Best Email Testing Tools: Key Features and Top Solutions

I want you to picture your emails as your storefront. 

Now, imagine if someone walks past your store and sees a broken sign, unclear offers, or worse – a locked door during business hours. 

Will they become a customer? Probably not. 

That's precisely what happens when your emails aren't optimized correctly. 

Poorly optimized emails lead to very low open rates, and that leads to lower conversion rates.

And worst of all, your emails could end up in the dreaded spam folder.

Every missed opportunity is a dent in your ROI.

So what’s the solution?

Start using email testing tools to help optimize your email campaigns before you send them.

These tools ensure that every email you send is like a VIP invitation – clear, crisp, and compelling. 

In this article, I take a look at the best email testing tools that will ensure that your messages aren't just sent, but welcomed!

Let’s get started.

Best Email Testing Tool: Top Picks for 2023

Best Email Preview & Spam Test Tools

Litmus

Litmus is a comprehensive email testing platform that excels in pre-send spam testing. 

You can preview your emails on more than 100 popular email clients, reducing email testing time and enhancing email effectiveness. 

Litmus helps with identifying and rectifying errors before sending, ensuring that your emails reach the intended inbox, free from issues that could divert them to the spam folder.

Key Features:

• Real-Time Email Previews: Test and preview emails in over 100 email clients, including Dark Mode.

• Comprehensive QA Checklist: Catch and fix errors before sending.

• Spam Testing: Scan emails across 25+ spam filters to identify and resolve issues, ensuring that emails reach the inbox.

• Automated QA Test: Check links, images, and tracking before sending, with guidance on fixing issues.

• Email Guardian: Constantly monitor emails to alert users of any changes made by email clients that could affect the subscriber experience.

Yearly Pricing Plans:

• Basic: $99/month for 1,000 email previews for a single user

• Plus: $199/month for 2,000 email previews for up to five users

• Enterprise: Custom pricing tailored to your needs

Mailtrap

Mailtrap is your go-to for safe and sound email testing. 

Think of it as a mock SMTP server, making sure that your test emails never end up in a real customer's inbox by mistake. 

It's a lifesaver for developers and QA teams, helping them spot issues before going live. 

Plus, you get detailed insights about email headers and top-notch support, making your testing thorough and reliable.

Key Features of Mailtrap:

• Email Sandbox: Check and debug emails in various environments to ensure that they’re good to go.

• Spam Checker: Make sure that your emails skip the spam folder and get to where they’re supposed to go.

• Email Preview: Peek at each email in your Mailtrap inbox to make sure that they look just right for everyone.

• QA Automation: Handle all of your testing scenarios, blend with your favorite environment, and confirm each email smoothly.

• HTML Check: Check the HTML/CSS of your email templates and see how they’ll look on web, mobile, and desktop in different popular clients.

Pricing Options

Free: 

• Test Emails per Month: 100

• Sending Limits per 10s: 5

• Inboxes: 1

Individual - $14.99 per month:

• Test Emails per Month: 5,000

• Sending Limits per 10s: 10

• Inboxes: 5

Team -  $34.99 per month:

• Test Emails per Month: 15,000

• Sending Limits per 10s: 25

• Inboxes: 15

Business - $64.99 per month:

• Test Emails per Month: 50,000

• Sending Limits per 10s: 50

• Inboxes: 40

Premium - $129.99 per month:

• Test Emails per Month: 100,000

• Sending Limits per 10s: 100

• Inboxes: 80

Enterprise - $399.99 per month:

• Test Emails per Month: 10,000,000

• Sending Limits per 10s: 150

• Inboxes: 300

Email on Acid

Email on Acid is like your personal email stylist, making sure that your emails always look their best on any device or platform with unlimited email previews. 

It checks everything – links, images, and spelling – to make sure everything is perfect. 

And if you're working with a team, the collaborative commenting feature makes it super easy to share thoughts and ideas. 

Key Features of Email on Acid:

• Unlimited email previews, so you can test to your heart's content

• Comprehensive checks on links, images, and even spelling

• Collaborative commenting for team synergy

• Dedicated support to assist you during every step

Annual Pricing:

• 7-day free trial

• $74/month billed annually for solo marketers

• $134/month billed annually

• $499/month billed annually

SendForensics

SendForensics is like a magnifying glass for your email campaigns. 

It digs deep into your emails, checking out deliverability, content, and sender reputation. 

If there are any issues that might get your emails marked as spam or not delivered, SendForensics will spot them. 

This way, you can fix these problems before hitting send.

It doesn’t just stop there. 

SendForensics gives you a predictive deliverability score, giving you a sneak peek into any potential issues down the road. 

