HTML email email template builders or editors are powerful tools that can assist you in creating effective emails that can increase your return on investment (ROI). Currently, the ROI for email marketing stands at $38 for every $1 spent, making it an excellent investment opportunity for businesses looking to convert leads into loyal customers.
Whether you are a developer or a marketer, choosing the right email HTML builder from the hundreds of options available can be a daunting task. This guide is designed to help you make an informed decision and select a tool that best fits your needs.
Let’s dive right in!
What is An HTML Email Template Builder?
An HTML template builder is a tool used to create reusable HTML files that can be utilized to build email marketing campaigns. Using an HTML mail template creator provides numerous benefits over coding the file yourself, including being time-efficient, creating more advanced and visually appealing templates, having a selection of ready-made customizable templates to get started quickly, ensuring compatibility with various email clients, facilitating teamwork, and being accessible from any device as most are online tools with autosave functionality.
What Defines a Good Email Template Builder?
Not all email template creators are created equal, and there are several key factors that you should consider when selecting a builder for your business. A good email template builder should have the following characteristics:
Easy to Use:
Many users who are tasked with creating email templates may not have extensive design or coding experience, so it’s essential that the builder provides an intuitive and straightforward interface that allows them to create professional-looking emails quickly and efficiently. The builder should provide a range of customizable templates that users can select and adapt to suit their needs.
Customizable:
The builder should offer a wide range of customization options so that users can create emails that are unique and reflective of their brand.
Responsive Design:
The templates created should be responsive, meaning that they should be optimized for all devices, including desktop, tablet, and mobile. With an increasing number of users accessing their emails via mobile devices, it’s critical that your templates are responsive, meaning that they adapt seamlessly to any screen size. A good template builder should offer a range of responsive designs that look great on any device.
Drag and Drop Functionality:
The builder should allow users to drag and drop different elements, such as images and text, into their templates. This feature should be intuitive and straightforward to use, allowing users to create visually appealing emails without any coding knowledge.
Integration with Third-Party Tools:
It should be able to integrate with third-party tools such as CRM systems, marketing automation software, and social media platforms. Integration ensures that your efforts are aligned with your broader marketing strategy, and that you can track the success of your email campaigns in the context of your overall marketing goals.
Analytics and Reporting:
The builder should provide analytics and reporting features that allow users to track the success of their email campaigns. This includes data such as open rates, email click-through rates, and conversion rates, which can help you optimize your future email campaigns for maximum impact.
Good Support:
It should have a good support system in place that is available to assist users with any issues or questions they may have. This might include live chat, email support, or phone support, depending on the level of assistance required. The support team should be knowledgeable and responsive, ensuring that any issues or questions are resolved quickly and efficiently.
Overall, a good email template builder should provide users with the tools they need to create visually appealing and effective emails quickly and easily.
How To Choose the Correct Email Builder?
To begin building HTML emails, it’s important to first understand the unique needs of your business and customers. One of the primary goals of an HTML email builder should be to create responsive emails that provide customers with a positive experience, regardless of the device they’re using. Therefore, when selecting an email builder, it’s essential to choose one with a user-friendly interface that can help you achieve this goal efficiently.
Additionally, consider options with reasonable pricing and extra features such as an extensive library of illustrations to help enhance the visual appeal of your emails.
Here are some quick questions to ask yourself before selecting an HTML email builder:
- Will you need the email code to be edited?
- Do you already use an email marketing platform?
- What’s the frequency of creating new email templates for you?
- Based on questions like these, you’ll find four main types of HTML email builders that will come to your rescue. In no particular order, these are:
HTML email generators
They are primarily aimed at developers who are responsible for building the email functionality and require simple solutions without investing significant effort.
They allow for the conversion of input data to the correct HTML format, and in some cases, an alternative format, which can be compiled into a template for further use.
Once generated, the resulting template can be imported into an email sending system or pasted directly into the source code of your application. HTML email generators share similarities with template engines, as they both aid in streamlining the email creation process.
