Best Email Marketing & Newsletter Tools 2026
The best email marketing tool depends on what you sell. Kit fits creators, beehiiv fits newsletters, and MailerLite, Brevo and Mailchimp fit small businesses. Free plans range from 250 to 10,000 subscribers. Here is what each costs in October 2026 at 500, 10,000 and 50,000 contacts.
Key Takeaways
- There is no single best email tool. Pick on what you sell and how you are billed: per contact, per subscriber, per active profile or per email sent.
- Kit has the largest free plan (10,000 subscribers, no automations); beehiiv is free to 2,500 with unlimited sends.
- Mailchimp and MailerLite now cap their free plans at 250 contacts.
- MailerLite ($12) and Brevo ($9 for 5,000 emails) are the cheapest paid plans; Brevo bills on sends, not list size.
- beehiiv is the one with a built-in ad network; Kit sells digital products on every plan.
- At 10,000 contacts most paid plans land between $110 and $150 a month.
At a Glance: Best For, Price and Free Plan
| Tool | Best for | Starting price | Free plan | Billed on |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small businesses that want a familiar all-rounder | $13 / mo (Essentials, 500 contacts) | 250 contacts, 500 sends a month | Contacts | |
| Creators selling courses, products and paid newsletters | $33 / mo (Creator, billed yearly) | Up to 10,000 subscribers, no automations | Subscribers | |
| Newsletters that want to grow and earn from ads | $49 / mo (Lite, billed yearly) | Up to 2,500 subscribers, unlimited sends | Subscribers | |
| The cheapest paid plan with automations | $12 / mo (Comfort) | 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails a month | Subscribers | |
| Big lists you email rarely; email plus SMS and WhatsApp | $9 / mo (Starter, 5,000 emails) | 300 emails a day | Emails sent |
Entry plan, billed monthly unless noted. Free plans and the Kit, beehiiv and MailerLite prices checked on the vendors' own pages on October 31, 2026. Mailchimp and Brevo show paid prices only in the browser, so those come from third-party captures dated 2026 and linked under Sources.
Which kind of email tool do you need?
These five tools all send email to a list, but each is built for a different business. Decide which one you run before you compare prices, because the right tool for a newsletter is the wrong one for a SaaS.
Creator or newsletter
The email is the product, or sells your courses and digital products. Kit and beehiiv are built for this, with paid subscriptions, recommendations and, on beehiiv, an ad network.
Online store
Email drives repeat sales from order data: abandoned carts, win-backs, post-purchase. Mailchimp and Brevo connect to Shopify and similar platforms for this; ecommerce specialists go deeper.
Small business or SaaS marketing
Newsletters, promotions and a few automations to customers or users. MailerLite, Brevo and Mailchimp cover this at the lowest prices.
Product (transactional) email
Receipts, password resets and onboarding sent by your app. That is a different tool, such as Resend or Postmark; Brevo is the one tool here that also covers it in the same account.
Tool Overview
Each tool's entry plan, what you get, and the one thing to check before you buy.
Mailchimp
The familiar all-rounder
$13 / month
Essentials at 500 contacts; Standard $20
- Free: 250 contacts, 500 sends a month (250 a day)
- Standard: automation builder, up to 6,000 sends at 500 contacts
- Intuit Assist AI on Standard and Premium
- Large template and integration library
- Premium from $350 at 10,000 contacts
- CaveatYou pay for every contact on the list, including unsubscribed contacts you keep, and costs climb quickly past a few thousand.
Best for: Small businesses that want templates, integrations and a tool everyone already knows.
Kit
Email for creators who sell
$33 / month
Creator at 1,000 subscribers, billed yearly; $39 monthly
- Free up to 10,000 subscribers
- Sell digital products and paid newsletters on every plan
- Creator: unlimited visual automations and sequences
- Creator: Kit MCP server, 2 users, paid recommendations
- Pro: subscriber scoring, unlimited users
- CaveatThe free plan has no automations or email sequences, and sales carry a 3.5% + 30¢ transaction fee.
