When you’re on the lookout for your subsequent e mail advertising platform, and also you’re curious if Package is best for you, nicely, you’re in the best place! Right here’s our complete Package evaluate for 2024, which can cowl:
- What Is Package?
- Why do I want an e mail service supplier (ESP)?
- The rebrand from ConvertKit to Package
- Package Options
- Package Pricing
- Key Advantages of Package
- Drawbacks of Package
- Package & E mail Advertising: Extra Sources to Learn, Pay attention & Study
What’s Package?
Package is an e mail service supplier (ESP). Primarily, it’s a expertise service that allows you to ship e mail campaigns to an inventory of subscribers. Package is one in every of actually a whole lot of ESPs on the market, and—full disclosure—it occurs to be the one we favor and use at SPI.
Though we’re biased, we will nonetheless be goal! On this put up, we’ll cowl the options, advantages, and drawbacks of Package as we see them, that will help you resolve if it’s the best ESP for your corporation.
E mail advertising technique: Why you want an ESP
When you’re studying this, you would possibly already know what an ESP is and why you want one. However in case you don’t, an ESP is an important piece of expertise to assist your e mail advertising technique.
E mail advertising is without doubt one of the strongest strategies to construct relationships and market your services to your viewers. Let’s discuss why that’s.
In its most elementary kind, e mail advertising entails you sending emails to a gaggle of people that’ve chosen to listen to from you by “subscribing” to obtain emails from you. You possibly can technically use a easy e mail program like Gmail to perform this—however we don’t advocate it, since you’ll rapidly discover it inadequate (and since your private e mail account will get flagged as spam should you ship too many emails from it!).
As your corporation grows and extra individuals subscribe to get your emails, you’ll need the flexibility to do extra refined issues together with your e mail advertising, like customizing the emails individuals get in accordance with their pursuits, and utilizing stories and analytics to find out what’s working nicely or not.
You additionally must be sure to’re respecting individuals’s privateness and never spamming anybody. An e mail service supplier additionally lets you keep in compliance with authorities rules all over the world, such because the CAN-SPAM act in america, the Basic Information Safety Regulation within the European Union (GDPR), and the Canada Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL).
Issues can rapidly get out of hand with out the assistance of a devoted e mail advertising platform. That’s the place an ESP like Package is available in.
Okay, let’s get into the nitty gritty of Package’s options!
Psst… Wish to develop your e mail record and study highly effective segmentation and automation methods that enable your corporation to run by itself? Try the E mail Advertising Magic course.
Package options
These are the important thing options of Package, organized by the way you’ll use them.
Sending emails
- Autoresponders/drip campaigns (sequences): Ship a sequence of pre-written emails mechanically to a particular section of subscribers in your record, triggered by a particular occasion or motion, with the goal of guiding them to take a particular motion.
- Broadcast emails: Ship customary bulletins or one-time emails to your subscribers on a particular date.
- CAN-SPAM, GDPR, and CASL compliance: CAN-SPAM, GDPR, and CASL are legal guidelines that set the principles and necessities for industrial e mail messages, and provides recipients the best to have you ever cease emailing them—so compliance is essential!
- Dynamic (customized) e mail content material: Your e mail content material can show completely different textual content or photos, in accordance with your buyer segmentation.
- Responsive e mail templates: Prepared-to-go e mail designs, in addition to the flexibility to create your personal customized templates. Package mechanically codecs your touchdown pages for numerous gadgets, similar to desktop computer systems and cell phones.
- WYSIWYG e mail editor: The built-in e mail editor enables you to see how your e mail will look together with your template’s styling utilized when you’re composing it.
Amassing new subscribers
- Customized responsive touchdown pages: Use the included instrument to rapidly create a touchdown web page to gather e mail addresses. Package mechanically codecs your touchdown pages for numerous gadgets, similar to desktop computer systems and cell phones.
- Embeddable types: Acquire e mail subscribers anyplace in your web site by dropping in a Javascript or HTML kind, or through the use of the WordPress plugin.
- Website builder: Create a web site instantly on Package to publish newsletters, host a digital storefront to gather fee for one-time or subscription merchandise, and construct customized pages. Arrange a touchdown web page and accumulate fee for one-time or subscription merchandise proper inside Package.
