The #1 question NGOs forget when choosing email software

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) rely heavily on the support of donors, volunteers, and supporters to fulfill their mission.

That’s well known, and knowing this, how does email marketing fit in?

Email marketing has actually become an essential tool for NGOs.

It allows you to send newsletters to mobilize potential donors and keep supporters informed easily and very affordably.

Few tools allow you to communicate with thousands of people instantly, effectively, and as quickly as email marketing.

The question is no longer whether to use email marketing or not, as it’s a necessity, but rather, which email marketing tool should you use?

And this is where many NGOs forget to ask the critical question that could ensure the success of their email communication.

What is that all-important question?

Simply put: Does this email marketing tool truly fit our NGO’s needs and resources?

It might seem obvious.

However, when comparing popular options like Mailchimp, Mailrelay, Brevo, or Acumbamail, it’s easy to be impressed by long lists of features.

But is all of that really necessary?

What is the most important thing of all?

A generous free plan and affordable prices: key for NGOs

Ultimately, budget is key; it’s a crucial factor, especially for NGOs.

NGOs typically have more limited resources than businesses, given that they don’t engage in activities generating a direct financial profit that can be reinvested in marketing.

The availability of a free plan (or special discounts for NGOs) is fundamental when choosing email software.

And this is often overlooked, despite the severe financial impact it has.

· Free sending capacity:

How many emails can you send for free?

Many popular platforms impose very low limits on their free plans.

For example, Mailchimp currently only allows 500 contacts and 1,000 monthly sends on its free plan.

Additionally, since 2025, they removed automations from the free version.

Acumbamail barely offers up to 250 subscribers and 2,000 emails per month on its free version.

That number falls short for most medium-sized NGOs.

On the other hand, Mailrelay stands out for having the most generous free account on the market:

It allows you to send up to 80,000 emails per month to up to 20,000 contacts for free

The difference is staggering.

With Mailrelay, an NGO can send an email campaign to all its members without budget concerns.

And even better, Mailrelay doesn’t insert ads or logos into your newsletters even if you use the free plan.

So that traffic isn’t diluted, and they visit the links or posts you want them to see.

· Scalability and fair pricing:

An interesting point to consider, especially if you plan for your NGO to grow (which is to be expected).

What will happen then?

It’s important that you review the costs and prices of the different plans across the various sending volumes you think you might reach.

For example, Mailrelay’s free plan can very likely serve your NGO for years, but that’s not usually the case with other tools.

This way, you can easily plan your NGO’s growth through fundraising campaigns.

Without superfluous expenses that could certainly be better utilized.

You need a tool that allows you to scale your efforts.

Dedicated technical support even on the free plan

If you need to send a critical email campaign, you wouldn’t want to be unable to do so because of a technical issue, right?

Not being able to send a campaign when you need it most can never be a good thing.

That’s why you need email marketing software that includes support.

It’s simply a necessity.

All Mailrelay accounts, even the free ones, include support.

· Customer support in your language:

Most email marketing platforms only provide support in English, and only for paid accounts.

For example, on Brevo, free plan users only have email support, and phone assistance is reserved for Enterprise plans.

Mailchimp, on the other hand, offers practically no direct support on its free tier.

In contrast, Mailrelay offers you technical support in English (and other languages) even with the free account.

You can resolve your queries by phone, chat, or tickets, receiving personalized help the moment you need it.

This way, your NGO will be able to receive support whenever it’s needed, even while using a free email plan.

· Help getting the most out of the tool:

It’s not all about solving problems.

If the email marketing tool has many features, how can you be sure you’re taking full advantage of them?

With a good support team, you only need to ask for what you need; for example, at Mailrelay, we can advise you on which features could help you.

Perhaps you just need to send a bulk email, but what if an automation could help you manage those who open it and those who don’t? Separating them into groups or sending a different email in each case?

With Mailrelay you could do that, and if you don’t know how, we could help you.

That’s why it’s worth having a human team behind the tool who can help you use it.

Automation and personalization to save you time and effort

As we mentioned earlier, having automations, like automation workflows, can save you a lot of time and allow you to perform actions that would otherwise be either impossible or very expensive.

Speaking of Mailrelay.

What actions can you automate with automation workflows?

To start a workflow, you can choose any of the following options (as of the date of this article):

When a subscriber signs up through a subscription form
When it’s the subscriber’s birthday
Abandoned cart (WooCommerce)
Upon receiving an email
Upon opening an email
When they click on a link
The moment a contact is added to a group
Or when they leave one

All of these are actions that can trigger a contact to start an automation workflow.

For example, if you send an email campaign to your contacts, using the ‘upon receiving an email / campaign’ condition would trigger that automation workflow.

