Many businesses send order confirmation emails, password recovery, membership renewal, etc., to their users. Such emails are transactional emails and are meant to keep users updated and informed about their transactions.
These emails, if optimized, can provide powerful marketing opportunities to your business. You can use many software to send such emails. This guide will discuss the benefits of such emails and the best transactional email software you can choose.
Disclaimer: The information in this guide is accurate as of January 2024.
Table of contents
What is a transactional email?
A transactional email is a one-to-one communication triggered by a user action, such as a purchase receipt, password reset, or account confirmation. Unlike marketing emails, transactional emails are personalized and have a specific purpose to serve the user.
For example, an order confirmation email can look like this:
What are the benefits of transactional emails?
Transactional emails offer many benefits to your email campaigns which are as follows:
1. Higher opens and engagements
These are the messages that your customer considers a must-open in response to an ongoing transaction with your business. That's why these emails have eight times more opens and engagement rates than usual marketing emails.
2. Developing customer trust
Transactional emails provide users with updates and maintain communication throughout their buying journey. And so, these emails eliminate users' doubts and address their concerns at different touchpoints. Hence, help build trust and credibility.
3. Improves brand recognition
Another benefit is that you can promote your brand through these one-off messages. Then, when they often see your logo, colors, typography, etc., it'll be easier for them to remember your brand in the future.
4. Timing
One of the best benefits of transactional emails is that they are sent in real-time. It means that with effective email marketing, you can prompt the user to take any action and even turn them into loyal customers.
5. Relevance
With transactional emails, you can gather behavioral data about users' activity. You can then create personalized emails to add more value and relevancy to your emails.
How to send transactional emails?
Today, there are tools for everything, including transactional email tools. Most marketers today opt for transactional email software to leverage their benefits. Transactional email software helps you send more emails in real time with higher deliverability. Once your account is set with the email software like Mailmodo, you can send promotional emails by:
- Using SMTP
- Using transactional email API
- Using Open Source and plug-ins
What to look for while choosing transactional email software?
There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to picking the right transactional software. Consider if the software you are considering has the following:
✅ Ready-made templates
Check whether your transactional email provider gives you ready-made transactional email templates or the option to design your emails. A ready-made assortment of beautiful templates is a bonus. ex: order confirmations, password reset requests, shipping notifications, and account verification emails.
✅ Editing option for convenience
Are you able to edit and personalize emails for your users? The editing feature adds flexibility which is a must to create dynamic email campaigns.
✅ User journey builder & email automation
Your software must let you track user behavioral history and craft optimized campaigns. Another must-have key feature is email automation to automate emails and save time on your end.
✅ Integration with CRMs and other tools
Check if your email software integrates with other marketing tools, apps, and work-related software. Since the overall aim of email software is to optimize your business, you don't want a glitch in its integration.
✅ Reports and dashboards
Does your email marketing software have an easy-to-understand interface? Ensure that it has a simplified dashboard to help you track and analyze your campaign's performance.
✅ Flexible pricing
Perhaps the most integral factor while picking your email software is the pricing. Always check if the features you're paying for can really take your business a notch up or not.
Best transactional email software and its features
Choosing an effective transactional email software involves comparing intuitive features and the overall rating of the software. Here are 5 best transactional email software compared so that you can choose the best:
1. Mailmodo - Transactional Email Service
Mailmodo's transactional email platform is designed for the modern marketer. Apart from taking care of all your email marketing operations, it has some standout features like custom triggers to help you send transactional emails in minutes. You can easily send effective transactional emails using email API or SMTP relay. It helps you with inbox placement and improves deliverability.
Features:
- You can set up various triggers, including API endpoints, webhooks, CRM, and other marketing integrations to send effective transactional emails.
- Mailmodo's visual journey builder helps you send transactional emails or stitch multiple emails in an automation sequence.
- Multiple transactional email templates, including password reset, account alert, and invoice messages.
- Add interactive elements like shopping carts and forms to make transactional emails more effective and interesting without a single line of code using AMP emails.
- Seamlessly integrate other marketing tools, including Hubspot or Facebook Ads, to trigger transactional emails through data from these sources.
- Real-time reporting and analytics to analyze the performance of your transactional emails.
"We needed a fast, reliable, and cost-effective email solution for our transactional email requirements. Mailmodo, with its easy integration and support, has seamlessly integrated with our solution from day 1."
- Varun Pandey, G2
G2 rating: 4.6/5
Pricing:
Free trial: ✅
| Plan | Contacts Limit | Price (INR) | Email sending credits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lite | 2,500 | $39 | 20,000 |
| Pro | 2,500 | $79 | 25,000 |
| Max | 2,500 | $159 | 37,500 |
You can customize the number of contacts as well. Check Mailmodo's full pricing plan here.
2. SendGrid - Transactional Email Service
Known for its scalability and deliverability, SendGrid is a cloud-based SMTP email software. SendGrid gives you multiple integration options and provides feedback on your emails. The software also lets you create email marketing campaigns apart from automating transactional emails.
