Which Elastic Email plan is for me?

However, before you do start sending, it’s best to pick the plan that you want to use. And when it comes to making your choice, you might feel the need to get some advice. How do you know which Elastic Email plan will be best suited for your needs? How do you even establish your needs in the first place?

Don’t worry! To help you find the best Elastic Email plan that you will be satisfied with, we have created a set of examples that might help you make the right decision. Hopefully, it will make it easier to pick a fitting option without any second-guessing.

Table of Contents

• Start out with picking the right product to send emails
• Kiara, the owner of the kombucha brewery
• Our answer:
• Luke, the CEO of a transport logistics company
• Our answer:
• Josh, the creator of a Sci-Fi browser game
• Our answer:
• Monique, the healthy lifestyle advocate
• Our answer:
• I’m still not sure which Elastic Email plan is for me.

Start out with picking the right product to send emails

The first step is to familiarize yourself with our offer. We currently have two Elastic Email products -  Email Marketing and Email API. They are further divided into into Starter and Pro plans differing in the variety of features available and email contact and/or email sending limits. In order to set your expectations, we have six standard questions related to picking out a plan. Answering them may give you some clarity regarding your needs and help you make an informed decision.

• What is your estimated monthly email volume?  - How many emails do you believe you will send within a full month? Rough numbers are all you need.
• How many unique contacts do you send to? - How many individual email addresses do you have in your contact list? Depending on the number of contacts, the price per month with an Email Marketing plan may change.
• What domain(s) or websites(s) do you plan on sending from? If you already have a domain or website you would like to use, it’s necessary to verify it with our Acceptable Use Policy and Terms of Use. It’s standard procedure to ensure the quality and compliance is maintained.
• What type of emails would you like to send with us? (Newsletters, Promotions, transactions, etc.) Based on the type of emails you send, you might prefer one plan over another. Transactional emails are best sent with API, however, it all depends on your use and overall needs.
• Do you need to use our contact and campaign design tools to send campaigns; or do you plan to submit emails to us via SMTP or our API? The answer to this question can really help you decide which plan to go for depending on the features that would be most useful to you.
• Are you currently sending emails with another provider? If so, it would be helpful to know which one to be able to explain how we are similar or how we differ.  Our Customer Support specialists can help you with the transfer. They will show you all the options and potential you can have using Elastic Email.

We understand that even knowing what each plan has in store for you and answering our questions, you might still have concerns and doubts regarding picking a plan. Because of this, we decided to put together some sample profiles based on our customers' real-life examples that you might relate to. Hopefully, you can find some similarities and choose the best plan for your needs.

Kiara, the owner of the kombucha brewery

“Hi, I’m Kiara and just starting out in the whole kombucha business. For now, I’m brewing it at home but it’s gonna blow up soon. So many health benefits, ya know? I want people to ease into it first with some cool infographics and such. Later I was thinking of sending offers with my latest brew variants and some amazing facts about kombucha. I think around two emails a month will be perfect. I have around 4,000-4,200 contacts ready to receive my emails from my socials. I’d appreciate some tips starting out because I have never used an app like this before. Namaste!”

Our answer:

The first example came through with the need for a simple, straight-forward solution for an already established contact base. Based on that, we would recommend Kiara the Starter Plan with up to 5,000 contacts for $59 per month. Now, let me tell you why:

Kiara is a first-timer and has a relatively small number of contacts. Since she doesn’t have much experience, easy and clear access to all the features is a must. Our intuitive Template editor will help her quickly create the templates she wants to use for the campaigns and the Analytics will show her the results. It would also be beneficial for her to be able to share her subscription link within her social media and once she will set up her page, utilize the form creator. And finally, with well-planned email campaigns and a simple subscription process, her traffic will increase - so she would benefit from dividing her contacts into lists and segments to further personalize their experiences. At any point, if she would ever need additional tips, Kiara will be able to contact our 24/7 Customer Support or check out our Help tab located within our dashboard.

Luke, the CEO of a transport logistics company

“Hello, we are looking for an email service provider that would fit our specific needs. As a transport logistics company, we deal a lot with sending provisional, revised and final invoices as well as updates regarding cargo statuses. We are already using InvoiceBerry to issue e-documents and would prefer to stay with them for continuity sake. We are looking for ways to integrate this app with an email sending platform to make it more convenient. Each month we send about 10 thousand emails related to invoices and cargo statuses.”

