8 Best HTML Email Template Creators in 2023 (Reviewed)

Want to get great-looking responsive emails without the hassle of coding? You need a no-code email template creator. With a large set of up-to-date templates. 

So I’ve reviewed 8 of the best HTML email template creators out there, and share what they have to offer. 

8 Best Email Template Creators Overview

Which template builder is best for your needs? Here’s a quick summary of our top 8 before I dive into the details.

What to Look for in Email Template Creators

Let’s be honest. How many of us know how to code great-looking HTML emails? And even if you do, it takes a lot of time and effort.  That’s where email template creators come in. You start with a premade template. You customize it with a template builder. And quickly, you’ll have a pro-quality email design ready for your email campaigns.

So what makes a great email template builder? Here’s a list of features to look out for.

• Good choice of premade, responsive email templates
• Professional template designs
• User-friendly drag-and-drop editor
• Flexible customization options
• Stock image library and/or image editing tools
• Email testing tool for different devices and browsers
• Export options, including integrations with email platforms

8 Best HTML Email Template Creators (Free & Paid)

So now you know what to look for in an HTML email template builder. Let’s dig into what our top creators have.

BEE – All-Round Best Email Template Builder

BEE is by far the most popular email template creator. A powerhouse of no-code HTML email design. It lets you create responsive emails and landing pages. The library has over  1275 pre-made responsive email templates to start you off. And you can convert email templates into web pages too. 

In my experience, you can find a useful template for every project in the BEE email template gallery. They’re sorted into categories like events, newsletters, re-engagement, industry, and seasonal. The code is fully tested. The designs are modern and look very nice.

All templates are fully customizable. Or you can build from scratch. There’s a good selection of content blocks you just drag into your email and preformatted layout blocks. These make it very easy to build designs fast.

Why it is such a good email template creator, is that you can save complete templates and individual blocks to re-use in your next emails. So you put together a master template with reusable block in your own brand style that you can use for all campaigns.

BEE Pros

• 1275+ quality responsive email and 300+ web page templates
• User-friendly drag-and-drop editor
• Co-editing, comments, feedback and real time collaboration
• Live edit the mobile version check your designs on smartphone via QR code
• Export your HTML to all email software providers
• Integrated ChatGPT AI for content writing

BEE Cons

• We’d love to have folders and unlimited previous versions on the free version as well.

BEE is totally free to use. The email template creator saves the project in the browser. When you come back you can directly resume editing. The paid version has advanced features like co-editing and unlimited builds for $30 a month.

Who’s it for? BEE works for nearly everyone. From beginners to marketing teams and agencies looking for a fast and effective email template builder. 

Just create an account here for free to try it out

Stripo – Best for Choice of Email Templates

You don’t have to look far to see Stripo’s main attraction. It has over 1300 ready-made HTML email templates to choose from. I’d say Stripo and BEE go toe to toe, in most cases it’s personal preference and how you intend to use them. You can get an account here to take it for a spin, it is completely free to use. 

Templates are there for all your needs. They’re sorted into categories. Template type and industry. ‘Prepared’ and basic, prepared meaning full graphic designs. The free responsive email templates that come with the free email builder are high quality too.

The Stripo editor offers lots of style and formatting options. Content blocks include the usual like images, text, and buttons. There are modules with pre-formatted content and layouts. 

Stripo also supports interactive email AMP content and interactive content. If you are into that, here is my AMP for email guide.

Stripo Pros

• Huge library of 1300+ email templates
• Flexible and user-friendly editor
• Interactive AMP content
• Easy to switch to HTML code editing
• Send test emails from Stripo

Stripo Cons

• The free plan has only 4 exports per month

Stripo again, is free to use. There is a limit though to 4 exports per month. The paid versions  starts at $15 a month. This lets you export 50 email designs a month and send 50 tests a day. The Free plan has 4 exports a month.

Just sign in with a Stripo account here for free

Tabular Email – Best for email template builders that like to tweak

Tabular is a new player on the email editor scene. It has a no-code HTML email builder, with a sophisticated drag-and-drop editor that feels a lot like Figma. There are 40 pre-made responsive email templates.

