Should you’re searching for your subsequent e-mail advertising and marketing platform, and also you’re curious if Equipment is best for you, effectively, you’re in the suitable place! Right here’s our complete Equipment evaluate for 2024, which can cowl:
- What Is Equipment?
- Why do I would like an e-mail service supplier (ESP)?
- The rebrand from ConvertKit to Equipment
- Equipment Options
- Equipment Pricing
- Key Advantages of Equipment
- Drawbacks of Equipment
- Equipment & E-mail Advertising: Extra Sources to Learn, Hear & Study
What Is Equipment?
Equipment is an e-mail service supplier (ESP). Basically, it’s a expertise service that permits you to ship e-mail campaigns to a listing of subscribers. Equipment is one among actually a whole bunch of ESPs on the market, and—full disclosure—it occurs to be the one we favor and use at SPI.
Though we’re biased, we will nonetheless be goal! On this submit, we’ll cowl the options, advantages, and drawbacks of Equipment as we see them, that will help you determine if it’s the suitable ESP for your online business.
E-mail Advertising Technique: Why You Want an ESP
Should you’re studying this, you may already know what an ESP is and why you want one. However in case you don’t, an ESP is crucial piece of expertise to help your e-mail advertising and marketing technique.
E-mail advertising and marketing is likely one of the strongest strategies to construct relationships and market your services to your viewers. Let’s speak about why that’s.
In its most simple type, e-mail advertising and marketing includes you sending emails to a gaggle of people that’ve chosen to listen to from you by “subscribing” to obtain emails from you. You could possibly technically use a easy e-mail program like Gmail to perform this—however we don’t suggest it, since you’ll shortly discover it inadequate (and since your private e-mail account will get flagged as spam should you ship too many emails from it!).
As your online business grows and extra individuals subscribe to get your emails, you’ll need the flexibility to do extra subtle issues together with your e-mail advertising and marketing, like customizing the emails individuals get in accordance with their pursuits, and utilizing stories and analytics to find out what’s working effectively or not.
You additionally must be sure you’re respecting individuals’s privateness and never spamming anybody. An e-mail service supplier additionally lets you keep in compliance with authorities laws around the globe, such because the CAN-SPAM act in america, the Normal Information Safety Regulation within the European Union (GDPR), and the Canada Anti-Spam Regulation (CASL).
Issues can shortly get out of hand with out the assistance of a devoted e-mail advertising and marketing platform. That’s the place an ESP like Equipment is available in.
Okay, let’s get into the nitty gritty of Equipment’s options!
Psst… Wish to develop your e-mail listing and study highly effective segmentation and automation methods that permit your online business to run by itself? Try the E-mail Advertising Magic course.
Equipment Options
These are the important thing options of Equipment, organized by the way you’ll use them.
Sending Emails
- Autoresponders/drip campaigns (sequences): Ship a sequence of pre-written emails routinely to a particular section of subscribers in your listing, triggered by a particular occasion or motion, with the purpose of guiding them to take a particular motion.
- Broadcast emails: Ship commonplace bulletins or one-time emails to your subscribers on a particular date.
- CAN-SPAM, GDPR, and CASL compliance: CAN-SPAM, GDPR, and CASL are legal guidelines that set the principles and necessities for business e-mail messages, and provides recipients the suitable to have you ever cease emailing them—so compliance is essential!
- Dynamic (customized) e-mail content material: Your e-mail content material can show totally different textual content or photographs, in accordance with your buyer segmentation.
- Responsive e-mail templates: Prepared-to-go e-mail designs, in addition to the flexibility to create your personal customized templates. Equipment routinely codecs your touchdown pages for numerous units, comparable to desktop computer systems and cell phones.
- WYSIWYG e-mail editor: The built-in e-mail editor enables you to see how your e-mail will look together with your template’s styling utilized when you’re composing it.
Accumulating New Subscribers
- Customized responsive touchdown pages: Use the included device to shortly create a touchdown web page to gather e-mail addresses. Equipment routinely codecs your touchdown pages for numerous units, comparable to desktop computer systems and cell phones.
- Embeddable kinds: Gather e-mail subscribers wherever in your web site by dropping in a Javascript or HTML type, or by utilizing the WordPress plugin.
