Top or flop? We are testing seven email builders and newsletter kits

Newsletter design tested with Canva

Usability

Canva offers prefabricated templates for web, social media, print products and even newsletters, in which individual elements can be flexibly moved, copied and adapted. Overall, the tool looks modern and clear, the templates are sorted by categories.

The newsletter templates look appealing and offer a wide range of elements and animation effects. In addition to text and images, you can add shapes, icons, graphics, photos and videos. To do this, you can browse YouTube or Pixabay directly and integrate any artwork into your newsletter layout.

Results and export options

Canva users can create beautiful creative layouts for different marketing channels and purposes. The emphasis is on “layout,” because you can't generate HTML newsletters with Canva.

Canva offers a range of options for exporting and sharing the finished newsletter — including HubSpot, Mailchimp and Salesforce Pardot. But no matter which email program you want to use: the created newsletters can only be exported as image files (PNG, JPG, Gif or as a video) and can also only be inserted as images in an HTML framework in the respective email delivery tool.

This means that the layout and texts in the shipping tool can no longer be changed retrospectively. It is also possible to link only the complete images and not individual elements such as products or buttons. Text personalizations and individual content blocks cannot be created. And when recipients view the newsletters without loading the externally hosted images, they don't see any of the content at first.

On mobile devices, the entire layout is then scaled, which impairs the readability of the emails. Alternatively, you can download the layout as a PDF file and send it as an attachment in an email — but this definitely contradicts best practices in email marketing.

expenses

In our opinion, the free version of the tool is sufficient for individual marketers to design individual newsletters. If you want more, you can also get the Pro version for around 12 euros a month, which offers access to over 100 million premium photos, videos, elements and more. For companies, there is an extra corporate rate starting at 27 euros a month. Working in a team is possible at all rates.

Drag and drop email builder Designmodo put to the test

Usability

When you open the web-based application Designmodo Postcards You start automatically from an empty template. There are no designed templates where users only have to adjust colors, texts, etc. Instead, the individual elements such as headers, content, etc. are already structured and styled. In our test in the free version, however, we were only able to use very few pre-designed elements.

In the drag & drop editor, you can make global layout settings for background color, font, etc. as well as adjust individual elements with regard to colors, fonts, sizes, etc. The editing is not carried out in the template itself, but in the right editing column.

Overall, we find editing not very intuitive and the many individual adjustment steps can quickly increase the effort involved in creating newsletters. In addition, edited elements or finalized emails cannot be saved as templates: You therefore have to start from the beginning for every new email, even though the basic design should actually remain the same. We do not see any relief here for everyday newsletter production.

On the other hand, it is positive that individual parts such as headlines or texts can be flexibly hidden in elements and the result can be checked both in desktop and mobile views. The mailings are responsive; multi-column elements are sorted one below the other.

Export and connection to shipping tools

Postcards offers a 1-click export to some email service providers (ESP) such as Mailchimp, HubSpot, Marketo, Mailgun or Salesforce in the paid plan. You can also export the HTML code for mailings, and the images can either be downloaded or hosted online.

expenses

Postcards can also be used free of charge, but you have very limited options in the selection of elements here. The Business Plan costs around 16 euros per month (17 USD a month; 199 USD a year) and allows you to set up exports to email delivery tools as well as to create an infinite number of projects. However, the number of exports is limited to 20 per month. The agency account, which costs 28 euros (29 USD) per month, allows an unlimited number of exports and up to five users in the account. When working in a team, you can set whether a user can only see or edit the template.

Email Editor Dragit.io

Usability

The user interface of Dragit.io It is dark and clearly designed to be easy on the eyes. Newsletters can be created either from an empty template or with one of the approximately 35 templates. The templates are mostly event-related, for example for Valentine's Day; they're not sorted by categories or the like.

In addition to global settings, the individual elements can be edited flexibly. In addition, you can work directly in the desktop, iPad or mobile version and thus ensure the responsiveness of the newsletter. It is exciting that the various elements such as buttons, texts, etc. can also be moved within a block. This offers great flexibility in processing. However, the many editing options also result in considerable effort, as each setting must be clicked individually.

Quality of results

Unfortunately, the quality of the HTML code of emails created with Dragit.io only impresses us with limitations. Google fonts are included in the templates via @import, which does not work in all email clients. In addition, settings such as the line height of the texts are not uniform and breaks are

tags define what causes display problems in various email programs.

