Email Marketing Costs: Ways to Save Money

If you’re an entrepreneur, you know the importance of email marketing.

Email marketing is a good way to reach out to your audience and build relationships with them. It’s also cost-effective to build a list, save money on advertising expenses, and grow your business. 

But it can be expensive — especially if you’re just starting. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to save money on email marketing, so you don’t have to over-budget before reaching out to your target audience.

In this article, we’ll discuss ways to save money on your email marketing campaigns.

What Is The Average Price Of An Email Marketing Campaign? 

How much does email marketing cost?

An email marketing campaign can vary in cost depending on what’s included in the package. Still, you can use some general guidelines as a starting point.

A typical mid-size business will spend anywhere from $9 to $1,000 monthly rates on email marketing if they manage it themselves (it depends on the platform and the number of subscribers). Or if they hire and work with an agency, it could cost them up to $500 monthly rates.

Email Service Provider (ESP)

As email marketing becomes more popular, email service providers (ESP) have been created to help people capitalize on this trend.

Email service providers (ESP) allow business owners to send email newsletters and other informational or promotional emails to a list of their subscribers.

Most ESPs have quoted $100 – $200 per hour. You can expect to spend around an average of $2,500 monthly rates for ongoing service.

Here are two examples of what you can expect to spend on different types of email campaign packages:

• A basic email campaign (one-time only) where you send a email blast or mass email to your entire list can have an average cost of $150-$300;
• An ongoing email campaign (monthly or bi-monthly) where you sent out marketing campaigns regularly or send out a specific type of email (e.g., sale or product update) can have an average cost of $200-$400+ each month.

What Factors Contributes To The Cost Of Email Marketing?

It’s not a simple matter of how much you want to spend. Many factors go into the cost of email marketing. The cost of email marketing is often a huge barrier for businesses, especially small businesses.

So, what factors contribute to the cost of email marketing?

List Size & Quality 

The size and quality of your list are also key factors contributing to the cost of email marketing. You’ll pay more for a bigger list, and you’ll pay less for a smaller list. That’s because it costs more to send emails to 1,000 people than to send emails to 100 people.

Monthly Email Volume 

The number of emails you send each month is a major factor in determining your cost. The more emails you send, the higher your monthly costs will be. You will likely be charged a higher rate if you send out more than 500 emails per month. And if your email volume is under 100 per month, you will have a more budget-friendly price.

Features & Tools 

Features and tools are one of the factors that contribute to the cost of an email marketing plan. The more features you want in your email marketing service, the more expensive it will be.

Pre-design Email Templates

One factor contributing to the cost of email marketing is pre-design email templates.

Just like anything else you buy, you can expect to spend more when you buy something in bulk. The more email designed ahead of time, the less time and effort it takes for each customer to design their own email template.

With Sender, premade templates are totally free and never been included in the final price of our subscriptions. In fact, feel free to use them all with Free Forever plan.

Marketing Automation

Marketing automation is a cost many businesses choose to include in their email marketing strategy. 

It’s a service in software that helps you create and send customized emails to your customers and prospects automatically, based on time or event triggers, even when you’re not around.

Priority Customer Support

Priority customer support is one of the factors contributing to the cost of email marketing. It’s an option that some companies offer as part of their customer service offerings, while others make it part of their standard package.

Either way, when looking at how much any given business charges for email marketing services, it’s important to consider how quickly they’ll respond if you have an issue with your account or subscription.

Hidden Costs 

When considering the cost of email marketing, you have to factor in some hidden costs. For example, you might think that you only need to pay for the cost of an email marketing platform, but other costs come along with it. E.g. cheaper subscription holders are unable to use features, such as email automation, popup builder etc. 

Brand Recognition 

Brand recognition is a huge factor in the cost of email marketing.

The more well-known your brand is, the less likely you’ll need to spend money on advertising and promotion. On the other hand, if your company hasn’t been around for very long, it’s important to invest in advertising and promotion to get people’s attention.

Integrations 

Integrations are when you work with another service to bring in your subscribers or customers from them into your email lists. It allows you to use other services as a way to promote your brand and get their users more involved with your content. These can include social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Migration

Migration is a process of moving from one platform to another. It can be both good and bad for your campaign. If you have an existing list of clients, it will be easier for you to migrate them to a new email service provider. However, if you do not have an existing list of clients, then you need to spend money on building the list.

How to Plan and Budget Better?

