The 10 Best OpenedOrNot Extension Alternatives & Competitors

Tracking emails is a vital feature in today’s digital world. Have you just sent an important proposal document to your boss? Or perhaps you just launched a new email marketing campaign and want to monitor its success? 

Emails are an essential part of our daily lives and are crucial to any business. However, keeping track of your emails, ensuring they get sent at the right time, and checking that the recipient reads them can be complex without the right tools. Keep reading as we explore the popular email tracker OpenedOrNot and look at a couple of its best alternatives.

What Is the OpenedOrNot Extension?

500apps developed the OpenedOrNot extension as a simple way for users to track emails. This free extension is available on the Chrome Store and works straight in your Gmail inbox once enabled. This extension helps monitor the performance of your emails and links by sending real-time notifications and daily analytics.

The key features that make OpenedOrNot such a useful extension are the following:

• Email tracking: Enables users to keep track of all the emails they send through Gmail on any Chrome-based browser.
• Read receipts: Two ticks next to your emails indicate whether they’ve been received and read (respectively). Gray and green will show whether your emails have been delivered and read.
• Real-time alerts: You’ll receive a browser notification each time your email is received or opened.
• Daily reports: You’ll receive a daily report of all activity via email so you never miss an action.

A tool like OpenedOrNot is helpful for any business using Gmail. The tool can be used by HR teams to ensure that all employees receive and read important company notifications. It can be used by sales departments to ensure that important sales emails, quotes, and invoices reach prospective clients. Finally, your marketing teams can use these tools to monitor engagement with promotional emails.

Pros and Cons of OpenedOrNot

Before we look at an alternative to the OpenedOrNot extension, let’s first look at the pros and cons of using this tool.

Pros: 

• Free
• Basic email tracking
• Basic link tracking
• Daily reports
• Unlimited access
• 24/5 customer support

Cons: 

• Some users have reported issues getting the app installed
• Only basic features are available
• Not available on all email clients or browsers

Now, let’s have a look at the alternatives to OpenedOrNot and see how and if they can serve you better for your needs.

Overview of Free Email Tracker for Gmail

The Free Email Tracker for Gmail was created by PandaDoc as a simple email tracker. Once you install the Chrome browser extension, it works straight from your Gmail. This extension is an excellent competitor to OpenedOrNot as it offers many of the same features for free.

Track Emails

This tool focuses on delivering a well-rounded email tracker. As such, the tool isn’t made more complicated with tons of additional features. It offers an easy way to monitor emails to see if they’ve been opened and how often the reader has opened your email.

Pros and Cons of Free Email Tracker for Gmail

Let’s look at the pros and cons of Free Email Tracker for Gmail. 

Pros: 

• Accurate at tracking when emails have been delivered
• Check if an email was opened and how many times
• 100% free with no ads

Cons: 

• It only includes basic email tracking features.

Overview of MailTrack

MailTrack released its own email tracking extension, which has been downloaded over two million times. This alternative to OpenedOrNot is a worthy competitor that offers many of the same features, along with some extra ones. Not only does MailTrack offer basic email tracking features, but it also offers numerous other features that are beneficial to email marketing campaigns.

Link Tracking

Usually, when sending out email marketing campaigns, you create an email with a goal in mind. This can direct readers to your website, blog post, or social media platforms. To achieve this, you add links to your email. However, how do you know if your efforts are successful? You need to monitor how many times these links are clicked on. MailTrack offers link tracking so you can know precisely how well your links are doing.

PDF Tracking

Another use of email marketing campaigns is to share important PDFs with your audience. These can be brochures, product catalogs, or even new releases. These work similarly to links, except that you’ll add the PDF as an attachment instead of a link. MailTrack offers PDF tracking as well so that you can view how many times your PDFs are downloaded.

Mail Merge

The extension also includes a mail merge feature that’s ideal for sending mass email campaigns that are personalized. When sending bulk emails, you can track the open rates and link or PDF clicks independently. This means you get an accurate representation of how your campaign is doing.

Pros and Cons of MailTrack

Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of MailTrack.