- Web site builder: Create a web site instantly on Equipment to publish newsletters, host a digital storefront to gather fee for one-time or subscription merchandise, and construct customized pages. Arrange a touchdown web page and accumulate fee for one-time or subscription merchandise proper inside Equipment.
- Visible automations: Equipment means that you can create rule-based paths utilizing if-then logic, in order that when a subscriber takes a selected motion, you possibly can ship them pre-defined emails or add them to a section.
Studying about Your Subscribers
- A/B testing: Equipment enables you to take a look at totally different topic traces on your emails, and routinely determines the winner based mostly on their respective open charges.
- Reporting/analytics/ROI monitoring: Learn the way usually your subscribers open your emails, click on on hyperlinks, and full numerous actions.
- Segmentation/tagging: Segmenting your subscribers into totally different classes (much like however extra highly effective than different applications’ “lists”) means that you can ship them emails which are higher tailor-made to their wants and pursuits.
- Polls. Add polls on to emails to have interaction with and accumulate details about subscribers, which you’ll then use to construct segments.
Rising Your Revenue
- In 2022, Equipment Commerce was added to the platform, permitting customers to strive promoting digital merchandise to their subscribers by creating personalized product pages that may be embedded in your emails, together with automated gross sales funnels.
- The present iteration of Equipment additionally incorporates a website builder. You’ll be able to create a web site instantly on Equipment to publish newsletters, host a digital storefront to gather fee for one-time or subscription merchandise, and construct customized pages.
Connecting with and Supporting Different Creators: The Creator Community
- In 2023, Equipment launched the Creator Community, which helps customers information their viewers members to find different creators and get found in flip.
- It’s also possible to receives a commission for Creator Community suggestions you make by way of the aptly named Paid Suggestions.
Increasing the Platform’s Capabilities: App Retailer
- As a part of the 2024 rebrand, in addition they launched an app retailer, the place yow will discover customized apps to do extra with Equipment. The app retailer will launch with 5 apps: KitBoard (add CRM to your account), Wordsmith (flip YouTube movies into newsletters, SavvyCal (add reserving widgets to emails), Mighty (join your Mighty neighborhood and content material with Equipment), and SegMetrics (find out about the way you acquire, interact, and convert subscribers).
- Equipment additionally gives a self-service app builder to create your personal add-ons. (As of this writing, the service is at the moment in beta.)
From “ConvertKit” to “Equipment”: Behind the Rebrand
In summer season 2024, the corporate beforehand generally known as ConvertKit formally turned Equipment. The brand new identify was introduced in July in the course of the Craft + Commerce Creator Convention and went stay in October. (They’d beforehand rebranded to Seva in 2018, however appreciable adverse suggestions to the brand new identify triggered them to revert to ConvertKit till this 12 months.)
The change to Equipment was greater than a reputation change, although, as a result of the corporate launched a number of massive new capabilities to their platform as effectively. We coated a number of the new options within the part above, however listed below are the highlights:
- An app retailer the place builders can create add-ons to reinforce Equipment’s capabilities
- A central knowledge hub with enhanced reporting
- An expanded Creator Community to assist customers discover new collaboration companions
Equipment additionally made a degree of rebranding in public by sharing details about the rebranding course of by weblog updates, live-streamed design classes, and a four-part YouTube mini-documentary. This transparency provides an attention-grabbing perception into the corporate’s considering. And we expect it’s a sensible transfer given how their earlier rebrand went.
With that out of the best way, let’s speak about pricing.
Equipment Pricing
For a very long time, Equipment solely provided paid plans. However in December 2019, the corporate introduced a brand new free tier in case you have fewer than 1,000 subscribers. They just lately expanded the free tier to incorporate creators with as much as 10,000 subscribers.
