Ontraport Review 2020 – Email Marketing Software Tested

Ontraport: Best for Medium to Large Companies & High Growth Start-Ups, Ontraport Has Almost Everything Your Enterprise Will Need. 

Ontraport is the complete CRM & email marketing solution that becomes especially cost-effective for enterprises with large contact lists of more than 50,000 subscribers.

Ontraport is simply one of the best email marketing services around with a set of fully integrated CRM & eCommerce services that will grow your business.

The Review Process

We have tested 30 of the most popular email marketing software vendors out of a list of over 100.  We have compared over 80 key features and benefits to be able to make a solid and fair comparison. In total, over 2,400 data points have been compiled over our months of testing.  For further details on what we tested, jump to the Main Email Marketing Testing & Comparison Page. 

Ontraport Pricing

There are two types of pricing models in the email marketing industry.

1. Per Contact Pricing means you are charged for storage of a number of contacts; this model usually includes unlimited email sends.
2. Per Email Pricing – this model usually means that you can have an unlimited number of contacts, but you pay per thousand email sends.

Most email marketing vendors also offer multiple tiers of service, a basic tier providing email messaging, autoresponders, and segmentation.  More advanced tiers usually provide more in-depth services such as email marketing automation, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Sales Funnels, Payment Gateways, and landing pages.

When it comes to pricing, Ontraport is clearly targeting fast-growing businesses and medium to large enterprises.  Below you can see that Ontraport currently offers one of the lowest price points, and interestingly offers the broadest most integrated set of services for all business needs.

Important Points On Ontraport Pricing

• Ontraport seems expensive at first, especially for companies that only need simple & cheap email marketing services, such as SendX or AWeber.
• The pricing model’s Plus, Pro & Enterprise unlock a serious amount of features and powerful automation.
• If you are experiencing rapid growth in your business, you may want to pay a little more upfront with Ontraport, so you will not need to migrate to this full-service marketing machine later.
• Ontraport has only two serious rivals for a fully integrated Email Marketing & CRM system, GetResponse & ActiveCampaign.  If you compare the full-service enterprise tier for over 10,000 contacts, Ontraport is at least 30% to 50% cheaper.

Ontraport – The Best Enterprise Tier Pricing

Monthly Contract Pricing
Enterprise Tier – 10K Contacts	$297	$499	$1,199
Enterprise Tier – 50K Contacts	$597	Negotiation	$1,199
Enterprise Tier – 100K Contacts	$697	Negotiation	$1,199

View the Ontraport pricing page to view the tiers of service for yourself.

Competitor Pricing Table – Basic Service Tiers

These are the prices for the basic plans of the service providers, which generally include:

• Email Marketing
• Autoresponders
• Automation Templates
• Forms & Surveys
• Tagging & Segmentation

Value Ratings
Value	☆☆☆☆☆	☆☆☆☆☆	☆☆☆☆	☆☆☆☆☆	☆☆☆☆	☆☆☆☆	☆☆	☆☆☆☆	☆☆☆☆	☆☆☆	☆☆☆☆	☆☆☆☆
Model	Contact	Contact	Contact	Contact	Contact	Contact	Contact	Contact	Contact	Contact	Email	Email
Free-Tier	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	6K/m - $0	9K/m - $0
#Contacts
500	$7.49	$15	$13	$19	$17	$25	$15	$9	$30	$79	30K/m - $9.65	40K/m - $25
2,500	$15	$25	$30	$29	$38	$49	$50	$39	$50	$147	60K/m - $18.95	60K/m - $39
10,000	$39	$65	$76	$69	$81	$119	$99	$111	$110	$297	150K/m - $69	120K/m - $67
25,000	$112	$145	$144	$149	$191	$166	$219	$179	$199	$497	450K/m - $230	350K/m - $173
50,0000	$172	$250	$237	$392	$295	$316	$299	$239	$379	$599=< 125K
Unlimited	$2,999									$99 per extra 100K
Cost per Contact (cents)	0.39	0.65	0.74	0.69	0.81	1	1	1.11	0.67	2.97	NA	NA
	Visit SendX Services	Visit GetResponse	Visit Benchmark	Visit AWeber Services	Visit ConstantContact	Visit ConvertKit	Visit Mailchimp	Visit ActiveCampaign	Visit iContact Services	Visit Ontraport	Visit MailJet Services	Visit SendinBlue

At industry-leading low price points on Enterprise Tier Services, Ontraport offers more features than nearly every other competitor, which means a great deal for you at 10,000 contacts or more.

Ontraport Email Marketing & Automation Features

Out of all the email marketing companies we tested, Ontraport offers the fullest suite of email marketing and automation features.

Like all of the services reviewed, they offer a huge selection of predesigned email templates and a good selection of high-quality images for use in your email campaigns.  The email design process is also fully drag-and-drop, making crafting your message a breeze.

Also included are predesigned and highly customizable email capture forms for your website.

All software providers offer Autoresponders, Email Sequencing, Customer Tagging, and Segmentation.  What separates Ontraport is the ease of implementation and the levels of automation available.  The video below will give you a good idea of how easy this process is.