Responsive email frameworks
are an excellent option for developers who require more advanced functionality when building emails. Essentially, an email framework is a markup-based language that allows developers to write code that is later converted to a responsive HTML format.
Email frameworks are designed to simplify email coding by offering pre-built options and various components that can be used to streamline the process.
Using an email framework can significantly reduce the time and effort required to build responsive email templates. With pre-built components and options available, developers can quickly create templates that meet their specific requirements without starting from scratch.
Additionally, email frameworks often include built-in support for responsive design, which ensures that emails look great and function well across different devices.
Some popular email frameworks include Foundation for Emails, MJML, and Cerberus. Each of these frameworks offers unique features and capabilities, allowing developers to choose the framework that best suits their needs.
Overall, using an email framework is an excellent option for developers who require advanced functionality and want to streamline the email coding process while ensuring that their emails are responsive and optimized for various devices.
Built-in email templates.
Most email sending systems come with their own template builders, offering decent functionality for designing customized templates.
These systems also allow the import of custom templates or the creation of HTML from scratch. If advanced features are required, third-party email building tools can be used, and the result can then be imported to the email sending system.
However, it’s worth noting that using a different email sending provider to create a template and then sending it with another would be an unusual approach.
Independent HTML email builders.
Tools falling under this category offer a broad range of functionality to create customized, as well as pre-defined templates for developers and marketers alike.
They provide a user-friendly, drag-and-drop interface, along with HTML email editors, image libraries, and typically allow for integration with the most popular ESPs and CRM systems.
Drag and drop editor won’t require any additional skills as you can use pre-designed blocks to add images and edit texts or switch to a source HTML code to edit for a customized design.
16 Best HTML Email Template Builders
1. Mailmodo
Mailmodo is an all-in-one email solution that enables you to effortlessly create and send interactive emails using its no-code editor. You can handle your email campaigns, manage your email lists, customize your content, select from a range of ready-to-use templates, save and reuse email blocks, and monitor performance with smart reports, all in one place.
Mailmodo is also able to integrate with multiple CRMs to manage your workflow effectively.
Key Features of Mailmodo:
- The no-code builder allows you to create and send interactive AMP and HTML emails.
- There are over 20 interactive AMO widgets to choose from, including carousels, polls, quizzes, and shopping carts.
- You can customize over 200 pre-made email templates.
- Over 100 pre-made blocks are available for use, including headers, footers, layouts, and CTA buttons.
A fallback version of your email is automatically added if the email client doesn’t support AMP emails.
2. Stripo
Users can create interactive email elements such as image rollover effects, CSS-animated buttons, and countdown timers with Stripo’s cool interactive AMP for Email functionality built-in. With over 600 free HTML email templates, users can easily choose a responsive email template from various categories such as type, e-commerce, industry, or season.
Besides their ready-to-use email templates, Stripo also provides custom email templates for $145, based on user information and requests. Stripo’s templates can be exported to over 60 ESPs, or exported as HTML to use with any other email tool.
The service is multilingual, available in English and seven other language choices such as Deutsch, Spanish, French, etc. Users can download emails as PDF for client or colleague approval, and test emails using Stripo’s embedded email testing tool.
Overall, Stripo is an excellent builder that offers various features to simplify the email creation process.
3. Chamaileon
A collaborative and responsive email template builder and editor, Chamaileon helps businesses design beautiful, responsive and high-quality emails.
Chamaileon is a highly flexible and customizable email editor that allows users to create email designs with advanced styling options. It offers hundreds of pre-designed responsive email templates that are ready to use.
One of the unique features of Chamaileon is the ability to nest structure elements into each other, allowing users to add any number of columns and adjust the size of each column individually by pixels. The tool also allows for adding borders, paddings, and margins that can be changed by pixels.
Chamaileon has two features that are not commonly found in other email builders: the “Show on Mobile / Show on Desktop” feature, which enables users to create different versions of an email for mobile and desktop, and the block saving function that lets users save drag and drop element groups for future projects. This feature allows teammates to reuse specific headers, footers, or product blocks.