Listed here are Equipment’s pricing choices as of October 2024:
Equipment E-newsletter Plan
- $0/month for as much as 10,000 subscribers
The E-newsletter plan contains:
- 1 fundamental Visible Automation
- 1 e-mail Sequence
- 1 consumer
- Limitless touchdown pages, opt-in kinds, and e-mail broadcasts
- Viewers tagging & segmentation
- Promote digital merchandise
- Run paid newsletters & subscriptions
- E-newsletter feed & web site
- API Entry
- Free Suggestions (required—no less than one suggestion slot to develop your listing by cross-promoting with different creators)
- Good Suggestions (auto-recommendation of comparable creators that will help you develop your listing)
- 24/7 help
Equipment Creator Plan
- $9/month for as much as 300 subscribers (paid yearly; $15 if paid month-to-month)
- $25/month for as much as 1,000 subscribers (paid yearly; $29 if paid month-to-month)
- Tiered pricing as much as $1,916/month (paid yearly; $1,916 if paid month-to-month) for as much as 400,000 subscribers
The Creator plan contains:
- All of the options of the E-newsletter plan
- Limitless Visible Automations
- Limitless e-mail Sequences
- 2 customers
- Free migration from one other device
- Free Suggestions
- Paid Suggestions
- Take away Equipment branding
- Third-party integrations
- RSS campaigns
- Polls
Equipment Creator Professional Plan
- $25/month for as much as 300 subscribers (paid yearly; $29 if paid month-to-month)
- $50/month for as much as 1,000 subscribers (paid yearly; $59 if paid month-to-month)
- Tiered pricing as much as $2,166/month (paid yearly; $2,599 paid month-to-month) for as much as 400,000 subscribers
The Creator Professional plan contains:
- All of the options of the Creator plan
- Limitless Visible Automations
- Limitless e-mail Sequences
- Limitless customers
- Fb customized audiences
- E-newsletter referral system
- Edit hyperlinks in despatched broadcasts
- Subscriber engagement scoring
- Superior deliverability reporting
- Insights dashboard
- 24/7 Precedence help
Each the Creator and Creator Professional plans provide a 14-day free trial so you possibly can see if it’s best for you earlier than committing.
We’ll preserve this submit up to date with the most recent Equipment pricing, however it’s also possible to go to the pricing web page on the Equipment web site.
Let’s get into the explanations we like Equipment subsequent!
Advantages of Equipment
We’ve used Equipment to energy Good Passive Revenue’s e-mail advertising and marketing for a number of years. In that point, we’ve discovered it to be the perfect ESP for our wants. We additionally assume it’s an ideal resolution for a spread of entrepreneurs and digital creators searching for a strong, feature-rich e-mail advertising and marketing platform.
From the place we sit, the facility of Equipment falls into two fundamental classes: consumer advantages, and viewers advantages.
Equipment Advantages from the Person’s Standpoint
First, Equipment has the whole lot a enterprise proprietor wants to stand up and operating shortly:
- You’ll be able to accumulate emails.
- You’ll be able to arrange a easy touchdown web page to gather emails.
- You’ll be able to promote merchandise (one-time buy or subscription).
These options permit somebody to start out promoting even whereas they’re within the technique of establishing a web site elsewhere. It additionally makes it straightforward to execute on one of many fundamental classes in our Good From Scratch course: utilizing promoting as a key step within the idea-validation course of.
Second, the Equipment workforce designed their platform to develop with the sophistication of the consumer. If you begin, you in all probability simply need to accumulate e-mail addresses and ship emails. However as you develop, you’ll need to begin tailoring your message and segmenting your viewers. At that time you possibly can make the most of issues like automations and dynamic content material. As you and your online business turn out to be extra superior, the Creator Professional Plan is the next move—you gained’t have to change to a distinct e-mail service supplier 5 years down the highway. This units Equipment aside from another ESPs, significantly Mailchimp.
Some individuals discover Equipment a bit daunting (see Drawbacks under), however should you’re considerably tech-savvy we expect it’s fairly approachable. Specifically, we just like the accessibility of Equipment’s automation builder, which helps you to create automations in a simple, linear method.
We tried Infusionsoft for a 12 months and located its automation builder progressive however overwhelming. You needed to already perceive how automations work, in addition to the assorted symbols frequent in automation builders. We discover Equipment’s automation builder, however, makes it straightforward to string automations collectively in a complicated method. With a number of templates to select from, establishing an automation for the primary time is straightforward for any consumer.
We additionally like Equipment’s strategy to subscriber administration. With Equipment, all of your subscribers go into one massive pool; there are not any lists. As an alternative, subscribers may be put into segments by assigning them attributes utilizing tags and customized fields. These allow you to deal with your subscribers as distinctive people with totally different wants; not all subscribers are created equal. The opposite good thing about the best way Equipment treats subscribers? You’re solely charged as soon as for every distinctive subscriber, not like another ESPs.