Export and connection to shipping tools

Dragit.io offers various export options (as a ZIP file, HTML or via link), although exporting to email delivery services such as Mailchimp or Sendinblue is only possible from the paid Pro plan.

expenses

If you don't need any unusual templates and functions, you can also create emails in the free plan. However, the Pro plan starting at around 14 euros (15 USD) per month not only offers more templates, but also extended options such as the insertion of HTML content, an image editor and font manager.

Publicare is testing Publicate

The similar name of “Publicate” to us is pure coincidence — we have no economic ties to the Italian platform and its British financier.

Publicate HTML Email Builder is visually modern with subtle color accents. At first glance, the tool's user interface is more busy than the other editors, but it is quite clearly laid out. It immediately becomes clear to users what they can create with the editor: email newsletters, blog posts, web pages — or you can start with an empty template.

When creating newsletters, you can choose from one of numerous templates, which are sorted by categories such as “Ecommerce,” “Birthday,” or “Black Friday.” After the start, some higher-level layout settings can be set first.

However, editing the elements in the drag & drop editor isn't really intuitive. Although individual elements can be edited, you have to work through a lot of options. The possibility of adding new elements is also not immediately apparent.

A plus point is that edited templates can be saved as a template with which you can start future newsletters. There are also two useful functions: In the Team & Business plan, the colors and fonts of your own brand can be stored in a brand kit. In addition, an analytics dashboard provides an overview of the most important KPIs.

Export and connection to shipping tools

Newsletters created with Publicate can be sent directly via Gmail or Outlook. For all other shipping tools, the HTML code must be exported, and a PDF download is also possible.

expenses

With the Individual plan starting at 14 euros (15 USD) per month, many of the tool's functions can already be used. The Team plans starting at 46 euros (49 USD) and Business from 94 euros (99 USD) per month can be used for working in a team.

Newsletter creation with Topol.io

Usability

At first glance, the visually rather simple tool is convincing Topol.io with good user friendliness — the risk of clicking here is low. The path to an individually designed newsletter is either via one of the more than 150 ready-made templates or you start with an empty template.

After adjusting higher-level layout settings such as background color, button color, etc., individual sections of the mailing can be adjusted with regard to the content type (text block, image, button, HTML code, etc.), the structure (header, two-column, etc.) and the settings (color, fonts, sizes,...).

Marketers can also define the mobile display for each element: For example, several columns can be sorted one below the other or certain elements can be hidden from the mobile device.

Customized blocks can be saved in the PRO plan and used for future newsletters.

Quality of results

When testing the topol.io templates, we noticed a few sources of error in the HTML code that lead to display problems in email clients. For example, in some email clients, different distances between elements and text sections are unnecessarily generated or unwanted frames are created. The code also contains many conditions that are intended to optimize the presentation in Outlook, but are highly susceptible to errors. In addition, some templates include Google fonts, which do not work in every email client.

Export and connection to e-mail service provider (ESP)

The HTML code of the created newsletters can either be downloaded including images in a zip file or the images remain hosted online (disadvantage: the image references in the email code then do not point to the ESP server, which could have a negative effect on deliverability). In addition, the paid plan can be exported directly to a shipping system — such as Mailchimp or Sendinblue. When using merge tags, Topol.io takes into account which service the newsletter should be exported to (Mailchimp uses tags other than Sendinblue, for example), which definitely makes it easier to personalize email newsletters.

expenses

The PRO plan costs 9.50 euros (10 USD) per month and includes 3 user accounts. Topol Plugin can be connected to your own email delivery solution via the API. Starting at around 57 euros (60 USD) per month, 50 users can use Topol.io as an embedded editor.

Designing emails with Unlayer

The user interface of Unlayer It has a modern and simple structure. Projects can be created and campaigns, templates and blocks can be created in them. You can choose from a variety of predefined templates. These are usually topic-related (e.g. Valentine's Day, Halloween, etc.), but there are also corresponding templates for transaction emails such as shipping confirmations. The templates are categorized by collection, use or industry, which makes it easier to select a suitable template.

