6 Leading Email Design Platforms Compared
Choosing the right email design platform is critical for campaign effectiveness and team productivity. The ideal tool should not only simplify the creation process but also ensure technical reliability, support team collaboration, and provide the features needed to scale your marketing efforts.
To help you assess the alternatives, we have evaluated leading platforms using a consistent set of criteria relevant to practical application.
How the Tools Were Evaluated
We evaluated each platform using five practical criteria to measure their performance in a professional marketing setting:
- Responsive Design: Ensures compatibility across devices, clients, and dark mode.
- Reusable Elements: Maintains brand consistency through templates and a central design system.
- Automation: Measures the power of workflows, segmentation, and personalization.
- Testing & Optimization: Includes A/B testing, preview tools, and performance analytics.
- Collaboration Features: Supports teams with user roles, feedback tools, and version history.
Top 6 Email Design Platforms
Let’s take a closer look at the six top email design platforms. We’ll break down what each one is best for, their key features, and see how they stack up against our criteria.
1. Stripo.email
- Year of foundation: 2017
- Number of employees: ~70
- Rating: Capterra 4.9 / Software Advice 4.9
Stripo.email is an email template builder used for creating marketing emails. It is an online tool that lets users build everything from basic newsletters to interactive AMP emails without coding, using a drag-and-drop editor and HTML/CSS access.
This email marketing software is made for marketing teams, agencies, freelancers, and businesses of any size that need an efficient and collaborative tool for creating email campaigns.
It is also widely used by designers, including product designers, visual designers, creative designers, and signature designers, who need to build and implement email designs efficiently. The platform works for both non-technical users and developers who need detailed control.
Key Features:
- Drag-and-drop editor with HTML/CSS mode.
- Library of 1,600+ pre-built email templates.
- AMP email support for interactive elements (carousels, accordions, forms).
- One-click export to 80+ ESPs and HTML code.
- Real-time collaboration tools.
- Reusable content blocks and brand Design Systems.
- Mobile-friendly and dark mode optimized previews.
- Dynamic content and product feed integration.
- Free plan available with monthly exports.
Stripo generates fully responsive emails for desktop, tablet, and mobile. Users can preview mobile layouts and optimize for dark mode. The platform also supports broad compatibility, enabling one-click export to over 80 ESPs like Mailchimp and HubSpot. Finished emails can also be downloaded as HTML or PDF files.
To improve efficiency, Stripo lets you save and reuse content blocks and modules in a personal or team library. For larger companies, it can enforce brand rules through a formal design system that controls styles and shared elements, ensuring all emails remain consistent.
The platform includes automation tools like dynamic content, which can automatically pull product information from a feed to populate email cards. It also supports creating emails in multiple languages and using conditional content, which helps in running personalized and scalable campaigns for different audience groups.
Before sending, you can preview your design across all major email programs and devices. Stripo’s primary role is as a builder, but its strong ESP integrations allow you to continue using your main platform for advanced A/B testing and analytics.
The platform also simplifies teamwork with collaborative features like in-editor comments, version history, and shared folders, making the review cycle more efficient for larger groups.
2. Constant Contact
- Year of foundation: 1995
- Number of employees: 1235
- Rating: Capterra 4.3 / G2 4.1
Constant Contact offers a marketing platform with email, event management, and social media tools. Designed for small businesses, it focuses on ease of use over advanced features. The platform serves entrepreneurs, small companies, and non-profits that need simple solutions for basic marketing and event tasks.
Key Features:
- Drag-and-drop email editor;
- Event creation and RSVP management;
- List growth and contact management tools;
- Social media post scheduling;
- Basic automation (welcome series, date-based);
- A/B testing for subject lines;
- Integrations with e-commerce and website platforms.
The platform’s responsive templates offer limited user control over mobile adaptation. A major limitation is the lack of a dedicated mobile preview, often causing poor display on phones.
There are also no tools for dark mode optimization. While users can save custom templates and content blocks, the absence of a central brand kit requires manual setup of fonts and colors for each project, complicating brand consistency.
