Email marketing still returns more per dollar than almost any other channel — but only if you know how to build a list, write emails people open, automate sequences, and stay out of the spam folder. A good course shortcuts years of trial and error. We tested and compared the leading options, all verified live this month, to find the best email marketing courses for every level and goal in 2026.
Quick picks
- Best all-round for beginners: Email Marketing for Beginners (4.3★, 500k+ students)
- Best for Mailchimp users: The Complete Mailchimp Email Marketing Course (4.2★, 570k+ students)
- Best for the HubSpot platform: HubSpot for Beginners (4.7★)
- Best advanced/deliverability: Mastering Email Deliverability (4.3★)
- Best for email copywriting: Email Marketing & AI Copywriting (4.3★)
The best email marketing courses at a glance
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| Course | Best for | Rating | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| Email Marketing for Beginners | All-round first course | 4.3 ★ (1,300+) | Beginner |
| Complete Mailchimp Email Marketing | Mailchimp users | 4.2 ★ (570k students) | Beginner |
| HubSpot for Beginners | HubSpot platform + CRM | 4.7 ★ (2,200+) | Beginner |
| Mastering Email Deliverability | Inbox placement / pros | 4.3 ★ (380+) | Advanced |
| Email Marketing & AI Copywriting | Writing emails that convert | 4.3 ★ (1,300+) | All levels |
All five are paid Udemy courses (frequently on sale for around $10–20) with lifetime access and a certificate of completion. If you’d rather start free, jump to free email marketing courses and certifications below.
How we picked these courses
We don’t rank by commission — we rank by what we’d actually recommend to a friend. Every course on this list was opened and verified live this month against four criteria: a current rating of 4.2 or higher from a meaningful number of reviews; a “last updated” date within the past year (email platforms and deliverability rules change fast, so a 2019 course is a liability); real-world enrolment as a signal of trust; and topic coverage that matches a distinct need — beginner, platform-specific, advanced, or copywriting. Courses with stale update dates or thin review counts were cut, even popular ones.
1. Email Marketing for Beginners — best all-round starter
If you’re new to email marketing and want one course that covers the whole picture, this is the place to start. It walks through list building, choosing a platform, writing campaigns, basic automation, and the metrics that actually matter — without assuming any prior experience. With a 4.3 rating, 1,300+ reviews, and over 500,000 students (last updated March 2026), it’s both well-vetted and current.
The curriculum moves in a sensible order: setting up an email service provider, creating opt-in forms and lead magnets, writing and scheduling your first campaigns, building a simple welcome automation, and reading the open/click/conversion numbers afterward — so you finish with a working setup, not just theory.
Best for: complete beginners who want a single, practical foundation. Skip if: you already run campaigns and want advanced deliverability or copy depth.
2. The Complete Mailchimp Email Marketing Course — best for Mailchimp
Mailchimp is the most popular starting platform for small businesses, and this is the deepest course built around it. It’s hands-on: you’ll set up audiences, design campaigns, build automations, and read reports inside Mailchimp itself. The numbers speak to its reach — a 4.2 rating across an enormous 570,000+ students, refreshed January 2026.
Best for: anyone who has chosen (or is leaning toward) Mailchimp as their email tool. Skip if: you use a different platform — the workflows are Mailchimp-specific.
3. HubSpot for Beginners — best for the HubSpot platform
HubSpot bundles email with a free CRM, landing pages, and automation, making it a popular all-in-one choice as you scale. This course — our highest-rated pick at 4.7 stars (2,200+ reviews, updated May 2026) — teaches the platform from scratch: contacts, email tools, workflows, and reporting. It pairs naturally with HubSpot’s own free email marketing certification (covered below). If marketing automation is where you’re headed next, see our guide to the best marketing automation courses.
Best for: people building on HubSpot or who want email plus CRM in one place. Skip if: you only need standalone email and don’t want a broader platform.
4. Mastering Email Deliverability — best advanced course
The best campaign in the world is worthless if it lands in spam. Deliverability — authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), sender reputation, list hygiene, and compliance — is the topic most beginner courses skip, and it’s where this one specializes. At 4.3 stars with 80,000+ students (updated March 2026), it’s the natural next step once you’ve got the basics down and your open rates aren’t where they should be.
Expect detailed coverage of SPF, DKIM, and DMARC setup, warming up a new sending domain, diagnosing why emails go to spam, and keeping a clean list through engagement-based pruning — the exact issues that quietly cap an otherwise-good program’s results.
Best for: intermediate marketers, agency staff, and anyone fighting inbox placement. Skip if: you’re brand new — start with a foundational course first.
5. Email Marketing & AI Copywriting — best for writing emails that convert
Strategy gets people on your list; copy gets them to buy. This course focuses on the writing side — subject lines, sales sequences, and using AI tools to draft and refine emails faster — with ready-to-use templates. It holds a 4.3 rating across 1,300+ reviews (updated May 2026) and pairs well with any of the platform courses above. For broader writing skills, our copywriting courses guide covers more options.
Best for: marketers and founders who can run the tools but want their emails to convert better. Skip if: you need platform mechanics first.
Best free email marketing courses and certifications
You don’t have to pay to start, and some of the best-known credentials in the field are free. These are run by the platforms themselves, so there’s no affiliate angle here — we’re listing them because they’re genuinely good:
- HubSpot Email Marketing Certification (free). A well-respected, free certification covering segmentation, lifecycle marketing, deliverability, and analytics — a strong résumé line, especially if you work in or near the HubSpot ecosystem.
- Mailchimp Academy (free). Free, official lessons on using Mailchimp and email fundamentals — the fastest way to learn the platform if that’s your tool.