Equipment’s just lately launched Creator Community can be an enormous plus in our eyes, from each a business-building and community-building perspective. It means that you can develop your subscriber base whereas additionally fostering connections with different entrepreneurs and creators.
Final however not least, should you’re transferring from one other ESP like Mailchimp or AWeber, Equipment gives a free migration service that may take a number of the headache out of switching.
Equipment Advantages for Your Viewers
Equipment provides you the chance to tailor your messaging to your viewers. You’ll be able to have as many kinds and touchdown pages as you need. You’ll be able to have as many tags, customized fields, and segments as you need. You may be as particular in speaking to your viewers as you need to be.
As you accumulate details about your viewers, you can begin to section subscribers so that you don’t trouble individuals with issues they aren’t fascinated about. Equipment makes it straightforward to gather particulars about your viewers alongside the best way, and also you aren’t penalized for that by increased prices, as you’ll be with a list-based e-mail platform.
Drawbacks of Equipment
No resolution is ideal, in fact. Listed here are a number of the drawbacks we and different Equipment customers have seen.
- Reasonably steep studying curve. The interface could be a little overwhelming for a newbie. Taking full benefit of all of Equipment’s options—like segmentation, tagging, and automations—requires some studying (and doubtlessly coding). You’ll be able to shorten this studying curve by following their Getting Began video sequence, in addition to the remainder of the content material on their well-organized help website
- No list-based group. Though we like the best way Equipment enables you to set up subscribers utilizing tags (and doesn’t cost you for duplicate subscribers, as we talked about above), the dearth of a list-based group system may be complicated should you’re coming from different platforms. Over time, although, we expect you’ll discover this technique extra versatile than managing lists.
- Barebones e-mail and touchdown web page templates. Equipment requires CSS coding to create customized superior e-mail templates and touchdown pages past the included choices. Some customers report that the e-mail design device may be buggy.
- Analytics may very well be extra sturdy. The free and Creator plans don’t provide the identical superior deliverability reporting, subscriber scoring, and analytics options of the Perception characteristic that the Creator Professional plan gives, which is smart however could also be a trouble to some customers.
Fortunately, one of many earlier drawbacks of Equipment, that there was no free choice, hasn’t been the case since 2019. This free tier makes Equipment comparable on the entry degree to different fashionable ESP choices like Mailchimp.
Lastly, that is on no account a disadvantage, however as Equipment continues to broaden its choices to incorporate issues just like the Creator Community and Equipment Commerce to its core e-mail advertising and marketing capabilities, there’s an opportunity that the platform’s worth might get unfold skinny. To be clear, we don’t assume that is going to occur and have quite a lot of confidence in Nathan and the Equipment workforce, however it’s price holding in thoughts.
Our Large Takeaway on Equipment
With the current updates, Equipment is coming nearer to being a one-stop store for creators who need to develop, nurture, and promote to their audiences with a platform that’s largely prepared to make use of and automatable. Should you’re searching for your first or subsequent e-mail advertising and marketing platform, we expect it’s an ideal resolution for rising your viewers and rising your earnings whereas retaining artistic management over what you place out into the world!
Equipment & E-mail Advertising: Extra Sources to Learn, Hear & Study
So there you’ve got it—our evaluate of Equipment’s e-mail advertising and marketing platform! We’ll go away you with a number of extra assets should you’re inquisitive about Equipment, or need to dig additional into e-mail advertising and marketing.
Equipment [Full Disclosure: As an affiliate, we receive compensation if you purchase through this link.]
SPI 825: Behind the Scenes of a Main Rebrand & Classes Realized After a Onerous Fail—my dialog with Equipment CEO Nathan Barry about setting his firm’s sights on extra bold targets with the rebrand.
What Is E-mail Advertising? + Greatest Practices: An SPI How-to Information
E-mail Advertising Magic Course
AP 0712: How Do I Migrate an E-mail Checklist from AWeber to Equipment? – Good Passive Revenue
Why I Switched from Aweber to Infusionsoft to ConvertKitI hope this submit has been useful in deciding whether or not Equipment is the suitable ESP for your online business. No matter e-mail advertising and marketing platform you select, nothing is extra vital than having the suitable e-mail advertising and marketing technique, so be sure you try our important information to e-mail advertising and marketing and think about the E-mail Advertising Magic course if you’d like extra hands-on help together with your e-mail advertising and marketing, obtainable contained in the SPI Neighborhood. Good luck!