MailerLite vs SendGrid
Trying to choose between MailerLite vs SendGrid as your email marketing software? Here's when to choose each tool – and the pros and cons to know about.
- 4.4 TrustPilot
- 4.7 Capterra
- 4.7 G2
Average 4.6 / 5
MailerLite
MailerLite is an all-in-one email marketing platform that allows you to create newsletters, landing pages, and even websites using pre-made templates. It has 100+ integrations with other platforms and a recurring payment feature for paid newsletters.
Pricing
Free plan, dynamic paid plans depending on the features and the contact list size start from $9/month billed yearly.
Key features
- Drag-and-drop email editor with an AI writing assistant
- No-code website, blog, and landing page builder
- iPad subscriber app for generating leads on offline events
- Paid newsletter subscription
- Automated sequences
- Integrations with online stores
- Email verifier
Support
24/7 email and live chat support
- 1.4 TrustPilot
- 4.2 Capterra
- 4 G2
Average 3.2 / 5
SendGrid
SendGrid is a cloud-based platform for transactional and marketing emails.
Pricing
Starting at $15/month, dynamic pricing, depends on the number of emails sent monthly and the contact list volume.
Key features
- Email automation
- Email builder with templates
- Email testing
- A/B testing
- Signup forms
- List management
- Dynamic content in emails
Support
Web form tickets, Twitter DMs, live chat support for paid users, phone support for users on Pro/Advanced plans and higher
General info about company
MailerLite
MailerLite was founded in 2005 as a web design agency but then switched to email marketing. The company is remote-first, with employees in 40 countries.
SendGrid
SendGrid is based in Denver, Colorado, and it was founded in 2009. In 2019, the company was acquired by Twilio, the service for customer communications and data storage.
Difficulty
MailerLite
No coding or design skills are required to create emails and web pages. The platform also offers an extensive knowledge base with tutorials, which makes it beginner-friendly.
SendGrid
SendGrid may require technical expertise to set up and start working, so it’s not 100% beginner-friendly.
Best for
MailerLite
E-commerce, freelancers, small businesses
SendGrid
Entreprises and tech companies
Free plan
MailerLite
A generous forever free plan with a limit of 1 user, 1,000 contacts, and 12,000 monthly emails. The free plan includes:
- Email editor and automation builder
- Website builder and 10 templates for landing pages
- Sign-up forms and pop-ups
- 24/7 email and chat support for the first 30 days
SendGrid
SendGrid offers a free plan with a limit of up to 2,000 contacts and 6,000 emails sent per month. The free plan includes:
- Design & code editors
- Segmentation
- A/B testing & actionable insights
- 3 email testing credits
- 1 signup form
- Ticket support
- 1 user
- Automation
Pricing
MailerLite
Growing business:
- $9-205/month billed yearly, depending on the number of subscribers, with a limit of 50k contacts at the highest price
- Unlimited emails and 24/7 support
- Includes extra features like dynamic emails, selling digital products, blogs, and an unsubscribe page builder
- 3 users available
Advanced:
- $19-1,600/month billed yearly, with a limit of 500k contacts at the highest price
- An email limit if you have more than 50k subscribers, up to 6 million, depending on the number
- Includes features like custom HTML editor, AI writing assistant, Facebook integration, promotion pop-ups, and more
- Unlimited users
Entreprise:
- Depends on the scope of work
- Only available for businesses with 100k and more subscribers
- Includes the services of a dedicated success manager, onboarding, account audit, and dedicated IP and deliverability consultation
SendGrid
Dynamic pricing, depends on the number of contacts, emails sent per month, the number of users, and the set of platform features:
Basic: $15–200/month, 5–100K contacts, up to 300K emails per month. Includes:
- Design & code editors
- Segmentation
- A/B testing & actionable insights
- 10 email testing credits
- 5 signup forms
- Ticket & chat support
- 1 user
Advanced: $60–900/month, up to 200K contacts and 1 million emails/month. Unlike the Basic plan, it includes:
- 60 email testing credits
- 15 signup forms
- Up to 1,000 users
The plan also unlocks access to:
- Automation
- Dedicated IPs
- Guaranteed response times on ticket, chat, & phone support
Custom: Custom pricing for high-volume sending over 200K contacts and 1 million emails/month.
Support
MailerLite
Customer support is available 24/7 via email and live chat — however, it’s only available for 30 days on the free plan. Users can also hire experts in email marketing, copywriting, no code development, and more.
MailerLite also offers an extensive Customer Self-Service Center. It includes:
- A large categorized knowledge base, that includes articles about troubleshooting most common issues
- Video tutorials
- A Circle community where users can communicate with each other
- A free ML Academy with 5 free online courses about MailerLite and email marketing
SendGrid
Support is available 24/7 in English via the following channels:
- Twitter DMs and web form tickets — for all users
- Live chat support — for paid users
- Phone support — for paid users on Advanced email marketing plan/Pro API plan and custom high-volume plans
SendGrid also provides a knowledge center for marketers and developers with screenshots and video tutorials. Articles in the knowledge base are partially translated to French, Japanese, Portuguese (Brazil), German, and Spanish (Mexico). The videos are only available in English.
