“Which email marketing service should I use for my business?”
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I get this question a LOT, and I'm finally here to talk about my top two choices: Flodesk & ConvertKit.
I personally love both of them, but have recently made the switch from Flodesk to ConvertKit. I'll go into more detail below on why I made this choice. Although I could probably write a novel about these two services, I'm going to stick with the basics today.
Let's dive right in!
Free Trial​
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​Both platforms do offer a free trial, Flodesk for a full month and ConverKit for 14 days. This will give you enough time to try out either platform and get familiar with the interface. So what are you waiting for? You can try them out side by side- Try Flodesk and Try ConvertKit. If you use my link and sign up for Flodesk, you will save 50% off of your subscription. *I am an affiliate for both, so if you decide to use one of my links to sign up I will receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Pricing
Initially, Flodesk will be the cheaper option because the pricing will be the same every month until you reach over 5,000 subscribers. With ConvertKit, the pricing increases every few thousand of subscribers you get. It is unfortunate that as my business and email list grows, so does my ConvertKit subscription- but this is actually the way most email marketing services work. Here's what you can expect to pay per month when you are just getting started and assuming you have less than 1k subscribers: Flodesk- $39/month | ConvertKit- FREE. Now, if we take a look at the comparison for 5,000 subscribers: Flodesk- $39/month | ConvertKit- $79/month.
Ease of Use
Flodesk is definitely the winner here in my opinion, because the interface is very minimal and easy to grasp right away. ConvertKit on the other hand has a bit of a learning curve, because it does have more features. Flodesk comes equipped with beautiful templates for you to use and customize, where ConvertKit templates are basically a white screen with text.
Tagging / Segmenting
If you are new to email marketing, you may not be familiar with these terms just yet. However, as you get more familiar with email marketing you will most likely hear about this. Tagging and segmenting subscribers is used when you want to send emails to specific groups within your entire list. Segmenting is broad way to divide your email list into groups. Tagging allows you to narrow those groups down even further. ConvertKit offers both segmenting and tagging, where Flodesk only lets you use segments. I actually moved from Flodesk to ConvertKit because I needed that extra tagging feature.
Automations & Workflows
The most common way to build your email list is to give away a valuable piece of information (often called a lead magnet) in exchange for an email address. However, no one wants to have to manually send the lead magnet each time someone signs up to your list. By setting up an automation or workflow, your freebie can be delivered automatically. Automations and workflows can also be used for email ‘sequences', which you may be familiar with. Sequences are emails that are sent over a certain period of time on autopilot to welcome or nurture your subscribers. I do find that ConvertKit makes setting up and editing these easier, because you can see all of the emails for your sequence in one place. With Flodesk these things are on multiple screens, so you'll need to hop back and forth a bit.
Conclusion
For someone that is completely new to email marketing or just starting out with building an email list, I do recommend starting out with Flodesk.
If your business is already up and running and you would like more control of your email list, then I would recommend going with ConvertKit.
Either way, these platforms are both wonderful and I highly recommend trying out both of you are on the fence.
Want to see how to add a Flodesk form to your website? Check out this previous blog post.
