When you outgrow free, the paid jump should feel obvious. For the full paid landscape, read 9 best email marketing tools in 2026. If you are torn between the two most hyped brands, see Mailchimp vs ConvertKit. Operators building a services or retail list should pair this guide with email marketing for small business.
Free plan limits at a glance
| Tool | Price | Subscriber / contact limit | Send limit | Credit card |
|---|
| Mailchimp Free | $0 | 250 contacts (incl. audience rules) | 500/mo, 250/day max | No |
| MailerLite Free | $0 | 500 active subscribers | 12,000 emails/mo | No |
| Brevo Free | $0 | Unlimited contacts | ~300 emails/day (check current cap) | No |
| beehiiv Launch | $0 | 2,500 subscribers | Unlimited sends (platform fair-use applies) | No |
| Sender Free | $0 | 2,500 subscribers | 15,000 emails/mo | No |
| Benchmark Free | $0 | 500 contacts | 3,500 emails/mo | No |
| Moosend | Trial | Full features for 30 days | Unlimited sends during trial | No |
Moosend is different: there is no forever-free marketing plan as of 2026 positioning—it is a 30-day trial with no credit card, which still belongs on this list if your goal is “try everything before you pay.” Paid Moosend commonly starts around $9/month for small lists with unlimited sends on paid tiers—confirm moosend.com for your region.
Before you sign up anywhere, decide whether you are optimizing for subscribers stored or emails sent. A restaurant with 40,000 old loyalty emails but two promotions a month belongs on a send-capped model like Brevo. A daily tips newsletter with 900 readers belongs on MailerLite or Sender where monthly volume matches cadence.
1. Mailchimp (Free)
Mailchimp’s free tier is 250 contacts, 500 total sends per month, and a daily cap of 250 sends, with one audience and a single user. You still get a usable drag-and-drop editor, basic reporting, a simple welcome automation, and abandoned cart email if you connect a compatible store—enough to validate a product.
Upgrade pricing (ballpark): Essentials often starts near $13/month for 500 contacts; Standard near $20/month at the same tier. Remember unsubscribed contacts can still count toward paid tiers unless handled per Mailchimp’s archiving rules.
Pros: Best-known brand; huge template library; strong ecosystem of integrations; easy to hire help.
Cons: Free tier is tight; contact counting inflates bills; automation depth wants Standard.
Best for: Local businesses and ecommerce tests that may later want SMS and ads in one stack.
I keep Mailchimp Free in my toolkit for clients who already trained staff on the brand, but I rarely recommend it for cold starts anymore unless the list is truly below a few hundred people—250 contacts disappears faster than founders expect once webhooks and POS systems start dumping names.
On the positive side, Mailchimp’s templates and abandoned-cart basics mean a Shopify-side hustle can look legitimate on day six, not day sixty. Treat the free tier as a staging environment: prove ROI, then move to Essentials or switch vendors before you start paying for dead contacts.
2. MailerLite (Free)
MailerLite gives 500 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month on the free plan with automation, a website, and 10 landing pages—one of the most “actually run a business” free packages available. You also get a 14-day taste of premium features without a card on signup flows (see their trial wording).
Upgrade pricing (ballpark): Growing Business from about $10/month; Advanced from about $20/month for richer automation and smart sending.
Pros: Clean UI; generous sends relative to subscriber cap; strong forms and sites for SMBs.
Cons: Not a full CRM; advanced deliverability tooling may require higher tiers.
Best for: Bootstrapped SaaS, creators who want simplicity, and agencies onboarding clients.
What surprises teams migrating from Mailchimp is how much calmer reporting feels in MailerLite at the same stage—fewer tabs, less upsell noise. That calm matters when email is only 10% of someone’s job.
Use the 12,000-email budget intentionally: that is roughly 40 sends to 300 people or 24 sends to 500—enough for a real weekly cadence while you validate product-market fit.
3. Brevo (Free)
Brevo’s free model is built for unlimited contacts with a daily send limit—commonly 300 emails per day on the free marketing plan, which is roughly 9,000/month if you max every day (verify brevo.com for the exact number; they adjust regions and packaging). You also get core email editing, templates, SMS wallet mechanics on higher tiers, and CRM-lite features.
Upgrade pricing (ballpark): Starter from about $9/month with higher monthly email volumes; Standard adds automation and landing pages.
Pros: Ideal if you must keep a large legal database but mail in pulses; multichannel path is clear.
Cons: Daily caps frustrate high-frequency senders; automation depth grows with tier.
Best for: Retail, nonprofits, and B2B with seasonal sends and big dormant files.
If you try Brevo and feel “blocked” by the daily cap, that is the product doing its job—you are probably on the wrong tier for your cadence. Upgrade to Starter or change tools; do not attempt to cheat caps with multiple accounts.
Pair Brevo with ruthless segmentation on free: mail your engaged slice first so your 300/day moves revenue instead of reminding strangers you still exist.
4. beehiiv (Launch)
Launch is $0 for up to 2,500 subscribers with unlimited email sends (subject to fair use), custom domains on supported setups, and the growth features beehiiv markets to publishers—recommendation network included on free where applicable. Monetization like ad network access typically waits for Scale around $43/month (~$517/year), with Max near $96/month for branding removal and advanced publishing.
Pros: Built for newsletter growth, not generic blasts; modern analytics for publishers.
Cons: Wrong tool if you need classic ecommerce journeys; editorial workflow assumed.
