Email on Acid Alternative: What Are Your Best Options?
Finding the right email testing tool is essential for email marketers, but Email on Acid might not fit every budget or requirement. This is where an Email on Acid alternative is a good solution.
Whether due to pricing, specific features, or personal preferences, many look for viable alternatives. This guide highlights the top Email on Acid competitors, helping you choose the best option to ensure your emails render perfectly and boost your campaign success.
If there is a better alternative to Email on Acid, you will find it in this comprehensive guide!
What is Email on Acid?
Sinch Email on Acid is an email testing tool that primarily handles email previews. The tool is popular with email marketers, many of whom will recognize the Email on Acid logo with a green email icon.
Unlike email deliverability services, which let you execute different types of email campaigns and track their performance, Email on Acid generates previews of your emails. This helps check for rendering issues on different email clients and devices, such as Outlook on Mac or Gmail on Android Dark Mode.
Besides previews, Email on Acid has features such as:
- Spam filter testing,
- Analytics dashboard to track email campaign metrics,
- A library of email campaign templates for marketing,
- A simple email editor to design an error-free email.
This tool also validates your URLs, checks headers, and suggests optimization for images if necessary. It even lets developers access email marketing API features using Email on acid API calls.
That said, there are reasons users are looking for solutions elsewhere. Let’s find out what they are.
Reasons to Find an Email on Acid Alternative
Email on Acid testing features help email marketers analyze their emails to ensure compatibility across various email clients and devices. While it does a decent job, there are factors causing users to seek alternatives.
Here is a list of 9 reasons:
- Cost: Users might be unhappy with the monthly email marketing costs. An alternative might offer a more cost-effective solution for specific needs.
- Features: Different email testing tools may offer unique features or integrations that better align with certain requirements.
- Spam checks: Email on Acid spam testing isn’t as robust as its competitors.
- User interface and experience: The user interface and experience can vary, and some users may prefer the design and usability of one platform over another.
- Performance: Users may not be satisfied with the speed, reliability, and accuracy of rendering email previews across email clients and devices.
- Customer support: The level and quality of customer support can be a critical factor.
- Integration: Users may be unable to use specific tools or services with Email on Acid.
- Updates and innovation: Users may want alternatives that are more proactive in terms of updates and introducing new features.
- Scalability: If Email on Acid’s features don’t scale along with a client’s operations, they would consider a service that can handle their workload.
If one of these reasons resonates with you, we recommend you thoroughly research each email testing alternative in the list below to determine which one works best for you.
Email on Acid Free Alternatives
Free alternatives to Email on Acid are rarely good; maintaining a high-quality email preview tool requires significant resources. It also requires regular updates to keep up with changes in email clients and devices.
Many free tools come with limitations, such as:
- Restricted features,
- Fewer device previews,
- Lack of support for dark mode,
- Weak email accessibility checks.
The issues listed above can lead to inaccurate renderings. Often, what appears to be free is just a limited trial designed to encourage paid subscriptions. Here are two free Email on Acid alternatives offering free trials to test your emails.
PutsMail by Litmus
This is a basic email preview tool that allows users to send test emails to their own addresses. It offers inline CSS and basic rendering tests. It’s free but limited in functionality compared to the full Litmus package.
Inbox Pirates
Inbox Pirates is a Chrome extension that lets users preview emails. It also checks for broken HTML, email accessibility issues, and provides previews from notification bars. It was free with daily limits for a while, but now users can get a 14-day trial. The basic plan then costs $5 for 4 previews per day.
Moving past the free alternatives, up next we have a table comparing the top Email on Acid competitors.
Comparison of Email on Acid Alternatives
If you’re in a hurry to get to the meat of the article, then this side-by-side comparison is exactly what you’re looking for.
Here is a table comparing the top features of Email on Acid against its competitors:
| Features | Email on Acid | Litmus | Testi@ | SendForensics | Email Preview Services | Mailosaur | Stripo | Everest | Mailchimp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Email preview feature | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Unlimited previews | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Spam checker | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Blacklist checker | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Deliverability test | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Analytics | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Chrome extension | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Basic plan | $74/mo | $79/mo | $20/mo | $49/mo | $25/mo | $9/mo | $15/mo | $20/mo | $8/mo |
Choosing the right alternative to Email on Acid is about going into the details of what each platform offers.
Email Preview Tool: Additional Features Explained
You’ll notice that Email on Acid and its competitors don’t restrict their offerings to just email previews — they also offer additional services to sweeten the deal.