Pros: 

• Offers additional features such as link and PDF tracking and mail merge
• Easily track emails
• Schedule emails
• Follow-up reminders
• GDPR compliant

Cons: 

• Tracking is sometimes inaccurate (i.e., multiple emails automatically opening at the same time, etc.)
• Some users reported issues logging in with the Google account

Overview of MailGun

MailGun is another option, but in this case, it’s an API and not a browser extension. MailGun was created mainly for web developers. As such, it’s not the easiest tool on this list to use. However, its email tracking features still make it a worthy alternative to OpenedOrNot.

This API enables users to send, receive, and track emails. The tool also offers other useful features, such as email verification capabilities and email templates. However, they don’t offer a free version, and their plans start from $35/month for their limited Foundation plan. They do offer a free one-month trial period that’s limited to 5,000 emails so that you can try out the program before committing.

Email Tracking and Analytics

With MailGun, you can see how every email you send performs. You can view when the email was opened or how many times it was opened. You’ll also receive detailed analytics to help improve the deliverability of your emails and improve your open rates.

Email Verification

This useful feature enables users to check the email addresses in their mailing lists. Now, you can ensure that you only send emails to low-risk, highly deliverable accounts. By being able to verify the emails in your mailing list, you can save time and effort by only focusing on quality leads. This also protects your email reputation as each time you send an email that isn’t delivered, or if the user is a high risk, then it negatively impacts your sender’s reputation.

Email Template

This tool also offers an extensive range of responsive templates. This makes it easier to curate and collaborate on your email marketing campaigns by using tried and tested templates as a base.

Pros and Cons of MailGun

Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of MailGun.

Pros: 

• Additional features, such as email verification
• 24/7 customer support
• 30-day trial period

Cons: 

• No free version
• Basic plans are limited
• Difficult to use

Overview of Mandrill

If you’re using Mailchimp to manage your email marketing campaigns, you might be interested in the paid Mandrill add-on that provides you with even more features. Depending on your Mailchimp plan, you can monitor your email open rates and deliverability. Mandrill gives users access to even more advanced features, such as automation and transactional email.

Mandrill isn’t a free add-on, and it’ll cost you $20.00/month/block, and a single block is equivalent to 25,000 emails. Despite that, Mandrill is a decent competitor to OpenedOrNot for users of Mailchimp rather than Gmail.

Automation Features

With Mandrill, you can automate actions and responses. If someone places an order, you can have an automated response email ready to be sent confirming their purchase and sharing other important information. Similarly, you can have an automated response set up if someone abandons their cart. In this case, your email could ask if they need any help or point them to similar products they might be interested in.

Order or Abandoned Cart Notifications

Mandrill will send you notifications for certain e-commerce events. This includes when someone places an order or when a cart is abandoned. By receiving a notification, you can better monitor and track your emails. You can also reach out to the client immediately, offering a better customer experience.

Pros and Cons of Mandrill

Let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons of using Mandrill.

Pros: 

• Provides additional features
• Best for e-commerce emails

Cons: 

• No free or trial version is available
• Requires HTML and API knowledge
• It only works with MailChimp

Overview of Mailtrap

Mailtrap offers many useful email-sending and tracking options that make it a good competitor to OpenedOrNot. The tool offers a handy dashboard that gives you an overview of the status of your emails. Having these readily available makes it much easier to solve problems and improve your email strategies. 

Mailtrap does have a free version available that limits users to 1,000 emails per month. Then the pricing plans start from $10/month for the Individual 10K plan. All of the plans include email tracking and analytic features. However, there are also many other features that make Mailtrap a good alternative.

Multitude of Analytics

Apart from tracking the status of your emails, Mailtrap also provides a range of analytics to ensure you stay on top of your emails. Some analytics provided include deliverability alerts, mailbox providers, email categories, and webhooks. 

Email Sandbox

The tool also offers a handy sandbox that you can use to test your emails before sending them to clients. Using the sandbox, you can identify any bugs or issues with your emails before they’re sent to the client. This ensures your emails are always 100% clean and secure before reaching your audience.

Segmentation and Suppression Lists

Mailtrap also offers users numerous segmentation options and the ability to create suppression lists. You can easily segment emails according to events, bounce rates, open rates, and more. You can also create suppression lists where you store addresses of emails that frequently bounce, are unresponsive, unsubscribe, or even if they receive spam complaints before you remove them permanently.

