SendFox vs. MailerLite
SendFox vs. MailerLite
I recently heard about SendFox through a business colleague. Because there’s a current deal for it through appsumo for only $49 for lifetime access, I thought I would check it out and compare it against my favourite email marketing platform, MailerLite. After all, I love discovering new software services and I wanted to see if SendFox is a software that I can recommend to my clients.
After purchasing the deal, I got right in there to see how it stacks up against MailerLite.
What are MailerLite and SendFox?
Before we get into the nitty gritty details, what are MailerLite and SendFox anyway? They are two popular email marketing platforms used by businesses to manage their email campaigns. Both MailerLite and SendFox offer similar features such as email campaigns, email automation, landing pages and opt-in forms. However, MailerLite is more robust and has more advanced features which I will outline in this article.
Key Differences between SendFox and MailerLite
I’m going to go over some of the features in detail a little later on in this article, but first, I wanted to outline the key differences between SendFox and MailerLite.
Pricing
Both MailerLite and SendFox offer a free plan for up to 1,000 subscribers. Of course, like any free plans, there are always limitations with both platforms. For paid plans, MailerLite's paid plans start at $10/month for up to 1,000 subscribers, whereas SendFox's paid plans start at $49/month for up to 5,000 contacts.
That being said, at the time of writing this blog, there’s currently an awesome deal for SendFox through appsumo where you can pay a one-time fee of:
- $49 for up to 5,000 contacts
- $98 for up to 10,000 contacts
- $147 for up to 15,000 contacts
Trust me, this is a crazy deal!
User Interface
MailerLite has a modern and user-friendly interface with a drag-and-drop email editor, while SendFox has a simpler interface and email editor. In fact, everything about SendFox seems very simplistic, which could be a good thing or bad thing, depending on your needs. Personally, I prefer MailerLite’s interface because it offers more customization options.
Integrations
Both MailerLite and SendFox integrate with popular platforms like Zapier, Shopify, and WordPress. However, MailerLite has more integrations available than SendFox.
Since SendFox integrates with Zapier though, I don’t see this being a big deal, as long as the other platform you need to integrate it with is also available through Zapier.
Customer Support
Both MailerLite and SendFox offer excellent customer support. MailerLite provides 24/7 support via email and live chat for paid plans and support via a knowledge base for free plans, while SendFox offers support via email and a knowledge base.
Features: MailerLite vs. SendFox
Now, let’s get to the exciting part and dissect some of the main features of these two email marketing platforms.
Email Campaigns
Let’s start with the basic - email campaigns. Because after all, they are both email marketing platforms that are used to send mass emails to a contact list, so the email feature is pretty important.
SendFox’s email feature is very simple. It’s like typing on a google doc. There’s no drag and drop function to make it pretty. It’s great for text-based emails vs. visual emails. This is not uncommon for email marketing platforms. Other popular platforms like ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign also have a similar email editor. If you are mostly going to send text-based emails with a few images added here and there, SendFox’s email editor is more than sufficient.
What I love about SendFox email feature is that you can choose to send to your active contacts (those who have opened an email within 90 days) simply by checking off a box, so there’s no need to do additional segmentation.
Another feature that I love about SendFox is their Smart Campaign, which fetches any new content you have from your website and turns it into an email that you can auto-send or manually schedule. This feature is also available in MailerLite but through an RSS feed that you have to additionally setup.
Another advantage of SendFox is its subject line audit to make sure that your subject line is optimized, which prevents your emails from going into spam folders. MailerLite doesn't have this same feature, but it does have a email verification feature that easily cleans and optimizes your list to ensure the likelihood of your emails reaching your subsribers' inbox.
MailerLite email has a drag and drop functionality and a lot more options that SendFox doesn’t offer including:
- A/B testing
- Auto resend (on paid plans)
- Surveys and polls
- Multiple layouts
- Dynamic email content (hide/show content based on certain groups)
- Deliver by timezone
Double Opt-In
Double Opt-In, which means that your subscribers are required to opt-in again after they’ve subscribed to your list, is mandatory in SendFox and optional in MailerLite. This could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you look at it.
By asking your subscribers to opt-in for a second time, the effect is two-fold:
- You’re only getting subscribers who truly want to be on your list. If they’ve taken the time to check their email and click on the link to opt-in, then the likelihood of them being an active subscriber is high.
- On the other end of things, if they don’t opt-in again, you’ve just lost a subscriber. But then again, you might not want them on your list anyway if they’re not going to take the time to opt-in again.
So again, it really depends on how you look at it and what your preference is for your list.
Bottom Line with the Email Campaign Functionality Between SendFox and MailerLite
It really comes down to your needs. If you are an ecommerce business which often relies on visuals in the emails, then I would recommend MailerLite over SendFox. If you are a service-based business who rely mostly on text-based emails, then SendFox could work for you.