Here’s a table explaining additional features offered by these tools:
| Feature | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Spam checker | A spam-checking tool evaluates different factors to tell you if your email will get caught in the spam filter. For eg., it can notify you of issues with your IP address, email domain, or email content. |
| Blacklist monitor | A blacklist checker tool either owns a blacklist or accesses popular blacklists to ensure your IP or domain is not on it. If it is, you can then work toward getting off that list. |
| Deliverability test | This is a tool that checks your email content and your sender reputation and suggests ways to improve your deliverability. |
| Analytics | This tool attempts to give you more details than your ESP and shows additional metrics, like the percentage of dark mode users, geographic locations, the time taken to read your email, etc. |
| Inbox placement tool | An inbox placement tool sends a copy of your email to a seed list, containing thousands of different email addresses, clients, and types of accounts to offer you an estimate of your deliverability. |
Now that you know what these features mean, you can decide on a tool that has the features you want.
Email on Acid Pricing
These are the plans Email on Acid users can pick from:
- The Basics: $99 per month (1 user, unlimited email previews).
- Premium: $179 per month (3 users, unlimited email previews).
- Enterprise: Custom pricing (Custom users and unlimited email previews).
Email on Acid vs Litmus is a Popular Comparison
Litmus was among the first companies to introduce an email preview tool for marketers. Email on Acid appeared as a competitor many years after Litmus first made its mark. This guide would be incomplete if we didn’t compare Litmus vs Email on Acid.
Founded in 2005, Litmus launched as a testing tool for marketers to check if their emails were rendering correctly across different email clients and services. The platform aimed to simplify the email creation and testing process, and with time, introduced features like email analytics, spam testing, and collaboration tools.
Features
Litmus offers these features:
- Email testing,
- Litmus subject line checker,
- Analytics,
- Email design tool,
- Email personalization,
- Third-party support for ESPs.
Pros
- It renders email previews quickly and the user interface is intuitive.
- There are lots of devices and email client options for previews.
- It features a dynamic preview in the HTML editor so you can correct your error or make changes to your HTML email in real time.
- Collaborating on an email with other team members is convenient.
Cons
- The analytics are pretty basic. There is also ambiguity on the accuracy of the reports. We saw more than one Litmus review mention this.
- Litmus charges per preview. We found users complaining about the massive charges added to their monthly bills and they were upset about the lack of transparency.
- The auto-save feature seems buggy; some reviews reported data loss during the email testing process.
Litmus Pricing
Litmus and Email on Acid have similarly priced plans:
- Litmus Basic: $99 per month (1 user, 1,000 email previews).
- Litmus Plus: $199 per month (5 users, 2,000 email previews).
- Litmus Enterprise: Custom pricing (Custom users and email previews).
Testi@: A Budget-Friendly Alternative to Email on Acid
Testi@, or Testi.at as it is also known, is an email pre-deployment tool that helps generate previews for emails on different clients and devices. The company was formed in 2016 and is an affordable Email on Acid alternative.
Founded and operated by a small group of web developers, Testi@ isn’t as sleek as other tools, and you may need to be familiar with coding to operate the tool effectively. But the customer care team is responsive and the FAQ page is detailed, with numerous video guides for common tasks.
Besides email previews, Testi@ also provides spam tests and a live HTML editor, which lets you import your email as HTML, EML, or ZIP. Testi@ also comes with a Chrome extension and works with a couple of popular ESPs.
Features
Testi@ offers features like:
- Email previewer,
- Spam tester,
- Blacklist checker for your email IP address,
- Email delivery rate tester,
- Drag and drop HTML editor.
Pros
- Testi@ has basic features and it’s simple enough to operate even for non-technical people.
- The previews are of the same quality as its pricier competitors.
- The pricing is significantly lower than its competitors.
Cons
- There are far fewer features than its competitors.
- While things are simple when running basic operations, things could get complicated if you have to troubleshoot an issue.
- We noticed a few Testi@ reviews mention that the tests took a while to process.
Testi@ Pricing
Testi@ has only two plans:
- Free plan: $0 (1 user, 2 previews).
- Pro Testing: $20 per month (1 user, unlimited email previews).
SendForensics: An Email on Acid Clone
SendForensics offers many of the same features as Email on Acid and has been around for a decade. The tool features different types of tests for email messages — spam checker, email deliverability test, email sender reputation checker, and email previews.
