Email & lifecycle agencies, reviewed and ranked

Retention, flows and lifecycle marketing. Scored on revenue per recipient rather than open rates — which stopped meaning anything in 2026.

23 evaluated, of which we would put 22 in front of a client and cut 1.

Open rates are dead as a metric

Apple's Mail Privacy Protection pre-loads images, which inflates opens for a large share of any list and makes the number unusable for comparison. An agency still leading with open rates in 2026 is either not paying attention or counting on you not to. The measures that survive are revenue per recipient, flow revenue, repeat purchase and expansion.

The money is in flows, not campaigns

Broadcast sends are the visible part; the revenue concentrates in automated flows — welcome, abandoned cart and browse, post-purchase, winback, onboarding, churn. Ask which flows exist today, which they would build first, and what each is worth. An agency that only talks about the sending calendar is selling you the smaller half.

Deliverability is a slow-motion failure

Authentication, list hygiene, sunsetting disengaged subscribers, engagement-based sending and inbox-placement monitoring are unglamorous and decide whether any of the rest reaches anyone. The damage compounds quietly for months before it becomes visible, by which point recovery is slow.

Evaluated

And the ones we cut, so you can judge the rest

Named, with the reason and the sources.