Drip Review – The Good and Bad for 2023

Drip is more than just the sound of a leaky sink or a slang term for your freshest outfit—it’s also an email marketing software that brings onsite customer engagement to life.

With gamified popups like “spin to win” and mystery flash sales, Drip helps you run campaigns with forms that your customers will actually want to fill out. And not only will it help you gather email addresses, but it’ll also give you unique ways to incentivize immediate shopping on your site.

So yeah, Drip is not your run-of-the-mill email marketing solution—it goes the extra mile so you can make creative approaches to your customers, automate workflows, and build all kinds of engaging popups, forms, and emails.

Drip: The Good and the Bad

Email marketing has the potential to be enjoyable with the right tools, and having the right tools is what Drip is all about.

While it doesn’t feature hundreds upon hundreds of templates and pre-built workflows to choose from, the ones it does have are suitable for creating engaging content that’s also satisfying to make via the built-in editor.

At first glance, Drip looks like an email marketing solution built for any business, but it’s geared more for those with ecommerce stores. It also becomes pricier as you scale, but all of that can be offset (and then some) by the potential returns it can provide.

What Drip Is Good At

Niche focus for ecommerce: With integrations for WooCommerce, Shopify, BigCommerce, and other platforms, Drip does a great job of catering to the needs of ecommerce merchants who run online stores.

For WordPress users, enabling the Drip integration requires an API connection instead of just installing a WordPress plugin. While not particularly difficult (especially with Drip’s helpful resources to guide you), this can be more time consuming than expected.

On the bright side, however, Drip extends your free trial by an extra week the moment you integrate your store—giving you a full 21 days to test the full power of the platform.

Once connected, Drip begins observing customer purchase history and user browsing behavior to give you the insights you need to build strategically segmented campaigns. Being able to encourage on-site sales by directly adding products into emails is especially useful.

Drip also boasts over 200 ecommerce-specific integrations that are optimized for online retail, allowing you to sync store data into segments and leverage external channels like Facebook’s marketing platform.

For merchants in search of automated marketing technology that’s purpose-built for driving online sales, Drip delivers valuable specialization that many other platforms often miss.

Customizable templates and built-in editor: Drip has an intuitive editor and a collection of templates that make it easy to create customized onsite engagement campaigns. It offers 29 popup, 16 form, and 11 gamification templates to choose from—that’s 56 total options to get you started!

The gamification templates are particularly creative, as they give users who interact a chance to win prizes and discounts. These can collect contact information more effectively than the otherwise bland “Join our newsletter” popups, and Drip’s ability to place special offer codes directly in popups and forms is another potential way to earn conversion-boosting dividends.

After selecting a template, you can choose how it will appear from a variety of options like centered popup, bottom slide-in, sticky header bar, and more. The editor is flexible enough for you to tailor the template so it perfectly matches your branding and messaging.

Working in Drip’s editor is super intuitive and enjoyable to work with as well. The breadth of customization options ensures you can build an optimal onsite contact flow for your ecommerce store or service.

Attention to detail: Drip provides far more than just email collection with its onsite campaigns, as it allows ecommerce brands to customize even the smallest design components (like the close button) to create unique on-site experiences.

The platform also lets you target displays based on visitor behavior for more impact. You can choose from time spent on site, pages visited, or you can let Drip make a recommendation based on when it thinks users are most likely to convert.

For further personalization, Drip enables incredibly detailed targeting rules. You can set it to display for specific locations, during set timeframes, or after following certain page flows.

With this level of control, Drip gives you the power to align campaigns to user actions in real time. Its onsite popup features don’t just capture emails for later, they also provide discounts, cross-selling opportunities, and other incentives to encourage visitors to start purchasing on the spot.

On-brand email campaigns: Creating on-brand email campaigns is enjoyable with Drip’s template editor and customization options. To help you start, there are nearly 50 professionally designed email templates spanning different styles and holidays.

As an added touch, Drip also gives you the ability to preview your campaign’s design responsiveness across desktop, mobile, and tablet—all right in the editor.

Drip’s drag-and-drop editor makes personalizing emails easy as well. You can tweak templates to match your brand, and you can include dynamic content that lets you sync subscriber info and ecommerce elements such as abandoned cart links.