The responsive email generator engine of Chamaileon ensures that any template created with the tool will look great in most email clients. The tool supports all Apple and Android devices and works on all versions of Outlook, which significantly reduces the time spent on email testing and fixing.
Chamaileon also offers a collaboration feature that allows team members to share the same workspace while designing a campaign. Each member of the marketing team can access and edit the template according to their customized account.
4. Unlayer Studio
Unlayer Studio is a free email template builder created by the same team behind MailMunch form builder. The platform provides a variety of modern and professional email templates that are already pre-made and ready to use. You don’t need any coding skills to create custom templates, and the platform includes a library of free stock photos and templates to create emails with relevant content.
These emails are bundled around topics like welcome emails, abandoned cart emails, holiday emails, etc., making it easy to find what you need. You can download your HTML template in a few clicks, and user management allows you to control what can and cannot be done, such as disallowing edits to certain parts of a message or restricting access to certain clients.
Unlayer Studio’s interface is proficient, but it is still a smaller player compared to the email creator features in BEE and Stripo. Unlayer Studio designer works with popular email service providers like ActiveCampaign, Constant Contact, and MailChimp, and it even has a plugin for Gmail. This allows you to push the email directly into the ESP and insert dynamic merge tags, unsubscribe links, etc. Marketers can also save a quick access list of these tags.
Unlayer is free to use, and you can start a free email creator account here. The pro version, which costs just $15, provides more templates and allows you to save HTML templates and blocks, return to editing, and collaborate with your team.
5. BEE – Online Email Template Builder
BEE has gained a reputation as one of the leading email template builders and editor in various online communities and forums, aiming to provide an all-in-one solution for email template building. Its pre-built templates are customizable to fit your preferences, and it utilizes a drag-and-drop system to enhance efficiency without requiring coding skills.
BEE offers a variety of features that facilitate the creation of email templates with ease and speed, including a vast template library covering multiple industries such as eCommerce, non-profit, wellness, and real estate. It also provides intelligent integrations with all major email marketing platforms, including MailChimp, Constant Contact, ActiveCampaign, SalesForce, and Amazon SES.
Moreover, BEE features a responsive landing page designer with complete design flexibility, and the “design once, use forever” functionality allows the reuse of design assets across different templates.
Some quick pros and cons:
- Projects: It offers separate folders for better organization of templates.
- Integrations: The platform provides one-click integrations with other email marketing suites and solutions.
- Landing page builder: There is an in-built landing page builder available.
- Navigation: The navigation in and out of the email builder can be confusing when checking preview text.
- Customer support: The platform’s customer support is slow, especially for international users.
- Pricing: The pricing plan is generous but steep, considering the available functionality.
- Free plan: A free plan is available, but it has limits on the number of templates created and feature restrictions.
6. Topol
Topol is known for being a great newsletter builder that offers a time-saving solution for email newsletter creators, marketers, and design professionals. It is available for free and can be used as a standalone system or integrated into existing tools or SaaS platforms as a plugin.
The platform features a drag-and-drop email generator with an intuitive interface and supports various design blocks, making it suitable for both beginners and experienced newsletter creators. All the standard features and functionalities of visual builders are available on Topol.
The comprehensive email builder also includes several useful features to make the lives of marketers and business owners easier such as:
- Drag and drop builder with pre-made blocks and design template library.
- Custom HTML code builder for complete flexibility and control over design.
- Direct addition of product information to emails with XML imports/exports.
- Personalization of design blocks and emails using merge tags.
While Topol is a valuable tool, especially considering its price point, its rudimentary layout may feel somewhat basic at times. Here are some additional pros and cons to consider when choosing Topol:
- Easy and intuitive, even for beginners.
- Limited design library and customization options.
- Great library of templates and design elements
- Developer panel and integrations.
- Layout of test emails and actual email campaigns may differ sometimes
7. MailChimp
Mailchimp doesn’t need an introduction. Although it is an email service provider, we also love the built-in builders.