Best for: Creators selling courses, digital products or paid subscriptions.
beehiiv
Newsletter growth and ad revenue
$49 / month
Lite at 1,000 subscribers, billed yearly; $59 monthly
- Free up to 2,500 subscribers, unlimited sends
- Website builder and custom pages included
- Lite: ad network, paid subscriptions, 10 automations
- Pro: unlimited automations, up to 10 publications, Send API
- 0% beehiiv take rate on paid subscriptions
- CaveatThe ad network, paid subscriptions and automations all need a paid plan, and Stripe’s fees still apply to paid subscriptions.
Best for: Writers whose newsletter is the product and who want to earn from it.
MailerLite
Cheapest paid plan with automations
$12 / month
Comfort at 500 subscribers; Power from $25
- Free: 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails a month, 2 seats
- Comfort: emails up to 10 times your subscriber tier
- Power: unlimited emails (fair use)
- AI writing assistant on paid plans
- Landing pages, forms and websites included
- CaveatThe free plan was cut to 250 subscribers, and sending locks when you pass it. Plans were renamed and repriced in June 2026, so older reviews quote different numbers.
Best for: Small businesses and SaaS teams that want automations for the least money.
Brevo
Priced by emails sent, not contacts
$9 / month
Starter, 5,000 emails a month; Standard $18
- Free: 300 emails a day
- Billed on monthly email volume
- Standard: marketing automation
- SMS, WhatsApp and transactional email in one account
- Professional from $499 for 150,000 emails
- CaveatPrices depend on your email band and add-ons such as removing Brevo’s logo, and contact storage limits vary by plan, so price your exact volume at checkout.
Best for: Large lists you email rarely, and teams that want email, SMS and transactional in one place.
How much does email marketing cost at 500, 10,000 and 50,000 contacts?
Entry prices hide how fast each tool grows with your list. Monthly prices on monthly billing unless noted; "Not listed" means we could not find a published price for that size.
| Tool | Small list (500–1,000) | 10,000 contacts | 50,000 contacts |
|---|---|---|---|
| $13 Essentials / $20 Standard (500) | $110 Essentials / $135 Standard | $385 Essentials / $450 Standard | |
| $0 (free plan) or $39 Creator | $0 on the free plan; about $139 on Creator | Not listed | |
| $0 (free up to 2,500) | $139 Lite / $239 Pro | $299 Lite / $469 Pro | |
| $12 Comfort / $25 Power (500) | Not listed | Not listed | |
| $9 Starter (5,000 emails a month) | Depends on sends, not contacts | Depends on sends, not contacts |
beehiiv figures are from beehiiv's own pricing page. Mailchimp (verified March 2026), Kit at 10,000, MailerLite and Brevo tiers are third-party captures. Mailchimp was also advertising 50% off for 12 months in October 2026. Brevo charges by monthly email volume, so a 10,000-contact list emailed four times a month needs a 40,000-email band.
What is the cheapest email setup for your budget?
Three budgets, and what we would put in each. Start free and pay once you need automations or your list passes the free limit.
Free
$0 / month
Kit for a newsletter up to 10,000 subscribers if you can live without automations, or beehiiv up to 2,500 if you want a website and growth tools. Brevo's 300 emails a day suits an occasional business update to a few hundred customers.
Under $50
$9 – $49 / month
MailerLite Comfort ($12) or Brevo Standard ($18) for automations at the lowest price; Mailchimp ($13–$20) if you want its templates and integrations; Kit Creator ($33 yearly) once a creator business needs sequences.
Growing list
$100 – $250 / month at 10,000
beehiiv Lite ($139) if the newsletter earns from ads or subscriptions, Kit Creator (about $139) if you sell products, or Mailchimp ($110–$135). Compare against Brevo's send-based price first if you email less than weekly.
Feature Comparison
From each vendor's pricing and product pages. "Not listed" means the vendor does not advertise it, not that it is impossible.
