Not in the ranking: which email platforms we leave out, and why
Our catalog lists 44 email services, and some well-known names are missing on purpose. The short answer: HubSpot, Salesforce Marketing Cloud and RD Station are CRM suites where email is one module; Braze, Iterable, Emarsys, Customer.io and Ortto are cross-channel customer-data platforms; Substack is a reader-side publishing network; self-hosted tools such as Sendy take their deliverability from whoever runs them. None of these exclusions is a verdict on quality. They follow from what our benchmark is built to compare.
What the catalog covers
The catalog has two kinds of service: email marketing platforms, and transactional or developer email infrastructure. The full list is on the services page. A platform is in scope when email is the product itself, the sender runs it, and it isn't ruled out by one of the scope rules below.
On top of scope, one inclusion rule screens out untested products. We exclude a service only if it has fewer than 10 reviews in total across Trustpilot, G2 and Capterra and it launched less than 3 years ago. Both conditions have to be true. A service below 10 reviews must have a documented founding year with a source in its catalog entry. This is deliberate: long-running regional platforms, some active since the 2000s, often have almost no reviews on those three US-based sites, and a review count on its own would wrongly remove them. How we weigh those review platforms is explained in our sources policy, and the combined figures are on the user rating ranking.
CRM suites where email is a module
HubSpot, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, RD Station.
These are CRM-suite products. Email is one feature inside a larger sales and customer-management system, not the core product. Our catalog compares dedicated email platforms on equal terms, so CRM-core software sits outside it. That has a practical side for their users: the causes of spam placement are on the sender's side and don't depend on the platform. Our guides to HubSpot emails going to spam and Salesforce emails going to spam apply the same diagnosis to each suite.
Cross-channel engagement and CDP platforms
Braze, Iterable, Emarsys, Customer.io, Ortto, Yespo (formerly eSputnik), emBlue.
These platforms are built around a customer-data or cross-channel engagement core, with email as one channel among several. We apply this rule based on how a platform presents itself today. Yespo and emBlue both started out email-first, but both now describe themselves as customer-engagement or CDP platforms, so they are out under the same rule as Braze and Customer.io. If you need a platform that covers several channels and still has email at its core, start with the catalog categories.
Reader-side publishing platforms
Substack.
Substack is a reader-side platform: a publishing network that readers subscribe to and read inside, rather than a sending tool the sender operates and controls. Our tests measure tools that senders run. Writer-side newsletter platforms pass that test and are in the catalog, including beehiiv and Kit.
Self-hosted sending software
Sendy, MailWizz, Listmonk, Postal.
With self-hosted software, deliverability belongs to the operator's infrastructure, not the product. Sendy sends through Amazon SES. Listmonk and MailWizz use whatever SMTP relay the operator connects. Postal sends from the operator's own servers and IP addresses. An inbox placement test of any of them would measure one particular setup, not the software, and a percentage like that can't be compared fairly with hosted services. None of these four is in the catalog today. If they are added, they will appear as profiles clearly marked as outside the deliverability ranking. Operators comparing relays can start with our explainer on SMTP relays.
Outside the site's charter
- Cold-outreach and sales-engagement tools, such as Instantly and Klenty. Tools marketed mainly for cold outreach are outside this site's charter.
- Services with Russian ownership. We apply this rule strictly, which is why Selzy, the international brand of Unisender, is not listed.
Evaluated, but not added yet
In August 2026 we reviewed a group of candidates for expanding the catalog: Flodesk, Ghost, MailPoet, Ecomail, Mailmodo, Buttondown, Sendlane, Maileroo, EmailLabs and SocketLabs. None of them failed a scope rule. The decision was to keep the catalog at 44 services for now instead of growing it. Flodesk was the strongest candidate on search demand and was still not added at this stage. Ghost, as a writer-side newsletter platform, would not fall under the Substack rule.
How a platform can be considered or reconsidered
- Scope follows the product. The CDP rule depends on how a platform positions itself, so a real change in positioning is a reason to review it again.
- Candidates are reviewed on a schedule. We refresh the demand data behind our coverage every quarter, and deferred candidates are looked at again then.
- Young products become eligible over time. A service excluded under the inclusion rule qualifies once it passes 10 combined reviews or reaches three years since launch.
- Readers can flag a gap. If a platform is missing and none of the reasons above apply, write to us through the contact link in the site footer.
What exclusion does not mean
Being left out is not a rating. We publish no Deliverability Score, estimated or otherwise, for any platform outside the catalog. The test protocol is in how we test email deliverability, and the editorial gates every page clears are in our review standards. If your problem is mail landing in spam on a platform not listed here, the fixes are mostly independent of the platform. Start with why emails go to spam.