Choosing an email marketing provider is a very relevant pursuit. I have had experience with a number of different email marketing solutions. From open source free solutions like Mail Press to paid services like iContact or Constant Contact, there is a huge market out there for email marketing services.

Do not get me wrong, many of the tools the paid services use are based off of previously open source solutions.  The features of a paid service are sometimes only marginally better.  Furthermore, extra services such as surveys, polls, etc. are thrown in to help make the paid services better.

This article gives you a nice matrix to evaluate the needs you have and the services that the vendors offer.  A lot of time can be saved figuring out the right provider in advance rather than finding out the hard way later on.

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