A great email template looks great and converts. So finding the best drag and drop email template builder is essential.
Choose the right email builder, and save time and money on your email campaigns. These tools make it easier to create newsletters, even without HTML coding skills.
Here’s your guide to the best drag and drop email template builders on the market:
What to Look for in a Drag & Drop Email Template Builder
The best email template builders let you easily craft stunning responsive email templates. Plus, exports are compatible, looking good in all email clients.
Each email template builder has their own strengths. Look for at least the following features in your drag and drop editor:
- Drag and Drop: An easy-to-use interface is a life saver, and the best template builders have it. Choose a simple interface that makes it quick to click together an email.
- Premade templates: Start with a premade design and give it your own twist. Existing email templates in a builder give you a strong starting point for your newsletters.
- Email Preview: Check what your template is going to look like before hitting send. Your drag-and-drop editor should at least have mobile and desktop previews.
- Image editor: An image editor is a good addition to the email builder. The fewer tools you have to work with, the quicker you’ll finish your templates.
- Email Rendering: The best HTML email template builders will create emails that render perfectly with all email clients. Outlook, Gmail, Hotmail, etc., and on mobile. Your email needs to display perfectly everywhere.
- Integration with ESPs: It saves lots of time if your template builder works directly with your email service provider. Look for native integrations.
- Team Collaboration: Bring your team to work on templates together. In a workflow or even with multiple people editing email in real-time, one tool. Collaboration tools make it easier to use the email builder as a team.
A good template builder captures your audience’s attention with attractive, easy-to-read emails. Even better, your email template strengthens your brand image, so your customers remember you for longer.
9 Best Drag and Drop HTML Email Template Builders (Free & Paid)
Now you know what an HTML email template builder is and the features to look for. All that’s left to do now is compare the available email builders. There are a lot of template builders out there. We’ve saved you the time and made a list of top email creation tools for template design.
1. Stripo
Stripo is a free email template builder with included email testing tool. Great for fast and easy email production, we found the email template builder is very easy-to-use. You move the content modules from the side right into the email where you want them, and edit with drag-and-drop simplicity.
You don’t need any HTML skills to use the Stripo template tool and there is an image editor in the HTML email designer. Stripo comes with AMP support, email testing tools, and previews for various environments.
Unique features:
- Dynamic emails: The excellent drag-and-drop email template generator has AMP blocks for carousels and dynamic images. You can even add CSS animated buttons, countdown timers and more.
- Custom module library: Save any email block you make to your HTML email editor for re-use later.
- Email preview tests included: Check out your emails on mobile devices, tablets, and various email clients.
- Integrations: Link your email template maker to your favorite software tools.
- 750+ HTML templates: The drag and drop email editor comes with 750+ free email templates.
Pricing: The Stripo HTML email composer is free just create an account here. It is a good way to test the newsletter builder. The paid plan is called Business and is only $12.50 per month, you get additional premium templates, chat support and 300 ESP exports per month.
Best suited for: Stripo is great for beginners and advanced email marketers. Its easy to test the quality of your HTML design before you export it. If you’re looking for the best email template builder for agencies, Stripo is one of the top choices.
2. Chamaileon
Chamaileon is made with bigger teams and agencies in mind. With the promise of 10x faster email production, the Chamaileon visual email editor is fast and efficient. If you’re looking for a template builder for teams, this is it.
It’s easy to create all kinds of template designs collaboratively.
Drag and drop means you don’t need to know anything about coding or HTML.
Chamaileon is a great alternative to complex or limited email designers you may find in your own email service provider. This application is very responsive and pixel precise. You can structure elements to nest, adjust columns by pixel and save blocks.
Notheworthy features:
- Previews: The drag and drop HTML email editor shows you your designs in mobile and desktop version.
- Block saving: Saving your own content blocks is a common feature in the best email design software. Chamaileon ensures recreating previous designs is easy.
- Hundreds of templates: Choose from 600+ existing templates and blocks to get you started or start from scratch.
- Collaboration: Collaborate with your colleagues on responsive emails in real-time.
Pricing: Though not a free HTML email editor, Chamaileon has a free trial. A paid plan starts at $125 per month for 5 users, 5 integrations, and real-time analytics.
Best suited for: Chamaileon is a versatile tool with a lot of customization and design features. We’d recommend this product for larger companies and enterprises.
3. Tabular
Tabular is a free drag-and-drop email template editor with intuitive layout editing. No more tinkering with pixel values. The editor adjusts row and column widths automatically as you drag blocks to different places. Drag the dots and lines on the side of any block to get the perfect layout. These make it easy to create responsive email layouts, even for complex designs.
All Tabular emails are responsive. To get the best design on mobile, you can tweak the email in mobile mode. The changes you make here won’t have any effect on the desktop. Edit column widths, collapsing columns, margin, padding, typography, and visibility.
