Email marketing platforms
Asked as “email marketing platform”, and as “email marketing tool”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B software company. 45 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, six models each.
01The standing
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all six models, for a mid-market B2B software company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
Show the eight products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its vendor page.
Recommended versus criticized
Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.
Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
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13Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative60%
Key
01ActiveCampaign40%
ActiveCampaign40%02HubSpot Marketing Hub27%
HubSpot Marketing Hub27%03Brevo16%
Brevo16%04Sender11%
Sender11%05MailerLite4%
MailerLite4%06Omnisend0%
Omnisend0%07Kit0%
Kit0%08EmailOctopus0%
EmailOctopus0%09Klaviyo0%
Klaviyo0%10GetResponse0%
GetResponse0%11Adobe Marketo Engage0%
Adobe Marketo Engage0%12Constant Contact0%
Constant Contact0%13Mailchimp0%
Mailchimp0%02What they warned about
A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Mailchimp56%
27 of 48 labels negative · 11 of 6 models · 12 hard negative
“The Mailchimp / ActiveCampaign Trap:** Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign are highly recognizable, but they are incredibly expensive for growing businesses.” Gemini 3.5 Flash, budget prompt
Constant Contact55%
12 of 22 labels negative · 9 of 6 models · 6 hard negative
“Users frequently criticize its interface as dated and clunky... often seen as a legacy choice rather than a modern growth tool.” Qwen 3.7 Flash, negative prompt
ActiveCampaign14%
8 of 56 labels negative · 7 of 6 models · 3 hard negative
“**Avoid Mailchimp/ActiveCampaign/Constant Contact** at larger list sizes” Qwen 3.7 Flash, budget prompt
AWeber75%
6 of 8 labels negative · 6 of 6 models · 5 hard negative
“Charges for unsubscribes/inactives (unfair billing flagged in analyses), lower deliverability... dated interface” Grok 4.1 Fast, negative prompt
03What they cite
Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: four of the six in this edition.
Sites the answers cite
17 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 4 of 6 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 4 of those lists are Google grounding redirects that name no site and are left out of the counts. 175 links across 76 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page. The other 2 models searched through a gateway that returned no source list on this edition.
vendor site · Mailtrap9 answers · 14 citations · 2 models
9 answers · 13 citations · 2 models
6 answers · 8 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Brevo6 answers · 7 citations · 2 models
6 answers · 7 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Constant Contact5 answers · 7 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Sequenzy5 answers · 5 citations · 2 models
4 answers · 4 citations · 1 model
vendor site · Mailchimp4 answers · 4 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Sender4 answers · 4 citations · 2 models
vendor site · ZoomInfo3 answers · 4 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Rework3 answers · 4 citations · 1 model
Pages the answers cite
The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.
6 answers · 2 models
6 answers · 2 models
5 answers · 2 models
5 answers · 1 model
4 answers · 1 model
3 answers · 2 models
3 answers · 2 models
3 answers · 2 models
3 answers · 1 model
3 answers · 2 models
04How they answered
Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ModelDirect“What is the best email marketing platform for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which email marketing tool would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top email marketing platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best email marketing platform for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating an email marketing platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which email marketing platforms should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Opus 5no first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Claude Opus 4.8no first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
GPT-6 Astrano first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
GPT-5.6 Solno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.1 Prono first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Perplexity Sonar Prono first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against
05The record
One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Zero rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
| Prompt | Model | Version string | Time (UTC) | Searched | Sources | Latency |
|---|
Noise floor in this category
Flips between the edition run and its calibration repeat. Six prompts per model is a small sample; the index-wide floor is the number to trust.
Normalization in this category
Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.
Category-scoped readings
HubSpot read as HubSpot Marketing Hub
Salesforce read as Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Unresolved, counted raw
MailWizz
SendGrid Transactional
SendMails.io
Sendy
SimplyCast
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.