The Best Email Testing Tools List
Here are the top 10 email testing software I’d like to highlight out of the 15 I cover in this article:
Our one-on-one guidance will help you find the perfect fit.
Email testing is often neglected, however, is important considering how many emails are sent a day by a single person working at a company. Sometimes, the problem is finding the right tool for your company and your situation.
In this article, I have selected a shortlist of just some of the best email testing tools in the market. With a range of tools suitable for developers, QA testers, and email marketers alike, there is something for every level of expertise.
Comparison Criteria
What do I look for when I select the best email testing solutions? Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria:
- User Interface (UI): I look for user-friendly and clean dashboards for pleasant user experience, ensuring everything is clear, concise and organized.
- Usability: I look for effective but easy to use platforms with extensive documentation for reference and training.
- Integrations: I look for easy and efficient email integration opportunities through various social media platforms, email providers such as Gmail and Outlook, and analytics that are easily executed.
- Value for $: I look for what features and access levels you get for your money—is it worth what you’re paying?
Email Testing: Key Features
- Email Integration: Email testing tools should work with all the most popular email providers, including Gmail, Outlook, AOL, iCloud, and so on.
- Spam Tests: Email testing tools should be able to detect whether or not your email campaigns can make it through common spam filters.
- Sender Score: The software should give you an idea of your sender score—AKA how likely you are to be able to make it in front of your target audience.
- Defect tracking: If a problem arises, the tool should appropriately flag and log it so that your team can address it in a timely fashion.
- Deliverability optimization: The platform should provide insights that improve your likelihood of emails reaching their target destination.
Overviews Of The 15 Best Email Testing Tools
Here’s a brief description of each email testing platform to showcase each tool’s best use case, some noteworthy features, and screenshots to give a snapshot of the interface.
Stripo
Best for creating & testing email templates
Stripo is an email design platform that allows teams to design responsive emails with little or no HTML skills required. It is equipped with a comprehensive drag-n-drop editor and a set of basic blocks that allow users to create real-time content with no coding skills. Stripo was one of the first email builders to implement AMP for Email technology.
Stripo allows you to reuse and save email modules, even across different email campaigns. It comes with automated processes, custom modules libraries, and provides a host of personalization like the ability to embed custom HTML code to create interactive elements.It provides users with over 1000 free and ready-to-use responsive email templates that are also mobile optimized.
Stripo comes with over 100,000 stock images along with the opportunity to personalize and export emails, then track conversions thereafter.Stripo can be integrated with over 60 ESPs/CRMs tools. This provides users with versatility and flexibility of functionality, for instance, to push emails to automation systems with only a click of a button.
Stripo has a lifetime free version. The other versions are billed annually: Basic ($150 or $12.5 per month), Medium ($450 or $37.5 per month), Pro ($950 or $79 per month), and Prime, with pricing available upon request.
SendinBlue
Best for small to medium enterprises
Sendinblue is an email and marketing automation tool designed specifically for small to medium enterprises. Sendinblue boasts a full, easy-to-use marketing hub, including automation features, email validation, reporting and email design templates. Sendinblue’s email automation tool lets you send rules and execute commands depending on end user action.
Sendinblue provides targeted communication using behavioural, email and contact data, helping you to build basic and advanced workflows and separate your contacts and email list based on website activity. Their jack-of-all-trades approach to email creation, marketing, automation, and testing is something that many SMEs prefer over juggling an endless email tech stack.
The cost of Sendinblue starts at $25/month for up to 20,000 emails. Sendinblue also offers a free version with some account limitations
Email On Acid
Best for testing email accessibility
Email on Acid is an email platform that specializes in quality assurance and pre-deployment functionality. It enhances organizations’ ability to deliver error-free emails that maintain brand reputation to ultimately boost marketing ROI.
Email on Acid strives to provide consistency in visual email rendering across different devices and platforms, ensuring generated emails get displayed as intended. It streamlines the email testing and pre-deployment process with campaign prechecks, URL validation, image optimization, and so on.