- Google’s “Think Outside the Inbox: Email Marketing” (Coursera). Part of the Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce Professional Certificate; free to audit, with hands-on email projects.
The trade-off: free courses tend to be shorter, less hand-holdy, and (for the platform ones) focused on selling you on that platform. A paid Udemy course usually goes deeper and stays vendor-neutral.
Honorable mentions
A few courses didn’t make the main five but are worth knowing about depending on your stack. Klaviyo-specific courses are the go-to if you run a Shopify or ecommerce store, since Klaviyo dominates that space and its automation depth rewards a focused course. ActiveCampaign and GetResponse each have dedicated courses worth seeking out if that’s your chosen platform. And if email is one piece of a broader role, a full digital marketing course that includes an email module can be more economical than buying everything separately — though it won’t go as deep on email as a dedicated course will.
Are email marketing certifications worth it?
For most people, the skill matters more than the certificate — clients and employers care that your campaigns perform. That said, a recognised free certification (like HubSpot’s) is a low-cost way to signal competence on a résumé or LinkedIn profile, and it’s worth getting if you’re job-hunting or freelancing. A Udemy certificate of completion carries less weight as a credential, but the course content is where the real value is. Treat certificates as a bonus, not the goal.
Who should take an email marketing course?
Email marketing pays off for a wide range of people, and the best course depends partly on which of these you are:
- Small business owners and founders — email is the highest-ROI channel you fully own, and learning it yourself saves the cost of an agency in the early days. A foundational or platform-specific course is the fastest win.
- Freelancers and aspiring marketers — email marketing is an in-demand, well-paid skill that’s easy to demonstrate with a portfolio. A foundational course plus the free HubSpot certification makes a credible starting offer to clients.
- In-house marketers — if email is becoming part of your role, deliverability and automation depth separate you from people who just hit “send.”
- Ecommerce sellers — automated flows (welcome, abandoned cart, post-purchase) drive a large share of store revenue, so the automation and copywriting angles matter most.
- Bloggers and creators — your list is the audience you can reach without an algorithm in the way; list-building and newsletter strategy are the priority.
Do you actually need a course?
Honestly — not always. Email marketing is learnable from free blog posts and YouTube if you’re disciplined about piecing it together. What a course buys you is structure and sequence: instead of stitching together 30 scattered videos, you get a vetted path from list-building to analytics in the right order, plus templates and a teacher who’s made the mistakes already. For $10–20 on sale, that shortcut is usually worth it — but if your budget is zero, the free options below will genuinely get you started. The thing that doesn’t work is endless passive watching; whichever route you pick, you only learn email marketing by building a real list and sending real campaigns.
How to choose the right email marketing course
With this much overlap, the right pick comes down to three questions:
- What’s your level? Brand new → start with a foundational beginner course. Already running campaigns → go straight to deliverability or copywriting depth.
- Which platform will you use? If you’ve committed to a tool (Mailchimp, HubSpot, Klaviyo, etc.), a platform-specific course saves time. If you’re undecided, a tool-agnostic foundations course keeps your options open.
- What’s your bottleneck? Low list growth → list-building focus. Low open rates → deliverability. Low click/sales → copywriting. Buy the course that fixes your actual weak spot, not the one with the flashiest title.
Email marketing also sits inside a wider skill set — if you’re building a broader toolkit, our guides to marketing automation and product marketing are natural next reads.
What a good email marketing course should teach
Whatever you choose, make sure it covers the fundamentals that actually move revenue:
- List building — opt-in forms, lead magnets, and growing a list you actually own (not rented social followers).
- Segmentation — sending the right message to the right slice of your list instead of blasting everyone.
- Automation — welcome sequences, abandoned-cart flows, and re-engagement campaigns that run without you.
- Copywriting — subject lines, preview text, and body copy that gets opened and clicked.
- Deliverability — authentication and list hygiene so your emails reach the inbox.
- Analytics — reading open, click, and conversion rates to improve over time.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best email marketing course?
For most beginners, an all-round foundational course like Email Marketing for Beginners (4.3★, 500k+ students) is the best starting point. If you’ve committed to a specific platform, a tool-specific course (the Complete Mailchimp course, or HubSpot for Beginners) is more efficient. There’s no single “best” — it depends on your level and your tool.
How much do email marketing courses cost?
Paid Udemy courses typically run $10–20 when on sale (and have lifetime access). Free options exist too — HubSpot Academy, Mailchimp Academy, and Google’s Coursera course are all free. University-backed certificates and bootcamps can cost hundreds to thousands.
Are free email marketing courses any good?
Yes — HubSpot’s free Email Marketing Certification and Mailchimp Academy are genuinely solid. The trade-off is that free courses are usually shorter and (for platform-run ones) focused on their own tool. Paid courses tend to go deeper and stay vendor-neutral.
Can I learn email marketing on my own?
Absolutely. Email marketing is one of the most self-teachable digital skills — a single good course plus a free email platform to practice on is enough to get competent. The key is to apply what you learn by building a real list and sending real campaigns.
Is an email marketing certification worth it?
A free, recognised certification like HubSpot’s is worth getting as a résumé and LinkedIn signal, especially if you’re freelancing or job-hunting. For most people, though, the skill and a portfolio of results matter more than any certificate.
How long does it take to learn email marketing?
You can learn the fundamentals in a weekend with a focused course, and be running competent campaigns within a few weeks of practice. Mastering advanced areas like deliverability and automation takes a few months of hands-on work.
Reviewed by the OnlineCourseing editorial team. Last updated June 2026 — every featured course was verified live this month for rating, enrolment, and freshness. This page contains affiliate links, which don’t affect our rankings or what you pay.
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