Pros and Cons of Mailtrap

Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of Mailtrap.

Pros: 

• Email tracking
• Sandbox to test emails
• Wide range of analytics

Cons: 

• The free version is quite limited
• Some features are pretty complex to use

Overview of Mailbird

Mailbird is another useful email tracker that can be used to monitor your emails. Mailbird is very useful for tracking the status of your sent emails, but it also integrates with other apps such as WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, and more. 

Mailbird offers a free downloadable version that’s limited and only offers tracking of five emails per month. If you need to stay on top of your emails, these limitations just won’t work. In order to have unlimited email tracking available, you’ll have to upgrade to the Business plan, which is approximately $5.75/user/month. 

LinkedIn Lookup

Aside from integrations with personal apps like WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram, Mailbird also offers their Business plan users the ability to find contacts on LinkedIn. This is a quick way to enable better networking and connections with various professionals directly from your inbox.

Business App Integrations

Mailbird’s Business plan also includes integrations with other business apps like Asana, Trello, Slack, MS Teams, and more. This enables you to manage your communications conveniently from one dashboard instead of jumping between different apps.

Pros and Cons of Mailbird

Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of Mailbird.

Pros: 

• Easy-to-use interface
• Does basic email process well
• Offers many different integrations

Cons: 

• Some integrations are glitchy and often don’t work
• Customer support isn’t great
• No free option

Overview of Mailtag

Mailtag is a very useful Chrome extension that works straight in Gmail. Not only can you view when someone has opened your email, but you can also track link opens, schedule emails, and more. 

Mailtag doesn’t have a free plan available, but they have a single-paid plan available at $25/user/month. To get a business plan curated to your needs, you’ll need to contact them for the price. Despite this price tag, they do offer a 14-day free trial to test out the software. They also have a 30-day money-back guarantee, so if you don’t see results within the first month of using Mailtag, you can get your money back.

Email Scheduling

Mailtag includes an email scheduling feature. This is useful if you need to send an email at a certain time but don’t want to wait around until the time. By scheduling your emails, you can improve your efficiency while ensuring that responses go out at the best possible time.

Automated Follow-Ups

Mailtag allows users to set automatic responses or pings to unopened emails. Following up on all unopened emails can be time-consuming and inefficient. However, if you have a tool like this, you can set up the process to automatically respond when a client hasn’t opened the email you sent. By sending a follow-up, the email is automatically pushed to the top of the recipient’s list, which increases the chances of it being opened.

Pros and Cons of Mailtag

Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of Mailtag.

Pros: 

• Real-time alerts when tracking emails
• Location tracking
• Email scheduling
• Automated follow up

Cons: 

• No free option
• Quite expensive for the features included
• Service has been a little unreliable the last few months

Overview of Right Inbox

Right Inbox is another powerful free email tracker, but its paid plans are where this tool really stands out. The app works directly in Gmail and GSuite through a free browser extension. The extension integrates seamlessly with your inbox and doesn’t cover any of the information. The tool offers email tracking, mail merge, CRM integrations, and more.

Right Inbox has a free plan available, but it’s rather limited. As such, we recommend only using it to test out the tool and get a feel for it. However, their paid plans offer many great features that make them well worth considering. They offer a few different plans starting at $7.95/month for a personal account, billed annually. 

Email Tracking

With Right Inbox you can track the status of all the emails you send. You can get notified when someone opens an email, clicks on a link, or interacts with the email in other ways, such as forwarding it.

Mail Merge

This feature is very useful if you need to send out marketing campaigns or other announcements to multiple recipients. Not only can you personalize all of the emails you send in the campaign, but you can also track the status of these emails to monitor the efficiency of your campaign.

Email Sequences and Scheduling

You can also set up basic automation with the email sequences feature. You can set up automatic responses to certain emails, such as a ‘rate my service’ response, after an issue has been resolved by the support team. Scheduling is also useful to ensure that your email campaigns are sent at the right time. This means you can plan and set up your emails in advance but schedule them to go out at a specific time.

Pros and Cons of Right Inbox

Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of Right Inbox.

