How We Review Email Marketing Tools

Most email marketing “reviews” are ads with star ratings. The reviewer has never sent a campaign, never dealt with an account ban, never watched a pricing tier double overnight. We built SaaS Scored because we got tired of reading them.

We review and score 11 email marketing platforms using publicly verifiable data. Every claim in every review has a source. Every score has a formula. This page explains exactly how it works.

Who We Are

SaaS Scored is run by a small editorial team. We are not a venture-funded media company. We do not accept sponsored content, paid placements, or gifts from vendors.

We earn money through affiliate commissions when you sign up for a tool through our links. This is disclosed on every page. Our commissions range from 20% to 60% depending on the tool — and yes, some of our lowest-rated tools have the highest commissions. Mailchimp, which we rate 6.5/10, is one of the most recognizable brands in email. We still rate it honestly.

We publish under “Editorial Team” because our opinions should stand on their sources, not on constructed authority. If our reasoning is wrong, point to the source that proves it — not the person who wrote it.

Our Research Process

Every review follows the same four-step process. Here's what each step looks like, using MailerLite as a real example.

1. Independent Source Research

For every tool, we read Reddit threads, G2 reviews, Capterra ratings, Trustpilot scores, and EmailToolTester deliverability data. We read hundreds of real user experiences — not marketing pages.

For MailerLite, we read 200+ Reddit comments across r/emailmarketing, r/Entrepreneur, and r/smallbusiness. We pulled 1,086 G2 reviews and 2,798 Trustpilot reviews. Patterns emerged: people love the editor, but account verification complaints are frequent.

2. Pricing Verification

We log into each tool's pricing page and calculate cost at multiple subscriber tiers. We document free plan limits, recent price changes, and anything the marketing page buries in footnotes.

We logged into MailerLite's pricing page and calculated cost at 500, 1K, 2.5K, 5K, 10K, 25K, and 50K subscribers. We documented the September 2025 free plan reduction from 1,000 to 500 subscribers — a change that affected thousands of users.

3. Community Sentiment Analysis

We analyse patterns across review platforms. We count the ratio of positive to negative mentions on specific topics and cite the numbers. We don't cherry-pick positive quotes.

60% of Capterra reviews mentioning MailerLite's account verification were negative. We cite that number directly in our review. When a pattern is that clear, ignoring it would be dishonest.

4. Editorial Review & Scoring

Each tool is scored across six weighted criteria. The algorithm produces a weighted average, and the editorial team may adjust the final score based on material risks that the numbers alone don't capture.

MailerLite's weighted average came out to 7.9/10. We scored it 7.5 because their strict account termination policy is a material risk — if your account gets flagged, you can lose your list overnight. We always show both the algorithmic and editorial scores.

Scoring Criteria

Every tool receives a score from 1 to 10 based on six weighted criteria. Each criterion is scored out of 5, then combined into a weighted average and scaled to 10. On our rankings page, we show the four most differentiating criteria at a glance. The full breakdown appears on each review page.

Deliverability

20%

We cite inbox placement rates from EmailToolTester's independent tests, which send real campaigns across Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo. We note which test round the data comes from and when it was last updated.

Klaviyo claims 'exceeding 95%' deliverability but isn't included in independent EmailToolTester rounds. Without third-party verification, we can't score it the same as MailerLite's 89.8% (EmailToolTester, January 2024). We say so in the review.

Automation

20%

We evaluate workflow builders, trigger options, conditional logic, and pre-built automation templates. We assess free plans and trials through documented features, pricing pages, and user reviews.

Brevo offers multi-channel automation (email, SMS, WhatsApp) on paid plans, but the free plan limits you to 300 emails per day with no automation. That gap between the marketing and the reality affects the score.

Ease of Use

20%

We walk through onboarding, the email editor, and list management. We aggregate G2 and Capterra 'ease of use' ratings and read Reddit threads from people who actually switched platforms.

MailerLite consistently scores 9.1+ on G2 for ease of use. ActiveCampaign scores lower because its automation builder, while powerful, has a steeper learning curve that new users mention repeatedly on Reddit.