In the drag and drop editor, higher-level styles such as colors, fonts, and sizes are defined. Content blocks that can be flexibly dragged into the template can be adjusted in terms of colors, sizes, etc. Spacing, line height and padding can also be set. For each element, you can select how it should behave on the go — in line with this, you can switch between mobile and desktop views at any time.

If HTML knowledge is available, you can also insert your own HTML blocks into the template and thus make the email even more individual: a professional feature and an advantage over many of the email editors built into the sending tools, which do not offer anything like this.

One helpful function is the so-called “audit”: Here, the editor is shown possible problems with the design or content.

Quality of results

Our tests show some weaknesses in HTML code that can lead to display problems. As with some other tools, Unlayer also has Outlook conditions built into the code: For example, “round corners” are displayed correctly in buttons in Outlook, but then no longer work in other email clients — this increases the testing effort. In general, buttons are displayed differently in different clients.

The HTML code also does not take into account that Outlook is known to have problems with background images. If text is placed on a background image in an unlayer email, the Outlook user will, in the worst case, see white text on a white space. The “audit” feature praised above does not warn about this effect and a fallback background color is not included.

Export and connection to shipping tools

Unlayer offers several options for downloading or exporting a newsletter: download (ZIP folder, HTML, plain text, PDF) or direct export to an email marketing tool such as Mailchimp, HubSpot, Klaviyo and Sendinblue. However, exporting to ESPs is only possible after a paid tariff has been paid.

expenses

In the free version, campaigns can be created based on a designed template, but not custom templates. This is only possible from the “Designer Tariff”, which also allows export to shipping systems. The costs here are 14 euros (15 USD) per month. Starting at 30 euros a month, you can use the “Team Plan”, which also allows dynamic content and team work.

Build and test emails with Pilotmail

Usability

With Pilot mail, the final tool in this year's test, is not a drag & drop template builder, but a tool to help with programming and testing HTML emails. The software interface is tidy and clear: With one click, you can start creating the template. The email is created using HTML and CSS — solid programming language skills are therefore a basic requirement.

While the HTML is inserted on the right side of the split screen, on the left side you can see the preview for desktop, tablet or mobile devices and also what the mail looks like as plain text.

There are some useful features for programmers: CSS style sheet definitions can be set “inline” with a click, ID attributes are automatically converted, as they otherwise cause problems with some webmail clients, etc. It is also positive that the template can be shared with others via URL and teams can also work on the templates.

expenses

Even with the free plan, you can create any number of templates. However, there is a monthly sending limit of 50 emails here. In the Pro plan, which is available for less than 3 euros (3 USD) a month, the sending limit is 500 emails per month. You can test the Pro Plan free of charge for 24 hours.

Quality of results

The quality of the results depends on the programmers' (email) HTML skills.

If you program your HTML emails yourself, you get integrated preview and test options. But: Without in-depth email HTML knowledge and knowledge of the peculiarities of the various email clients and industry-standard fixes and workarounds, PilotMail is losing ground.

Conclusion: Who are the tested drag & drop editors suitable for?

Marketers who don't want to rely on the integrated email editor or templates of their delivery tool when creating newsletters and don't have the skills or time in their team to write responsive email HTML themselves can't avoid an external email editor.

The tested email editors, newsletter kits and builders make marketers more independent of a shipping solution. They can be very useful if the company uses several shipping tools or is about to change tools, as the HMTL code from the CMS editors of shipping tools is often only exportable to a limited extent and is portable between editors.

In addition, companies can give agencies, graphic designers and copywriters direct access to HTML emails in such an editor, but not to sensitive areas in the mailing system, such as contacts or reports.

The A&O for us is — in addition to an error-free email code — the convenient connection to the shipping tool. An email builder that can directly insert the merge/personalization tags of the shipping platform makes daily business much easier.

For diehard programmers and code optimizers, however, none of the tested drag-and-drop solutions is a serious option due to their many limitations.

The tested external email editors offer marketers some basic benefits. Which editor is right for you depends, among other things, on which email delivery solution is in use and what email marketing requirements you have. The tool must match your own way of working, skill level and requirements.

Templates for your email delivery tool

We develop attractive responsive templates for the integrated email CMS editors from SAP Emarsys, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, CleverReach, Bloomreach, Brevo, HubSpot, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) Adobe Campaign and more. Contact us for a non-binding consultation.