Ontraport Email Marketing Automation Tour Video

Reporting & Analytics

Again, Ontraport leads the way in basic and advanced reporting and analytics.  You will have the ability to analyze and improve your campaigns with reporting that allows you to compare desktop versus mobile, regional performance, or even global performance.  The Ontraport Metrics Dashboard is highly configurable to report on the key performance metrics (KPI’s) important to your business.

Ontraport Metrics Video

[Related Post – Compare All Email Marketing Services Side By Side]

Of course, you can also see list growth, unsubscribes, and even social shares.  Finally and importantly, A/B Testing, the ability to test the email performance with different subject lines and content, is included even with the Basic starter package.

Advanced Features

In terms of advanced features, Ontraport is the only service that offers both 3rd party Webinar Integration but, most importantly, a fully integrated Webinar Service.  Webinars are an excellent way to engage your clients and share the advantages of your products and services, so having a fully integrated Webinar Service will have the following benefits:

• Saving Money – Webinar Services can be quite expensive depending on your needs; Ontraport will also record, store, and enable the streaming of your recorded webinars in the future.
• Saving Time – You are able to schedule the webinar quickly and target your audience based on your existing contacts, and then Ontraport will take care of the launch, reminders, and followups.
• Improved Communication Process  – Finally, all the actions form your attendees will be tracked in your CRM and analytics so you can initiate further activities.

With the Enterprise service tier, you can host webinars for up to 500 people.

Time Zone Specific Delivery

If you operate a business that spans multiple timezones, then this feature is perfect for you.  Suppose you have a special offer that runs from 9 am to 5 pm on a specific day, you can use the Time Travel Feature you time your email’s arrival for exactly 9 am on that day in their timezone.

SMS Messaging Integration

This service has SMS integration, and interestingly only 4 out of our 11 services tested offer an SMS service.  SMS is a great way to remind your customers of time-critical actions, for example, confirming a table reservation, or reminding a client of their webinar reservation.

Postcard Marketing & Delivery

Interestingly Ontraport also offers a fully integrated postcard service. Nothing impresses a customer more than a postcard to say thank you, or wish them a happy birthday.

Surprisingly, not all email newsletter providers offer this service.  To view the other vendors offering this service, check out our Email Service Master Comparison Table.

Visit Ontraport

Ontraport Email Marketing Outreach Campaigns

Site Chat – The Only Thing Missing

Out of all tests, only three software vendors offer a fully integrated site chat function, Ontraport is not one of them.  An integrated chat function helps to complete the picture of communications.  Imagine, for example, that a customer visits your website, they ask a question via chat to your helpdesk.  Then later, they signup to your email list and again via your website have a conversation with the support team.  All of these interactions will be captured and will ultimately feed into the customer journey reporting and the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. As you will read below, you can even automatically assign a customer a score to be able to assess their interest in a specific product or service.

Membership Site Integration

Of all the research we have done, Ontraport is the only vendor to offer integrated membership site management.  This is a very important feature if you offer a subscription-based service.  Whether it is a content-driven or service driven product, an integrated method for linking your website’s services to continued membership payment subscription renewals can be a costly headache without an integrated service.

Enterprise Functions

Here we take a look at the functionality available for larger companies, specifically those with a dedicated salesforce and multiple roles within the marketing department.

Multiple User Accounts

For a multi-person marketing team, the ability to be able to collaborate on campaigns and assign roles to different employees is critical.  Multiple accounts are covered here in an elegant way enabling both internal employees and even external freelancers the right permissions to complete their tasks.  Each new user will cost an additional $47 per month.

Business Process Automation

This $47/m may sound a little expensive, but not when you understand that multiple users unlock powerful Business Process Automation (BPA).  You can use it to automate any collaboration, not just in the marketing department but in any part of your business, for example, talent acquisition or purchasing.

Sales Lead Team Workflow

Having the ability to assign hot prospects to members of the sales team is important for businesses that need personal contact with the customer; this is exactly what is enables with the sales lead team workflow services. Efficiency within sales is key to be able to grow sales and keep costs down.

Salesforce Integration

SalesForce.com is the industry leader when it comes to CRM, so being able to integrate your marketing department’s contact list to the Salesforce ecosystem can be critical for enterprise customers. Ontraport has developed its own integrated service to enable the seamless passage of customer data, messaging, collaboration, and messaging between the services.

Primary Features: Sales & Payments

The key to being able to automate the sales funnel shown in the previous section is to have the ability to integrate the landing pages into the process.  Many small businesses using WordPress, for example, will struggle to structure and host high-quality landing pages.  The challenge is getting your website to communicate with PayPal, Stripe, or Square.  If you have a reoccurring payment model, for example, a membership program, this is close to impossible to manage by yourself.

Not only does Ontraport offer a fully integrated landing page and payment processing service, but they also have integrated abandoned cart follow-ups, and effective customer Win Back automation.  This is an impressive collection of integrated services, which means you do not have to worry about using 3rd party integrators or solutions to try to automate your workflow.  This is as beneficial for SMB’s as it is for enterprise businesses.

Generating Your Own Salesforce – Partner Program

Ontraport is the only marketing automation company in our extensive research that offers an integrated partner management program.