Email on Acid allows you to run checklists that matter like UTM validation and ADA compliance.Email on Acid improves email deliverability rates with spam checks in addition to providing access to blacklisted domains. This allows developers and email designers to verify their email list against up to over 20 popular spam filters while also testing IP addresses against popular block list services.
Email on Acid comes with an editor for building templates along with team collaboration tools for better efficiency.
Email on Acid has four pricing tiers, each with a free trial period and billed annually. The Basics is $74/month, Premium is $134/month, Professional costs $449/month, while the Enterprise tier is custom priced.
MailChimp Transactional Email
Best for marketing automations
Mailchimp is an all-in-one marketing platform with a robust content creation suite, marketing analytics, and add-on options for advanced email testing features. Mailchimp is AI-powered and provides user-friendly tools on an intuitive user interface, offering accessibility to users who lack deep technical knowledge. Mailchimp offers comprehensive reporting for deliverability, open rates, click-throughs, and conversions.
Mailchimp provides marketing automation features so you can manage transactional deliveries and automate tasks and communications. The tool is scalable, allowing you to send a large quantity of emails at once. Mailchimp also offers website hosting and design, making it easy for the user to create landing pages from a variety of basic templates (or code your own from scratch).
To get access to the Transactional Email add-on, you’ll need a Standard Mailchimp plan or above: $14.99/month. Then, add $20/block (AKA 25,000 emails)—or, access lower per-block rates for bulk purchases.
MailSlurp
Best for end-to-end email testing
MailSlurp is an “email as a service” tool with email sandbox APIs, deliverability dashboards, auto-forwarding, webhooks, and inbox routing that is used by the likes of Trivago, Ring, and Panasonic.
Using REST API, the tool allows you to programmatically test transactional emails and fundamental user engagement by sending actual emails to real email addresses to your application. Used primarily by developers and QA testers, MailSlurp allows you to create real inboxes on demand, send and receive emails and attachments in code, and tests using a variety of frameworks and languages such as Selenium and Jest.
MailSlurp uses a custom SMTP MailSErver and AWS SES to send and receive your emails at scale. You can send contact groups email design templates and track the number of times an email has been opened using actual email addresses, test user authentication, forgotten passwords and email verification.
MailSlurp costs from $21.66/month (billed annually) for the Starter package.
MailSlurp also offers a 7-day free trial.
MailTester
Best for ease-of-use email testing
MailTester is a cloud-based email verification solution that helps businesses verify the domains and syntax of emails. The tool is an effective first line of defense for email testing and provides an easy to use user interface, allowing accessibility to users lacking technical knowledge.
MailTester offers an extensive toolbox which includes Spam Trap Removal (searches for spam trap emails in your email lists) and Syntax Verifier (catches emails containing invalid syntaxes and deletes them). MailTester allows manual as well as automatic email verification using API and allows you to download segmented results.
MailTester costs from $19/month for 1 user. They also offer a free trial.
MailTrap
Best for email testing in staging environments
MailTrap is an online tool for safe email testing in development and staging environments. The tool is used as a fake SMTP server to catch test emails, view them in virtual inboxes, and debug before they are sent to real users. MailTrap allows you to test and iterate over new emails efficiently in order to avoid emails mistakenly being sent to clients and other employees from dev environments. MailTrap can be integrated via API or as an SMTP server.
MailTrap offers numerous features, including Bcc testing. Most email testing tools do not support Bcc as it is not a regular SMTP header like To or Cc. MailTrap displays all Bcc’ed addresses and is able to verify whether they stay invisible for the main recipients. MailTrap also provides a customizable email address for each inbox, allowing you to run tests in a production environment in addition to a development environment.
The cost of MailTrap starts at $9.99/ month for 1 user and up to 5 inboxes. MailTrap also offers a free version specifically for a single inbox and up to 500 email tests per month.
MailCatcher
Best free email testing tool
MailCatcher is an email testing tool that is designed to intercept all mail from any web or mobile app and store it for display. MailCatcher runs a fake SMTP server and shows HTML and CSS emails, Plain Text emails and Source versions of messages as applicable. It also rewrites HTML enabling display of embedded images and can open links in a new window. This allows you to effectively test all aspects of your email and check the formatting before it goes to your client.