What could you do next?

Multiple options:

Add a condition block
A wait block
Send an email
Or a webhook
Send an SMS
Add the contact to a group
Or remove them from a group

Of course, each block contains multiple options so you can tailor the workflow to your needs.

A super basic example would be:

It’s incomplete, but you can see the visual flow of actions and conditions.

With this, you could create welcome sequences for new contacts, set up segmented sends that trigger after an initial email, automate birthday greetings, and more.

It’s worth noting that most email marketing tools don’t include automation workflows in their free plans, but Mailrelay does.

· Segmentation and personalized messages:

If you found the automation options interesting, you’ll find the segmentation options incredible.

In fact, there are too many to list them all here without boring you.

But, what is segmentation?

In short, segmentation is the ability to take a group of contacts, ‘extract’ the ones you’re interested in, and send an email to them, separating them from the rest.

To give you an idea, you could use some of these conditions:

Subscriber: subscriber characteristics, such as city, detected language, creation date…
Newsletter: actions taken on previously received emails, such as opens, link clicks, campaigns they have received, or haven’t…
SMS campaigns
Custom fields: which you can upload yourself with data you have about your contacts (like their donor profile, for instance) and use for segmentation

With all these options, you can ensure your emails reach precisely the right contacts.

And personalize them as much as you need so they are absolutely relevant.

· A/B testing for maximum results:

We already discussed this in this article.

If your NGO needs to launch a critical campaign that many people depend on, it must yield the best results.

There is no other way.

One of the things you can do is use the A/B testing feature to ensure your open rates are as high as possible.

This feature is also included in Mailrelay’s free accounts.

Ease of use that saves you time and brings you closer to your goals

Email campaigns are indispensable for any NGO; they’re a key tool.

But on the other hand, they can’t become your main activity.

You surely have many other things to do.

What does this mean?

That your time is important, and your email marketing tool shouldn’t take up your time, but rather save it.

With that in mind, we’ve developed Mailrelay to be very easy to use, easy to learn, and powerful.

And as we mentioned before, you can always count on our support team.

· Simple and intuitive interface:

As soon as you create your free Mailrelay account (which you can do here), you’ll see buttons for the most basic actions:

Import contacts
Create a newsletter
Create an automation
Create a landing page (yes, this is also available on the free account)

It’s impossible to get lost.

Of course, in the sidebar menu you’ll find all the tool’s options organized by topic, so you can easily find them.

· Newsletter editor with integrated AI:

Mailrelay’s newsletter editor includes AI options even in the free version.

You can see a quick preview here.

As you might imagine, this saves time.

The editor is also very easy to use but powerful:

You just have to drag and drop elements and sections wherever you want, building your email visually.

So, if you’re in a hurry, you can use the AI features to create a foundation for your email, then add the elements you need (including stock images) and have your email ready in minutes.

All of this is included in your free Mailrelay account.

· Integration with other tools:

Mailrelay can integrate with hundreds of tools thanks to Make.

CRMs, ERPs, WordPress, whatever you need.

Do you need something more custom?

No problem, you can use our developer API.

Do you just want to send emails from your system?

Use the SMTP server, it’s easy.

Real-time statistics and high deliverability

All marketing efforts must be analyzed in order to make improvements.

Today, few online marketing tools offer statistics as comprehensive as email marketing does.

Mailrelay can report on every email campaign you send, showing you:

How many emails you’ve sent
How many have been delivered
Soft bounces
Hard bounces
Total and unique views
Total and unique clicks
Unsubscribes
Spam complaints
A detailed list of emails sent and their status
A list of views with location and device (the same goes for clicks)
Click map (heatmap)
URL performance within the email (to see which link worked best)
Unsubscribes and their reasons

An impressive amount of information about your campaigns that you can use to improve future ones.

You can even compare the results of multiple campaigns.

Who knows? That might help you discover what type of campaigns work best for your NGO.

That’s exactly why when choosing email software, you shouldn’t forget to review the type of reports it offers.

It’s also important to know how the platform helps ensure your emails reach their destination (deliverability).

· High email deliverability:

A great campaign is of little use if the emails end up in the spam folder.

First of all, I recommend reading these two articles:

Because they can help you better understand the factors that influence the deliverability of your email campaigns.

And from there, two recommendations.

On one hand, reach out to our support team if you have any questions.

And on the other, try the free Mailrelay account to see the difference compared to other tools.

There’s little else we can add

I believe we’ve covered all the important points your NGO should consider when choosing an email marketing tool.

Perhaps cost is the most important, since budgets for marketing efforts can be limited.

However, as you’ve seen, with Mailrelay’s free account, you don’t lose functionality.

See for yourself, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.