher, which usually covers moving at least 45,000 contacts. And if you’re currently using Klaviyo and it’s either too pricey or just not cutting it for you, Omnisend might be a great alternative – they even offer free migrations for Klaviyo users. What’s really cool is that Omnisend can help you recreate your automations, which is something many other platforms don’t offer.
AI Features
Omnisend has introduced a modest range of AI-powered tools to assist with email creation and campaign optimization, all available on the free plan. As we mentioned above, the email builder features an AI assistant, which can continue writing from where you left off, paraphrase your text, or improve grammar. This is a pretty helpful feature for when writer’s block strikes mid-email creation.
Omnisend also provides a basic subject line generator, which suggests subject lines based on entered keywords. While it is useful, we think it would benefit from additional customization options, such as the ability to adjust tone or refine suggestions.
On the ecommerce side, Omnisend can now personalize recommended products in emails with items that customers have previously viewed or purchased.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, the fact that Omnisend focuses specifically on email marketing for ecommerce is a big point in their favor.
Specializing in the ecommerce area means that what it offers online store owners is tailored to their needs and is done well.
You’ll find a host of ecommerce automation workflows at your disposal as well as advanced segmentation, transactional emails and SMS marketing campaigns. The email template designs are also very attractive and modern.
It’s also attractively priced if we compare it to similarly positioned newsletter services such as ActiveCampaign and Klaviyo. You should be aware of one difference, though. Omnisend limits the number of emails you can send per month – it works out at 12 emails you can send each contact. ActiveCampaign, for example, includes unlimited emails. However, you should consider whether it’s indeed necessary to send more than 12 emails in a month to a single contact.
Data storage, albeit on U.S. servers, is in compliance with the “EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework,” a provision that should be noted could potentially be repealed in the future, as has happened with previous frameworks.
Omnisend offers a suite of tools to help you ensure that your email marketing meets GDPR standards.
Take care not to use features that might violate EU rights, for example, monitoring your website visitors’ behavior without first securing their consent.
If GDPR compliance is a priority for you, you might consider Brevo or MailerLite, as they store your contacts’ data on servers within the European Union.
It depends on the use case, as both have their own limitations and advantages. Find out more in our Omnisend vs Mailchimp guide.
Omnisend does have dedicated IPs and those are usually free of charge, but not everyone can get them. They provide dedicated IPs upon request and if certain criteria are met (for volume, practice, performance metrics).
The simplest way is to add Omnisend from Shopify Market Place and register your Omnisend account from ‘Shopify admin’.
There’s no need to worry, as Omnisend is a legit email marketing tool for small businesses, and more specifically, for online store owners. Rest assured that your customer data will be safely stored in their data storage centers.
GetResponse is a powerful alternative to Omnisend with good automations, landing pages and a unique autofunnel feature. Unlike Omnisend, GetResponse’s platform is available in more than 20 languages, and you can track email clients and geo-location.
ActiveCampaign stands out for being one of the platforms with smarter automations. They are not only very powerful, but also straightforward to use.
MailerLite is for those who need an easy-to-use, affordable email marketing tool.
Hey, I'm Roberta! Having worked as a digital marketer for a host of online businesses, I've tried, tested, fallen in love with and despaired with so many marketing tools. I'm excited to help you find the email marketing and CRM tools you need to thrive. I know the ins and outs of tools like Brevo, MailerLite, and Hubspot, so let me know if you need help picking the right one!
Hi there! I’m Sarah Baxter. I opened my first online shop way back in 2009, and have been developing my own ecommerce websites since then. I’ve had countless hours of first-hand experience using online tools to build my business. I’ve learned a lot along the way, and my goal is to share that knowledge with other small business owners here at EmailTooltester.
30 Jan 2025 - General update
21 Jan 2025 - Discount code updated
17 Jan 2025 - Smaller updates and corrections
21 Aug 2024 - Added Omnisend video
31 Jul 2024 - Updated numbers and features
17 Jul 2024 - Pricing updates (increases for higher volumes)
11 Jul 2024 - Added review of the Omnisend Customer Reviews feature
05 Feb 2024 - Updated deliverability results
06 Nov 2023 - Added information about Customer Lifecycle Map
27 Oct 2023 - Pricing update
25 Aug 2023 - Information about GDPR compliance added
07 Aug 2023 - Updated discount
18 July 2023 - Deliverability section edited
18 Jul 2023 - Omnisend vs Klaviyo video added
22 May 2023 - Form builder update
04 May 2023 - Small updates
18 Apr 2023 - Smaller updates
16 Mar 2023 - New features added
01 Dec 2022 - New video review added
12 Sept 2022 - New small features added
03 Aug 2022 - Section on Omnisend's top features added
27 Jul 2022 - General update
07 Jun 2022 - Updated form builder
16 May 2022 - New small features added
10 May 2022 - Deliverability reports added
28 Apr 2022 - You can now use Omnisend without an online store
25 Apr 2022 - Deliverability rating decreased slightly
21 Apr 2022 - Note about web tracking added
17 March 2022 - Note about legitimacy added
08 March 2022 - General update
18 Jan 2022 - General update
09 Nov 2021 - General update
16 Sept 2021 - Prices updated
08 Jul 2021 - New features and FAQs added
Our Methodology
This review has been written and researched following our EmailTooltester methodology.
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