Sending
Earning
Pricing
Mailchimp: best for a familiar all-rounder
Mailchimp is still the name most small businesses start with: a drag-and-drop editor, a large template library, sign-up forms, and integrations with almost every store and CRM. Standard adds the automation builder, and Intuit Assist, Mailchimp’s AI writing feature, is included on Standard and Premium in supported countries.
Its free plan has shrunk to 250 contacts and 500 emails a month, with a daily cap of 250. Paid plans are priced by contacts: Essentials from $13 and Standard from $20 at 500 contacts, rising to about $110 and $135 at 10,000. Premium starts at $350. In October 2026 Mailchimp was advertising 50% off for the first 12 months, so check what you will pay in month 13.
Best for: Small businesses that want a well-known tool with templates and integrations. Skip if: your list is growing fast and price per contact matters, where MailerLite or Brevo cost less.
Kit: best for creators who sell
Kit, formerly ConvertKit, is built around a creator business rather than a newsletter alone. Every plan, including the free one, can sell digital products and paid subscriptions, and has unlimited landing pages and forms. The free plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers, which is the most generous in this list.
What the free plan lacks is automation: visual automations and email sequences start on Creator, at $33 a month billed yearly ($390 a year) for 1,000 subscribers, or $39 billed monthly. Creator also adds paid recommendations, an MCP server for AI agents, and two users. Pro is $66 a month billed yearly and adds subscriber scoring and unlimited users. Sales carry a 3.5% + 30¢ transaction fee.
Best for: Creators selling courses, templates, digital products or paid newsletters. Skip if: you need multi-step ecommerce flows for a physical-product store, which Mailchimp and Brevo cover better.
beehiiv: best for growing and monetising a newsletter
beehiiv treats the newsletter as the product. It includes a website builder, referral and recommendation tools, an ad network that pays you to run sponsor placements, and paid subscriptions with a 0% beehiiv take rate. Stripe’s processing fee still applies.
The free plan covers 2,500 subscribers with unlimited sends but no ad network, paid subscriptions or automations. Lite is $59 a month ($49 billed yearly) at 1,000 subscribers, $139 at 10,000 and $299 at 50,000. Pro is $109 at 1,000, $239 at 10,000 and $469 at 50,000, and adds unlimited automations, up to 10 publications and a Send API.
Best for: Writers and media businesses that want to grow a newsletter and earn from it. Skip if: email is a sideline to a store or SaaS, where you are paying for publishing features you will not use.
MailerLite: best for automations on a small budget
MailerLite has long been the budget alternative to Mailchimp, with a clean editor, automations, landing pages, forms and simple websites. In June 2026 it renamed its paid plans to Comfort and Power and changed prices, so check the date on any review you read.
The free plan is now 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, with two seats; sending locks if you pass the limit. Comfort starts at $12 a month and allows emails up to 10 times your subscriber tier. Power starts at $25 with unlimited emails under fair use. Third-party captures put the 1,000-subscriber tier at about $19 for Comfort and $39 for Power. Yearly billing saves 10%.
Best for: Small businesses, freelancers and SaaS teams that want automations for the least money. Skip if: you want a monetised newsletter with an ad network (beehiiv) or to sell digital products (Kit).
Brevo: best for big lists you email rarely
Brevo, formerly Sendinblue, prices by how many emails you send each month rather than how many contacts you store. That makes it much cheaper than per-contact tools when you have a large list and email it once or twice a month. One account also covers SMS, WhatsApp and transactional email.
The free plan sends 300 emails a day. Starter is about $9 a month for 5,000 emails and Standard, which adds marketing automation, about $18. Professional starts around $499 for 150,000 emails. These figures come from third-party captures because Brevo’s pricing page loads in the browser; price your exact volume at checkout, including add-ons such as removing Brevo’s logo.
Best for: Large lists with low send frequency, and teams that want email, SMS and transactional email together. Skip if: you email a small list several times a week, where send-based pricing loses its edge.
Will my emails land in the inbox?