Pros: 

• Many features available
• User-friendly
• Works in Gmail
• Plans are affordable

Cons: 

• Integrations are limited
• Free plan is restricted

Overview of Yesware

Yesware is a well-known tool for email tracking and monitoring customer engagement. The tool’s reputation and reliability make it a great alternative to OpenedOrNot. Yesware includes powerful features such as meeting schedulers, advanced analytics, prospecting campaigns, and more. It also offers many different integrations.

Yesware does have a free plan available, along with a handy Gmail browser extension, which means you can use the features directly in Gmail. The free version includes unlimited email tracking, basic meeting scheduling capabilities, simple campaigns, and even a few templates. For more features, you can consider their paid plans which start from $19/user/month.

Email Tracking

Unlimited email tracking is included in all the plans, even the free one. With email tracking, you can monitor when your email is opened and how many times it’s been viewed, and you can also see if someone clicks on the links in your campaigns. This is a great way to see how your email campaigns perform and whether they need to be improved for higher engagement rates.

Lead Prospecting and Contact Management

Lead prospecting is a very useful feature that enables you to collect prospective leads across a number of professional databases, such as LinkedIn (great for B2B businesses). This makes it easy to get contact information of other professionals you might want to partner with, or reach out to. The contact management feature is useful for keeping all the details on your contacts in one place. You can record their preferences, behaviors, and any other important information.

Pros and Cons of Yesware

Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of Yesware.

Pros: 

• Integrates with Salesforce and LinkedIn 
• Free version offers unlimited email tracking and other basic features
• Chrome extension works directly in Gmail

Cons: 

• Paid version can become expensive for larger teams

Overview of MailVibes

MailVibes is still a relatively new tool in its beta phase. However, its value and features earn it a spot as a competitor to OpenedOrNot. The tool has an app, along with a Chrome extension that integrates with Gmail. It offers mail tracking, mail merge, and many other useful features.  

MailVibes has a free plan, and despite being limited, it still offers a lot for nothing. The paid plan is $9.99/user/month and includes even more features than the free version.

Mail Merge

MailVibes also offers mail merge to help you create personalized mass emails straight from Gmail. The free plan is limited to 1,000 mass emails per day, whereas the paid plan is unlimited.

Real-Time Notifications

You can set up notifications so that you receive pop-ups in your browser whenever new activity is detected on an email. This makes it easier for you to react the moment someone opens or views your email.

Analytics and Statistics

This tool provides detailed reports on your productivity, workload, and response times. This information will make it easier to see where improvements need to be made.

Pros and Cons of MailVibes

Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of MailVibes.

Pros: 

• Email tracker
• Mail Merge
• Detailed reports and analytics
• Free version available

Cons: 

• The tool is still in the beta phase and might have some bugs

How to Choose the Best Email Tracking Extensions?

When it comes to choosing a good email tracker, there are a few things you should consider. The first is finding a tool that works within your budget. You might not have an extensive budget available, but you still require an email tracker. Luckily, this list contains a few free options that offer all the basic features you need without the hefty price tag.

Perhaps budget isn’t a big concern, but you want value from your chosen tool. In this case, consider a paid option, but make sure that you’ll be able to make use of the features you’re paying for. It’s no use paying for multiple types of integrations if you don’t use those tools.

Finally, always make sure that you check the product reviews and support. You don’t want to struggle to install a program only to find it buggy and difficult to use. Reviews can help you identify these programs before trying them out.

Which Is the Best Email Tracking Tool

Choosing the best email tracker will depend on what you need. There are many great free options available that provide the basics in an easy-to-use format. However, if you’re looking for more advanced features, such as location tracking or mail merge, you might be better off with one of the paid options.

Here’s our shortlist of the best email tracking tools:

• Best overall value: MailTrack
• Best free tool: Free Email Tracker for Gmail
• Best for automation: MailTrap
• Best rising star: MailVibes

Final Thoughts

There are many benefits to using email trackers, especially for businesses. While OpenedOrNot is a great free option, there are many alternative tools you can consider. You can choose a simpler tool that covers the basics well, or you can choose more advanced tools with additional features. 
If you want something simple and free, why not look at the Free Email Tracker for Gmail by PandaDoc? This extension makes it easy to keep track of your sent emails straight from Gmail.