SendForensics positions itself as an email deliverability tool, promising to improve email deliverability and inbox placement. Like Email on Acid, they don’t charge for previews. This platform uses a seed list across a range of mailbox providers to estimate inbox placement rate and it also gives you details related to sender reputation.
SendForensics also alerts you to any issues with your email security settings that could affect deliverability.
Features
These are the best features of SendForensics:
- Email preview tool,
- Email metrics and analytics,
- DMARC monitoring,
- Blacklist monitoring,
- Inbox placement tool,
- Third-party support for +20 popular marketing plugins and services.
Pros
- SendForensics reviews indicate customers like its user interface.
- The tool guides users with the proper email format and removes obvious errors and problematic elements (links, images).
- The blacklist monitoring feature works well as does the spam word flagging tool.
Cons
- The analytics reports fall short; we noted a trend of customers asking for better data.
- While SendForensics does support third-party tools, the list needs to be much longer. Lack of support for certain apps or services can discourage marketers from adding it to their martech stack.
- There are reports of false negatives in the email editor.
SendForensics Pricing
These are the monthly charges for SendForensics:
- Brand: $49 a month (2 users, unlimited email previews, spam tests, and deliverability tests).
- Company: $79 a month (5 users, unlimited email previews, spam tests, and deliverability tests).
- Agency: $199 a month (10 users, unlimited email previews, spam tests, and deliverability tests).
- Enterprise: $349 a month (Custom users, unlimited email previews, spam tests, and deliverability tests).
Email Preview Services: The No-Frills Email on Acid Alternative
Like many of the other prominent names here, Email Preview Services primarily focuses on creating email previews of your emails on different clients, browsers, and devices. The tool positions itself as a low-cost option for email marketers to generate email previews.
With time, EPS added additional features, like a spam checker, deliverability testing, and a campaign analytics dashboard. All of these features are also available via a white-label API, so you can embed it into an app or website.
Email Preview Services also features a drag-and-drop email editor to design emails. The editor supports the direct upload of HTML files.
Features
The top features of Email Preview Services:
- Email preview tool,
- Analytics dashboard,
- Spam testing,
- Inbox placement rate calculator,
- Blacklist monitor,
- White-label API.
Pros
- Email Preview Services charges a lot less than its competitors.
- It gives you access to its API which can be useful in certain situations; however, it’s only available on the Enterprise plan.
- The user interface is simple and intuitive.
Cons
- Email Preview Services does not offer many advanced features offered by its competitors.
- You also get fewer email client previews than its competitors.
- According to a few Email Preview Services reviews, the HTML/content testing could be more detailed.
Email Preview Services Pricing
There are four paid tiers at Email Preview Services:
- Standard: $25 per month (1 user, unlimited email previews).
- Business: $45 per month (1 user, unlimited email previews, 25 inbox placement tests).
- Professional: $160 per month (10 users, unlimited email previews, 75 inbox placement tests).
- Enterprise: $399 per month (Same as the Professional plan, but you now get API access).
Mailosaur Has More Features than Email on Acid
Mailosaur is another budget-friendly email preview tool that also features a few other bells and whistles. Founded in 2012, the company offers SMS testing besides email previews, which are generated using real email clients on different devices.
Mailosaur offers a host of other services, such as automation testing for engineers on frameworks like Cypress, Playwright, Selenium, Robot Framework, and others.
Users also get access to a host of email testing tools, such as:
- Link checkups,
- Signup and password reset tests,
- Notification tests,
- Email autoresponder tests.
As for the email preview tool, you get screenshots of most email clients and devices, and this includes testing in dark mode.
Features
These are the top Mailosaur features:
- Email testing,
- SMS testing,
- Email previews,
- Engineering automation,
- SMS automation,
- Custom domains.
Pros
- The user interface is simple and there is adequate documentation to help you if you’re in a spot.
- If you use the Mailosaur API, emails and messages are displayed together, which makes it convenient to track the history of a customer.
- Mailosaur Enterprise Security gives your entire organization secure access which makes it easy for the admin to track activities.
Cons
- It’s affordable for small operations, but the costs quickly add up as your email volume gets higher.
- Mailosaur reviews consistently mention bugs when accessing the API.
- SMS marketing campaigns are expensive and have inconsistent results.
Mailosaur Pricing
You can choose from the following Mailosaur plans:
- Starter: $31.25 per month (1 user, 50 daily email tests, 100 email previews).
- Business: $120 per month (5 users, 5,000 daily email tests, 100 email previews).