Every tool here sends from shared infrastructure that the big inbox providers already trust. What decides your inbox placement is your own domain setup and your list. Gmail requires anyone sending more than 5,000 messages a day to its users to set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC, offer one-click unsubscribe, and keep the spam rate in Postmaster Tools below 0.3%. Outlook applies similar rules to bulk senders.
In practice: verify your sending domain in whichever tool you pick (each one walks you through it), only email people who signed up, and remove contacts who have not opened in months. That last step also lowers your bill on every tool that charges per contact.
How We Compared These Tools
We read each vendor's pricing page on October 31, 2026. beehiiv, Kit and MailerLite publish their plans in the page itself. Mailchimp and Brevo calculate paid prices in the browser, so for those we used third-party captures from 2026 and link them below. Where a vendor does not advertise a feature, we say "Not listed" rather than guess.
We do not give these tools a score out of 10. A small business, a creator and a SaaS team need different things, so a single ranking would reward whichever business we had in mind. Each tool gets a "best for" and a caveat instead. We have no affiliate relationship with any of the five.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best email marketing tool in 2026?
It depends on what you sell. Kit suits creators selling products and paid newsletters, and is free up to 10,000 subscribers without automations. beehiiv suits newsletters that want ad revenue and is free up to 2,500 subscribers. MailerLite has the cheapest paid plan with automations, from $12 a month. Brevo charges by emails sent rather than contacts, which suits big lists you email rarely. Mailchimp is the familiar all-rounder for small businesses, from $13 a month.
What is the best free email marketing tool?
For a newsletter, Kit’s free plan has the highest limit: up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited broadcasts, but no automations or email sequences. beehiiv is free up to 2,500 subscribers with unlimited sends and a website. Brevo’s free plan allows 300 emails a day. Mailchimp and MailerLite now cap their free plans at 250 contacts.
Is Mailchimp still free in 2026?
Yes, but the free plan is small: 250 contacts and 500 emails a month, with a daily cap of 250, and no scheduling or multi-step automations. Paid plans start at $13 a month for Essentials and $20 for Standard at 500 contacts. Mailchimp was advertising 50% off paid plans for the first 12 months in October 2026.
beehiiv vs Kit: which is better for a newsletter?
beehiiv is built around growing and monetising a newsletter: an ad network, paid subscriptions with a 0% beehiiv take rate (Stripe fees still apply), referral tools and a website, with paid plans from $49 a month billed yearly. Kit is built around a creator business: selling digital products and subscriptions, landing pages, and visual automations on Creator. Kit’s free plan goes to 10,000 subscribers; beehiiv’s goes to 2,500. Pick beehiiv if ads and growth come first, and Kit if you sell products and need automations.
Mailchimp vs MailerLite: which is cheaper?
MailerLite is cheaper at small list sizes: Comfort starts at $12 a month and includes automations, while Mailchimp Essentials starts at $13 and Standard, where Mailchimp’s automation builder lives, at $20. Both free plans now stop at 250 contacts. Mailchimp has more integrations and templates; MailerLite has a simpler editor.
How much does email marketing cost for 10,000 subscribers?
At 10,000 contacts, Kit’s free plan costs $0 (without automations) and Creator about $139 a month. beehiiv Lite is $139 a month ($119 billed yearly). Mailchimp is about $110 for Essentials and $135 for Standard. Brevo charges by emails sent, so a 10,000-contact list emailed once a month needs a 10,000-email band, not a 10,000-contact plan.
Which email marketing tool is best for a SaaS startup?
For marketing emails to users, MailerLite or Brevo keep costs low, and Brevo also sends transactional email. For product emails triggered by what users do in your app, such as onboarding and password resets, a developer tool such as Loops or Resend is usually a better fit than any of these six. Many SaaS teams run one of each.
Do I need a separate tool for transactional email?
Usually yes. Marketing tools send newsletters and campaigns to lists; transactional email (receipts, password resets, sign-in links) is sent by your app through an API. Brevo does both. Mailchimp sells Mandrill as a paid add-on. Otherwise, pair your marketing tool with Resend, Postmark or SendGrid.
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