Automation features are basic and inflexible. Segmentation uses only simple tags and lists, restricting personalization. The system supports only linear email sequences, not complex branching campaigns. A/B testing is limited to subject lines and send times, and analytics provide only surface-level data. Platform performance also slows with large contact lists.
Constant Contact provides basic team functions through role-based access, letting owners, managers, and creators work with specific permissions. Teams can share templates and campaigns, and there is an option to lock design elements to prevent changes and keep branding consistent.
However, it lacks more advanced teamwork tools. There is no feature for leaving comments directly inside a project, no detailed history of changes, and multiple people cannot edit at the same time. The permission settings are also fairly basic and may not be sufficient for larger teams with complex processes.
3. ActiveCampaign
- Year of foundation: 2003
- Number of employees: ~1000
- Rating: G2 4.5/5
ActiveCampaign combines email marketing, CRM, and workflow automation within a unified customer experience platform. This integrated system supports businesses progressing beyond elementary email marketing.
The platform accommodates small-to-midsize organizations and e-commerce businesses requiring behavioral automation. Its comprehensive functionality necessitates managing a sophisticated interface for customer engagement and lead management.
Key Features:
- Visual automation builder with conditional logic;
- Lead scoring and site tracking;
- Integrated sales CRM;
- Machine learning for predictive sending and content;
- Dynamic content personalization;
- A/B testing and conversion reporting;
- Built-in landing page and form builders.
The responsive email templates offer limited mobile customization, with only basic screen toggles instead of a true mobile preview. There is also no automatic dark mode support, risking readability and branding.
While you can save custom templates and blocks, the lack of a central brand kit requires manual application of fonts and colors for each project, which can cause inconsistencies. The template management system is also too basic for effective team use.
ActiveCampaign has strong automation and personalization, but the system is complex and has a steep learning curve. Key limitations include no mobile campaign management, limited A/B testing, and poorly organized analytics.
For teams, it includes user roles and content reuse but lacks live collaboration, simultaneous editing, and approval workflows, making it inefficient for large teams.
4. Iterable
- Year of foundation: 2013
- Number of employees: approximately 700 employees
- Rating: G2 4.4 / Capterra 4.3
Iterable operates as an enterprise growth marketing platform that coordinates personalized communication across multiple channels. The system manages complex, large-scale customer journey automation.
It specifically serves established e-commerce brands, technology firms, and large enterprises. These organizations typically maintain dedicated marketing operations teams requiring advanced, data-informed campaign orchestration.
Key Features:
- Drag-and-drop workflow builder for customer journeys;
- Cross-channel campaigns (email, SMS, push, in-app);
- Advanced segmentation and real-time audience targeting;
- AI-powered send time and content optimization;
- A/B testing and experimentation framework;
- Extensive API for deep data integration.
Iterable’s built-in email editor is not as user-friendly as dedicated design tools, limiting creative options. The platform prioritizes campaign setup over design, so creating advanced mobile-friendly layouts or dark-mode emails usually needs a developer to write custom code.
While you can create template libraries, setting up a unified design system requires major technical configuration. This makes managing content blocks across different channels difficult for non-technical staff, often causing inconsistent branding and reliance on IT for template updates.
The workflow builder is complex and difficult to learn. Creating detailed, multi-channel campaigns requires significant time and careful management. Additionally, slow customer support responses can create operational risks, especially for urgent campaigns.
The platform’s advanced testing and AI optimization tools require specialized expertise to operate effectively. Teams without dedicated data analysis skills may find the complex data difficult to manage, and the substantial server resources required for large-scale testing contribute to higher costs.
For team use, Iterable includes basic features like user permissions, shared content blocks, and change history. These allow different access levels for team members and help track modifications.
However, the platform misses key collaboration tools such as in-editor comments, live simultaneous editing, and structured approval processes. This can hinder larger teams that need detailed feedback and coordinated review cycles.
5. Mailmodo
- Year of foundation: 2020
- Number of employees: ~60
- Rating: G2: 4.5/5
Mailmodo is an all-in-one email marketing platform with a specialized focus on building interactive AMP emails without the need for any programming. Its position in the market is as an advanced automation tool dedicated to boosting engagement by enabling actions directly inside the email itself.