Mailchimp targets small and medium businesses looking for an easy and fast way to create simple email templates. While it may not offer much flexibility in terms of elements and blocks, Mailchimp email marketing allows users to create nice, responsive emails using pre-coded templates or by creating one from scratch. However, the free version of Mailchimp no longer allows users to import their own HTML, limiting customization options.
Despite this limitation, Mailchimp is a good alternative for those with basic requirements and who do not want to worry about integration and compatibility features. Other email editors built into email tools that may not allow users to export the HTML code, which can be problematic for testing email compatibility.
The downside of using an ESP’s built-in email editor is being locked into that service, but the upside is not needing to use another provider for email design. Users who start with a free package of an ESP and become familiar with its email creator and other features are unlikely to switch providers. If they do, they may have to rebuild their email templates.
8. Moosend
Moosend is an email marketing platform that offers a range of features suitable for businesses of any size. With A/B testing, data analytics, and list segmentation, Moosend’s built-in drag and drop builder is particularly noteworthy.
One of the platform’s standout features is the device-specific preview, allowing users to preview their templates on various devices in real-time.
Moosend offers a forever-free plan, providing access to their extensive email template library, featuring ready-made, responsive templates compatible with desktop, mobile, and tablet devices.
Users can browse the different categories and find a template that suits their needs, before using the editor to personalize it to their brand.
It includes a range of different elements that can be used to create professional-looking email campaigns. Moosend also offers an image picker that integrates with Stock Photos, Google Drive, and social media platforms to provide stunning visuals for templates. Templates can be saved in the custom library and exported as HTML files for future use.
Like other email editors, Moosend’s drag-and-drop design technology allows for the inclusion of advanced marketing elements such as videos, animations, and countdown timers without any HTML coding knowledge. The platform also offers integration with stock photo platforms, Google Drive, GIPHY, and social media, as well as a ready-made templates, images, and fonts library that supports extensive customization.
9. Campaign Monitor
Campaign Monitor is a popular email marketing tool that offers a responsive template creator. Its template builder integrates with Unsplash to help you find stock images for your campaigns and allows you to customize emails to match your brand style with just one click. Some salient features of the tool include:
- Drag and drop and HTML email template generator for no-code and custom email creation.
- Automated customization based on brand logo, colors, or website URL.
- Free image gallery powered by Unsplash within the email builder.
- Extensive email template library.
Campaign Monitor also comes with its fair share of pros and cons, including:
- Excellent email template testing and dummy campaign capabilities.
- Large and flexible template library.
- Responsive design blocks.
- Can be costly for large email lists.
- Obsolete UI and functionalities in some areas.
- Lack of deep reporting integrations with CRM suites.
10. Mosaico
Mosaico is a free and open-source builder that offers several unique templates to help users get started. The drag-and-drop email editor allows for complete customization of email designs. One of the key features of Mosaico is that it automatically resizes images to ensure responsive email designs.
Users can try the email editor for free, and even download its code to self-host it on their server for complete control of their data. Other features of Mosaico include a no-code editor that supports HTML and visual drag-and-drop workflow, the ability to download HTML code for use with self-hosted solutions or email service providers, and basic email templates and design blocks to speed up the template design.
While Mosaico is fast and easy to use with minimum dependencies, it has some disadvantages, such as basic layout bugs like alignment issues with templates and limited customization capabilities.
The builder takes a minimalist approach to template designs. However, the biggest advantage of Mosaico is that it is completely free with no paid plans or limits. As a result, support may not be as prompt as it would be with a paid service.
11. Stensul
Stensul is an enterprise-focused email creation platform that offers collaborative features to streamline the email creation process.
One of their primary selling points is their brand compliance features, including guardrails and permission levels. They also provide multi-stage or agile workflows that simplify reviews and approvals, making it a popular choice for large teams with complex email creation processes. In addition, Stensul offers integrations with popular project management tools like Asana and Workfront.
Other notable features include annotated comments and approval workflows, flexible integrations with ESPs, a no-code, drag-and-drop visual editor, and onboarding services for an extra fee.
12. Postcards
Postcards, an email template software created by Designmodo, aims to help business owners build emails quickly and efficiently. The software provides an extensive template library and supports major tools.
