In case you’re in search of your subsequent electronic mail advertising platform, and also you’re curious if Package is best for you, effectively, you’re in the fitting place! Right here’s our complete Package assessment for 2024, which is able to cowl:
- What Is Package?
- Why do I would like an electronic mail service supplier (ESP)?
- The rebrand from ConvertKit to Package
- Package Options
- Package Pricing
- Key Advantages of Package
- Drawbacks of Package
- Package & Electronic mail Advertising: Extra Sources to Learn, Hear & Be taught
What Is Package?
Package is an electronic mail service supplier (ESP). Primarily, it’s a know-how service that allows you to ship electronic mail campaigns to an inventory of subscribers. Package is considered one of actually a whole bunch of ESPs on the market, and—full disclosure—it occurs to be the one we desire and use at SPI.
Though we’re biased, we are able to 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 determine if it’s the fitting ESP for what you are promoting.
Electronic mail Advertising Technique: Why You Want an ESP
In case you’re studying this, you may already know what an ESP is and why you want one. However in case you don’t, an ESP is an important piece of know-how to help your electronic mail advertising technique.
Electronic mail advertising is likely one of the strongest strategies to construct relationships and market your services to your viewers. Let’s discuss why that’s.
In its most simple kind, electronic mail advertising entails you sending emails to a bunch of people that’ve chosen to listen to from you by “subscribing” to obtain emails from you. You can technically use a easy electronic mail program like Gmail to perform this—however we don’t suggest it, since you’ll rapidly discover it inadequate (and since your private electronic mail account will get flagged as spam should you ship too many emails from it!).
As what you are promoting grows and extra folks subscribe to get your emails, you’ll need the power to do extra subtle issues together with your electronic mail advertising, like customizing the emails folks get based on their pursuits, and utilizing studies and analytics to find out what’s working effectively or not.
You additionally must ensure you’re respecting folks’s privateness and never spamming anybody. An electronic mail service supplier additionally lets you keep in compliance with authorities laws world wide, such because the CAN-SPAM act in the USA, the Common Knowledge 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 electronic 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… Need to develop your electronic mail listing and be taught highly effective segmentation and automation methods that enable what you are promoting to run by itself? Take a look at the Electronic 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 listing, triggered by a particular occasion or motion, with the intention of guiding them to take a particular motion.
- Broadcast emails: Ship normal 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 business electronic mail messages, and provides recipients the fitting to have you ever cease emailing them—so compliance is essential!
- Dynamic (customized) electronic mail content material: Your electronic mail content material can show completely different textual content or photographs, based on your buyer segmentation.
- Responsive electronic mail templates: Prepared-to-go electronic mail designs, in addition to the power to create your personal customized templates. Package mechanically codecs your touchdown pages for numerous units, similar to desktop computer systems and cellphones.
- WYSIWYG electronic mail editor: The built-in electronic mail editor permits you to see how your electronic 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 software to rapidly create a touchdown web page to gather electronic mail addresses. Package mechanically codecs your touchdown pages for numerous units, similar to desktop computer systems and cellphones.
- Embeddable kinds: Acquire electronic mail subscribers anyplace in your web site by dropping in a Javascript or HTML kind, or by utilizing the WordPress plugin.
- Web site builder: Create a web site straight on Package to publish newsletters, host a digital storefront to gather cost for one-time or subscription merchandise, and construct customized pages. Arrange a touchdown web page and accumulate cost for one-time or subscription merchandise proper inside Package.
- Visible automations: Package means that you can 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 permits you to check completely different topic strains in your emails, and mechanically determines the winner based mostly on their respective open charges.
- Reporting/analytics/ROI monitoring: Find out how typically 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 applications’ “lists”) means that you can ship them emails which might be higher tailor-made to their wants and pursuits.
- Polls. Add polls on to emails to interact 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 attempt 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 includes a website builder. You’ll be able to create a web site straight on Package to publish newsletters, host a digital storefront to gather cost 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 may as well 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, in addition they launched an app retailer, the place you could find 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 neighborhood and content material with Package), and SegMetrics (find out about the way you acquire, 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 present in beta.)
From “ConvertKit” to “Package”: Behind the Rebrand
In summer season 2024, the corporate beforehand often known as ConvertKit formally grew to become Package. The brand new title was introduced in July throughout the Craft + Commerce Creator Convention and went stay in October. (They’d beforehand rebranded to Seva in 2018, however appreciable detrimental suggestions to the brand new title brought about them to revert to ConvertKit till this 12 months.)
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 effectively. We coated among the new options within the part above, however listed below 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 some extent of rebranding in public by sharing details about the rebranding course of by weblog updates, live-streamed design classes, and a four-part YouTube mini-documentary. This transparency offers an attention-grabbing perception into the corporate’s considering. And we predict it’s a sensible transfer given how their earlier rebrand went.