- Visible automations: Package permits you to create rule-based paths utilizing if-then logic, in order that when a subscriber takes a selected motion, you possibly can ship them pre-defined emails or add them to a section.
Studying about your subscribers
- A/B testing: Package enables you to check completely different topic traces on your emails, and mechanically determines the winner based mostly on their respective open charges.
- Reporting/analytics/ROI monitoring: Find out how usually your subscribers open your emails, click on on hyperlinks, and full numerous actions.
- Segmentation/tagging: Segmenting your subscribers into completely different classes (just like however extra highly effective than different packages’ “lists”) permits you to ship them emails which can be higher tailor-made to their wants and pursuits.
- Polls. Add polls on to emails to have interaction with and accumulate details about subscribers, which you’ll then use to construct segments.
Rising your revenue
- In 2022, Package Commerce was added to the platform, permitting customers to strive promoting digital merchandise to their subscribers by creating personalized product pages that may be embedded in your emails, together with automated gross sales funnels.
- The present iteration of Package additionally contains a website builder. You may create a web site instantly on Package to publish newsletters, host a digital storefront to gather fee for one-time or subscription merchandise, and construct customized pages.
Connecting with and supporting different creators: The Creator Community
- In 2023, Package launched the Creator Community, which helps customers information their viewers members to find different creators and get found in flip.
- You too can receives a commission for Creator Community suggestions you make through the aptly named Paid Suggestions.
Increasing the platform’s capabilities: App retailer
- As a part of the 2024 rebrand, additionally they launched an app retailer, the place you will discover customized apps to do extra with Package. The app retailer will launch with 5 apps: KitBoard (add CRM to your account), Wordsmith (flip YouTube movies into newsletters, SavvyCal (add reserving widgets to emails), Mighty (join your Mighty group and content material with Package), and SegMetrics (study the way you achieve, interact, and convert subscribers).
- Package additionally affords a self-service app builder to create your personal add-ons. (As of this writing, the service is at the moment in beta.)
Begin your Package account — free on your first 10,000 subscribers!
That is an affiliate hyperlink
From “ConvertKit” to “Package”: Behind the rebrand
In summer time 2024, the corporate beforehand generally known as ConvertKit formally grew to become Package. The brand new title was introduced in July in the course of the Craft + Commerce Creator Convention and went stay in October. (That they had beforehand rebranded to Seva in 2018, however appreciable unfavorable suggestions to the brand new title prompted them to revert to ConvertKit till this yr.)
The change to Package was greater than a reputation change, although, as a result of the corporate launched a number of large new capabilities to their platform as nicely. We lined a number of the new options within the part above, however listed here are the highlights:
- An app retailer the place builders can create add-ons to reinforce Package’s capabilities
- A central information hub with enhanced reporting
- An expanded Creator Community to assist customers discover new collaboration companions
Package additionally made a degree of rebranding in public by sharing details about the rebranding course of via weblog updates, live-streamed design periods, and a four-part YouTube mini-documentary. This transparency offers an fascinating perception into the corporate’s pondering. And we expect it’s a sensible transfer given how their earlier rebrand went.
With that out of the way in which, let’s discuss pricing.
Package pricing
For a very long time, Package solely provided paid plans. However in December 2019, the corporate introduced a brand new free tier you probably have fewer than 1,000 subscribers. They just lately expanded the free tier to incorporate creators with as much as 10,000 subscribers.