One great feature of Postcards is its compatibility with all major tools, allowing users to export templates directly to their email tools.
However, the software’s large block libraries are behind a paywall, limiting email creation possibilities for those using the free version. Despite this, users have unlimited exports in the free version.
Postcards has many useful features such as a drag-and-drop builder, one-click export system, version history, and cloud image hosting, making it a powerful builder.
The software’s pros include a modular design system, unique design blocks and layouts for templates, project backup and management among large teams, and support for Retina-ready images and 900+ Google Fonts. However, Postcards can be costly for users who want to use it for unlimited templates, and the design and template library is restrictive to higher paid plans or behind a paywall.
Furthermore, the software is dependent on other email service providers for full marketing functionality.
13. Taxi for Email
Taxi for Email is an email template builder that was founded in 2012 and was later acquired by SparkPost in 2021. The company blog covers both email and digital marketing topics.
While the builder doesn’t offer any pre-designed templates, it provides hundreds of ready-made modules that you can use to create your own.
One of the builder’s unique features is its translator, which can automatically translate your email into several preset languages.
Additionally, you can invite up to 10 colleagues to send test emails and save them in the builder’s database. Taxi for Email also offers direct export to Litmus for testing your emails, but this feature requires a Litmus account.
The builder supports exporting directly to 25 email service providers, making it easy to integrate with your existing workflow.
14. MailerSend
MailerSend is a transactional messaging service that’s perfect for developers who want to increase their efficiency. Its interface is user-friendly, allowing anyone to create transactional emails and SMS messages with ease. With MailerSend’s powerful sending infrastructure and flexible payment plans, scaling your message sending capabilities is a breeze.
Created by deliverability experts, MailerSend comes with an email verification tool to ensure that your messages are delivered successfully. In addition, inbound routing enables customers to engage with your messages.
Try it out for yourself! You can start for FREE with up to 12,000 messages per month, and only pay for what you send thereafter. No contracts are necessary. The free plan includes all the essential features you need, and technical support is available 24/7.
15. Dyspatch
Dyspatch is an excellent email template editing and building tool that offers a completely visual interface. With Dyspatch, you don’t need any coding skills to personalize free templates, and the best part is that you don’t need to sign up for any free trial.
To get started, simply visit the Dyspatch templates portal, choose any of the 12 pre-built email templates, and access the editor to select the campaign mode you want, such as Update, Coupon, Receipt, Birthday, Activation, and more.
Dyspatch is a popular no-code email creator that allows users to speed up the email template-building process. You can use its free designs as HTML files anywhere. You can use the drag-and-drop builder within Dyspatch or export the templates to your existing ESP to make the most out of these templates.
The advanced drag-and-drop builder by Dyspatch can add interactive content blocks like email surveys, live product data, and more, making it one of the most versatile tools out there.
Dyspatch has all the essential email-building features you need for your daily marketing activities, including:
- Advanced email template builders with interactive content block
- Export email templates to use with other email service providers
- Template localization and AMP capabilities
However, one drawback of the tool is its steep learning curve.
16. Litmus — Powerful Email Template Software
Litmus is an email template software that offers both a drag-and-drop editor and an HTML code editor, giving you the best of both worlds. It offers a suite of powerful features to design, test, optimize, personalize, and improve all your email templates.
With Litmus, you can use the drag-and-drop editor to create your templates, or you can use the HTML code editor to create templates from scratch. The template library helps you get started quickly, and the in-built design library allows you to add brand guidelines and create reusable blocks and templates quickly.
Litmus also has an in-built email preview feature that supports 100+ email clients, ensuring that your emails are responsive and look great across all devices.
In addition to its standard features, Litmus also offers excellent personalization options. You can use in-built blocks, live email content, AI capabilities, and custom targeting to personalize your emails at scale.
However, there are a few cons to consider, such as the lack of preview header and subject line testing features and inadequate collaboration features. Overall, Litmus is a great option for marketers and entrepreneurs who want to create professional, personalized email campaigns with ease.
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