Email marketing course: the 6 best in 2026, free and paid

The Digital Marketing Institute's email course is part of its DMI Track short courses. It has four interactive modules, from data strategy (3 h 59 min) to creativity and content design, ending with testing, optimization and automation (2 h 21 min). The format is self-paced online video, reading, case studies and practical toolkits, for about 11 hours of content.

You get 12 weeks to finish, then take a 40-question multiple choice exam online. Passing it leads to an Associate-level certification. The price is $540 one-time, or three installments of $180. For teams, DMI advertises custom training plans with savings of up to 50%. The course also includes a DMI professional membership.

HubSpot Academy's Email Marketing Certification is the first result on Google for this query, and it comes up again and again when marketers ask for course advice on forums. The course has 12 lessons, 31 videos, 9 quizzes and one practical exercise, for 3 hours 59 minutes. It teaches how to approach email strategically and holistically, from planning to analyzing email metrics and running A/B tests for data-driven decisions.

It is free, and so is the HubSpot Academy account. At the end you earn a certification you can add to your LinkedIn profile; it stays valid for two years, so plan a retake if your resume relies on it. One 30-minute lesson covers permissions and deliverability. The lessons use HubSpot's tools in places, but the principles apply to any email platform. If you are weighing the software itself, see our HubSpot review and the HubSpot certification courses we compared.

CXL's email course teaches how to write subject lines and email copy that get opened, and how to build campaigns that drive engagement and revenue, with a focus on relevance over volume. It is short: 2 hours 36 minutes across 16 lessons. You get a certificate you can add to LinkedIn when you finish.

You do not buy it alone: it comes with a CXL subscription. The annual plan costs $1,199 a year, billed annually, with a 25% seasonal discount already applied (so the full price is higher), and gives access to 80+ B2B marketing and AI courses, plus live courses and workshops, with a 7-day refund window. Monthly and quarterly plans cover the on-demand catalogue only, and team plans exist for 2 or more people. For one email course, that is expensive; for a marketer who will also take analytics or demand generation courses, it is good value.

Google's email course on Coursera is part of the Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce Professional Certificate. It is beginner level with no prior experience required, and Coursera estimates 2 weeks at 10 hours a week. You learn email marketing best practices, how to grow a list, how to write email copy, subject lines and preview text, and which tools help run and measure campaigns.

You pay through a Coursera subscription: single programs run $49 to $79 a month, and Coursera Plus is $59 a month after a 7-day free trial. Coursera Plus Annual is $399 a year, billed annually, and the course page offers financial aid. Learners rate the course 4.8 out of 5 from 2,926 reviews. Finishing the course counts toward the full Google certificate. For a company, Coursera for Teams covers up to 125 employees. The limit: it is a beginner course, and an experienced email marketer will move faster with DMI or CXL.

VDCI is an online school accredited by the Accrediting Council for Continuing Education & Training (ACCET). Its Email Marketing Bootcamp packs 6 hours of project-based training: building a permission-based list with lead magnets, segmenting, writing welcome, promotional and re-engagement campaigns, protecting deliverability, building automation workflows triggered by customer behavior, and running A/B tests.

You start anytime; an industry expert is assigned as your instructor and answers your questions, and class recordings stay available for 30 days. For a team, VDCI sells group class vouchers at a discount, or builds a private program. You get a verified digital certificate of completion. Tuition is $325, due before the class starts, with a 90% refund within 30 days if you have not accessed the course materials. The course can also be taken inside VDCI's AI Marketing Certificate Program ($6,995, 300 hours).

Klaviyo is an email and SMS platform built for online stores, and its academy offers free courses, quick guides, live trainings and certificates. The Klaviyo practitioner certificate (5 hours 13 minutes) teaches the core features of the platform, including flows, the automated sequences (welcome, abandoned cart) that drive much of an online store's email activity. A separate deliverability certificate goes deeper on getting into the inbox. Each certificate ends with a final exam and a digital badge.

Live office hours let you ask strategy questions in real time. The limit is obvious: this is training on one tool. If your store does not run on Klaviyo, take HubSpot or the Google course instead. If you are deciding whether to move, read our guide to switching from Klaviyo.