Drip Email Marketing Review 2024

Edited by Amy Smith

Updated


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Drip walks the line perfectly — offering comprehensive email marketing and CRM/segmentation services at a reasonable per-record price. It’s not the easiest email marketing tool out there, but it’s pretty easy once you get the hang of it. With a slew of ecommerce and automation features, it’s a robust solution worth a closer look.

Who should choose Drip? Small and midsize businesses looking for scalable email marketing tools with a full suite of reporting, automation, and CRM services. Drip offers a slight learning curve but is considerably easier than other email marketing tools to onboard with—and it’s comprehensive enough to satisfy the needs of even the fastest-growing SMBs.

What we like about Drip

  • Ease of use: Drip is one of the easiest marketing tools for email that I’ve come across, setting it apart in the world of e-commerce marketing tools.
  • Robust automation support: Whether you’re new to automation or a seasoned pro, you’ll appreciate the wide range of workflow and automation template tools. You can also take advantage of “sandbox mode,” and build your own template easily.
  • Go-as-you-grow pricing: Drip offers incremental price increases after you purchase their base plan. You’ll see an increase of $10 a month for every 500 records added, up to 7,000 contacts. Then you’ll see larger price increases.
  • Simplified list management: From pruning to segmentation, Drip makes your list management tasks easy, putting more time back in your day for critical profitability issues.

What fell flat

  • “Odd” price plans: While it is helpful to have per-record pricing, the incremental price jumps are complicated after the 7,000-record threshold. It’s less predictable, which means more time dealing with pricing and implementation.
  • Too simple email templates: The template feature is easy to use and a great choice for beginners. However, if you want a more advanced and design-rich experience for your customers, you might find them too simple.
  • Limited support: Drip has fewer support options compared with other tools. You’re often relegated to email only, or their Drip platform knowledge base.

Digital.com’s Editorial Drip Review

Drip is a popular choice for e-commerce marketing growth, segmentation, and automation, allowing e-commerce business owners to scale their operations. It’s incredibly simple, offers in-service analytics and insights, and is a great way to connect with your consumer base. Plus, it has a full suite of integrations to help you refine and optimize your outreach on an (even more) automated basis.

See how we review email marketing platforms.

Plans & Pricing

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  • Free trial–14 days
  • Paid plan–starts at $39 per month

Features

Jump to Review

  • Easy record importing
  • Visual workflow automation
  • Text and email campaigns
  • Segmentation and pruning
  • Advanced analytics
  • 10+ email templates
  • Built-in CRM

Drip Plans and Pricing

There is no free plan from Drip, but you can get a 14-day free trial to test its tools. The entry-level plan is affordable but much more expensive to start than most email marketing competitors.

Drip offers incremental plan prices based on the number of customer records associated with your account. After 2,500 contacts, you can expect increases for every 500 contacts added (through 7,000 total contacts.) After that, there are more randomized increases depending on the rate and quantity of your scaled growth.

  • Paid plan ($39 per month)
    • Good for: Small businesses, entrepreneurs, e-commerce sites.

After over 190,000 contacts, the price estimation tool will tell you that it varies — and will prompt you to speak to a representative.

Drip's pricing. It depends on the number of people on your list and starts at $39 per month for up to 2,500

Features

I was pleasantly surprised to see how well Drip stacks up compared to other e-commerce email tools. For an average of $39 a month, you can enjoy native automation and marketing segmentation tools, as well as campaign creation services and templates.

The company has designed the pricing structure to grow with you as you scale incrementally, in an attempt to give you the fairest prices possible.

Here are the top Drip features:

  • Add import options for current and future record management
  • Competitive and simple, block-based workflow automation support
  • Text and email campaign creation and support in native interface
  • Segmented pruning tool for easy list management
  • Advanced analytics and insights for faster business growth

Let’s get into some of the benefits of each feature for your business.

Easily add and import with native record management

Drip makes it easy to onboard and take full advantage of the list segmentation and management tools located in the app. I was prompted to either import my list in CSV format or a simple copy-and-paste method. If you’re a smaller business or don’t have import methods set up yet, you can also use the per-member add tool.

From the “People” dashboard, you can take action on your list, segment, and more. Below are just a few of the perks that are included with Drip:

  • Segmentation and sorting: List segmentation is an especially helpful perk that can boost your open rates and the efficiency of your emails. Drip makes this process effortless, no matter how large your list is, offering convenient filtered search and segment save capacities to optimize your list as much as you need. You’ll also be able to swap between view options to see key demographic information about your audiences at any time, such as birthdays, name, phone numbers, and more.
  • Active vs. inactive dashboard view: Drip is known for its user-friendly dashboard and platform organization. In the “People” tab, you can easily see who is deemed active vs. inactive in alignment with sort parameters. You can then take action to prune or reactivate or edit the record directly.
  • Tags and bulk action operations: As you build and launch your campaigns, you can easily track user actions under the “People” tab. Use tags to designate more nuanced and micro-scale segmentation for your customers, and apply using the bulk operations management tool.
  • Pruning and management: Pruning is key to keeping your list as agile and useful as possible. If you’re dealing with a lack of engagement, you can address it in bulk — unsubscribing them from your marketing campaigns and offering additional opportunities to engage elsewhere.

