While I’m sure there are things far worse than finding out that beautiful newsletter or broadcast you worked so hard to perfect doesn’t quite meet your standards when it lands in the inbox of someone using a specific email client, it’s still very disappointing. We all want our creations to look just as good when they are opened by the recipient as they did when we hit the “publish” button to send it on its way.

You can always (and should) use the preview option, as well as send yourself a test message before sending; but just because it looks good in preview or when it lands in your Gmail account, doesn’t mean it’s going to look good for everyone else.

Several email marketing platforms have a feature that lets you take a peek to see how your newsletter or broadcast will look in a few other email clients. At least MailChimp, Constant Contact and Get Response do … and it’s typically called Inbox Preview.

In MailChimp, Inbox Preview is a paid feature and uses a token system. If you have a Forever Free account, you still have the original preview function. MailChimp Pro accounts receive 1,000 free tokens each month. Monthly Plan users receive 25 free tokens each month, but can purchase additional bundles of 25 for $3 per bundle. Your free tokens expire and then replenish at the beginning of each billing cycle. It is also a paid feature ($10 per month) in Constant Contact, but appears to be a standard feature in Get Response. [Read more…]