MailChimp is a solid platform, but the pricing does get exponentially higher after 2,000 subscribers.

It does have some nice advanced features if you're on the top tier plans, where you can customize blocks of content in an email based on customer tags, for example.

The website builder seems pretty decent. Although personally I would prefer that it would have more options for customization. It's great if you like one of the templates they have, but if you want to pave your own, maybe not so much.

The user interface in general is rather polished. Being backed by a company like Intuit leaves it less likely for there to be software glitches.

Not being able to do a very in-depth look at MailChimp, I instead looked at the reviews over on sites like Trustpilot, and G2.

I don't think it has any options for building the course either. So not quite an all-in-one solution.

Here's what the customers on G2 have to say for pros and cons:

Flowdesk is a great example of do one thing and do it really well. The main drawback is that it more or less only does the one thing.

Which is great if it happens to be the only one thing that you're after. It does not really have a web builder. What they have are pre-built templates, in which you can change the words, links and images. That's about it.

It does have some workflow and audience segmentation options, but it's all pre-built. There's not a lot of options for customizing things to be the way that you want them to be. It has a great pricing model and they don't change the price as your subscribers grow, which is a huge plus as compared to Podia, MailChimp, ConvertKit, and MailerLite.

This does not qualify as an all-in-one solution, but it's worth an honorable mention for their email and great pricing.

While looking at reviews for this product, it does seem that the customer service is lacking. I have not personally reached out to them myself to try it, though.

When it comes to all-in-one marketing platforms, ClickFunnels is the elephant in the room, and they are a leader in the industry.

They have ample supply of templates, training, and support for getting your product up and going. Recently they came out with 2.0 which has a lot of improvements over their classic edition.

I found their editor to be easy to use, and pretty flexible for building web pages and funnels.

They have invested a lot into the training and courses available on the platform. There is a huge vault of training material for almost anything you'd want to do to learn to grow your business.

The main drawback I see is if you are just starting out. $297 a month is small, when your an established business. It might be a bit large when you are still trying to get your first clients, however. (Yes, they also have a $97 per month plan, but it does not include email marketing. For that, you would need to use a third-party.)

You can also help promote your business by using affiliates with their backpack feature.

3/28/24 - Update: I have talked with a lot more people now that have used 2.0 and it does seem that the general consensus is that it's still pretty buggy, and not quite ready for prime time just yet.

I ended up with less time than I would have preferred to explore MailerLite, but I'm impressed with what I've seen: Good page editor. Options for automation. Great customer support. Decent pricing for getting started.

Even though the price is based on the number of subscribers you have with MailerLite, it's still significantly less than both MailChimp and ConvertKit.

The page builder is very smooth and polished. There's a lot of flexibility. I'd say it's one of the best I've used in terms of ease of use and intuition.

It looks like they have decent options for automation that cover the basic needs.

Like Mailchimp, they unfortunately do not offer a course platform. So you would either need to build entirely yourself from scratch, as you would in WordPress, or else use a third party, such as Thinkific or Teachable.

After looking at all these different options, (and serveral others not worth bothering to mention here), this is a platform I've decided on for my business.

They have quality support, every single feature I was looking for, and then some.

Even though it's not instant feedback like some of the live chat supports on other sites, I was very impressed by the quality of service.

I've reached out to them several times and they've always gotten back to me within 24 hours. I even had reached out to them for a problem I had caused, unknowingly, and as they were checking my account, they found other unrelated problems and brought them to my attention along with help with how to fix them!

Their pricing blows everything else out of the water. Even on their free plan, their limits are very generous. It gives you more than some of the other paid options out there.

As an example, even their free plan allows for custom HTML and JavaScript, which is almost always a premium feature on other platforms, and makes it really easy to use custom or third party features, such as the discourse comments section below this blog post.

I am a firm believer in using the right tool for the job - price really isn't that big a consideration for me, (as long as it's not too extravagant) - but this very affordable pricing comes as a nice bonus, and It would be quite realistic for a person to get started growing their business for free up to 500 suscribers. And to scale it up to 5,000 suscribers for less than $20 a month.

Their builder is a really nice balance between simple, and capable. They allow you to save master blocks that update for everywhere on your website, and template blocks that you can use to quickly insert a general pattern for a blog or etc.

They have ample options for automation:

They also have a built-in affiliate system like ClickFunnels. So if you want to employ your friends and neighbors to help you get your course started, they've got you covered. ;)

Really, I could go on for a long time about what I like about Systeme.io.

Want a blog?

They've got it covered.

Course Builder?

Top notch, and the most customizable I've seen anywhere.

Funnels, create free and paid community forums, invite assistents to help with content?

All check.

They also have video hosting, which is something not very common among the options. (Most make you use a third party, such as Vimeo, Wista, or Youtube. [Systeme allows for these also]).

One nice feature for anyone moving from a different platform, is that they will migrate you from your current platform for you on the unlimited plan, and any of the paid annual plans. I've not done this myself, but from the reviews I've seen, it can take a while. One metioned that it took a couple months and he would have prefered to do it himself in retrospect.

I really like Systeme.io, but that's not to say there are not any drawbacks. The user interface is not quite as polished as some, for example. In my opinion, the excellent walk-though videos and documentation make up for that, and the simplicity of it is nice.

The user forums, like Podia, are rather limited, but functional.

It also doesn't have massive market share and community way that Clickfunnels and MailChimp do. For me personally, though, this is a great solution for my business needs, and I'm a very happy customer.

This one is a new on my radar, but I am amazingly impressed with what I've seen so far. More details to come as I try it out. Pretty sure this is going to be my new favorite!

The customer support is mind-blowing and blows everything else out of the water.

The feature list is very comprehensive. One I'm particularly excited about is the community feature, which looks like it will be much more feature rich and comprehensive than the competition in this space.