The bottom line is that MailerLite offers the best free email marketing plan.
Editor’s note: We updated this information on November 23, 2023.
Best free email tool: 1-minute summary
Long story short: MailerLite offers the best free plan because:
- You can send 12,000 emails monthly (more than most other email tools)
- You can have up to 1,000 subscribers (more than most of its competitors)
- It offers full marketing automation (most competitors do not offer automation)
Click here and start your MailerLite newsletter for free.
Klaviyo is in second place.
Klaviyo doesn’t limit its free plan’s features, which no other email tool does – not even MailerLite. So if you’re an ecommerce business and want to experiment with the best newsletter features for ecommerce, make sure to check out Klaviyo.
Click here to sign up for a free Klaviyo plan.
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The companies I’ve selected for this comparison are:
- MailChimp (MailChimp review)
- GetResponse (GetResponse review)
- AWeber (AWeber review)
- ConvertKit (ConvertKit review)
- MailerLite (MailerLite review)
- Sendinblue (Sendinblue review)
- HubSpot (HubSpot review)
- ActiveCampaign (ActiveCampaign review)
- Constant Contact (Constant Contact review)
- Klaviyo
- TinyLetter
- Substack (Substack review)
- Beehiiv
- Sender.net
- Benchmarkemail
- Zoho Campaigns
Free plan vs. Free trial
- ActiveCampaign and Constant Contact do not offer a forever-free plan
| Forever free plan | |
|---|---|
| MailerLite | ✅ |
| MailChimp | ✅ |
| GetResponse | ✅ |
| AWeber | ✅ |
| ConvertKit | ✅ |
| Sendinblue | ✅ |
| HubSpot | ✅ |
| Tinyletter | ✅ |
| Klaviyo | ✅ |
| Substack | ✅ |
| beehiiv | ✅ |
| Sender.net | ✅ |
| Benchmarkemail | ✅ |
| Zoho Campaigns | ✅ |
| Constant Contact | ❌ (60-day free trial) |
| ActiveCampaign | ❌ (14-day free trial) |
Maximum emails
Warning: unlimited emails may seem attractive, but it goes hand in hand with the maximum number of subscribers. In other words, if you are limited to only 300 subscribers, you can’t send that many emails.
You also need to consider if there’s a limitation to the number of daily emails you can send. For example, Sendinblue offers 9,000 monthly emails but limits you to a maximum of 300 daily, i.e., if you have more than 300 subscribers, you can send them all a newsletter on the same day.
| Maximum daily emails | Maximum monthly emails | |
|---|---|---|
| ConvertKit | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| beehiiv | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Tinyletter | n/a | 42,000 |
| MailerLite | n/a | 12,000 |
| Zoho Campaigns | n/a | 6,000 |
| Benchmarkemail | n/a | 3,500 |
| AWeber | n/a | 3,000 |
| Sendinblue | 300 | 9,000 |
| Sender.net | n/a | 15,000* |
| GetResponse | n/a | 2,500 |
| HubSpot | n/a | 2,000 |
| MailChimp | 500 | 1,000 |
| Klaviyo | n/a | 500 |
*Sender.net allows you to send 15,000 monthly emails but only to 2,500 unique email addresses, i.e., you can send 6 emails monthly to your entire list if you have 2,500 subscribers.
Maximum number of contacts or subscribers
The table below shows the maximum number of contacts you can add to your FREE account on these platforms. Do note that the number of maximum subscribers goes hand in hand with the maximum daily and monthly emails. For example, Sendinblue limits you to 300 daily emails on the free plan. Having the option to add unlimited contacts doesn’t help if you can only send 300 emails daily – you get the point.
| Maximum contacts, i.e., subscribers | |
|---|---|
| Sendinblue | Unlimited |
| HubSpot | 15,000,000 ** |
| Tinyletter | 5,000 |
| Sender.net | 2,500 |
| beehiiv | 2,500 |
| Zoho Campaigns | 2,000 |
| MailerLite | 1,000 |
| ConvertKit | 1,000 |
| MailChimp | 500 |
| GetResponse | 500 |
| AWeber | 500 |
| Benchmarkemail | 500 |
| Klaviyo | 250 |
** HubSpot works with so-called Marketing Contacts on its paid plans; on its free plan, you can send 2,000 emails monthly, but you can have up to 15,000,000 contacts in your account.
Email marketing automation
- MailerLite and Klaviyo are the only email tools that provides unlimited email automation in their free plan
| Email marketing automation | |
|---|---|
| MailerLite | ✅ (no limitations) |
| Klaviyo | ✅ (no limitations) |
| Sender.net | ✅ (no limitations) |
| Sendinblue | 🤔 (maximum 2,000 contacts) ** |
| AWeber | 🤔 (only 1 campaign) ** |
| Benchmarkemail | 🤔 (only simple welcome series) |
| MailChimp | ❌ (only one-step automation) |
| beehiiv | ❌ (only 1 welcome email) |
| GetResponse | ❌ |
| ConvertKit | ❌ |
| HubSpot | ❌ |
| Tinyletter | ❌ |
| Zoho Campaigns | ❌ |
** AWeber’s definition of a campaign is an automation, e.g., if you create an email series of X emails for your new subscribers, that is one campaign. You cannot create a different email series for additional subscribers, i.e., only one email series (1 campaign).
** The biggest drawback of Sendinblue’s Free plan (and its Starter plan) is that 2,000 unique contacts can enter your automations. After 2,000 contacts have entered an automated campaign your automations no longer work. Remember that this isn’t a monthly limit; it’s forever and you can only remove this limitation by purchasing the Business plan. “It’s a way for our users to test our automation feature without paying for it,” Michael, Sendinblue’s Customer Experience Representative, told me. Suppose, for example, if 5 new subscribers enter your automated workflow per day, you have 400 days until Sendinblue’s automated workflows stop working.
Support
What email marketing tool offers support to its free plan users?
| Support | |
|---|---|
| AWeber | ✅ (24/7 chat support) |
| Sender.net | ✅ (24/7 chat support) |
| Benchmarkemail | ✅ (24/7 chat support) |
| Sendinblue | ✅ (email support) |
| MailerLite | ✅ (email support) |
| Tinyletter | ✅ (support tickets) |
| beehiiv | ✅ (support tickets) |
| Klaviyo | 🤔 (email support first 60 days) |
| MailChimp | 🤔 (email support first 30 days) |
| GetResponse | 🤔 (Live chat first |
| ConvertKit | ❌ |
| HubSpot | ❌ |
| Zoho Campaigns | 🤔 (Live chat first 14 days) |
Remove branding
- No email tool allows you to remove their logo from emails, landing pages, and opt-in forms on the free plan
| Remove branding | |
|---|---|
| MailerLite | ❌ |
| Sendinblue | ❌ |
| AWeber | ❌ |
| MailChimp | ❌ |
| GetResponse | ❌ |
| ConvertKit | ❌ |
| HubSpot | ❌ |
| Sender.net | ❌ |
| Klaviyo | ❌ |
| Beehiiv | ❌ |
| Benchmarkemail | ❌ |
| Tinyletter | ❌ |
| Zoho Campaigns | ❌ |
Best email marketing software
What is the best email marketing software? I’ve thoroughly tested the 10 most popular email marketing tools. Check out my massive roundup review here or watch my video below.