Why We’re Saying Goodbye to Page Testing

Today, we’re saying goodbye to one of Litmus’ very first features—Page Testing.

If you don’t know about Page Testing, that’s alright. The tool provided previews of web pages across different devices and browsers. We’ve always offered this feature, but over time it’s become far less popular than our email optimization offerings.

In order to simplify and focus our efforts on what we love most and what we do best—email—we’ve decided to remove Page Testing from Litmus. To be clear, Page Testing and Email Testing are different Litmus products. Email Testing is here to stay. We are only removing support for Browser/Landing Page testing.

This wasn’t an easy decision. Interestingly, Page Testing is actually where Litmus first started. Years ago, it was all that we offered—and we didn’t want to let it go without a proper goodbye.

Litmus’ very first feature

Back in college, I did a lot of web design work. That required me to test the sites I designed across multiple browsers. The few browser testing tools available at the time were expensive and cumbersome, so, together with my friends, Matt Brindley and David Smalley, we decided to build our own.

Eleven years ago, we started with three computers stashed under a desk in my dorm room and called the service “SiteVista” (terrible name!). At the time, the only product we offered was Page Testing.

Soon we had around 100 customers, but their number one request was for us to provide email testing.

Email Testing grew to be what we were known for—and proved even more valuable to our customers. We developed other tools to support the entire email building process—all the way from creation to tracking to optimization.

Through careful growth over the next ten years, we went from three computers stashed under a dorm room desk to 1,600 Mac Minis powering tens of thousands of email previews every single day. And from 100 early customers, to helping more than 250,000 email marketers make email better.

Focusing on what we do best

There is an enormous opportunity for us to help improve the email creation process. We want to give you not just tools for testing, but for other areas of the creative process as well. Retiring Page Testing allows us to focus even more on this goal—and we’re excited to build tools that you won’t find anywhere else.

Here’s to the next ten years!

Help us build great products Between catered lunches, a remote-friendly environment, 28 vacation days, and so much more, Litmus is a great place to work. And, guess what? We’re hiring! Join the team→

P.S.: Looking for a Page Testing alternative? We recommend our friends at BrowserStack!

Paul Farnell

Paul Farnell is a Litmus co-founder