- Professional: $270 per month (10 users, 50,000 daily email tests, 100 email previews).
- Enterprise: Custom pricing.
The prices for Milosaur’s plans scale up based on the number of previews and users you select.
Stripo is an Email on Acid Replacement with a Template Library
Stripo is more popular as a third-party HTML designer for your emails, but it also features an email previewer that tests on more than 90 devices and email clients. Stripo is a young company, founded in 2017, and it aims to simplify the process of rendering HTML emails to display correctly on different devices.
At Stripo, you can either use the drag-and-drop email designer or the HTML/CSS editor to create emails. You also get access to over 1,000 email templates, plus you can sync Stripo with a range of basic CRMs, email marketing CRMs, ESPs, and SaaS products.
As for the email preview tool, you can test both HTML and AMP emails. Different team members can also collaborate on projects without issues.
Features
Stripo offers these features:
- Email preview tester,
- Email testing,
- Template library,
- HTML email builder,
- Calendar link generator,
- Stripo API.
Pros
- The template options are abundant and organized neatly.
- You can assign permissions to layers so specific teams can only access specific elements.
- The plugin works well with multiple ESPs and software.
Cons
- Stripo reviews mention that when the email builder faces problems, it can be difficult to resolve.
- It appears Stripo is inconsistent with bandwidth, as we saw customers mention slowdowns when working.
- You have to be on the more expensive plans to truly get the full experience of using Stripo.
Stripo Pricing
Here are the paid plans at Stripo:
- Free: $0 per month (1 user, no email previews, 5 test emails daily).
- Basic: $15 per month (1 user, 2 email preview tests, 50 test emails daily).
- Medium: $45 per month (3 users, 2 email preview tests, 100 test emails daily).
- Pro: $95 per month (10 users, 3 email preview tests, 300 test emails daily).
Stripo uses a credit system for email preview testing; it will cost you an additional $20 a month to run 10 preview tests. You can buy more credits to test more.
Validity Everest is as Good as Email on Acid
An email testing tool from email marketing giant Validity, Everest is a competitor to Email on Acid with a few more features. Validity Everest also functions as a spam checker, features analytics, gives you email previews on various clients, and suggests steps to improve your domain reputation. Everest calls itself a “deliverability platform,” but the true meaning is ambiguous.
Besides email previews, which it tests on 70+ email clients and all major devices, it also gives you email subject line previews. It tests email content for long load times, missing alt text, invalid images, and broken links. Validity Everest also supports real-time monitoring of email campaigns.
Features
The features offered by Validity Everest:
- Email preview tool,
- Deliverability tester,
- Spam checker,
- Blacklist monitor,
- Analytics,
- Subject line tester,
- Email builder,
- Sender reputation and email infrastructure monitoring,
- Collaboration features.
Pros
- Provides a wide range of features and a simple UI.
- The drag-and-drop email tool well.
- This tool supports a wide variety of third-party plugins.
Cons
- We saw Everest reviews mention the analytics dashboard is difficult and confusing.
- Customers also felt quality levels were going down recently.
- To cancel a plan, users must give the company a 60-day notice period, which can be aggravating.
Validity Everest Pricing
Validity Everest has these paid plans:
- Elements: $20 per month (3 users, test 5,000 emails, no email previews).
- Elements Plus: $525 per month (5 users, test 20,000 emails, 10 email previews).
- Professional: Custom pricing (10 users, custom email tests, 80 email previews).
- Enterprise: Custom pricing (Unlimited users, custom email tests, 365+ email previews).
Comparing Mailchimp vs Email on Acid
Mailchimp is a well-known email platform used by marketers to design, send, and manage email campaigns. It offers a user-friendly interface, making it easy to create visually appealing emails. Users can access customizable templates and a drag-and-drop editor.
Beyond email creation, Mailchimp provides tools for:
- Audience segmentation,
- Automation,
- Analytics.
Mailchimp has features to help its users optimize deliverability. This includes email A/B testing, audience insights, and an inbox preview tool. Powered by Litmus, it helps ensure emails display correctly across devices and clients.
Features
The features offered by Mailchimp’s inbox preview tool:
- Email preview across popular devices and email clients,
- Spam filter testing,
- Custom renders,
- Dark mode compatibility check,
- Mobile-friendly email checks,
- Font and image display verification,
- Broken link detection,
- Sender reputation insights,
- Email accessibility testing.