Features:
- It helps you integrate and deliver transactional emails with RESTful APIs, SMTP, libraries, and interactive documents.
- Its purpose-built mail transfer agent assists you in achieving optimal inbox placement.
- Create and manage email templates with point-to-click HTML rendering and conditional formatting accessed by API calls.
- You can also test for inbox rendering, link validity, and performance against spam filters.
- Analyze and report email activity in real time.
"Sendgrid is our one-stop solution for all our transactional email needs. It seamlessly integrates with all our websites, billing platforms, and communities." - Gopal K., G2
G2 rating: 4.0/5
Pricing:
Free trial: ✅
| Contacts | Free | Basic | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2k | $0/month | - | - |
| 10k | - | $25/month | $60/month |
| 20k | - | $50/month | $100/month |
| 45k | - | $120/month | $250/month |
| 80k | - | $200/month | $250/month |
| 100k+ | - | Custom plan | Custom plan |
🔍 Compare:
3. Brevo - Transactional Email Software
Sendinblue is a cloud-based email marketing service that manages and automates email campaigns. Designed to be a one-stop solution for your digital marketing needs, SendinBlue also provides SMS marketing service and insights into email performance.
- Provides email API that guarantees a 99% delivery rate.
- Bravo integrates all major CMS tools, whether it's SMTP relay, webhook, or plugins.
- Offers personalization so you can customize the name, prices and products for your customers.
- Brevo also offers a ready-to-integrate inbound parser that can help you retrieve the actual message and signatures from raw emails and converts them into markdown.
"Brevo Transactional Email has allowed our business to grow our contact list and elevate our campaigns. It has all the tools you need for email marketing, and the platform is easy to learn and use." - Elizabeth L., G2
G2 rating: 4.6/5
Pricing:
Free trial: ✅
| Number of emails | Free | Starter | Business |
|---|---|---|---|
| Upto 300 emails daily | $0/mo with unlimited contacts | NA | NA |
| Upto 20k | NA | $25/mo with unlimited contacts | $65/mo with unlimited contacts |
| Upto 40k | NA | $35/mo | $75/mo |
| Upto 60k | NA | $49/mo | $89/mo |
| Upto 100k | NA | $69/mo | $129/mo |
| Upto 150k | NA | NA | $169/mo |
| Upto 1M | NA | NA | $669/mo |
4. Postmark - SMTP Transactional Email Provider
Postmark is one of the most affordable SMTP services out there. With its SMTP servers distributed worldwide, the software stands out in a fast email delivery to your contacts.
- Provides responsive transactional email templates, including welcome messages, password resets, etc.
- Easy integration via API or SMTP, which helps you start sending emails in minutes.
- Helps you keep track of bounced emails through its dashboard, or you can make use of webhooks that notify your app of any new issue.
- Provides detailed open and delivery tracking for each email.
- Access to 45 days of full content history by default (can be customized from 7-365 days) to help you troubleshoot.
"If you need a reliable and absolutely fast transactional email service, Postmark is the one you should use. Pricing is reasonable, and customer support is stellar." - Yusuf, Twitter
G2 rating: 4.6/5
Pricing:
Free trial: ✅
| Price (INR) | Number of emails |
|---|---|
| $0 | Upto 100 |
| $55 | 50,000 |
| $115 | 125,000 |
| $245 | 3,00,000 |
| $455 | 7,00,000 |
5. Campaign monitor - Transactional Email Platform
Campaign Monitor helps you track email metrics to analyze email performance and optimize them. You can also design your personalized emails with its drag-and-drop email builder. You can create, edit and optimize triggered messages, all in one place with Campaign Monitor.
Features:
- You can design and test transactional emails with tools like email builder and analytics to send effective email campaigns.
- Provides comprehensive reports for open, click-through, and deliverability rates for each type of email and recipient so you get in-depth analytics in real-time.
- You also get complete delivery logs to ensure that your transactional emails go into your customer's inbox.
- Email automation services and template library for different occasions.
Source: Ace Plugins
"The automation and transactional email features have enabled us to create and execute complex marketing drip campaigns to different audiences with a set-it-and-forget-it approach." - Conrad C., G2
G2 rating: 4.1/5
Pricing:
Free trial: ✅
| Contacts | Lite | Essentials | Premier |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2,500 | $39/month | $59/month | $149/month |
| 5,000 | $68/month | $99/month | $149/month |
| 10,000 | $99/month | $134/month | $249/month |
| 20,000 | $129/month | $249/month | $399/month |
| 50,000 | $219/month | $269/month | $499/month |
Wrapping up
Transactional emails cover a significant spot in the world of email marketing. There are various transactional emails in the market, including Mailmodo, SendGrid, Campaign Monitor, Brevo, etc. The right way to choose transactional email software is to look for value for money, affordability, ease of use, and customer support. Mailmodo can help you send transactional emails with reasonable pricing and value for money with supportive customer service. Try it today!
