Email Marketing Pricing Guide 2025

Email marketing is a key component of many business strategies, but how much does it cost to invest in? While pricing varies, there are some key indicators to help companies anticipate costs before diving into an email marketing collaboration.

Email marketing may seem more on the traditional end of digital marketing strategies, but there’s a good reason why so many marketers continue to rely on email. The reason is, if done right, email marketing is very effective at growing sales, increasing engagement, and fostering brand awareness. For this reason, it is often well-worth the investment.

As you can see above, email marketing pricing can vary significantly. On Clutch, email marketing projects span a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands. The complexity of your project and the number of requirements will determine where your project falls on this scale.

While it can be challenging to pull together the creatives and analytical thinkers necessary to execute an email marketing campaign in-house, a professional email marketer has the expertise to hit the ground running from day one.  

Email Marketing Costs by Industry

Companies in some industries may inherently require more involved email marketing efforts, thus increasing the cost of the engagement.

This table breaks down the average cost of an email marketing project by the industry the campaign was delivered in. Some industries have similar average price points, but you’ll see that spend can significantly fluctuate based on the client’s industry. 

Note: Price ranges above are in U.S. dollars.

What is the Real Cost of Hiring an Email Marketing Agency in 2025 ?

The average cost of hiring an email marketing agency on Clutch ranges between $100–$149 per hour. This rate can vary depending on the agency's experience, reputation, and the complexity of the services they offer. Some agencies may charge higher rates if they have a proven track record of delivering successful campaigns or if they specialize in niche markets that demand in-depth expertise.

Creating a great campaign requires a solid understanding of the market, target audience, competitors, and more. Additionally, email marketers must create engaging, persuasive, and unique copy to entice customers to take action. 

Email Marketing Pricing Models Vary

Email marketing companies may employ different pricing models for the same scope of work. With varied approaches to pricing email marketing services, it’s a challenge for business leaders to anticipate exactly what a given campaign will cost without some outreach.

Email marketing providers generally approach their pricing structure in one of the following ways:

• Pay-per-email: As the name implies, clients are charged a set fee for each sent email. If your business isn’t planning on sending high volumes of emails over the duration of a campaign, this pricing model will help you stay within budgets — even tighter ones.
• Monthly retainer: Companies are charged recurring monthly fees for ongoing work between them and an email marketing agency. Agencies are put on retainer with the intention for a long-term relationship that spand multiple projects and campaigns.
• Pay-as-you-go: For businesses with fluctuating email volume — some months high and some months low — this pricing model allows businesses to pay by the volume of emails they send.
• Custom pricing: Some email marketing providers offer custom pricing for large businesses or clients with a unique set of requirements. Likely, this model involves a combination of those listed above, as well as additional features or services.

Some of these models may immediately seem more appealing to you than others, which is a good sign. If you have a preferred way you’d like to pay for email marketing services, you should be able to narrow down your options more easily.

However, you should also keep track of the features and services included in the prices offered. Make sure to compare different email marketing providers and their pricing to truly understand the options available to you.

Why Marketers Invest in Email Marketing

• Personalized: Email marketing can be scaled, but an email is more personal than an advertisement. Emails are delivered directly to individuals deemed most likely to be interested in a product or service offering. Dynamic email content and personalized subject lines ensure that messaging is relevant, making it more likely for recipients to take action.
• Cost-effective: Email marketing offers a more affordable way to reach and engage with customers than other forms of marketing like direct mail or OTT advertising. It’s more accessible for small businesses because of this.
• Measurable: Email marketing performance is more easily measured than many other types of marketing. Trackable email marketing metrics include open rate, click-through rate, and conversion rate. Through these metrics, marketing leaders can evaluate the ROI of email marketing campaigns and make data-driven decisions.
• Targeted: Email marketing tools and campaigns allow marketers to segment audiences and target certain messages to customers with specific characteristics—sending the right message to the right audience segment at just the right time. These characteristics can be demographical, geographical, or related to purchase history.
• High Rate of Return: Email marketing offers an impressive ROI to those who leverage it wisely. According to the Data & Marketing Association, the median ROI for email marketing is $35.41 for every $1 spent.

What Services Can Email Marketing Agencies Provide?

While the term “email marketing” sounds pretty limited to sending emails, there are many different roles that an email marketing agency can take on.

From a campaign’s conception to planning, execution, and measuring performance, a team can help you achieve success from start to finish. These particular services may include:

• Strategy development: A client can approach an email marketing agency with overall business objectives, and the agency can distill that information into an email strategy that meets given goals. This service will likely require preliminary meetings to discuss and analyze the target audience. Following that, the agency can identify key messages, specific goals directly related to email marketing efforts, and an ideal cadence for email marketing campaigns.
  
• Design and development: The construction of a perfect email is no joke, but email marketing agencies can design visually appealing, effective emails specifically created to capture the attention of a target audience. Relevant activities during this process include creating custom email templates, developing graphics and images to accompany written messaging, and writing compelling subject lines and email copy.
• List management: Email marketing agencies can do the often-manual process of upkeeping email recipient lists. List management will involve building new lists, segmenting new and existing lists, handling opt-in and opt-out emails, and scheduling emails. Overall, the agencies help ensure that recipients receive the right emails at the right time.
• Campaign execution: Agencies can execute email marketing campaigns on behalf of businesses, which is probably one of the activities they’re best known for. Campaign execution will include scheduling and sending emails, tracking performance metrics, and providing reports and analysis on the results.
• Consulting: For companies in search of overall email marketing guidance, email marketing agencies can provide direction and consultative services to businesses on how to improve email marketing performance. This may involve recommending new tactics or strategies, analyzing the results of past campaigns, and providing recommendations to scale efforts or improve results.