Simple, block-based automation and support

Automation is notorious for being one of the largest learning curves you’ll have in business. However, Drip makes this process far easier across your marketing efforts – offering hundreds of platform-specific workflow templates and rule creation options to streamline your efforts.

Drip breaks down automation work into two main types: Rules and workflows. Rules in this application are simple automations set up around singular triggers. Implementing a rule with Drip gives you a similar experience to Zapier’s automation tool, as you’ll be able to quickly integrate and define your triggers and actions with drop-down menus and buttons. Workflows are more nuanced, offering you two options:

  1. Building your automation from a template that is platform-specific (i.e., BigCommerce, Shopify, or Magneto).
  2. Sandbox-style automation builder to optimize and create automations from the ground up.

Native text and email campaign creation and support

Whether you’re looking to launch a single email or a slew of promotional campaigns, Drip offers easy native building tools to make it happen. You’ll have the option to choose a visual builder or a text-based HTML builder, depending on how much back-end coding and optimization you want for a specific asset. I personally preferred the visual builder, as my business is visually driven — and the templates were simple enough for my needs.

Built-in pruning and list care options

The fact that the platform has native pruning features immediately caught my attention. This is a rare standalone feature, and it goes a long way to maintaining the health of your email list (and the accuracy of your reports). It’s incredibly easy to use and can be done in bulk — saving you hours spent diagnosing and manually removing those who are no longer active with your emails.

Advanced analytics and insights for faster business growth

Analytics are your key to strategically growing and engaging those on your email list. It tells you exactly what’s working (and what’s not), empowering you to deliver a truly optimized brand experience via email. Drip tracks key metrics in easy-to-reference dashboards in its native interface, and includes focuses on things like:

  • Clicks by link
  • Opens per hour
  • Subscribers
  • Activity
  • Site traffic (via email)
  • Revenue generation

While this isn’t the exhaustive list of what’s included, it is what I found to be most important and useful for e-commerce business owners. I’m confident that you’ll appreciate the comprehensive functionality of Drip’s analytics and reporting features.

Drip's analytic dashboard. Shows total sends, open rate, CTR, unsubscribe rate, bounce rate, orders, revenue/person, and AOV over the last 30 days

Compare Drip Alternatives

“Drip may offer everything you need for marketing your e-commerce business, but it can get pricey as you grow (it’s pretty much the same across the marketing software industry). Still, you may be able to find more value from a CRM with multi-department support, such as HubSpot. Alternatively, look for a free option to get started with marketing right away, such as with MailChimp or Sendinblue.” — Amy Nichol Smith, Content Marketing Manager

Drip is a fantastic tool for SMBs, entrepreneurs, and quickly growing businesses. However, alternatives such as Hubspot, Brevo, and GetResponse may be better options depending on your business’s needs. In my analysis, I was able to dive deep into each service provider and look at the total benefits you’d gain from their product. I did firsthand evaluations to provide objective and relevant information as you choose your brand’s email marketing provider.

See how Drip compares to other top-tier email marketing tools:

Email platform

Pricing + Basic Plan Features

Starts at: $39 per month

  • 1 to 2,500 client records
  • Unlimited email sends
  • Segmentation support
  • Automation and workflows
  • Email support

Starts at: Free

  • 10 automated email actions
  • Email and in-app chat support
  • Removal of branding across assets
  • 100 total reports over 10 dashboards

Consider HubSpot if: You’re looking for a more in-depth suite of tools and analytics for your growing business.

Starts at: Free

  • Built-in landing page builder
  • Integrations, API, & email scheduling
  • Unlimited newsletter sends
  • Domain integration
  • Autoresponders

Consider GetResponse if: You’re looking for a tool with the ease of Drip but more comprehensive in scope.

What You Need to Know

Who acquired Drip?

Drip went through an acquisition in 2016, going to the company Leadpages. Leadpages was then purchased by a Canadian software company known as Redbrick.

Is Drip free?

No, Drip is not free. Drip’s plans begin at $39 per month and continue to rise at incremental rates depending on how many client records are associated with your account.

What kin of support does Drip offer?

Drip offers limited customer service, which is ideal for self-starters or for those who want a more autonomous email marketing experience.

They currently only offer email support and support via their knowledge base and notes, operating without chat or a customer service number.

Does Drip have a free trial?

Yes, you can get a 14-day free trial of Drip’s base membership plan, which starts at $39 per month.

What are the best alternatives to Drip?

While Drip is a competitive choice for your email marketing needs, there are plenty of other alternatives to consider. Brevo, GetResponse, and Hubspot are all great solutions for bigger brands or brands who want a more comprehensive approach.

How We Reviewed Drip

I test sales and marketing tools based on the following factors:

  • Sale management: Does the platform offer sales tools to help with lead management and closing deals? What are its features?
  • Ease of use: Is the platform simple to set up and use?
  • Customization and automation: Can you tailor the software to your business needs?
  • Integrations and analytics: Does this software integrate easily with other business tools, and will its reporting features fit your needs?
  • The support provided: How easy is it to get help?
  • Free trial: Is a no-cost trial or demo offered?

Learn more about our review methodology.

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