In the template builder, there are content blocks AND premade blocks. Premade blocks are ready-formatted designs like headers, body, and footers you can just drop into the emails. It quickly puts together an initial design. 

‘Parent and Child Formatting’ is pretty cool. You can customise individual bits of content placing it under or next to an existing block. It’s very flexible, up to the pixel dragging margins, padding, etc. Complex email layouts are visually built  – if you want to.

The finished email templates go straight to export into 8 most popular email marketing platforms with integration, which we expect to be more soon. You can always download the HTML code and upload it to any ESP.

Tabular Pros

• Simple user-friendly platform
• Very affordable pricing 
• Premade content blocks make it very easy to create responsive email designs
• Flexible layout and formatting options
• Shared libraries of email templates to use as a team

Tabular Cons

• Less pre-made templates

Tabular is free to use. The Free plan gives you 3 emails and downloads/month. There’s one plan that costs $19.99, or $14 a month if you pay for a year. 

Who’s it for? Tabular is great for email template builders that like to tweak. It’s also a great option for designers and agencies that want to create complex email layouts.

Get an account here and use Tabular for free

Chamaileon – Best for Enterprise Teams

Chamaileon describes itself as “a collaborative email creation platform for marketing teams”. So on one level, like all the platforms in this article, it’s about making great-looking emails. But it also aims to solve another issue that affects teams. Namely, the more people you have working on email creation, the longer it takes.

All the email building is done in a Chamaileon workspace. In each workspace, you can choose different team members to add. It supports real-time co-editing with access and editing permissions. And it lets you build workflows to manage the process right through to the final sign-off.

There are 100+ pre-made responsive HTML email templates. You can also build from scratch or import HTML code for an email template. The email builder has a slick, well-laid-out interface. And there are lots of prompts and resources to help you learn the already simple tool.

Chamaileon Pros

• Slick email builder
• Professional quality responsive email templates
• Real-time co-editing for teams
• Shared workspaces for efficient workflows

Chamaileon Cons

• Expensive to get started
• Mainly for enterprise clients

Chamaileon pricing starts at $300 per month for 3 users. There is a free trial, but no forever free version.

Who’s it for? Chamaileon is great for helping marketing agencies or large in-house teams build emails at scale.

Sign up for the free trial here Chamaileon 

Moosend Email Editor – Best for Email Marketing

Moosend is more than an email template builder. It’s a full-on email marketing platform. Which means you can also use it to send your creations.
All email marketing software lets you build emails. But Moosend has a few noteworthy features. There are lots of options for getting started with template design. It has 75+ responsive email templates and you can import HTML templates from other sources.

Moosend’s email builder has a clear interface. It’s also flexible and user-friendly. The Unsplash image integration gives you access to a huge stock image library. Handy is a Helper Grid that shows the outlines of your design rows and blocks. This lets you see blocks with different layouts in a single view and play around with layouts. You can save any design as a  template to use again.

Moosend Pros

• Flexible and user-friendly editor
• Huge stock image library
• Import templates from other software
• Very cheap entry-level pricing
• Send emails from within the platform

Moosend Cons

• No direct export options if you want to use another ESP

A big plus point for Moosend is its low cost. Pricing starts at $7 a month with full access to all email marketing tools. There is also a 30-day free trial, no credit card required.

Who is it for? Moosend is good for SMEs looking for an email marketing platform to also send. 

Sign up to Moosend here

Postcards – Basic Email Template Building

Designmodo’s Postcards is very basic and gets straight to the point. When you sign up, you go directly into the drag-and-drop template builder. There’s no dashboard, no front page. It’s all about building.

Postcards doesn’t have any premade templates. But what it does have are designed content blocks or ‘modules’. These are formatted with layouts, graphics, and styling. Including blocks for transactional emails and products. 

Most will prefer to have full template designs to start with. The Postcards approach is more basic. You can check how your designs look in different email clients. And save the best ones as templates to use in the future.  

