Regardless of how far the technology has progressed, email is still the primary communication channel for most businesses. Whether you’re conferring with business partners, sending promotional offers to potential customers, or exchanging information between team members, email is what you’ll most likely default to.
There’s a good reason for choosing email for business-critical communications — all of the data is stored securely and can be accessed and referenced at any time in the future. The ease of access to the valuable information you’re sharing within the company or with business partners is instrumental. Rather than expecting people to remember deals, plans, strategies, and other business activities you discuss, with email, you always have everything black on what.
While commercial email service providers such as Gmail and Yahoo might meet your personal email needs, they don’t quite provide everything a business needs from an email software solution.
Unlike individuals, businesses need to worry about additional functionalities of email clients such as:
How emails are stored, both at rest and in transit
Whether and how they are encrypted
What integration capabilities the email service provider offers
How easy it is to navigate the sea of emails they receive and send out each day
The key to scaling a business successfully is efficiency. Regardless of whether you’re handing client communications for an enterprise, an agency, or a startup, or you are a solo entrepreneur or a software reseller, streamlining your email communications will increase your productivity.
In turn, provided that you know your way around email marketing, you’ll generate more sales, seal business deals faster, and increase your revenue.
Every business is unique, and depending on your goals, needs, and existing workflows, you might be looking for a variety of functionalities out of an email client. There’s a variety of free email software solutions, as well as paid ones, with each email client offering distinct functionalities and perks to its users.
Some businesses might be interested primarily in email backup or encryption, while others might consider third-party integration and ease-of-use a critical factor. That’s why we’ve compiled a comprehensive list of the best email clients for Windows and iOS. This way, you can make an informed decision and opt for the one that best aligns with your business needs.
In this article, we’ll go over both the best free email software and paid solutions, but it’s ultimately up to you to decide whether you want to invest in an email client or not.
Here are the best email clients for PC in 2020:
Thunderbird
eM Client
Mailbird
Microsoft Outlook
G Suite
Spike
Claws Mail
Postbox
The Bat!
As the world’s second most popular desktop browser, Mozilla has a quite sizable pool of users. Millions of people around the globe use Firefox as their default browser. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the company is trying to keep pace with Google and increase its revenue further by offering similar software solutions and services.
Everyone with a PC or a laptop uses email, so it only makes sense that Mozilla developed its own free email client — Thunderbird.
Thunderbird Homepage
At its core, Thunderbird is an open-source email application that seeks to replicate the browser experience of Firefox within a user’s inbox. Thunderbird has a simplistic, yet very intuitive UI that’s both highly customizable and remarkably easy to navigate.
The resemblance between Thunderbird and Firefox comes from the fact that the email client incorporates tabs.
With Thunderbird, users have separate tabs for:
The inbox as a whole
Each email they open
The calendar
Individual tasks
Chats
On top of that, you compose a new email in a separate window. This might feel a bit overwhelming at first, but is actually an ingenious way to declutter and organize your inbox for maximum efficiency.
Being an open-source application means that Thunderbird constantly receives new features from its community. One great example of this is the search function that allows you to browse the web from within the application.
Keep in mind that these add-ons are community-created and that the company — Mozilla — can’t guarantee their usability. If you’re planning on using these additional features, check user ratings and carefully select the ones that have already proven to be both useful and reliable.
One last thing worth mentioning is that Thunderbird integrates with Google chat, Twitter, IRC (Internet Relay Chat), and XMPP (eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol), allowing you to access them from the email client through the Chat tab.
Price | Free |
Notable features | Tabs, calendar, tasks, add-ons, integrations |
OS compatibility | Windows and iOS |
eM Client does an excellent job of keeping the inbox tidy and easy to navigate, all the while offering a myriad of customization options to choose from.
eM Client Interface
If you’ve ever sent or opened an email, you’ll pick eM Client right up. The app doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel — it offers all of the basic elements of an email client that work and that most people are already familiar with.
On top of that, eM Client provides a basic calendar to ensure you never miss an important business meeting, allows you to create and assign tasks through its Agenda functionality, and facilitates team collaboration through linked accounts.
Apart from providing easy access to business-critical information to all users, eM Client also has a dedicated folder for each account, making it a great option for support and sales teams.
That said, the functionality that makes eM Client stand out from other email software is the built-in capability to automatically translate emails from 39 different languages. For any international company, this feature alone saves a ton of valuable time, eliminates issues that arise due to miscommunication, and spares you the headache.