With that out of the best way, 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 in case you 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 electronic mail Sequence
- 1 person
- Limitless touchdown pages, opt-in kinds, and electronic mail broadcasts
- Viewers tagging & segmentation
- Promote digital merchandise
- Run paid newsletters & subscriptions
- E-newsletter feed & web site
- API Entry
- Free Suggestions (required—not less than one suggestion slot to develop your listing by cross-promoting with different creators)
- Good Suggestions (auto-recommendation of comparable creators that will help you develop your listing)
- 24/7 help
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 electronic mail Sequences
- 2 customers
- Free migration from one other software
- 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 electronic 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 help
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 hold this put up up to date with the most recent Package pricing, however you can too 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 Good Passive Revenue’s electronic mail advertising for a number of years. In that point, we’ve discovered it to be the best ESP for our wants. We additionally suppose it’s an excellent answer for a spread of entrepreneurs and digital creators in search of a strong, feature-rich electronic mail advertising platform.
From the place we sit, the facility of Package falls into two predominant classes: person advantages, and viewers advantages.
Package Advantages from the Consumer’s Standpoint
First, Package has all the pieces a enterprise proprietor wants to stand up and operating rapidly:
- You’ll be able to accumulate emails.
- You’ll be able to arrange a easy touchdown web page to gather emails.
- You’ll be able to promote merchandise (one-time buy or subscription).
These options enable somebody to begin promoting even whereas they’re within the strategy of organising a web site someplace else. It additionally makes it simple to execute on one of many predominant classes in our Good 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. Whenever you begin, you most likely simply need to accumulate electronic 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 benefit from issues like automations and dynamic content material. As you and what you are promoting grow to be extra superior, the Creator Professional Plan is the next step—you gained’t have to change to a unique electronic mail service supplier 5 years down the street. This units Package aside from another ESPs, notably Mailchimp.
Some folks discover Package a bit daunting (see Drawbacks under), however should you’re considerably tech-savvy we predict it’s fairly approachable. Specifically, we just like the accessibility of Package’s automation builder, which helps you to create automations in an easy, linear means.
We tried Infusionsoft for a 12 months and located its automation builder modern however overwhelming. You needed to already perceive how automations work, in addition to the varied symbols widespread in automation builders. We discover Package’s automation builder, alternatively, makes it simple to string automations collectively in a sophisticated means. 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 are not 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 best way Package treats subscribers? You’re solely charged as soon as for every distinctive subscriber, not like another ESPs.
Package’s just lately launched Creator Community can also be an enormous plus in our eyes, from each a business-building and community-building perspective. It means that you can 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 among the headache out of switching.
Package Advantages for Your Viewers
Package offers you the chance to tailor your messaging to your viewers. You’ll be able to have as many kinds and touchdown pages as you need. You’ll be able to 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 trouble folks with issues they aren’t taken with. Package makes it simple to gather particulars about your viewers alongside the best way, and also you aren’t penalized for that by increased prices, as you’d be with a list-based electronic mail platform.
Drawbacks of Package
No answer is ideal, after all. Listed here are among the drawbacks we and different Package customers have seen.
- Reasonably steep studying curve. The interface is usually 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’ll be able to shorten this studying curve by following their Getting Began video collection, in addition to the remainder of the content material on their well-organized help website
- No list-based group. Though we like the best way Package permits you to set up subscribers utilizing tags (and doesn’t cost you for duplicate subscribers, as we talked about above), the dearth of a list-based group system will be complicated should you’re coming from different platforms. Over time, although, we predict you’ll discover this method extra versatile than managing lists.
- Barebones electronic mail and touchdown web page templates. Package requires CSS coding to create customized superior electronic mail templates and touchdown pages past the included choices. Some customers report that the e-mail design software 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 smart however could also be a trouble to some customers.
Fortunately, one of many earlier drawbacks of Package, that there was no free choice, 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 under no circumstances a downside, however as Package continues to develop its choices to incorporate issues just like the Creator Community and Package Commerce to its core electronic mail advertising capabilities, there’s an opportunity that the platform’s worth might get unfold skinny. To be clear, we don’t suppose that is going to occur and have quite a lot of confidence in Nathan and the Package crew, but it surely’s value protecting 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. In case you’re in search of your first or subsequent electronic mail advertising platform, we predict it’s an excellent answer for rising your viewers and rising your revenue whereas retaining artistic management over what you place out into the world!
Package & Electronic mail Advertising: Extra Sources to Learn, Hear & Be taught
So there you could have it—our assessment of Package’s electronic mail advertising platform! We’ll depart you with a number of extra sources should you’re interested by Package, or need to dig additional into electronic 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 Onerous Fail—my dialog with Package CEO Nathan Barry about setting his firm’s sights on extra formidable objectives with the rebrand.
What Is Electronic mail Advertising? + Finest Practices: An SPI How-to Information
Electronic mail Advertising Magic Course
Why I Switched from Aweber to Infusionsoft to ConvertKitI hope this put up has been useful in deciding whether or not Package is the fitting ESP for what you are promoting. No matter electronic mail advertising platform you select, nothing is extra necessary than having the fitting electronic mail advertising technique, so remember to try our important information to electronic mail advertising and think about the Electronic mail Advertising Magic course if you would like extra hands-on help together with your electronic mail advertising, accessible contained in the SPI Group. Good luck!