Pros
- It helps check whether emails render correctly across popular devices and email clients, improving overall user experience.
- The tool allows users to see how their emails appear in dark mode, catering to a growing audience using this feature.
- It helps identify potential deliverability issues by simulating spam filter checks before sending.
Cons
- The inbox preview feature is not accessible to users on Mailchimp’s free plan.
- High-volume email marketers might find the cost of extensive previews adds up, especially on advanced tiers.
- Real-time preview generation may experience occasional lags, impacting workflow efficiency.
Mailchimp Pricing
Mailchimp users can opt for one of these plans:
- Free: $0 per month (No access to Inbox Preview).
- Essentials: $8 per month (25 Inbox preview tokens, then Pay-As-You-Go).
- Standard: $13 per month (25 Inbox preview tokens, then Pay-As-You-Go).
- Premium: $266 per month (25 Inbox preview tokens, then Pay-As-You-Go).
Campaign Refinery: The Best Email on Acid Alternative
You might be wondering why we would present an ESP as a solution for an email testing tool — but we believe Campaign Refinery is the answer in your hunt for an Email on Acid alternative.
Email on Acid is popular with users who want to test the HTML formatting of templates, fix errors, and improve email deliverability. In short, users want this tool to tell them if their emails are going to make it to the inbox. Every email marketer, like you, wants the best possible inbox placement rate, and they pay a premium for the additional services offered by Email on Acid.
But, like many of its competitors, Email on Acid uses a seed list to test your emails and presents an estimate of your deliverability rates. It’s not an actual representation of how well your emails will fare, in terms of deliverability.
Why not simplify your process and send emails via Campaign Refinery?
If deliverability is what you seek, you should know Campaign Refinery deliverability rates are the best in the business. Over time, we have uncovered the secrets of inbox placement. There’s no secret; it’s a combination of best practices, discipline, and excellent technical knowledge.
And in pursuit of this excellence, we have gone where no email service provider has gone before — we created a vetting system for customers and we have strict guidelines we expect our clients to follow. This is also why we don’t offer free plans; we are unwavering about the quality of every single email sent from our servers. Before you think that sounds harsh, these rules are just basic hygiene and best practices — our clients thank us as they see mind-blowing results!
But that’s not all. Let’s look at the best features of Campaign Refinery.
Our Top Features
At Campaign Refinery, our clients love our no-nonsense approach to email marketing. We created tools that work beautifully and implemented best practices to ensure we consistently land in the inbox.
Here are additional features clients love:
- Automated list-cleaning: Is your sender reputation terrible? Invalid email IDs can contribute to that, which is why we built an email validation tool that automatically gets rid of problematic items from your email list.
- Unlimited contacts: Tired of paying more just because you have a large customer list? Not an issue with Campaign Refinery pricing; pay only for what you use.
- Automation: Building complex flows in email marketing automation can be a task; we know. This is why we simplified our automation tool so much you can run it on an iPad.
- Gamification: Tired of seeing poor email engagement rates? Not an issue! With our email gamification feature, we’re confident you will see your open rates and click-through rates skyrocket.
- Metrics: Our analytics dashboard will give you precise data on your email performance. We break down the details to give you smart graphs so you can correct course and refine strategies.
- Campaign Refinery University: Never stop learning — this is where you master the tricks of the trade and discover how to hit your goals.
With Campaign Refinery, you can depend less on third-party tools for deliverability and focus on your email marketing strategy instead.
The Things We Do for Deliverability!
While Email on Acid is primarily an email preview tool, many users use it for its spam reports, inbox placement tools, sender reputation tester, and deliverability tester. But we’d like to suggest a different way of looking at this problem.
If you’re facing deliverability issues, getting blacklisted, or struggling to see engagement — we’ve got a two-step solution for you.
The first step is to study a guidebook that packs over a decade of email marketing expertise into 24 pages of actionable steps — we promise you it’s going to transform your game. Written by our founder, Travis, The Inbox Formula is the ultimate playbook to nail sender reputation and achieve top-tier deliverability.
And you can have it for FREE by clicking this download link: The Inbox Formula.
And with your newfound wisdom, the next step is to apply it to campaigns with Campaign Refinery.
On our platform, you can let go of worries like sender reputation and deliverability because we’ve got it covered. And if you need help with engagement, you will love our gamification feature — the last time we checked, we clocked a 76.37% open rate and 72.76% click rate.
If you want to do it like the experts, go where the experts are. Sign up to become a Campaign Refinery customer today!