Another feature of eM Client worth pointing out is the app’s Duplicator tool. This handy feature lets you find duplicate:
Emails
Tasks
Calendar events
Contacts.
Duplicator helps you optimize your organization’s workflows and keep your database clean by removing double entries.
Price | $49.95/month |
Notable features | Automatic email translation from 39 languages, advanced customization options, linked accounts, the Duplicator tool |
OS compatibility | Windows and iOS |
Mailbird takes a fundamentally different approach to the inbox than most other email software. A quick glance at the interface, and you’d immediately notice that this email client caters to people who are used to handling the bulk of their communications on their mobile devices.
Mailbird Interface
Image source: Mailbird
The interface seems eerily familiar, doesn’t it? That’s because Mailbird opted for a design that’s very reminiscent of WhatsApp, Biber, Facebook Messenger, and similar mobile apps.
We’re not saying that’s a bad thing. A lot of people find it easier to communicate with people via their smartphones than by sending them an email. Mailbird merges the two worlds and turns email communication into something less corporate, so to speak. That can be both a pro and a con, depending on what you intend to use Mailbird for.
If your primary goal is to facilitate email communication between team members, Mailbird might just be the solution you’ve been looking for. This email client integrates with over 50 popular apps and services, such as Slack, Trello, Asana, and yes — WhatsApp.
It’s evident that the primary objective of this tool is to facilitate internal communication. We’d agree that Mailbird does that rather well. When it comes to email communication with clients and business partners, however, Mailbird isn’t exactly the most cost-effective solution.
Price | $39 one-time fee for the Personal plan $26.5/year for the Business plan |
Notable features | 50+ Integrations, intuitive mobile-like interface |
OS compatibility | Windows exclusive |
Old, simple, reliable — those three words are enough to define Microsoft Outlook.
Microsoft Outlook Homepage
As you would expect from Microsoft, all of the services they provide seamlessly integrate with one another within your account. As far as Outlook goes, you’ll have quick and easy access to the emails, calendar, and contact management system.
Despite its slightly dated appearance that gives off the impression that Outlook is just a client for receiving and sending emails, it’s actually chock-full of amazing features, like:
To-do folders — Sort emails related to specific tasks in a dedicated folder
Task list — Create tasks for your team without clogging up your inbox
Clean Up — Keep your inbox tidy with a single click
Rules & automatic notifications — Filter what emails you receive and get notified when preset conditions are met
Quick Parts — Create email templates for faster responses
These are just a few examples. Outlook offers a ton of advanced functionalities, but the problem is that you’ll likely need a lengthy tutorial to figure out how to use all of them effectively.
Price | You’ll need to buy a Microsoft Office license to be able to utilize Outlook |
Notable features | Simple, yet offers a wide variety of advanced features that help streamline email communication |
OS compatibility | Windows and iOS |
We can’t talk about email clients without mentioning Gmail, or more specifically, it’s business variant — G Suite.
Gmail Homepage
It’s not difficult to see the appeal of G Suite — most of us already heavily rely on services from Google and are quite used to Gmail as a commercial email service provider. It only makes sense that we would opt for Google’s business variant, given that it integrates with every other service Google offers, like Docs, Spreadsheets, Calendar, Drive, etc.
The integrations and the dynamic nature of G Suite make Gmail an appealing option for most businesses. You can handle everything from your inbox — from scheduling appointments to responding to comments in Google Docs.
Another big advantage of G Suite is that you get a custom email address for your domain. A dedicated email address radiates professionalism, and sending business emails from your company’s G Suite account tends to be much more effective than doing so from a personal Gmail account.
Apart from having 30GB of storage between your inbox, Drive, and photos, a huge advantage of G Suite is the fact that you can access your Gmail even when you’re offline. Another major advantage is that G Suite goes way beyond just email, allowing you to hold video conferences, organize your work better with the Google Calendar, share documents with your team, and so on.
Another thing we cannot overlook is Google’s reputation. Gmail is reliable and secure, so G Suite is a safe option when it comes to data protection. Is it the best option? We’ll let you be the judge of that.
Price | Starts from $6 per user for the simplest plan |
Notable features | Integration with other Google services |
OS compatibility | Windows and iOS |
Spike takes a similar approach as Mailbird in that it attempts to make emails feel a lot more conversational. It seeks to eliminate that overly-formal aspect of emails and turn them from strictly business communications into actual conversations. This is both a blessing and a curse.
Spike Homepage
Spike provides all of the basic functionalities you’d expect out of an email client and a lot more on top. Among the advanced features of this platform are collaborative notes, group chats, tasks, advanced searches, and audio & video calls.