How much is email marketing, and how can you plan and budget better?

Planning and budgeting are essential parts of email marketing. It helps you target your audience, find the right content, and spend your money wisely.

You should always start by planning how your campaign will work. Will it be a one-time thing? Or will it be an ongoing campaign? How many people will be involved in the campaign? What budget do you have for this? Are you working with an agency or freelancing on your own?

Once you’ve answered these questions, it’s time to make a budget. 

You’ll need to know how much each element of your campaign costs. 

• Do you need some graphics made? 
• Do you want someone to design an email template for you? 
• Is there someone who can help write copy or content for your emails? 
• How much are those services going to cost?

After that’s done, it’s time to create timelines. 

• When will things happen in terms of when the first email goes out and when the last one goes out? 
• How often will emails go out—once a week or once a month? 
• It’s important to be realistic about these timelines so that everyone knows what they’re working toward and when certain deliverables are expected.

This will help you keep your campaign on track.

Email Marketing Services Pricing

Email marketing services pricing is all about how much you’re willing to spend.

If you’re a small business, you might be able to get away with paying as little as $50 per month for a newsletter service and email list management tool. These services are typically geared toward small businesses and startups, but they also work well for many larger companies.

For bigger businesses, though, it can be harder to find affordable options. If your business has a high volume of emails sent every day or a large subscriber list, your best bet is probably going to be a paid service that offers enterprise-level features—options like advanced segmentation and more robust analytics tools.

Pricing varies widely depending on what kind of service you need and how much traffic your site gets each month. However, if you’re just starting out with email marketing, many free trials are available to try before buying!

Price Comparison Table Of 5 Providers

Here’s a table comparing the prices of five email marketing providers.

The Cost Of An Email Marketing Agency

The cost of an email marketing agency is based on a few factors. The first is the size of your business, and the second is how much you want to spend. If you’re just starting out, it’s a good idea to go with a smaller agency specializing in smaller businesses since they can provide more personal attention and get you up and running with a simple plan for less money.

However, if you have more resources at your disposal than most businesses do, you can find an agency that has more experience dealing with larger clients and will be able to offer all kinds of specialty services that smaller shops can’t offer.

Either way, expect to pay between $5-$10 per email sent. This will include everything from designing the template for your message to setting up the list of recipients so that it goes out at exactly the right time for each recipient—and it also includes making sure that all recipients see their messages as quickly as possible after they are sent out (in most cases less than 30 minutes).

FAQs

There are a lot of questions asked regarding email marketing costs. Here are some that are commonly asked.

How Much Does Email Marketing Cost Each Month?

For most mid-size businesses, email marketing costs somewhere between $9 and $1,000 each month if they manage their campaigns themselves—it depends on the platform and number of subscribers. Or if they hire an agency to handle it for them, it could cost up to about $500 a month.

How Much Does Mail Advertising Cost?

Mail advertising is a cost-effective way to get your message to customers. It can be a good way to communicate with new customers and grow your business.

But how much does mail advertising actually cost?

The amount you pay for mail advertising depends on several factors, including the size of your mailing list, the number of times you want to send out promotions, and where your company will send them. You’ll also need to consider whether you will use direct mail marketing services or if you’d rather handle things yourself.

What About Migration From One ESP to Another?

Migrating your email marketing campaigns from one ESP to another is actually pretty easy—if you know the right tools. For example, if you’re using MailChimp and want to transfer to Sender, there’s a handy “Campaign Transfer” tool that will do all the heavy lifting for you.

What Is The Average Cost Per Email? 

The average cost per email is a question that comes up a lot, but it’s not easy to answer. The reason is that so many factors determine your cost per email, including the number of emails you send, the subject line of each email, the length of each message, and more.

So here is a general guideline to help:

If you send fewer than 1 million emails per month, you will likely pay between $0.01 and $0.05 per email sent. If you send more than 1 million emails per month, on the other hand, the pricing will be lower.

Also read:

• 7 Best Email Marketing Companies in the USA

Author Bio:

Peter Keszegh is the founder of OnlinebizBooster, a digital marketing website, and blog. He authors in-depth guides that teach online biz owners ways to grow, manage and scale their business. When he is not doing all those, he loves trying out new things and discovering new places.

About author

Camilla Mackeviciute

Author

Sender

Camilla is the content wizard who weaves creativity and strategy into every piece she works on. Her expertise lies in crafting impactful content that drives results.