Using fonts
We all want to make our emails look as good as possible. You also want to make sure your emails closely match the look and feel of your brand, so subscribers know who they're dealing with.
Fonts are a tricky beast when it comes to email because not all clients (like Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo!) treat fonts in the same way.
In EcoSend you can use both "email-safe" fonts, and web fonts (that are less safe for email).
Email-safe fonts
The following fonts are supported by all modern email clients. You may recognise these from using a computer back at school — they've been widely used since the 1990s and are installed on almost all devices. They're considered “web safe” (and "email safe") because they will display as expected in most email clients.
Sans-serif
- Helvetica (which falls back to Arial)
- Lucida Sans Unicode
- Tahoma
- Trebuchet MS
- Verdana
Serif
- Georgia
- Times New Roman
Monospace
- Courier New
Web fonts (more adventurous fonts)
There may be a particular font in your brand toolkit, or a font you are particularly fond of that you'd like to use in your emails.
Unlike websites and documents, email clients have limited support for fonts, which means not every font will display as intended. Choosing the wrong font can result in inconsistent formatting, poor readability, or a broken design.
In the EcoSend email builder you'll find a selection of fonts that are not considered web-safe.
- Anton
- Merriweather
- Merriweather Sans
- Playwrite DE Grund
- Playwrite MX
- Nunito Sans
These fonts are not supported by all email clients, but you may still want to use them as they'll display for contacts who are using email clients that do support them.
You just need to be mindful that many recipients, if they're using an email client without these fonts installed, or without web font support, will see an email-safe font instead.
Examples of commonly used but unsupported fonts include:
Roboto
Open Sans
Lato
Montserrat
Raleway
Email client support for web fonts
To dive deeper, view this detailed breakdown, with a complete list of email clients and their support for web fonts.
| Email client | Web font support |
|---|---|
| AOL | — |
| Apple Mail | ✅ |
| Comcast | ✅ |
| Gmail | — |
| Outlook | — |
| Samsung Email | ✅ |
| Yahoo! | — |
Tips for using web fonts in email
- Always define fallback fonts
- Use a font stack like: font-family: 'Roboto', Arial, sans-serif;
- Stick to simple choices. Clean, readable fonts perform best across devices.
- Prioritise readability over style. Emails are meant to be read quickly, so avoid overly decorative fonts.
- Test across devices and clients. What looks good in Gmail may not look the same in Outlook.
Keep it simple
When it comes to email design, reliability tends to beat creativity.
While web fonts can enhance branding, they’re not guaranteed to be seen by your contacts.
Sticking with proven, email-safe fonts ensures your message looks polished and professional — no matter where it’s opened.
Keep your font choices simple, and you’ll ensure your emails are both attractive and effective—every time.
Last updated June 2026