Noteworthy Features:
- Smart layouts: Create complex email layouts that are responsive.
- Mobile mode: Tweak the mobile version of email independently from the desktop.
- Collaboration features: Teams can save, edit, sync, and reuse content blocks. And easily share your emails with public demo pages.
Pricing: Tabular is free with 3 emails, 3 HTML downloads/month, access to all email templates, collaboration, and email support. Plus costs $24.17/month for unlimited emails, 100 downloads, and automatic sync with email tools.
Best suited for: Tabular is great for beginner email builders because it’s so easy to use. It’s also a great option for designers and teams that want to create complex email layouts.
4. Moosend
Moosend is an email service provider that lets you send emails. The HTML email editor is a part of Moosend’s email newsletter automation service. The email designer in Moosend is good at building templates.
The Moosend WYSIWGY email template creator is streamlined. You can edit existing templates, or start your own with their HTML code view. It’s easy to save any newsletter elements you love for later.
Moosend features:
- Send emails: Moosend is a full ESP and sends newsletters and automations. Check out this full Moosend review to learn more about the platform.
- Code access: See behind the scenes of the HTML editor for coding access to make granular changes.
- Save components: The editor allows you to easily save elements of your design you might want to use later.
- Responsive: Like many of the top WYSIWYG editors, the templates you build on Moosend will work anywhere.
- Templates: Moosend has 70+ kickstart templates to get you started, you can tap into Moosend’s image collection as well.
Pricing: Moosend is only for when you also want to send emails. There is a free trial for 30 days to test out the services. Just quickly create a log in here. If you want to upgrade to send automated emails once you’re finished building your templates, the pricing starts at $9 per month.
Best for: If you’re looking for an email designer that also allows you to send your emails at the same time, Moosend is a great choice.
5. Beefree
Beefree is an email editor with a simple drag-and-drop interface that makes email design easy. Just click and change texts. All the options are where you expect them to be.
You can start designing from scratch, or choose from various pre-made email templates as a starting point for your email design. With Beefree you can customize your email as you want it. You can resize images, adjust the width of columns, and access various content blocks.
Noteworthy features:
- Free to use: You can use email campaign template designs and features for free. It is easy for anyone to get started, even if you don’t have any experience with email builders.
- Mobile email editing view: Preview and edit emails in mobile view like most of your users will open it.
- Professional package: The Professional plan from Beefree gives you more customization options. Plus, there are collaboration tools within your email designer software and more templates.
- Multi-user: Multiple users can work within the same account, with permission controls and brand styling available in the Team plan.
- ESP Plugins: Integrate with popular email services like MailChimp, HubSpot, and SendGrid.
Beefree is a free email builder. Just get an account here and you can start immediately. For more templates and user permissions, the Professional plan starts at $30/month and includes a landing page designer. The Beefree SDK is also available for embedding in web applications, ideal for development teams. The tool started life as a feature of MailUp.
Best suited for: Beefree is a practical choice for beginners and experienced email marketers. It offers an affordable and flexible way to create custom email templates.
6. Postcards by Designmodo
Postcards is an online email HTML editor. It is part of the stable of design tools by Designmodo. To create your first email templates – just start designing straight away.
Unlike the other drag-and-drop editors, Postcards offers blocks for each part of the email, like header, content, CTA’s ecommerce products, etc. These mini-templates look pretty smart.
Compared to others like Beefree and Stripo, Postcards email marketing editor is pretty limited and more expensive.
- Configuration options for the blocks are limited.
- You get a few email template modules
- Editing isn’t very straightforward, as you have to click and edit the text in the sidebar.
- It isn’t fully drag and drop, you can’t switch columns.
Understand me, it isn’t a bad editor per se, and it is great to play around. With a free account, you’ll be able to export an unlimited number of email designs too. But you’ll quickly see that the email editor isn’t designmodo’s focus project – mostly great for users of their
The postcards email templates are already pretty clean and modern by themselves. You start with one of those existing templates to quickly start building your content.
Pricing: The paid plan costs $24 per month. The Agency service for multiple users is $39 per month.
Best suited for: It is an OK editor, not as sophisticated as Beefree or Stripo. It makes sense to use postcards if you already are using the designmodo bootstrap page designer.
7. Topol.io
Create an attractive email marketing campaign with Topol.io. This responsive email design tool has plenty of great features. Designers can build email campaigns from scratch, or edit an existing template. The attractive designs available in Topol.io’s library saves you time on fiddling with HTML code.
Users are free to work collaboratively with your team within the drag and drop email editor. Changes to campaigns sync across accounts in real-time.
Topol email editor:
- Lots of template options: You can choose from a wide range of responsive email designs.
- Reusable blocks: Save content blocks for your emails and import custom HTML directly into the editor.
- Work collaboratively: You and your team can use the email builder tool at the same time.