Consider this, you have a great product, but you do not have the budget to fund a salesforce, or even more importantly, you want to be able to scale a workforce quickly and efficiently.  This is where Affiliate Marketing or a Partner Program excels.  You offer a fixed or recurring revenue stream to other businesses to promote your product, e.g., $50 per sale.

Implementing this by yourself is a seriously difficult challenge, tracking sales, payments, returns, it can quickly become a nightmare.  There are many companies out there that will offer this as a service, but believe me, they are expensive.

Ontraport solves this problem by offering a turnkey solution to partner management. The best thing about it is it is all included in the price, no extra charge.  Watch the Partner Program video to learn more.

Ontraport Partner & Affiliate Management

Visit Ontraport

Customer Relationship Mgt (CRM) & Remarketing

As mentioned previously, the CRM integration enables the whole service to integrate seamlessly.  Many email marketing companies claim to have a great CRM service, but only a few offer a lead rating system and cross-platform customer tracing.

Ontraport CRM Overview Video

SalesForce Automation – Lead Scoring & Journey Reporting

Consider this example, a customer sees your Facebook advert and takes action to visit your website for further information. They click around your lead pages, looking for further information on a product. Then later, they signup to your email list and then send an email to the support team.  All of these interactions will be captured and reported in the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. This appears to be a very interested and active customer.  Based on the Scoring System rules you create, you can flag a customer as a hot prospect and assign the task to a member of the sales team to reach out to them.

This exemplifies the cross-platform journey of a potential customer and enables you to reach out to hot prospects for a sale.

SalesForce Automation

Security & Certifications

At this stage in the development of the internet, cybersecurity is of utmost importance.  High profile data leaks and hacks are resulting in large fines to businesses that do not adequately protect their customer’s data.

Email Service Provider Security Compliance Table

Ease of Use & Customer Ratings

Using as many independent sources as possible, we have rated the services provided.

Ontraport scores highly in both ease of use and their modern approach to design.  Despite the vast and powerful array of features and functions, the service is easy to navigate and use.

Ontraport Review Summary

Ontraport may be the giant you have never heard about.  But they were established in 2006 and offer the single most well-rounded solution for growing your business. Offering a full CRM, BPA, a complete Email Marketing & Automation Service, Landing Pages, and even payment gateway services, this is already a great package.  Add to that, Membership Site management and a completely automated Partner Management solution, and you have a worthy review winner.

Visit Ontraport

[Related Post – Compare All Email Marketing Services Side By Side]

Ontraport Email Marketing – Full Features Data Sheet

Email Service Provider
Value for Money	☆☆☆☆☆
Features	☆☆☆☆☆
Deliverability	☆☆☆☆☆
Ease of Use	☆☆☆☆
Client Satisfaction	☆☆☆☆☆
Support	☆☆☆☆
Total Stars	28
Price Model	Contact
Free Option	No
500 Contacts	$79
2,500 Contacts	$147
10,000 Contacts	$297
25,000 Contacts	$497
50,0000 Contacts	$599=< 125K
Unlimited Contacts	$99 per extra 100K
Cost per Contact (cents)	2.97
Primary Features eMail
eMail Templates	✔
eMail Images	✔
Email Form Templates	✔
Drag & Drop Email Design	✔
Autoresponders	✔
Marketing Automation	✔
Individual Customer Automation	✔
Customer Tagging & Segmentation	✔
Intelligent Timing Delivery
Time Travel (Global 9am Delivery)
Basic Email Analytics	✔
Powerful Email Analytics	✔
A/B Testing	✔
SPAM Scoring	✔
Advanced Features
Webinar Integration	✔
Hosting Webinar & Recording	✔
Email from RSS Feeds
SMS Marketing	✔
Postcard Mailing	✔
Automatic Product Recommendations	✔
Site Chat CRM Integration
Membership Site Service	✔
Team / Enterprise Functions
Multiple User Accounts	✔
Sales Team Lead Distribution	✔
Salesforce Service Integration	✔ (i)
Primary Features Funnels
Surveys/Polls
Sales/Lead Funnels	✔
Landing Pages	✔
Exit Popups
Primary Features Sales & Payments
eCommerce Integrations	✔
Full Payment Gateways	✔
Abandoned Cart Integration	✔
Win Back / Bounce Back	✔
Payment Mgt	✔
Discount Coupons	✔
Referral Program Mgt	✔
CRM & Remarketing
CRM & Deal Management	✔
Cross Platform Journey Tracking	✔
Activity Scoring	✔
Integrations
3rd Party Integrations	103+
Zapier App Integration	✔
Deliverability	☆☆☆☆
Security & Certifications
GDPR Compliant	✔
SSL TLS Encryption	✔
EU-US Privacy Shield	✔
Ease of Use	☆☆☆☆
Customer Satisfaction	☆☆☆☆
Customer Twitter Sentiment	☆☆☆☆☆
Support (Chat, Email, Phone)	Chat, Email
Support Times	12/7
Response Time	Immediate
Customer Support	☆☆☆☆
Visit the Vendor	Visit Ontraport

How We Rated the Service