Emailchef

Emailchef is an email marketing automation platform for businesses, associations and agencies that want to build lists, send newsletters and campaigns, and run automated email flows. Its home page describes it as "the email marketing automation platform that ensures performance, security, and compliance with privacy and data protection regulations", and the footer dates the service from 2012. Its servers and sending IP addresses are in Europe, a point the site returns to again and again, and it markets itself in English and in French, where it calls itself a product "100% Made in Europe".

The home page frames the product as three steps. Get started: create signup forms, build contact lists and send your emails. Manage: segment your audience and create tailored email automations. Grow: build sales funnels with the Emailchef Flow automations. The pitch throughout is simplicity: "No advanced technical skills required."

What a sender gets

The editor and templates. A drag-and-drop editor, which the features menu describes as accessible to experts and beginners alike, lets you create a template from scratch or customize one of "more than 1,000 graphic templates" with your own design and content. You can test the editor without signing up. The French page stresses the variety of the template library and the availability of templates in French.

Emailchef Flow. The automation builder is called Emailchef Flow. The home page says you use it to "create, customize, and optimize your email marketing automation flow" without technical knowledge, and positions it as the way to build sales funnels and multiply the returns on campaigns.

Contacts and segmentation. Contact management covers segments, custom fields, importing and exporting email addresses, and adding detailed information about subscribers. The blog includes a guide to segmenting a mailing list.

Signup forms. The signup form editor is also drag-and-drop: "Create mailing list signup forms in few minutes with the drag-and-drop editor. Add the form to your website and start collecting contacts." Forms can use single or double opt-in, so only people who have given permission join your list, and a video walks through building one.

Delivery. The features menu credits its delivery rates to an integrated professional SMTP server. The French page adds that Emailchef offers a deliverability service, which it describes as an analysis of each individual customer by a team of experts, so a sender with bounce or spam-report problems gets help finding the cause.

Reporting. Emailchef offers "Advanced, real-time statistics". A features page explains why the company chose its own alternative to Google Analytics for tracking data.

API and integrations. The support menu links to API documentation and to an Integrations & Plugins section for connecting Emailchef to other tools.

GDPR and data protection

The GDPR page is the most detailed on the site. It says "The servers used by Emailchef are located in Europe, and our IP addresses are European", and calls the platform "100% GDPR-compliant". Every template made in the drag-and-drop editor automatically includes an unsubscribe footer, which the page notes is required by GDPR and by the US CAN-SPAM Act.

The page then lists the measures the company says it has taken:

• appointed a Data Protection Officer (DPO);
• trained the staff responsible for data processing and control;
• updated its policy on data subject rights and on demonstrating consent;
• written an easy-to-understand GDPR privacy notice;
• set up procedures to respond to data breaches without delay;
• carried out a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA);
• strengthened technical and organizational measures and the protection of transfers to non-EU countries;
• guaranteed data portability to and from third-party systems;
• adopted Privacy by Design, with periodic checks on how well the measures work.

The page reminds readers that GDPR fines can reach 10 or even 20 million euros depending on the violation, and links to a full GDPR guide. The footer also links to an anti-spam policy and a secure sending page.

Plans and trial

Emailchef keeps its prices on a separate Prices page in the main menu. The call to action is a free trial: "Try Emailchef for free for 1 MONTH. No credit card required." The French page adds that the trial gives access to every Emailchef feature, after which you decide whether to stay. That page also argues that choosing a European supplier gives a customer easier recourse in a billing or service dispute than a supplier headquartered overseas, and that European servers and IPs are what the GDPR, in force since 2018, calls for. The home page invites visitors to "CREATE YOUR FREE ACCOUNT", and the footer links to a free service for nonprofits (the French footer calls it a free-for-life plan for nonprofit organizations) and a free partnership program. A demo can be requested from the main menu.

Support and resources

The French page promises personalized technical support from staff who speak your language and will help you choose and adapt your marketing plan. Customer testimonials on the home page praise support that is fast, professional, and in the customer's own language. Resources include video tutorials, a knowledge base, a glossary, an FAQ, a contact form and the Emailchef Academy blog, with articles on email marketing strategy, statistics, funnels and why not to buy a mailing list. The French page says thousands of customers already use Emailchef.

Customers quoted on the home page include a trade association, a chemicals company, a charity, an agency and a campsite. One says Emailchef was their first email software and support helped them manage well; another, from a charity, found it matched what they needed to send newsletters; a third chose it when the GDPR rules on data collected outside the EU came in and values having everything, support included, in their own language. The campsite owner likes the number of ready-made templates, finds building from scratch easy too, and is happy with sending and delivery.

Who it suits

Emailchef fits small and midsize businesses, associations and agencies that want a simple email marketing tool with automation, and that care where their data sits: the European servers and IPs, the DPO and the detailed GDPR measures are the core of the offer. French-speaking teams get templates and support in French. Nonprofits can use the free nonprofit service, and hotels and tourism businesses have their own guide. Anyone unsure can take the one-month trial without a card, test Emailchef Flow and the editor, and book a demo.