Taking into account the regular price of these platforms, I would recommend MailerLite over SendFox because you get more bang for your buck. However, given that there’s a lifetime access deal for SendFox, I would recommend getting it if you don’t need the bells and whistles that MailerLite offers, and you simply need to get your message across and keep in touch with your contacts. You really can’t go wrong with $49.
Subscriber Management
MailerLite works off one (1) list that can be in multiple different groups so that you can easily segment your list. There is no limit to how many groups you can have. You can easily move subscribers from one group to another, because essentially they are all under one list.
You can also create additional segmentations in MailerLite. The difference between a group and segment, is that groups are static, while segments are automated. An example of a segment could be "all subscribers who belong to the VIP group AND have purchased ABC product".
Just like MailerLite, your contacts can be in multiple lists in SendFox and there is no limit to how many lists you can have. Unlike MailerLite, however, there's limited segmentation capability. The segmentation has to be done through an automation and it is based on only three (3) triggers - sent email, opened email or clicked email. The action is to add them to a different list.
A segment example in SendFox would be, "if subscriber clicked email in Campaign A, add them to the following list clicked Campaigns". That's pretty much the only type of segmentation that can be done in SendFox.
Automations
MailerLite has robust automations in comparison to SendFox. MailerLite offers multiple trigger entries such as subscription to a group, form opt-in, link click, field update, and date triggers. MailerLite also has multiple actions such as delay, send email, conditions, add/move/copy to a different group, etc. You can do so much with MailerLite’s automation functionality.
SendFox only has one trigger entry which is subscription to a list and the only action available are delay and add/remove contact from a specific list.
Just like the email campaign functionality, it really comes down to your needs. If SendFox’s simple automation functionality is sufficient for your needs, and the fact that you can get it from appsumo for a one-time fee of $49 through appsumo right now, then it’s a no brainer. However, if that deal wasn’t available, I would recommend MailerLite over SendFox.
Landing Pages
Just like everything about SendFox, their landing pages are very basic. They offer a ton of templates to choose from, but you can’t modify them too much other than replacing the image and text. There isn’t a lot of customization available and no drag and drop capability.
For someone like me, who likes customization, I get frustrated when I can’t customize things like landing pages. So for me, MailerLite wins this one.
However, if you are simply looking to get opt-ins to your newsletter or list without having the need to design your own landing pages, then SendFox could be just what you need.
Forms
Again, SendFox’s form feature is simple. You can’t customize font or colours, or really much else. What I do love about SendFox forms is that you can include an invisible Captcha which MailerLite doesn’t have. Captcha is great for reducing spam submissions.
Keep in mind that SendFox only offers embedded forms at this time and they don’t offer pop-up forms.
MailerLite on the other hand, offers a whole bunch of customization options including changing your background colours, adding images, etc. And if you don’t need all that, you can still create just a simple form. Their pop-up forms also have the following features that in certain situations, can prove to be useful:
- You can exclude the form from showing up on certain pages. I love this option because you can have different pop-up on different pages if you choose to. This could be useful for certain promotions you’re doing that you only want to be visible on certain pages.
- You can add a delay for when the pop-up shows up
- You can specify not to show it again for a certain amount of time if the visitor closed the form
- On the paid plans, you also get the option of a promotion pop-up - this is basically a pop-up that is not an opt-in, and is simply there to promote something
Additional Features of MailerLite
MailerLite is more than just an email marketing platform. With it, you can also:
- build a simple website
- create a blog
- sell digital products such as e-books and downloads and take payment using its integration with Stripe
- integrate it with your e-commerce website to pull in products to your campaigns and create post-purchase automations
- easily setup recurring payments to offer paid subscriptions to your newsletters
Bottom Line - What’s Better, MailerLite or SendFox?
Overall, MailerLite is a more feature-rich, user-friendly and robust email marketing platform, while SendFox has a simpler interface and functionality. It ultimately depends on your specific needs and budget when choosing between the two.
If you’re considering the Free plans from both platforms, I would recommend just to go with MailerLite because it offers so much features, even in the free plan.
If you’re considering the Paid plans from both platforms, I would also recommend going with MailerLite because MailerLite is actually more affordable. It starts at $10 per month. If you’re comparing apples to apples in terms of subscriber count, MailerLite is $32 per month and SendFox is $49 per month for up to 5,000 subscribers.
However, as I’ve mentioned numerous times throughout this article, SendFox currently has a lifetime deal that starts at $49 for up to 5000 subscribers. If you’re just starting out with Email Marketing and you don’t plan on doing any advanced automations, you really can’t go wrong with SendFox. It will likely be sufficient for your needs. When your business grows and you need more functionality, you can always consider another email marketing platform at that time. Why spend more now if your needs for email marketing aren’t as complex yet? Plus, there’s a 60-day money back guarantee, so if you feel that it doesn’t work for you, you can always get a refund.
Again, it comes down to your needs and your budget!
I also previously wrote about MailerLite as an alternative to MailChimp, if MailChimp is also another email marketing platform you're considering.