Listed here are Package’s pricing choices as of October 2024:
Package E-newsletter Plan
- $0/month for as much as 10,000 subscribers
The E-newsletter plan contains:
- 1 primary Visible Automation
- 1 e mail Sequence
- 1 person
- Limitless touchdown pages, opt-in types, and e mail broadcasts
- Viewers tagging & segmentation
- Promote digital merchandise
- Run paid newsletters & subscriptions
- E-newsletter feed & web site
- API Entry
- Free Suggestions (required—at the very least one advice slot to develop your record by cross-promoting with different creators)
- Sensible Suggestions (auto-recommendation of comparable creators that will help you develop your record)
- 24/7 assist
Package Creator Plan
- $9/month for as much as 300 subscribers (paid yearly; $15 if paid month-to-month)
- $25/month for as much as 1,000 subscribers (paid yearly; $29 if paid month-to-month)
- Tiered pricing as much as $1,916/month (paid yearly; $1,916 if paid month-to-month) for as much as 400,000 subscribers
The Creator plan contains:
- All of the options of the E-newsletter plan
- Limitless Visible Automations
- Limitless e mail Sequences
- 2 customers
- Free migration from one other instrument
- Free Suggestions
- Paid Suggestions
- Take away Package branding
- Third-party integrations
- RSS campaigns
- Polls
Package Creator Professional Plan
- $25/month for as much as 300 subscribers (paid yearly; $29 if paid month-to-month)
- $50/month for as much as 1,000 subscribers (paid yearly; $59 if paid month-to-month)
- Tiered pricing as much as $2,166/month (paid yearly; $2,599 paid month-to-month) for as much as 400,000 subscribers
The Creator Professional plan contains:
- All of the options of the Creator plan
- Limitless Visible Automations
- Limitless e mail Sequences
- Limitless customers
- Fb customized audiences
- E-newsletter referral system
- Edit hyperlinks in despatched broadcasts
- Subscriber engagement scoring
- Superior deliverability reporting
- Insights dashboard
- 24/7 Precedence assist
Each the Creator and Creator Professional plans supply a 14-day free trial so you possibly can see if it’s best for you earlier than committing.
We’ll preserve this put up up to date with the newest Package pricing, however you too can go to the pricing web page on the Package web site.
Let’s get into the explanations we like Package subsequent!
Advantages of Package
We’ve used Package to energy Sensible Passive Earnings’s e mail advertising for a number of years. In that point, we’ve discovered it to be the perfect ESP for our wants. We additionally assume it’s a fantastic resolution for a variety of entrepreneurs and digital creators on the lookout for a sturdy, feature-rich e mail advertising platform.
The very best e mail service supplier for brand new entrepreneurs.
Straightforward to study, highly effective while you want it.
That is an affiliate hyperlink
From the place we sit, the ability of Package falls into two fundamental classes: person advantages, and viewers advantages.
Package advantages from the person’s standpoint
First, Package has all the pieces a enterprise proprietor wants to stand up and working rapidly:
- You may accumulate emails.
- You may arrange a easy touchdown web page to gather emails.
- You may promote merchandise (one-time buy or subscription).
These options enable somebody to begin promoting even whereas they’re within the means of organising a web site elsewhere. It additionally makes it simple to execute on one of many fundamental classes in our Sensible From Scratch course: utilizing promoting as a key step within the idea-validation course of.
Second, the Package crew designed their platform to develop with the sophistication of the person. While you begin, you in all probability simply need to accumulate e mail addresses and ship emails. However as you develop, you’ll need to begin tailoring your message and segmenting your viewers. At that time you possibly can make the most of issues like automations and dynamic content material. As you and your corporation turn out to be extra superior, the Creator Professional Plan is the next step—you gained’t have to change to a special e mail service supplier 5 years down the highway. This units Package other than another ESPs, significantly Mailchimp.
Some individuals discover Package a bit daunting (see Drawbacks under), however should you’re considerably tech-savvy we expect it’s fairly approachable. Particularly, we just like the accessibility of Package’s automation builder, which helps you to create automations in an easy, linear manner.
We tried Infusionsoft for a yr and located its automation builder modern however overwhelming. You needed to already perceive how automations work, in addition to the assorted symbols widespread in automation builders. We discover Package’s automation builder, however, makes it simple to string automations collectively in a sophisticated manner. With a number of templates to select from, organising an automation for the primary time is simple for any person.
We additionally like Package’s strategy to subscriber administration. With Package, all of your subscribers go into one large pool; there aren’t any lists. As an alternative, subscribers will be put into segments by assigning them attributes utilizing tags and customized fields. These allow you to deal with your subscribers as distinctive people with completely different wants; not all subscribers are created equal. The opposite good thing about the way in which Package treats subscribers? You’re solely charged as soon as for every distinctive subscriber, in contrast to another ESPs.