Our answer:

This is a bigger company that sends a lot of transactional emails directly related to another application they are using. Now, with the Email API plan, they will have the option to use SMTP and HTTP API access to maintain high-security encryption as well as integrate various applications. Luckily, InvoiceBerry is among our various integrations, so setting this up will take only a few seconds. To automate the workload, even more, they could use the merge fields option and send personalized messages to their customers.

With the integrated Analytics feature, they could verify which emails weren’t opened and, thanks to SMS API feature, send a follow-up text to the concerned party. As the number of emails sent per month is high, we would recommend buying Private IPs to maintain a high delivery rate and assure excellent sender reputation independently from shared IPs.

We suggest purchasing our Email API Starter plan for $19 for up to 50,000 emails. Plus, you can buy an optional private IP address add-on for $40. Since the types of emails and documents that they will be sending are of high importance, the company might benefit from using our $10 a day Premium Support option to receive the highest priority in case of any issues occurring along the way.

Josh, the creator of a Sci-Fi browser game

“Hi, My name is Josh and I created my own game. It is a browser-based SF space opera where you manage your own space empire and compete with other players over regions of the galaxy. I am sending to my users regular updates to keep them up with game development and implementation of all the new features. I am also sending them occasional marketing emails, where I inform them about the latest discounts. My game has about 3 thousand dedicated players, but I send emails only to about 2 thousands of them. I am looking for a simple tool that will allow me to easily create new templates without worrying about anything.”

Our answer:

Josh doesn’t need much to start and the best option for him will be our basic plan. By spending $29 a month he will be able to send emails to all the contacts he wants to engage with can upgrade anytime in case his contact list grows. The Starter plan has all the features he needs: Template Editor to quickly create clear emails, Campaign Management to send them and Statistics to monitor his subscribers' reactions. As his game gets more traffic, he will have an opportunity to use our Segmentation tool and divide his list based on pricing, type, engagement or anything else he would find necessary. With time, Josh will also be able to comfortably switch to the Pro plan. Then he will be able to use more advanced features, like Automations.

Monique, the healthy lifestyle advocate

“I have quite a successful e-commerce business where I sell various products related to a healthy lifestyle. We created a great community and we grow by sharing great recipes together with links to all the products from it that people can buy on our website. I am looking for an advanced automated system. I'd set up a whole tree of communication to each person depending on their previous choices. For example, if in one email they have chosen a recipe of a vegan dessert, in the next email she would get a discount for products needed to make the listed vegan dessert. On my contact list, I have about 100,000 people, and that is just 20% of all active users that visit my website on a regular basis. Thanks for the info, Monique.”

Our answer:

Monique built quite an email list! With such high numbers, she will definitely benefit from using segmentation to effectively manage the contacts. She could also use our template editor to create great food-related email templates and send them right away with our campaign management. Monique also mentioned an automated system to send a set of emails to dedicated groups. Based on that, our Email Marketing Pro plan would be perfect for her.

Due to the large contact base, our Pro plan would cost Monique about $699 per month. With advanced automation, she will be able to create welcome sequences, personalized offers, and drip campaigns related to her business. All the campaign impacts would be easily interpreted thanks to our Analytics feature. All the other options we have available with this plan and our 24/7 Customer Support could be useful any time she might need some guidance.

I’m still not sure which Elastic Email plan is for me.

Hopefully, the choice of our Elastic Email plans is much clearer now. We have created a product that can handle email campaigns for freelancers, aspiring startups and big companies alike. Regardless of what spiked your interest in Elastic Email in the first place, by providing quality customer service, competitive rates and well-made products, you just might want to stay with us longer.

If you haven’t found any profile that could potentially match you, don’t worry! Our Customer Support will be happy to help you pick the best option. Do you remember the six questions at the beginning of this article? Answer them the best you can and forward them to our Customer Support specialists with a request to assist with picking out the best Elastic Email plan for you. We’ll do our best to assist you and with already answered questions, the whole process will be much faster.

Anna Wybieralska