Quick Take: Which Email Marketing Tool Should You Pick?
I’ve been setting up email campaigns for small businesses and side projects since 2019. Over the years I’ve bounced between probably a dozen platforms, and honestly most of them blur together after a while. But a few genuinely stand out.
If you just want the short answer: Mailchimp still works fine for most people starting out. Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) gives you way more sends on the free plan. And if you’re running an online store, Klaviyo is hard to beat for e-commerce automations. But there’s more to it than that, so let me break down what I found testing each one.
What I Tested and How
I created accounts on all eight platforms in January 2026 and ran the same test: import a 500-contact list, build a welcome sequence with 3 emails, set up one automation trigger, and send a broadcast newsletter. I tracked how long each step took, what the free plan actually included, and where each tool got annoying. Deliverability testing was done through mail-tester.com scores.
Here’s what I looked at specifically: ease of the drag-and-drop editor, automation builder complexity, free plan limits, deliverability scores, and integrations with tools like website builders and CRMs.
1. Brevo (Formerly Sendinblue) – Best Free Plan Overall
Brevo rebranded from Sendinblue in 2023 and honestly the name change confused everyone for a while. But the product itself got better. The free plan gives you unlimited contacts and up to 300 emails per day. That’s 9,000 emails a month at no cost. Compare that to Mailchimp’s 500-contact limit on free and it’s not even close.
The email editor is solid. Not fancy, but it loads fast and the templates look professional without much tweaking. Where Brevo really shines is their automation builder on the free plan. You get full access to workflows, which most competitors lock behind paid tiers.
Downsides? The reporting dashboard feels cluttered. Finding specific campaign stats takes more clicks than it should. And the Brevo branding in the footer of free-plan emails is pretty prominent.
Brevo Pricing
Free: 300 emails/day, unlimited contacts. Starter: $9/mo for 5,000 emails. Business: $18/mo adds automations and A/B testing. No per-contact pricing, which saves money if you have a big list but don’t email often.
2. Mailchimp – Most Familiar, But Getting Expensive
Look, Mailchimp is the one everyone knows. And for good reason. The editor is genuinely pleasant to use, the template library is huge, and their analytics are clear. If you’ve never touched email marketing before, Mailchimp makes the whole process feel approachable.
But here’s the thing. Since Intuit acquired them, the free plan has been gutted. You get 500 contacts and 1,000 sends per month. That’s nothing. And the moment you outgrow it, pricing jumps to $13/mo for Essentials (500 contacts) or $20/mo for Standard. It adds up fast.
Their automation builder is good on paid plans. The Customer Journey feature lets you build multi-step sequences with conditional splits. But you need the Standard plan ($20/mo) to access it fully. On Essentials you get basic automations only.
I got a mail-tester score of 9.1/10 with Mailchimp, which is solid. Deliverability has always been one of their strengths.
3. Kit (Formerly ConvertKit) – Built for Creators
Kit (they dropped the ConvertKit name in 2024) is designed for people who make things online. Bloggers, YouTubers, course creators, newsletter writers. If that’s you, Kit gets out of your way better than anything else I tested.
The free plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited landing pages and forms. You can’t send broadcasts on free though, only automated sequences. Which is a weird limitation but workable if you’re just starting.
What I like most is the tagging system. Instead of managing multiple lists (like Mailchimp forces you to), Kit uses tags and segments on a single list. Way cleaner. The visual automation builder is also one of the best I’ve used. Simple but powerful.
The email editor is plain text focused. No drag-and-drop blocks, no fancy layouts. Kit believes simple emails convert better, and honestly the data backs that up for creator-type newsletters. But if you need pretty product showcase emails, look elsewhere.
4. MailerLite – Best Balance of Features and Price
MailerLite flies under the radar compared to Mailchimp and Brevo but it might be the best value option out there. The free plan includes 1,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month. Not bad at all.
The drag-and-drop editor surprised me. It’s smooth, responsive, and has built-in image editing so you don’t need to jump to a photo editor for basic crops and adjustments. They also have a website builder, landing page builder, and pop-up forms included on all plans.
Automation on the free plan is limited to one trigger, which is restrictive. But the Growing Business plan at $10/mo for 500 subscribers unlocks everything. Their automation builder uses a flowchart style that’s intuitive even if you’ve never set up a sequence before.
One thing that caught me off guard: MailerLite has a manual approval process for new accounts. They review your website and use case before activating sending. Took about 18 hours for me. Annoying if you’re in a rush, but it helps keep their deliverability rates high (I scored 9.4/10 on mail-tester).
5. Klaviyo – E-commerce Powerhouse
If you run a Shopify, WooCommerce, or BigCommerce store, Klaviyo is probably your best bet. The platform is built around e-commerce data from the ground up. Abandoned cart emails, post-purchase sequences, browse abandonment, win-back campaigns. It all works out of the box with pre-built flows.
The free plan covers 250 contacts and 500 email sends. Pretty tight. But the real value is in how deeply it integrates with your store. Product recommendations in emails pull directly from your catalog. Revenue tracking per campaign is automatic. You can segment by purchase history, browsing behavior, predicted next purchase date. Stuff that would take custom development on other platforms.
