There's a moment in every email project where you stare at a blank template and wonder: what should this actually look like? You know the content. You understand the constraints. But translating that into a design that works across email clients, looks professional, and actually gets clicked—that's where inspiration helps.
Email design exists in a strange space. The technical constraints are severe (tables for layout, inline styles, limited CSS support), but the creative possibilities are broader than most developers realize. The best email designers work within the constraints to create experiences that feel modern despite the ancient technology underneath.
These sites collect examples of what's possible.
Curated galleries
Really Good Emails is the gold standard for email inspiration. Their collection spans thousands of emails across categories—welcome sequences, abandoned cart, newsletters, transactional, promotional. Each email includes the full design, often with the actual HTML available for inspection.
What makes it valuable beyond pretty pictures is the categorization. Looking for password reset email inspiration? They have a category for that. Onboarding sequences? Covered. The search and filtering let you find relevant examples quickly, and the community voting surfaces the best designs.
Email Love curates beautiful emails with a focus on design quality over quantity. The collection is smaller than Really Good Emails but more selective. Each featured email represents genuinely good design work, not just competent execution.
The site also features interviews with email designers, providing insight into their process and thinking. If you want to understand why certain designs work, not just see what they look like, the editorial content adds depth.
Milled archives email campaigns from major brands, creating a searchable database of marketing emails. It's less curated than the design-focused galleries—you'll find mediocre emails alongside excellent ones—but the breadth is useful. Want to see how Nike handles product launches? How Airbnb does re-engagement? Milled probably has examples.
The brand-focused organization is helpful when you're designing for a specific industry or want to see how competitors approach email.
Specialized collections
Good Sales Emails focuses specifically on sales and outreach emails. These aren't the designed marketing campaigns you'll find elsewhere—they're the text-heavy emails that salespeople send to prospects. The collection shows what works in cold outreach, follow-ups, and relationship building.
If you're building email templates for sales teams, this is more relevant than the polished marketing galleries. Real sales emails are often plain text or minimally designed, and the examples here reflect that reality.
Email Gallery from Campaign Monitor showcases emails created with their platform, but the designs are applicable regardless of what tool you use. The collection is well-organized by industry and email type, making it easy to find relevant examples.
The integration with Campaign Monitor means you can sometimes access the actual templates, not just screenshots. Useful if you want to reverse-engineer how a particular effect was achieved.
Emailmonks Gallery (now part of Email Uplers) features emails designed by their agency. The quality is consistently high, and the variety covers most common email types. They also publish case studies explaining the design decisions behind specific campaigns.
Industry-specific inspiration
For e-commerce emails specifically, sites like Drip's email examples and Klaviyo's showcase feature emails from online retailers. The focus on e-commerce means you'll find extensive examples of product announcements, cart abandonment, shipping notifications, and post-purchase sequences.
E-commerce email has its own conventions and best practices. These specialized collections show what works in the space, from product photography presentation to urgency-driving design elements.
For SaaS and tech companies, the emails featured on Product Hunt launches and in tech newsletters often represent current design trends. They tend toward cleaner, more minimal designs than e-commerce, with emphasis on clarity and single calls-to-action.
Learning from examples
Browsing galleries is useful, but extracting actionable insights requires intentional analysis.
When you find an email you like, ask why it works. Is it the typography? The use of whitespace? The hierarchy of information? The color palette? Understanding the principles behind effective designs lets you apply them to your own work, rather than just copying surface elements.
Pay attention to how emails handle constraints. How do they create visual interest without relying on CSS features that don't work in Outlook? How do they maintain readability on mobile? How do they look with images disabled? The best email designs solve these problems elegantly.
Notice patterns across successful emails. Most effective emails have clear visual hierarchy, a single primary call-to-action, generous whitespace, and readable typography. They don't try to cram everything into one email. These patterns emerge from testing and optimization—they work because they've been proven to work.
Also study failures. Galleries tend to showcase good examples, but learning what doesn't work is equally valuable. When you receive emails that feel cluttered, confusing, or hard to read, analyze why. The negative examples teach as much as the positive ones.
Beyond galleries
Email newsletters themselves are a source of inspiration. Subscribe to newsletters you admire—not for the content, but to study the design. How do they handle long-form content? How do they balance text and images? How do they drive clicks?
Some newsletters to study: Dense Discovery for clean minimalism, Morning Brew for engaging formatting, The Hustle for personality in design, and any Substack newsletter for how they handle the constraints of that platform.
Design systems from major companies sometimes include email guidelines. Mailchimp's content style guide, for instance, covers email-specific design principles. These resources explain the thinking behind design decisions, not just the outcomes.
Finally, your own inbox is a resource. Create a folder for emails that catch your attention—good or bad. Over time, you'll build a personal collection of examples relevant to your specific context and preferences.
Frequently asked questions
Can I copy designs I find in galleries?
You can use them as inspiration, but directly copying another company's design raises ethical and potentially legal issues. Extract principles and patterns, adapt them to your brand, and create something original. The goal is learning from good examples, not plagiarizing them.
How do I know if a design will work in email clients?
Gallery screenshots don't show rendering issues. A design that looks beautiful might break in Outlook or Gmail. When adapting inspiration, always test in actual email clients. Use preview tools like Litmus or Email on Acid to verify rendering before sending.
Are these designs achievable with email HTML limitations?
Most designs in curated galleries are achievable, though some effects require clever workarounds. The galleries typically feature real emails that were actually sent, so they've been built within email constraints. That said, some designs push boundaries that might not render consistently everywhere.
Should I follow design trends in email?
Trends can inform your design, but email has unique constraints. A trendy web design might not translate to email. Focus on timeless principles—clarity, hierarchy, readability—and incorporate trends selectively where they enhance rather than complicate the experience.