Plus, it makes sure that you’re sticking to the best practices with DMARC compliance verification.

Key Features of SendForensics:

• Comprehensive email client preview testing

• Live insights with inbox placement testing

• Predictive scores to gauge deliverability

• DMARC compliance checks to keep you on the right side of ISPs

• Comprehensive blacklist and whitelist monitoring

• Reputation dashboard

Pricing Options

Brand - $39/month or $468/year:

• 2 domains

• 2 users

• 100,000 DMARC reports/month

Company - $63/month or $756/year:

• 5 domains

• 5 users

• 1,000,000 DMARC reports/month

Agency - $159/month or $1,908/year:

• 15 domains

• 10 users

• 10,000,000 DMARC reports/month

Enterprise - $279/month or $3,348/year:

• Custom domains

• Custom users

• Custom DMARC reports/month

GlockApps

GlockApps is a handy tool that tells you where your emails are going, helps you make them better, and keeps them safe from phishing attacks. 

It works with all email services and is a good pick for any size business. 

People like it because it’s easy to use, does thorough checks, and saves time.

It offers a suite of features that allow users to pinpoint and address issues that might prevent emails from reaching the inbox. 

Key Features of GlockApps:

• Start with 3 FREE spam tests to check your email deliverability

• Guard your email domain for FREE with 10,000 DMARC messages each month

• Keep an eye on your website and email all in one spot

• Get personal advice on email deliverability

• Easy and clear email testing.Works with all email services for quick feedback

• A full tool for checking emails with a lot of info to help improve deliverability and ROI

Pricing Options

PERSONAL (Free):

• Actionable Improvement Tips

• 3 Email Spam Tests

• 10,000 DMARC Messages per month forever

BASIC ($59/month or $708 billed annually):

• 3,600 Email Spam Tests

• 1,200,000 DMARC Messages ($1 per 100,000 afterwards)

BUSINESS ($99/month or $1188 billed annually):

• 8,400 Email Spam Tests

• 12,000,000 DMARC Messages ($1 per 100,000 afterwards)

ZeroBounce

ZeroBounce is a well-known email validation service that helps businesses improve their email deliverability. 

It offers a range of tools and features to clean email lists, remove invalid or inactive email addresses, and enhance email list hygiene. 

This helps in reducing bounce rates and improving email marketing performance.

Key Features of ZeroBounce may include:

• Email Address Validation

• Spam Trap Detection

• Abuse Email Checker

• Email Scoring

• Email Appending

• Catch-All Domain Checker

Pricing Options

Zerobounce’s structured pricing allows you to choose a plan that best fits your email validation needs, whether you have a one-time need or require ongoing monthly services.

Pay-as-You-Go Rates:

Monthly Rates (No contract, Cancel anytime):

Clearout

Clearout is more than just an email validation tool; it's a comprehensive solution for maintaining a clean email list. 

It checks each email for validity and removes known spam traps and toxic domains, protecting your sender reputation. 

With features like bulk and real-time email verification, it efficiently manages your email list, reducing bounce rates and improving deliverability. 

Clearout also detects and eliminates temporary and disposable email addresses, preventing fraudulent activities. 

Its seamless integration with various email marketing platforms further streamlines the email verification process.

Key Features of Clearout:

• Gibberish check to identify random email addresses

• Integration with over 100 apps for a streamlined process

• Duplicate email removal to keep lists clean

• Greylisting verification and blacklist monitoring

Pricing Options

One Time (Pay as You Go):

• 3,000 credits: $21 onwards

• 10,000 credits: $58 onwards

• 100,000 credits: $350 onwards

• 250,000 credits: $625 onwards

• 500,000 credits: $850 onwards

• 1 million credits: $1,100 onwards

NeverBounce

Over 125,000 people trust NeverBounce to clean, validate, and verify their email list. 

NeverBounce uses a 20+ step proprietary cleaning process to validate email addresses and improve your sender reputation.

Key Features of NeverBounce:

• API access for seamless integration

• Custom list tagging for organized campaigns

• Bulk list email cleaning

• Real-time email validation to keep lists updated

• Integration with over 80 apps for a comprehensive workflow

Pricing Options

Pay as You Go Rates:

• Price per email up to 10,000 $0.008

• Price per email up to 100,000 $0.005

• Price per email up to 250,000 $0.004

• Price per email up to 1,000,000 $0.003

Lemwarm by Lemlist

Lemwarm helps give your emails a friendly nudge in the right direction. 

How? 

By sending emails to real folks, not just fake accounts, Lemwarm helps make your sender reputation shine. 

This means more of your emails land right in the inbox, just where you want them.