For further optimization, Drip enables split A/B testing of subject lines and content, which is an essential feature for measuring email performance. You can also ensure proper delivery with custom domains and DMARC setup so that emails reach inboxes consistently and without issues.

With abundant templates, an excellent editor, and built-in testing, Drip simplifies sending targeted, high-converting emails aligned to your brand. Ecommerce companies will have no problem creating campaigns with on-brand experiences that truly reflect their products and personality.

Automations made easy: With templates, tools, and a visual builder tailored to ecommerce, Drip simplifies creating customized automations to accommodate customers and drive repeat sales. The visual workflow builder makes it particularly easy to visualize and customize engaging post-purchase journeys.

Drip’s 18 workflow templates and customizable rules focus on driving online sales through journeys like product announcement and win-back.

When building workflows, intuitive trigger options based on tags, page visits, and other on-site behaviors start the flow. You then choose from dozens of actions to create the desired automation sequence.

Drip’s workflow builder stands out because it lets you map out multi-step journeys with a visual workflow display. This is invaluable for understanding the full automation wireframe while still having the flexibility to insert customized elements along the way.

For optimization of things like follow-up emails or discounts that show up two days after cart abandonments, Drip allows you to A/B test two to five different paths at a time. Drip will automatically conduct the test by splitting subscribers and reporting the best performing option back to you.

Segment your audience with ease: Drip provides robust tools to segment contacts for targeted, relevant messaging. When importing lists, you can instantly add tags, custom fields, and notes to categorize subscribers. Being able to enrich data from the start is a huge win.

Adding tags and custom preferences also helps personalize outreach, as many ecommerce brands will want to adjust sizing and style choices to tailor their email content and offers. Drip even enables writing personal notes on each contact for a human touch.

For streamlining management, Drip’s bulk edit operations let you apply tags, add new elements to workflows, and modify custom fields across multiple subscribers simultaneously. You can also prune unengaged contacts from mailing lists while still retaining their records.

With bulk edit capabilities and instant segmentation upon import (via CSV, Mailchimp, or manually), Drip empowers ecommerce marketers to group audiences together based on preferences, behaviors, and attributes so they can boost targeting and engagement across all messaging.

Useful data and insights: Drip’s dashboard helps you optimize future campaigns by keeping track of key metrics like revenue, conversions, and subscriber growth in real time.

These metrics align well with online retail KPIs (including average order value, revenue per subscriber, and more), making it easier for ecommerce sellers to make informed decisions and maximize the lifetime value of their customers.

The platform also enables deep analysis of factors like email opens, link performance, and site traffic. You can view performance by time of day or drill into specific links and messages that are driving the most revenue.

For ecommerce brands, Drip provides a high level of data visibility so you can constantly refine marketing automation strategies. The centralized dashboards and detailed breakdowns ensure you can closely monitor what content and offers resonate to boost sales. You also gain the visibility to course correct and capitalize on what works best to create happy, high-value subscribers.

Drip’s Potential Drawbacks

Not for everyone: It’s important to note that Drip is tailored specifically for ecommerce companies, despite how general signups are also permitted. It’s not initially apparent that Drip’s features are optimized for online retail as opposed to general email marketing.

While technically anyone can use Drip, non-ecommerce brands will probably feel out of place with it. The platform’s templates, automations, integrations, and analytics strongly cater to Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and other digital storefronts.

You can certainly still get value from Drip without an online store, but there are more suitable solutions for generalized email and marketing needs. Drip centers its capabilities around driving repeat purchases, recovering abandoned carts, syncing product catalogs, and other ecommerce-centric use cases.

Unless you are looking to maximize email marketing specifically to boost online sales, other providers will likely be a better fit in terms of features and integration. Drip certainly delivers for its target merchant audience, but it isn’t necessarily built for non-retail email lists and campaigns.

Various user complaints: A common complaint among Drip users is its pricing model, which can be especially expensive for smaller businesses. Monthly costs scale according to the number of contacts, which rapidly becomes pricier as lists grow.

Although we can’t fault a company for not providing a free plan, Drip could still benefit from such an offering. While the 14-day trial is useful for testing, Drip lacks a long-term free option for early-stage startups with smaller budgets. Offering a basic free option could make the platform more accessible for fledgling ecommerce brands just getting off the ground.