- Works with a range of email tools: Export your email elements to tools like HubSpot, MailChimp and many others.
Pricing: There’s a fourteen day free-trial period so your company can examine the tool before buying. The initial pricing plan starts at $10 per month, and supports up to 3 users on a single account. Making it one of the cheapest options.
Best suited to: Collaborative teams can edit images and experiment with modules simultaneously. Even the cheapest paid plan from Topol.io allows your team to work together.
8. Knak
The Knak email campaign creator helps companies build emails and landing pages.
This designer is only fit for enterprise users and teams, with pricing starting at $9,000 per year. That might seem a hefty price tag, but link the email template editor to enterprise email service providers like Salesforce, Marketo and Eloqua – and you’ll centralize your email template designs and save an incredible amount of time and frustration.
Knak users create perfectly rendered landing pages and emails without prior code knowledge. Everything you build with this designer is also optimized for responsive designs.
Knak is different because:
- Made for enterprise email providers with campaign ready integration for eloqua, Marketo, Adobe and SalesForce Marketing cloud.
- Landing page builder: Make email templates and landing pages at the same time
- Collaborative work: Connect with colleagues when working on email designs.
- Optimization: Intelligent optimization technology helps you get the best response from every design.
Pricing: There are 50 Knak templates available for Marketo and Eloqua. If you want a more immersive no-code building experience, you’ll need the Knak builder. The builder starts at a price of $9.000 per year. This price includes advanced drag-and-drop design, premium starter designs, and integrations.
Best suited for: Thanks to the high price-tag, Knak is an enterprise-focused software solution. This HTML email generator helps you centralize and optimize your designs.
9. Sendgrid
Sendgrid is an email SMTP server and responsive email template builder in one. It is mostly used by developers with their email sending API. The API means you can integrate Sendgrid’s email design app with just about anything else your team might use.
This makes it an interesting choice if you for instance want to integrate your transactional email or directly trigger the emails from your backend.
Unique features:
- Email marketing: Design emails and automate sending campaigns in the same place.
- API access: Sendgrid is a unique email template builder open-source API solution with access to SMTP relay and webhooks.
- Delivery optimization: Optimize send time to where the customer is most likely to open.
If you want to Send Emails on a Budget, see our overview of the best Free SMTP Servers
Pricing: The basic version of the Sendgrid drag-and-drop email editor is free. However, if you want to send automated emails with the service, you’ll need a basic paid plan for $14.95 per month. Prices increase depending on the number of emails you send.
Best suited for: Sendgrid is a choice for developers looking for API access. It’s also a nice pick if you want to use both email automation and template design in one service.
Final Thoughts
Finding a drag and drop email designer isn’t as complicated as it seems. The challenge is picking the one that’s aligned with your email marketing process. Remember to make sure that the images and designs will work with your ESP.
If you’re not sure, I’d advise to start with looking at free trials and demos. Test that drag and drop interface and explore some of the templates and customization options on any of the top email builders on this list.
FAQ
What is a drag and drop email builder?
A drag-and-drop email builder is a tool to quickly build an email design. They allow you to pull images and modules into place within the email design. These are the easiest design systems to use, because they don’t require HTML knowledge and the user can visually see what the outcome looks like.
How do I create an HTML email template?
If you’re using a drag-and-drop builder, you start with choosing the style and content of your email. Add content and images, modules library, with multiple variations or merge tags. Once the email is ready, you can preview it, then export the HTML code for your email marketing service or use the integration.
What’s the difference between a drag-and-drop and WYSIWYG HTML email editor?
A WYSIWYG HTML email template builder shows you what your design is going to look like.
But in practice these are mostly smarty based email editors, which is more a way of saying you can see bold, italic and font size. Most of the time, drag-and-drop HTML editors show you exactly the design as it will look like in the inbox, these are truly WYSISWYG (What you see is what you get).
How do I create a free email template?
In email template creation there are many options, also free. Maybe templates come with your email marketing software? But if you want to create your own free email templates, the easiest way is to choose one of the email editors in this article that are free to use like Beefree, Stripo, or Tabular. You can even find free email testing tool and landing page design options.
What is an email template?
Email templates are the design structures you use for your email content. When using email editors to send content from your professional email address, you’ll use templates to make your content look good. Template builders give you HTML code to adjust the appearance of your emails.
What are responsive email templates?
Most email template builders will create responsive email templates. This means the user accessing your email marketing campaign will be able to see all of the content on any device, especially scaling on mobile. The best email template will work on any device, and are tested on a range of email clients.
What are the types of email templates?
There are many different types of HTML email templates available for email marketing. Email builders can create transactional email templates, promotional templates and more.
HTML email template builders also allow for designing dynamic emails which change according to the email user. Some email template builders come with tips and tricks in the form of help articles to show you which templates to use for certain strategies.