Key Features of Lemwarm:

• Only real people interactions, no fakes here

• Can warm up any email domain

• Works with domains of all ages, from brand new to over 25 years old

• Gives your email deliverability a nice boost to improve inbox rates

Pricing Options

• Plans are easy on the pocket, starting at $25 to $29 per month.

MailReach

MailReach makes sure that your emails are known, warmed up, and set for the best delivery. 

It uses a huge network of real inboxes to make sure that your emails are getting the thumbs up and avoiding those dreaded spam folders. 

It's perfect for anyone who wants their emails to consistently hit the inbox.

Key Features of MailReach:

• Access to over 12,000 real inboxes for true interactions

• Full-on email reputation watching

• Live blacklists and DNS check-ins

• Email warm-up for various email service providers

Pricing:

• Just $25 per email account each month for one to five email accounts

Why Trust Me?

I bring expertise, results-driven strategies, and a powerful arsenal of email marketing knowledge to supercharge your business. 

With a track record of driving substantial revenue through compelling copy, I'm here to help make an impact on your email marketing efforts.

Key Features To Look For in an Email Testing Tool

When deciding which smartphone to purchase, you wouldn’t just pick the first one you see, right? Unless you're an iPhone maxi of course. 

But for the most part, you’d check out the camera quality, battery life, storage, etc. 

The same goes for choosing an email testing tool. 

The features it offers are super important. 

They show what the tool can do, how efficient it is, and in the end, how successful your email campaigns will be.

Even if a tool looks cool or has a fun name, if it doesn’t have the features you need, it’s like having a phone that can’t make calls. 

Not much use, right?

Let's explore three key features that can set your email campaigns on the right course.

3 Key Features To Think About

Deliverability Testing

Deliverability testing makes sure that your emails go straight to the inbox, not the spam folder. 

It tests your emails against different spam filters, checks for blacklisted domains, and looks at the overall health of your emails.

Why is it important?

You want your emails to reach people, right? 

This feature makes sure of that.

Take GlockApps for instance. 

It gives you detailed bounce analytics, spam tests, and IP reputation monitoring. So you know your emails are ready for the inbox.

User-Friendly Interfaces

Brilliant Ux and Ui makes a tool easy to use, saving you time and hassle.

Marketers don’t have time to figure out a complicated tool. 

You want to spend that time making your emails awesome.

Just look at Mailtrap. 

Its clear design means that anyone can quickly learn it and start testing emails effectively.

Advanced Analytics

Analytics gives you the lowdown on how your emails are doing with info on open rates, click-through rates, and other crucial stuff.

If you're still sending emails without tracking how they’re doing, you’re flying blind.

Using SendForensics, you can begin to really understand how your campaigns performed. 

This kind of info can turn a good campaign into an amazing one.

How To Send Test Emails With beehiiv

beehiiv makes it a breeze to make sure that your emails look and work just like you want them to before they hit your audience’s inbox. 

Here’s the lowdown on how you can use beehiiv to test out your emails:

Sending Test Emails With beehiiv:

• Get Started: Whether you’re whipping up a new email or tweaking an old one, just head to the ‘Create’ or ‘Confirm’ steps in beehiiv.

• Find the ‘Test Send’ Option: It’s right there in these steps, ready to let you take a peek at your email before sending it out.

• Choose Your Test Email Addresses: Decide where you want to send the test email. It could be your own address or any other you pick for checking out how it looks.

• Check Out Your Email: After sending the test, take a look at the received email to make sure it’s all good. And guess what? beehiiv lets you send as many test emails as you want, so you can keep tweaking until it’s just perfect.

Benefits of Using beehiiv for Email Testing:

• Easy-Peasy: beehiiv is super straightforward, so even if you’re new to this whole email marketing thing, you’ll get the hang of it in no time.

• No Limits: Send as many test emails as you like and keep refining until it’s spot-on.

• See What Your Audience Sees: beehiiv lets you preview your emails in real email environments, so there are no surprises.

Wrapping Up

Email marketing can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack, but it doesn’t have to be that way. 

Think of email testing tools like beehiiv as your GPS in this huge digital world, leading you right where you need to go.

Now, if you’re on the hunt for a do-it-all spot for your email needs, let’s chat about beehiiv. 

Picture a place where you can create, test, design, and send your emails, all while enjoying your morning coffee. 

That’s beehiiv for you! 

It’s not just an email testing platform; it’s your go-to for all things email marketing.

So as I wrap this up, keep in mind that testing isn’t just a step—it’s your ladder to the top. 

Ready to up your email game? 

Get started with beehiiv today and find the sweet spot of email perfection.