Best for: Newsletter writers, solo media brands, and Substacks considering a move.
beehiiv’s free tier is not a toy—it is a deliberate bet that you will monetize later. If you never intend to run ads or paid subs, you can still use Launch, but you are carrying a product roadmap optimized for publishers, not for SKU catalogs.
Try publishing on a consistent cadence for eight weeks before judging growth; beehiiv’s loops reward momentum, not one viral signup spike buried in a CSV.
5. Sender (Free Forever)
Sender’s free tier is unusually aggressive: up to 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails per month with automation, landing pages, forms, popups, and transactional email—though Sender branding remains until you pay. That is enough to run a small shop or content business without touching a card.
Upgrade path: Paid Standard and Professional tiers remove branding and unlock advanced automation and reporting; pricing is slider-based on sender.net—expect modest monthly fees for small lists compared to legacy ESPs.
Pros: High subscriber ceiling; includes automation and transactional on free; straightforward value.
Cons: Branding on free; less famous than Mailchimp for enterprise procurement; smaller partner ecosystem.
Best for: Startups that need automation early but refuse software rent until revenue proves the list.
Sender is underrated in Twitter threads because it is not the default US answer—yet the 2,500 subscriber / 15,000 email combo is hard to beat for ecommerce side projects that need both newsletters and transactional in one login.
6. Benchmark Email (Free)
Benchmark’s free plan is 500 contacts and 3,500 emails per month—similar psychological footprint to Mailchimp but with a slightly higher monthly send allowance on paper. The editor is friendly for non-designers, and paid plans often start around $15/month for 500 subscribers with higher send quotas (for example, 7,500 emails/month on entry paid tiers—confirm benchmarkemail.com).
Pros: Simple onboarding; good for volunteer-run orgs; generous enough sends for light newsletters.
Cons: Less momentum than MailerLite/Kit in the creator conversation; advanced automation wants paid.
Best for: Clubs, churches, and micro-retailers sending weekly updates—not complex lifecycle ops.
Benchmark shines when your “marketing department” is a volunteer rotating every semester. Simplicity beats cleverness in that reality, even if power users find the ceiling quickly.
7. Moosend (30-day trial, no card)
Moosend does not belong in the “forever free” bucket anymore, but it does belong here if your definition of “free to start” includes full-feature access for 30 days without a credit card. During the trial you can stress-test automation, landing pages, and reporting the way you will actually run the account.
Upgrade pricing (ballpark): Paid plans often start near $9/month for ~500 subscribers with unlimited sends on paid plans—competitive if you send frequently.
Pros: Powerful automation builder for the price after trial; clean modern UI; good for ecommerce-ish flows.
Cons: No perpetual free tier; after 30 days you pay or export.
Best for: Teams that would rather binge-test everything in a month than hobble along on a weak forever-free plan.
Schedule your Moosend trial start date intentionally: import a clean segment, rebuild one automation, send two real campaigns, and measure click performance. If you burn the trial tinkering with colors, you paid with time instead of money and learned nothing.
How to pick without regret
Start with MailerLite if you want the best general-purpose free tier for SMB. Choose Brevo if your contact count is huge but your send frequency is low. Pick beehiiv if you are building a publication, not a promo machine. Use Sender if you want 2,500 subscribers and real automation while you are pre-revenue. Stay on Mailchimp Free only if you are truly microscopic (under 250 contacts) or you already committed to the ecosystem.
When you graduate, do not choose on vanity—model annual cost with your real subscriber definitions (active vs. total vs. unsubscribed). For paid comparisons across the market, use best email marketing tools. For brand-vs-creator decisions, read Mailchimp vs ConvertKit. For playbook-style operations, see email marketing for small business.
Checklist before you blast your first campaign
- Domain authentication: SPF, DKIM, and a sensible DMARC policy where appropriate—do this on free or paid; deliverability is not a billing feature.
- One clear CTA: Free tiers tempt you to pack five links; resist.
- Plain-text sibling: Even a short plaintext part can help on some clients—many builders let you preview both.
- Unsubscribe clarity: Make it obvious; hiding it buys complaints, not loyalty.
- Backup export: Monthly CSV export to your own storage is cheap insurance if a platform flags your account during a spike.
FAQ
Which free email tool has the highest subscriber limit?
Kit’s Newsletter plan (often discussed alongside ConvertKit) allows up to 10,000 subscribers free on kit.com; among the tools in this list focused on classic ESPs + publisher tools, beehiiv Launch (2,500) and Sender (2,500) lead typical “free forever” ESP tiers, while Brevo allows unlimited contacts with send caps.
Why would I pick Mailchimp’s tiny free tier?
Because you need Mailchimp-specific integrations, you are validating under 250 contacts, or you plan to upgrade into their multi-channel stack quickly—otherwise MailerLite or Sender usually feels roomier.
Is a daily send limit or a monthly send limit better?
Monthly limits reward consistent newsletters (MailerLite, Benchmark). Daily limits reward occasional blasts to large dormant files (Brevo). Pick based on your cadence, not the bigger number in a headline.
What is the honest downside of free tiers?
Branding, support limits, and automation caps—plus the risk you delay learning deliverability basics until you are paying. Authenticate your domain early, even on free.
Torn between MailerLite and Brevo?
See our detailed MailerLite vs Brevo comparison. If you are new to email marketing, also check best email marketing tools for beginners.