Value for Money

20%

We calculate cost-per-subscriber at 500, 1K, 2.5K, 5K, 10K, 25K, and 50K subscribers from each tool's actual pricing page. We flag hidden fees, charges for unsubscribed contacts, and recent price increases.

ActiveCampaign raised prices 20-100% for existing customers in 2024-2025 and charges for unsubscribed contacts. These billing practices directly lower their Value score, regardless of the feature set.

Templates & Design

10%

We evaluate the email editor, template library, and mobile responsiveness based on free plan access, documented features, and user reviews. Modern drag-and-drop editors with responsive templates score higher.

Mailchimp's editor has become slower and more cluttered over time according to community feedback. Kit (formerly ConvertKit) barely has templates at all — it's built for plain-text style emails. Both score lower here for different reasons.

Analytics & Support

10%

We assess reporting depth (open rates, click maps, revenue tracking) from documented features and user reviews. Support quality is scored from aggregated Capterra and G2 ratings plus Reddit threads about response times.

Omnisend's support scores well on G2 (rated 4.6/5), while Mailchimp's support is a frequent complaint — users report long wait times and unhelpful responses, especially on the free plan.

Verified vs. Researched vs. Editorial

Not everything in a review carries the same weight. We distinguish between three types of claims so you know what you're reading.

Verified

We checked it ourselves. Pricing (we visit the actual website), free plan limits (we sign up), feature availability (we confirm in the product). If we say “MailerLite's free plan supports 500 subscribers,” we verified that by creating an account.

Researched

We cite data from trusted third parties. Deliverability rates come from EmailToolTester — we don't run our own inbox placement tests. User sentiment is aggregated from G2, Capterra, and Trustpilot. Community complaints are sourced from Reddit. Every data point is cited.

Editorial

Our opinion, informed by the research. The verdict, “who should use this,” and “who should skip this” sections are editorial judgments. We label them clearly. You may disagree — that's what the sources section is for.

Scoring Example: MailerLite

Here's exactly how MailerLite's 7.5/10 score was calculated. Every review follows this same process.

Criterion	Weight	Score	Weighted
Deliverability	20%	5/5	1.00
Automation	20%	3/5	0.60
Ease of Use	20%	5/5	1.00
Value for Money	20%	4/5	0.80
Templates & Design	10%	3/5	0.30
Analytics & Support	10%	2.5/5	0.25
Weighted Total			3.95 / 5
Scaled to 10			7.9 / 10

Editorial Adjustment: 7.9 → 7.5

The algorithm says 7.9. We scored it 7.5 because MailerLite's strict account termination policy is a material risk — multiple users report losing their accounts and subscriber lists with limited recourse. We always show both the algorithmic score and the editorial score so you can decide how much weight to give it.

Affiliate Disclosure

We believe in full transparency about how we make money. Here is every affiliate relationship we have, what we earn, and which tools we link to.

Tool	Commission	Affiliate Link?
MailerLite	30%	No
ActiveCampaign	20-30%	Yes
Klaviyo	20%	No
Kit (ConvertKit)	50%	No
GetResponse	60%	No
Mailchimp	Variable (CPA)	No
Brevo (Sendinblue)	25%	No
beehiiv	20%	Yes
Drip	30%	No
AWeber	30%	Yes
Omnisend	20%	No

The tools with our highest commissions (GetResponse at 60%, Kit at 50%) are rated 7.2/10. The tools we rate highest (MailerLite and Klaviyo at 7.5/10) have lower commissions (30% and 20% respectively). Draw your own conclusions.

Hold Us Accountable

Found an error? Think we missed something? Disagree with a score? Email us at hello@saasscored.com with the specific claim and your source. We correct factual errors within 48 hours and publish a note when we update a score.

We have corrected multiple reviews based on reader feedback, including pricing updates, feature changes, and deliverability data corrections. If you prove us wrong, we fix it and credit you (if you want).