It’s a great fit for marketers, e-commerce stores, and growth teams that have outgrown basic, static emails. You can use it to increase conversions and gather useful data by embedding things like forms, quizzes, and even shopping carts directly in the inbox.
Key Features:
- No-code drag-and-drop builder for AMP and HTML emails.
- Library of 20+ interactive AMP widgets (forms, carts, polls, calendars).
- 200+ pre-made, customizable email templates.
- Visual automation builder for multi-step customer journeys.
- AI-powered subject line generator and send time optimization.
- Automated HTML fallback for clients that don’t support AMP.
- Integrated analytics tracking in-email actions and submissions.
Mailmodo creates responsive emails and specializes in interactive AMP emails with built-in features like forms and shopping carts. If an email client doesn’t support AMP, it automatically sends a standard HTML version instead. The main limitation is that since AMP isn’t widely supported yet, many of your subscribers will only see the basic, non-interactive version of your email.
It offers a template library, a brand kit for consistency, and reusable team components. The modular system speeds up assembly but makes creating complex, fully custom layouts difficult.
Mailmodo’s automation uses a visual editor to create email sequences triggered by user actions, with personalization via merge tags. However, building advanced automations based on detailed customer data typically requires API integrations, which can be too technical for some teams.
Its analytics include basic opens, clicks, and A/B testing for subject lines. A significant limitation is the inability to A/B test different email designs or content, and the lack of advanced data segmentation may require power users to supplement with other tools.
Multiple team members can work in Mailmodo with shared templates and brand settings. The editor saves work automatically. The platform’s collaboration tools are basic; it does not have features for leaving comments directly in an email, tracking detailed changes, or multiple people editing at the same time. This can slow down the review process for larger teams.
6. MailerLite
- Year of foundation: 2010
- Number of employees: 57
- Rating: EmailTooltester 4.2 / Capterra 4.7
MailerLite is a budget-friendly platform for core email marketing tasks, including newsletters, basic automations, and landing pages. Its simple, cost-effective design forgoes advanced features, making it a strong fit for small businesses, bloggers, and freelancers who value simplicity and a generous free plan.
Key Features:
- Drag-and-drop email editor;
- Generative AI subject line and content helper;
- Landing page and pop-up form builder;
- Basic automation workflows (welcome series, birthday emails);
- Subscriber segmentation and management;
- A/B testing for subject lines and from names;
- Integrations with e-commerce and other tools.
MailerLite’s responsive templates offer limited customization for mobile devices. The platform does not include testing features for spam analysis or multi-client email previews, which can lead to formatting problems in different email clients. It also lacks automatic dark mode adaptation.
For brand management, users can save templates and content blocks, but there is no central brand kit. This means brand elements like fonts and colors must be manually applied to each new project, which can reduce efficiency and create consistency issues, especially for teams.
The automation features are basic and do not include advanced options like lead scoring or complex conditional logic. New accounts undergo strict verification, which can delay the start of automated campaigns.
A/B testing is limited to subject lines and sender names and cannot test different email designs or content. Analytics are basic and lack detailed segmentation. Free users cannot access pre-designed templates, restricting their design and testing options.
The platform’s collaboration tools are basic, limited primarily to shared templates and a version history. It does not support inline feedback, detailed user roles, or formal approval chains. Consequently, larger teams will find it difficult to manage a structured and efficient content review process.
Conclusion
Your ideal email platform depends on your team’s skills, automation complexity, and budget. Options range from basic campaign tools to advanced systems for large-scale operations.
Focus on how well each platform handles responsive design, templates, automation, and collaboration. Always use a free trial or demo to test if the tool fits your actual workflow before purchasing.
Of all the platforms reviewed, Stripo.Email stands out as the most capable and well-rounded solution. Its extensive template library, reliable integrations, and practical collaboration tools create a complete system for professional email production. For most organizations, Stripo represents the optimal choice.