Email marketers help their client companies overcome obstacles at every step of the campaign ideation, development, and execution process. Help from an experienced email marketing provider often leads to increased email engagement and sales resulting from click-throughs.

Factors That Influence Email Marketing Costs

There are plenty of benefits to email marketing, but what influences overall cost?

Some variables have a greater impact on the cost of email marketing services than others. There are plenty of things that can drive up the price of a campaign, but most of them will contribute to increasing the scale or complexity of a project.

To visualize this further, here are a few reasons that play a big role in email marketing pricing: 

• Services offered: As seen above, email marketing agencies provide a wide variety of services. This range of services can encompass strategy development, design, list management, campaign execution, and consulting. These providers may charge higher prices for their comprehensive services. Others may offer more limited services, such as just campaign execution, and will be able to offer a lower price point as a result.
• Email volume: Many email marketing companies base pricing on the size of campaigns or the volume of emails being sent. Even software tools have tiered pricing systems that are primarily dependent on email volume. Businesses that send a larger number of emails may be charged a higher price due to the additional resources required to manage their campaigns. Companies can budget for email campaigns by decreasing volume to only what’s necessary.
• Features and functionality: Clients who request more advanced features during their collaboration will be met with increased costs. Some email marketing agencies offer more complex services than standard, including automation, A/B testing, and integrations with other marketing platforms. This service offering is more robust and requires additional resources, increasing costs.
• Reputation and brand: Established, well-known email marketing providers may charge higher prices due to their reputation and brand recognition.

Each of these factors contributes to increasing the scope and complexity of a project. While these activities will increase the average cost of email marketing services, they will also allow you to scale your efforts with more success.

In addition to the factors listed above that affect the cost of email marketing efforts, the location of the agency also plays a role in determining cost. Service providers operating in North America and Western Europe often charge clients more than providers in other parts of the world.

The reason for these discrepancies is due to the higher costs of labor in countries with more expensive rates. Companies looking for reduced rates for email marketing services may benefit from considering offshore email marketing companies that can accommodate tighter budgets.

Check out the hourly rates most regularly charged by service providers in popular locations.

Companies can do further research on specific agencies in each of these locations through online reviews on Clutch, but sometimes these resources don’t make the potential price for future projects very clear.

Outside of using the above pricing resources, the most accurate cost estimates will come directly from the agencies themselves. Once you're sure email marketing is the way to go, submitting a request for proposal (RFP) to potential partners will generate proposals with quotes tailored to your needs.

Email Marketing Tools Also Impact Price & Success 

Email marketing tools facilitate automation, A/B testing, drip campaigns, deliverability improvement, and optimization at scale and more easily.

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms are known for taking marketing automation, digital marketing, workflows, and customer support to the next level with real-time analysis. This remains true with email marketing. These tools typically follow the monthly subscription model overviewed above.

Popular Email Marketing Software and Tools: 

• MailChimp
• HubSpot
• GetResponse
• Sender
• Sendinblue
• AWeber
• ActiveCampaign
• Omnisend
• Drip
• Constant Contact

While these email marketing tools will drive up the cost of email marketing for small businesses, the benefits they provide are deemed valuable by hundreds of thousands of existing companies. 

Email Marketing Package Pricing

With so many variables impacting the cost of email marketing, it can be difficult for some business leaders to identify how much they should be spending each month and what is included. 

To resolve this issue, some email marketing agencies also offer service packages with specific pricing. The deliverables and the price is predefined, making it easy for companies to find the best service provider for them. These packages outline everything that is included such as: 

• Email marketing tool set up
• Number of campaigns per month
• Subscriber form set up
• Analytics tracking and reports
• Copywriting and design 

On Clutch, prices for an email marketing package start at $200 per month. However, larger packages that include additional services, larger email lists, additional emails, and other features cost nearly $10,000 per month. 

Choosing which email marketing package is right for your business depends on the scale of your email marketing efforts, such as the number of email campaigns or blasts you’d like your service provider to execute per month, and other 

Compare email marketing packages within your budget to find the perfect partner for your project here. 

Finding the Right Email Marketing Agency Requires a Budget

Given the multitude of services email marketing companies can provide, scope creep isn’t uncommon in projects with agencies. The solution to potential miscommunications and sticker shock is a clearly defined budget that’s understood by all parties involved.

It doesn’t matter what your budget is — the important part is ensuring you choose a partner that respects your budgetary constraints. There are plenty of impressive agencies ready to collaborate to determine how they can best serve your marketing needs.

Email marketing agencies differentiate themselves from freelancers and in-house teammates in their range of service options and their ability to quickly scale up and down when necessary. 

Of course, all of this hinges on finding an email marketing company that fits your needs and budget. That’s where Clutch comes in; email marketing ratings and reviews are meant to help narrow your options based on your unique business need.