Postcards has built-in integrations with 34 email marketing tools, including Brevo, MailerLite, ActiveCampaign, AWeber, Klaviyo, Hubspot, and Mailchimp to export your templates.

Postcards Pros

• Basic building options using pre-formatted content blocks
• Preview emails in different email clients
• Direct exports to some email marketing platforms

Postcards Cons

• Less flexible than other designers
• No pre-made templates
• Overall more basic

Postcards pricing starts at $17 a month with 20 template exports. There is a 14-day free trial including all features.

Who is it for? Postcards has a basic approach that will appeal to some SMEs. And anyone wanting to cut the time it takes to design emails. Any of BEE, Stripo and Tabular though do more for the same. 

Topol.io – Budget Email Template Building

Although BEE and Stripo are way more impressive. There’s still quite a bit to love about Topol,  It has a proper working drag-and-drop email builder. And it is just a tad more budget-friendly.

There are around 150 templates to choose from. The quality is okay-ish. With prominent use of images.

Then there’s the email editor. The standard drag-and-drop format. The interface is well-designed and simple. There are lots of design and customization options, including preformatted content blocks. You can also save your own blocks to use again.

Topol connects to Pexel for access to all of their stock images. And you can edit images in the email builder. Topol offers lots of export options. Including 6 integrations with popular email marketing platforms like Brevo (ex Sendinblue), Constant Contact, Mailchimp, and Mailjet.

Topol Pros

• Stock images and image editing options
• Build and save content blocks to reuse
• Set up personalization with merge tags in your templates

Topol Cons

• Free plan is very limited
• Template gallery is smaller and just OK-ish.

Topol plans start at $10 a month. There is a free plan but it only gives access to the email designer. No templates, no stock photos, and no pre-made blocks. There is a 14-day free trial with all features included.

Who’s it for? Topol is for brands looking to build emails on a budget.

Mosaico –  Open source Email Template Builder 

Mosaico is an open-source email template builder, which means it is free to use. And that is why we included it here because we love open-source initiatives. But it’s maybe the only reason you would choose it. 

You can’t directly compare Mosaico with the other builders, it’s more of a framework to integrate inside apps if you want to build your own open-source application.
And doesn’t have the features paid HTML email template builders have. There are no pre-made templates, for example. Just a choice between a basic black and white or full colour starter HTML template.

The Mosaico editor technically has a drag-and-drop interface, you need some time to get used to. Content blocks are pre-formatted layouts of images, text, buttons, etc. Handy. But you can’t edit blocks to move around elements in them. So layout options are limited. You can customize styles for individual blocks and for the whole template. 

Developers can access the Mosaico email builder source code via GitHub. You can use this to build your own editor. There is also a paid-for commercial license.

Mosaico Pros

• Open source
• Developers can use source code to customize their own editor
• Block-by-block styling

Mosaico Cons

• No pre-made templates
• Interface isn’t that modern and takes getting used to
• Limited flexibility

Who’s it for? Mosaico suits people who are very much into open source and don’t mind the lack of features and taking more time to get started.

Which Email Template Builder Should You Pick?

Made your decision yet? The key to picking the right email template builder is to match its features to your needs. If you’re new to creating no-code emails, pick one that is easiest to use. If you’re an SME, pick one that is affordable and offers good features.

• If you’re looking for an email builder with a big choice of email templates, go for BEE or Stripo.
• To create complex layouts easily, try Tabular. 
• If you want to speed up email creation and sending. Pick a platform that has sending built-in, like Moosend.

You don’t want to spend time exporting and importing templates from your email template creator to your email marketing tool. If you already have an email marketing tool, check which email editors have integrations with it. This will make it much easier to send and manage email campaigns.

Free Email Newsletter Templates

Looking for free email newsletter templates? That is a good starting point as well, and the email builders have them, and lots of them:

BEE has over 1280+ email templates that you can customize and use for free. Just make a quick account here to use them all for free (and save and export).

Stripo has over 1300+ free email templates customizable and free to use. Just create a login to explore them all.

For inspiration for your internal newsletters, we collected an overview of employee newsletter examples and ideas.

Email Template Creator FAQ