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Email marketing rates and costs
The first thing to consider about the costs of hiring an email marketing service is whether you want an Application Service Provider (ASP) solution or in-house software. ASP email software rests on the email broker’s servers and you send messages over their network.
If you use in-house software, you’re using your network technology to manage and send emails. The main difference between the two options is an ASP model requires regular monthly fees while an in-house solution requires a hefty up-front investment and staff resources to manage the program (but few follow-up expenses).
If you can afford the expense of in-house software and have dedicated IT staff to implement and manage it, your costs will start at around $700 just for the software. You’ll then pay hundreds to thousands of dollars for implementation, individual software licenses, product updates, and dedicated customer service. In order to send large volumes of emails from your office, you may also need to invest in larger, more reliable servers and a better Internet provider. This can add thousands of dollars more to your costs.
The ASP model for email marketing software is the most common and the most affordable. In general, you have three pricing options to choose from:
- Per subscriber rate. Vendors will allow you to send unlimited emails to subscribers and you pay based on the number of actual email recipients. This option runs about $10 per month (for small lists of a few hundred names) or $500-$600 for large lists of 100,000 or more names.
- Total emails sent rate. This rate starts at $20 and can go as high as $450 or more and allows you to send thousands of standard-sized email messages (20-30 KB.) You can add more emails at any time for an additional fee. If you have an extremely large list and need to send millions of emails each month, you’ll pay $400 to $8,000 depending on the volume.
- Pay as you go rate. If you’re just testing the email marketing waters, ASP vendors can offer one-time campaigns where you pay a few cents for each email you send. This plan is also beneficial if you work with lengthy lists as you’ll pay less for very large one-time campaign volume than you would with the other two pricing models.
Other ASP costs
- While you typically don’t pay a set-up fee for ASP model pricing, some vendors may require a one-time charge of a few hundred dollars to get you up and running.
- Need copywriting and design work? If you don’t have the resources to do the work in house, expect to pay $75 to $150 per hour for those services.
- If you want to conduct a more focused campaign, you can pay a few hundred dollars to get mailing address information appended to your email addresses.
- You may not have the time to dedicate to a focused email marketing campaign. A full service email marketing firm can manage the entire process for you for about $2,500 per month or more depending on the level of services and attention you need.
As with any marketing program, make sure you temper expectations for your campaign’s success. Your response rate will vary considerably depending on the quality of your list and appropriateness of your message. And make sure you don’t get discouraged if you don’t create a lot of new business through your first campaign. Brand exposure can often be just as important as immediate customer acquisition.