HTML Email has seen mass amounts of debate, not only about how it should be done but even whether it should be done at all. However, the popularity of this medium has shown only growth in recent years. As support from email applications grows, so to does the richness of the designs.

Below we’ve included some of the best and most recent free templates from a number of sources. The templates range from heavily designed to extremely basic so that no matter what you’re looking for, be it a simple layout aid or a nearly finished product, there is something here for you.

Campaign Monitor: 100 Templates

Recently, Campaign Monitor asked some very well-known designers to create some free html email templates for them to distribute. The end result was over 100 beautiful templates that you can download at zero charge to you.

Unfortunately, 100 templates can be quite a lot to sort through so to help narrow the selection down I’ve chosen some of my favorite templates from this collection and listed them below.

Spring: Meagan Fisher

Mike Kus: Color Direct

Newism: Natural

Simon Collison: Retro Green

Veerle Pieters: Textile

MailChimp: 36 Templates

If you’re looking for something to start your own design, the fairly finished templates above might be a pain to customize. MailChimp has a collection of basic layouts that you can use as nice starters for your own aesthetic scheme.

CakeMail: 23 Templates

Though I’m definitely not a fan of all of these templates, the basic layouts at the top of the list serve as nice starters for your own designs, just as with those from MailChimp above.

FreeMailTemplates: 20 Templates

Though not as stellar as the Campaign Monitor designs, this collection does feature some really nice looking templates that are versatile enough to be used for almost any business.

Beautiful Emails: 2 Templates

This blog is dedicated to bringing you tutorials, inspiration and templates for better email marketing. They currently have two free HTML email templates that are free to download.

Which Will You Use?

Leave a comment below and let us know which templates above you found to be the most useful. Do you like letting professional designers do all the heavy lifting as with the Campaign Monitor templates or do you want to create custom designs built on top of rock solid layouts like the MailChimp templates?