Features
MailerLite
- Email marketing automation
- Sign-up forms
- Landing pages
- Website builder
- Blog builder
- Email verifier
- Transactional emails
- Click maps
- The ability to sell digital products like e-books and online courses
- Setting up a paid subscription for emails
SendGrid
- Email marketing automation
- Signup forms
- List management
- Email editor: both no-code and code
- Email templates
- A/B testing
- Analytics
- Email testing
- Dynamic content
- Deliverability insights
Templates
MailerLite
70+ templates for newsletters:
- Blog digests
- Events
- Holiday emails
- Featured product
- Notifications
- Surveys and quizzes
- Deals and offers
- Emails for creative professionals
40+ templates for landing pages:
- For bloggers
- For creative professionals
- Events
- Surveys and quizzes
- Coming soon
- Celebrations
- Books
- Non-profits
18 website templates for different industries and purposes:
- Business
- E-commerce
- Education
- Events
- Food and drinks
- Portfolio
- Wellness
SendGrid
60+ free templates for different campaign types and industries, including:
- Healthcare
- Traveling
- E-commerce
- Non-profits
- Emails for small businesses
SendGrid also offers templates for:
- Welcome emails
- Holiday emails
- Promotional emails
- Newsletters
- Transactional emails (i. e. order confirmation, shipping confirmation, etc.)
Some of these templates contain dynamic content.
Video/screenshots
MailerLite
SendGrid
Integrations
MailerLite
139 integrations with services for CRM, loyalty programs, e-commerce, project management, surveys, and more.
SendGrid
100+ integrations with other ESPs like Klaviyo and Litmus, CRM systems like AgileCRM, content management systems like WordPress and Verst., and more.
Devices
MailerLite
-
MailerLite has a web app, an iOS app, and an iPad app only for subscribing leads on offline events.
SendGrid
A web app and an iOS app with limited functionality (management and troubleshooting only), you can find an APK for Android but it’s not an official release
Languages
MailerLite
English
SendGrid
English
Automation
MailerLite
- 15 automation recipes for welcome emails, abandoned cart, membership renewal, online courses, and more.
- Paid versions include an AI writing assistant powered by OpenAI that allows users to write marketing copies faster.
- Automated A/B testing for up to 3 workflow variations.
SendGrid
SendGrid offers a tool for building custom automated sequences and a pre-built welcome series. The automation editor allows users to select entry criteria, enable and temporarily disable the sequence, set conditions, and add as many emails to the sequence as they want.
Pros
MailerLite
- A very simple and minimalist product that is good for beginners
- Many unique features like paid newsletters and selling digital goods
- Great customer support
- A lot of integrations available
- Easy migrations from other services
- Extensive video tutorial library for new users
SendGrid
- A solid transactional API
- Good choice of integrations
- Great testing tool
- Good for scaling businesses
Cons
MailerLite
- May come off as too simple for experienced marketers
- You need to get approval to start working with the service
- 2FA requires a third-party app instead of a phone number
- Stripe integration can be troublesome
- Confusing categories in the interface
- Outdated documentation at times
SendGrid
- Slow customer support
- Many reviewers complain about deliverability issues like blacklisted IPs
- Bugs like no 2FA emails to log in to the platform
- Could be more user-friendly
Reviews from experts
MailerLite
Great level of satisfaction in terms of the results we are obtaining in our campaigns, as well as how it is to work with MailerLite on a daily-basis. Also, very important to mention the amazing customer service provided. Always very quick, detailed and helpful. Message Factory couldn’t be any happier by working with MailerLite!
On the down side, MailerLite felt a bit unpolished at times. Things like the odd feature that was incomplete, or a tab that seemed to be in the wrong place – small things that slowly added up, resulting in a bittersweet experience.
MailerLite is great, and I’m sure it will only get better with time. It just fails to deliver an exceptional email marketing experience right now
SendGrid
SendGrid's email editor allows you to customize existing templates, build a new email newsletter with the drag-and-drop functionality, or code an email from scratch. You can customize the design of the email by changing attributes such as background color, text, and font, as well as add new content blocks, including buttons, images, texts, and snippets of code.
One of the most useful aspects of the email editor is the ability to add tags in the message, which allow you to add custom fields. This includes adding the recipient's name and location, date of last open, or any other information you collect on your subscribers, which enables a high level of personalization.
Sendgrid is a powerful email marketing tool that offers superior services to its customers. Sendgrid is a must-have tool for start-ups, eCommerce businesses, freelancers and corporates. One thing that separates Sendgrid from other email marketing tools is their scalability once our list grows. The free version of Sendgrid allows you to send 100 emails every day.
What I like most about Sendgrid is that most of the tools out there offer easy integration with Sendgrid. Some apps can even directly integrate with SendGrid without using automation software like Zapier.
*This information is current as of 02/13/2024. While we regularly update our articles, it`s possible that this article may not contain some of the latest information.