Potentially steep learning curve: Some Drip users have complained that the platform is not beginner-friendly enough. While we found the platform to be mostly intuitive, those new to email marketing may find setting up campaigns and automations to be overwhelming because of all the different triggers and customizations.

One particular area we felt could be improved is the visual workflow builder. While handy for seeing the full journey, it lacks drag-and-drop functionality, meaning you have to delete and replace steps in order to rearrange the workflow automation.

Drip still provides a lot of options that skilled email marketers will appreciate, but novices may find the onboarding process to be choppy.

No landing page builder: Although most ecommerce sites have the means to create landing pages, some users may want the option of building them directly on their email marketing platform instead.

For merchants without existing landing pages, or those wanting a simple way of making standalone pages right within Drip, this could be an inconvenience.

Of course, most established stores that use Drip do so for its campaign creation, automation, and analytics tools (so they won’t really see the absence of landing page creation as an obstacle), but adding that capability could still benefit a decent subset of users.

Drip Plans and Pricing

Drip’s pricing plan is based on one simple metric: the size of your email list. You pay according to the number of people you have on your mailing list, and your list size determines your available send volume.

As we mentioned before, Drip’s pricing gets more expensive as you scale. However, its target customers are not just any old businesses, but rather ecommerce store owners who make direct-to-consumer sales. That can make it a lot easier to see if it provides a return on the added investment.

Either way, Drip offers a generous 14-day free trial so you can get a sense of its potential long-term value.

Drip’s Growth Pricing Model

Drip’s entry-level plan opens up at $39 per month for up to 2,500 subscribers. This starting point includes core features like unlimited email sends, onsite popups and forms, email support, and free migration from another provider. It’s great for early stage ecommerce businesses wanting basic email marketing capabilities.

As your contact list expands through segments like customers, prospects, and loyalty program members, Drip’s pricing increases at each tier.

• Up to 2,500 contacts: $39 per month
• 2,501 to 3,000 contacts: $49 per month
• 3,001 to 3,500 contacts: $59 per month
• 3,501 to 4,000 contacts: $69 per month
• 4,001 to 4,500 contacts: $79 per month
• 4,501 to 5,000 contacts: $89 per month

Those lower cost tiers all retain the same core benefits of unlimited emails, onsite campaigns, email support, and free migration that make Drip easy to get started with. Even as your contact list grows into the thousands, the key features remain covered.

The pricing tiers then climb higher for larger lists—and they also begin to scale non-linearly at times.

• 5,001 to 6,000 contacts: $99 per month
• 6,001 to 7,000 contacts: $109 per month
• 7,001 to 8,000 contacts: $124 per month

Other mid-range plans can take you up to 22,500 subscribers for $329 per month and 25,000 contacts for $369 per month while still providing full access to Drip’s suite of capabilities—plus the added bonus of chat support which starts at the $99 tier.

Another major pricing shift comes at 30,001 contacts, as monthly email sends become capped.

• 30,001 to 32,500 contacts: $489 per month and 390,000 emails
• 32,501 to 35,000 contacts: $529 per month and 420,000 emails
• 35,001 to 37,500 contacts: $569 per month and 450,000 emails

For all the price tiers between $1299 and $1899, you get the added perk of a dedicated customer success manager.

The email limit expands and scales all the way up to 170,000 contacts. For anything beyond 170,000 people you have to contact Drip for custom enterprise quotes.

Overall, Drip’s usage-based pricing is easy to understand, but the eventual non-linear price jumps can also mean substantially higher costs to maintain the same features. For early stage startups, the $39 entry point is affordable, but costs ramp up substantially when exceeding 20,000 to 25,000 subscribers.

As such, it’s important to make sure that the growth of your contact list aligns with the expansion of your business.

Final Thoughts

If it’s not already obvious, we like Drip a lot and found it really enjoyable to use. With numerous pre-built templates and an outstanding editor, it gives ecommerce businesses unique and creative ways to hit all of their lead gen touchpoints.

And even though Drip doesn’t offer a free plan, you can still get a lot of value out of its free trial. From there, it’ll also be easy to decide if it is worth integrating with your newly-born subscriber list, or your massive, internet shattering list of people.

Altogether, Drip has the capacity to handle whatever you throw at it, and it certainly makes email marketing and automation fun—both for you and your customers.