Package’s just lately launched Creator Community can also be a giant plus in our eyes, from each a business-building and community-building perspective. It permits you to develop your subscriber base whereas additionally fostering connections with different entrepreneurs and creators.
Final however not least, should you’re transferring from one other ESP like Mailchimp or AWeber, Package affords a free migration service that may take a number of the headache out of switching.
Package advantages on your viewers
Package offers you the chance to tailor your messaging to your viewers. You may have as many types and touchdown pages as you need. You may have as many tags, customized fields, and segments as you need. You will be as particular in speaking to your viewers as you need to be.
As you accumulate details about your viewers, you can begin to section subscribers so that you don’t hassle individuals with issues they aren’t keen on. Package makes it simple to gather particulars about your viewers alongside the way in which, and also you aren’t penalized for that via larger prices, as you’ll be with a list-based e mail platform.
Drawbacks of Package
No resolution is ideal, in fact. Listed here are a number of the drawbacks we and different Package customers have observed.
- Reasonably steep studying curve. The interface generally is a little overwhelming for a newbie. Taking full benefit of all of Package’s options—like segmentation, tagging, and automations—requires some studying (and probably coding). You may shorten this studying curve by following their Getting Began video collection, in addition to the remainder of the content material on their well-organized assist website
- No list-based group. Though we like the way in which Package enables you to arrange subscribers utilizing tags (and doesn’t cost you for duplicate subscribers, as we talked about above), the shortage of a list-based group system will be complicated should you’re coming from different platforms. Over time, although, we expect you’ll discover this technique extra versatile than managing lists.
- Barebones e mail and touchdown web page templates. Package requires CSS coding to create customized superior e mail templates and touchdown pages past the included choices. Some customers report that the e-mail design instrument will be buggy.
- Analytics could possibly be extra sturdy. The free and Creator plans don’t supply the identical superior deliverability reporting, subscriber scoring, and analytics options of the Perception characteristic that the Creator Professional plan affords, which is sensible however could also be a trouble to some customers.
Fortunately, one of many earlier drawbacks of Package, that there was no free possibility, hasn’t been the case since 2019. This free tier makes Package comparable on the entry stage to different common ESP choices like Mailchimp.
Lastly, that is on no account a downside, however as Package continues to broaden its choices to incorporate issues just like the Creator Community and Package Commerce to its core e mail advertising capabilities, there’s an opportunity that the platform’s worth may get unfold skinny. To be clear, we don’t assume that is going to occur and have plenty of confidence in Nathan and the Package crew, nevertheless it’s price holding in thoughts.
Our large takeaway on Package
With the latest updates, Package is coming nearer to being a one-stop store for creators who need to develop, nurture, and promote to their audiences with a platform that’s largely prepared to make use of and automatable. When you’re on the lookout for your first or subsequent e mail advertising platform, we expect it’s a fantastic resolution for rising your viewers and growing your revenue whereas retaining artistic management over what you place out into the world!
Package & e mail advertising: Extra assets to learn, pay attention & study
So there you could have it—our evaluate of Package’s e mail advertising platform! We’ll go away you with just a few extra assets should you’re interested in Package, or need to dig additional into e mail advertising.
Package [Full Disclosure: As an affiliate, we receive compensation if you purchase through this link.]
SPI 825: Behind the Scenes of a Main Rebrand & Classes Discovered After a Exhausting Fail—my dialog with Package CEO Nathan Barry about setting his firm’s sights on extra formidable targets with the rebrand.
What Is E mail Advertising? + Greatest Practices: An SPI How-to Information
E mail Advertising Magic Course
AP 0712: How Do I Migrate an E mail Checklist from AWeber to Package? – Sensible Passive Earnings
Why I Switched from Aweber to Infusionsoft to ConvertKitI hope this put up has been useful in deciding whether or not Package is the best ESP for your corporation. No matter e mail advertising platform you select, nothing is extra necessary than having the best e mail advertising technique, so remember to try our important information to e mail advertising and think about the E mail Advertising Magic course if you would like extra hands-on assist together with your e mail advertising, obtainable contained in the SPI Neighborhood. Good luck!