It’s not difficult to come to the conclusion that Spike is oriented towards collaboration and improving communication within a team. If you rely on email for both internal and external communication, there’s a good chance you’d have to pair Spike up with an additional email client that’ll be dedicated to communication with clients and business partners.
Price | Starts from $6/month per account for the Business plan |
Notable features | A plethora of features that facilitate team communication and collaboration; conversational emails |
OS compatibility | Windows and iOS |
Claws Mail might look like something from the era of the dial-up Internet, but looks can be deceiving. The retro look & feel is deliberate, and it’s the company’s way of branding and ensuring that they attract the right users.
Claws Mail Homepage
Claws Mail isn’t for everyone — far from it. It’s reminiscent of the interface programmers often work in, and for a good reason. The appeal of this email client comes from the fact that it offers seemingly endless customization options. In fact, you will have to set up almost everything on your own.
For the vast majority of businesses, this doesn’t seem like a great deal. For software developers, this is a dream come true. Claws Mail is basically a backbone that you can build upon to create a truly personalized email client that does exactly what you need it to.
The best part about Claws Mail is that it’s completely free, and thanks to its simplicity, it can run on pretty much any PC and operating system.
Price | Free |
Notable features | Fully customizable — you set up EVERYTHING the way you want to |
OS compatibility | Windows, Ubuntu, Linux |
The best way to describe Postbox would be to view at a Slack for your inbox.
Postbox Interface
For starters, the design of the two apps is nearly identical. Apart from that, Postbox’s navigation is Slack-like, making it easy to get used to for anyone who’s already using Slack or a similar app for internal communication.
UI and navigation aside, Postbox's main selling point is inbox organization. You can neatly organize your accounts, emails, and folders in seconds, with a few clicks.
This email client also comes with an advanced search feature, allowing you to find the exact message you’re looking for in an instant. You can customize the search query by the sender, subject, date range, and a dozen other parameters.
Another area Postbox nails is email customization. Through the Responses feature, the app lets you create email templates with custom fields and save them as canned responses for the future. Apart from subject lines and the contact’s name and title, you can utilize Postbox’s custom fields to pull any data stored in either received emails or Postbox itself.
Price | $40 one time fee |
Notable features | Easy inbox organization, customizable email templates, an advanced search function |
OS compatibility | Windows and iOS |
Despite the somewhat unusual name, The Bat! is one of the best options if you’re looking for advanced security and email encryption.
We’re not just talking about your standard encryption here — The Bat! was designed to protect its users from a wide variety of third-party cyberattacks, both common and extremely rare ones.
The Bat! Homepage
The Bat! offers an additional layer of protection in the form of a key that’s necessary to decrypt the data. This means that the only way to access the data is through the application itself.
There are no local folders that could be compromised if someone had unauthorized access to your device. Instead, all the data is encrypted and stored in the user’s hard drive, which both increases the security and ensures all your business-critical information is backed up.
The client’s UI feels a bit outdated, and the application doesn’t offer much in terms of customization and inbox organization. We can see The Bat! being a solid option for businesses that handle sensitive data, but apart from information security, this email client doesn’t offer much.
Price | $70 for the Professional license |
Notable features | Encryption and data security |
OS compatibility | Windows only (Vista and Windows 10) |
Now that you have a bit more insight into what the most popular email clients offer, you should be able to make an informed decision and streamline your email communications. Choosing the right tool will inevitably help you improve the overall performance of your team and optimize your workflows.
The focus of email clients is on efficiency. They save you a lot of time and, consequently, a lot of money. That said, there are plenty of other email software solutions that could help you increase your revenue exponentially, on top of cutting down your expenses.
What we’re referring to are white label email software solutions. At Sell SaaS, we specialize in powerful software solutions that you can both use and resell! Our white label software solutions are fully customizable, meaning you can add your company name, logo, and colors and start reselling them under your own brand literally in minutes.
You can either start a SaaS business from scratch or add powerful email marketing software to your portfolio of products to upsell your customers and attract new business. With our white label email marketing solutions, you’ll have an opportunity to create an additional, fully automated revenue stream!
And you know what the best part is? There is no upfront investment! You dictate the price, and you get to keep between 60% and 80% of each sale, depending on your partner account.
If you want to turn email into a revenue-generating machine, check out some of our most popular white label software here:
If you want to find more white label opportunities or learn more about Sell SaaS, click here to get started today for free and launch your own highly lucrative SaaS business!
Just follow our battle-tested guidelines and rake in the profits.