MailCatcher mail appears instantly if WebSockets is supported on your browser, otherwise it updates every thirty seconds. It also offers command line options to override the default SMTP/HTTP IP and port settings, which allows you to manipulate your testing the best way for your practice.
MailCatcher is a free email testing tool and instructions on how to download it can be found on their site.
GlockApps
Best for spam testing email campaigns
GlockApps is an inbox delivery and spam filter testing tool that allows users to fix any email deliverability problems prior to hitting send. GlockApps provides a one-stop-shop for all email delivery tools including a “Reputation Check,” which allows you to audit your IP address and domain you are sending from against industry blacklists. You also have access to DMARC Email Analytics to monitor, capture, separate and or/reject any email pretending to be you.
Glockapps provides detailed spam and blacklist reports in order to allow the user to troubleshoot and fix problems that improve email deliverability. This feature is particularly useful should you wish to test marketing campaigns and deliverability of email marketing providers. The report shows all IP addresses that were used to send emails and details whether they are on any blacklists, allowing you to get an overall view of the email campaign’s performance.
GlockApps costs from $59/month for the basic plan, and also provides a free version specifically for personal use.
MailHog
Best for app developers
MailHog is an email testing tool with a fake SMTP server that is designed specifically for app developers. The tool allows you to configure your application to use MailHog for SMTP delivery, view messages in a web UI, or retrieve them with the JSON API, and optionally release messages to real SMTP servers for delivery.
MailHog is a lightweight tool that you do not have to install, therefore it can be run on multiple
operating systems, including Windows, Linux and MacOS. This allows easy access for developers to test web app’s email sending and receiving capabilities. MailHog also provides real-time updates using an EventSource web interface. Captured emails can be stored in in-memory message storage and persisted in a MongoDB database and file-based stored system.
MailHog is an open source and free tool that can be used by anyone.
Need expert help selecting the right Email Marketing Software?
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The Best Email Testing Tools Summary
Tool | Free Option | Price | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Stripo Best for creating & testing email templates | Free version available | From $12.50/month | Visit Website |
2 | SendinBlue Best for small to medium enterprises | Free plan available | From $25/month | Visit Website |
3 | Email On Acid Best for testing email accessibility | Not available | From $74/month | Visit Website |
4 | MailChimp Transactional Email Best for marketing automations | Not available | $14.99/month; then, add $20/block (AKA 25,000 emails) | Visit Website |
5 | MailSlurp Best for end-to-end email testing | 7 Days Free Trial | $21.66/month (billed annually) | Visit Website |
6 | MailTester Best for ease-of-use email testing | Free Trial | $19/month for 1 user | Visit Website |
7 | MailTrap Best for email testing in staging environments | Not available | $9.99/ month for 1 user and up to 5 inboxes | Visit Website |
8 | MailCatcher Best free email testing tool | Not available | Free to use | Visit Website |
9 | GlockApps Best for spam testing email campaigns | Not available | $59/month for the basic plan | Visit Website |
10 | MailHog Best for app developers | Not available | Free to use | Visit Website |
Other Options
Here’s a few more that didn’t make the top list.
- Wormly
Best for email + web monitoring
- Litmus ESP
Best for integrations
- Reflect
Best for testing workflows that span web and email
- ZeroBounce
Email validation service that uses AI-powered deliverability scoring to increase your deliverability and open rates.
- SparkPost
Email sender reputation tool using data-driven analytics to parse bounce, delivery, and engagement events.
Related Read: HOW TO EFFECTIVELY MONITOR SERVER PERFORMANCE
Conclusion
So: should QAs care about email testing? Short answer is YES!
Email testing is important as a part of a broader brand communication and marketing strategy. These tools are designed to improve deliverability and minimize risk when sending out hoards of emails to clients, each tool also harbouring their own specific strength so that you are able to make an informed decision based on your needs.
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