Pricing gets steep though. 1,000 contacts runs $30/mo. 5,000 contacts is $100/mo. For a small store just starting out, that’s a lot. But the ROI argument is real. One well-timed abandoned cart sequence can pay for months of the subscription.
6. Beehiiv – For Newsletter Businesses
Beehiiv came out of nowhere a couple years ago and it’s quickly becoming the go-to for people who treat their newsletter as a product, not just a marketing channel. The founding team came from Morning Brew, and you can tell. Everything is optimized for growth and monetization.
Free plan: 2,500 subscribers, unlimited sends, built-in referral program, and a custom website. That’s genuinely generous. The referral system (think Morning Brew’s “share with friends to unlock rewards”) is built right in. On other platforms you’d need a third-party integration for that.
The editor is clean and fast. Writing in Beehiiv feels closer to writing in a blog CMS than a traditional email marketing tool. They also have a built-in ad network where you can monetize your newsletter with sponsored content once you hit 1,000+ subscribers.
What’s missing: no real automation builder. You can set up welcome sequences but nothing complex with conditional logic. And there’s no traditional CRM functionality. If you need to manage sales pipelines alongside email, this isn’t it.
7. Loops – Modern and Developer-Friendly
Loops is newer and targets SaaS companies and tech startups. If you’re a developer or work at a startup and need transactional + marketing emails in one platform, Loops is worth checking out.
The UI is minimal and fast. Like, noticeably faster than every other tool on this list. Creating an email takes seconds, not minutes. The API is clean and well-documented, which matters if you’re integrating with your own app.
Free plan: 1,000 contacts and 2,000 sends. Paid starts at $49/mo for 5,000 contacts. That’s on the expensive side compared to MailerLite or Brevo, but you’re paying for the developer experience and combined transactional/marketing capability.
Not gonna lie, Loops isn’t for everyone. If you’re not technical, the sparse UI might feel confusing rather than clean. And the template library is tiny compared to Mailchimp. But for developers who want something that just works with their stack, it’s refreshing.
8. Omnisend – Multichannel for E-commerce
Omnisend competes with Klaviyo in the e-commerce space but takes a different angle: multichannel. Besides email, you get SMS, push notifications, and even WhatsApp messages from one platform. If you want to reach customers across multiple channels without juggling separate tools, Omnisend simplifies that.
The free plan includes 250 contacts, 500 emails/month, and 60 SMS messages. The pre-built e-commerce workflows (welcome, abandoned cart, order confirmation) are genuinely good. Setup took me about 15 minutes with a test Shopify store.
On paid plans ($16/mo for 500 contacts), you unlock advanced segmentation and A/B testing. The product picker for emails is slick. You just drag it into your email and it pulls product images, prices, and links from your store automatically.
Where Omnisend falls short is the email editor itself. It’s functional but not as polished as Mailchimp or MailerLite. Templates look a bit dated. And if you’re not in e-commerce, most of the platform’s best features won’t apply to you.
Comparison Table
| Tool | Free Plan Contacts | Free Sends/Mo | Best For | Paid From |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brevo | Unlimited | 9,000 | Small businesses | $9/mo |
| Mailchimp | 500 | 1,000 | Beginners | $13/mo |
| Kit | 10,000 | Sequences only | Creators | $25/mo |
| MailerLite | 1,000 | 12,000 | Best value | $10/mo |
| Klaviyo | 250 | 500 | E-commerce | $30/mo |
| Beehiiv | 2,500 | Unlimited | Newsletters | $49/mo |
| Loops | 1,000 | 2,000 | SaaS/Devs | $49/mo |
| Omnisend | 250 | 500 | Multichannel | $16/mo |
How to Pick the Right One
Forget feature lists for a second. Here’s how I’d actually decide:
You’re just starting out and want free: Go with Brevo or MailerLite. Both have usable free plans that won’t leave you hitting limits in a week. Brevo gives more sends, MailerLite has a better editor.
You sell physical or digital products online: Klaviyo if you can stomach the pricing. Omnisend if you want SMS and push notifications bundled in. Both integrate deeply with Shopify and WooCommerce.
You’re building a newsletter as a business: Beehiiv. The referral program alone is worth it, and the monetization tools are built for newsletter operators specifically.
You’re a creator (YouTube, blog, courses): Kit. The tagging system and plain-text email approach works well for building personal connections with subscribers.
You’re a developer or run a SaaS: Loops for combined transactional and marketing, or Brevo if you want something more established with an API.
Deliverability: The Thing Nobody Talks About Enough
All the features in the world don’t matter if your emails land in spam. I ran each platform through mail-tester.com with the same email content. Here are the scores:
- MailerLite: 9.4/10
- Mailchimp: 9.1/10
- Kit: 9.0/10
- Brevo: 8.8/10
- Klaviyo: 8.7/10
- Beehiiv: 8.5/10
- Omnisend: 8.4/10
- Loops: 8.6/10
All of these are in the “good” range. The differences are small enough that your own sending practices (list hygiene, engagement rates, authentication setup) matter way more than platform choice. Make sure you set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC regardless of which tool you pick. Every platform on this list walks you through that during setup.
What About All-in-One Tools Like HubSpot?
I left HubSpot off this list intentionally. Yes, HubSpot has email marketing. But it’s part of a massive CRM platform that starts free and then costs $50+/mo when you need anything beyond basics. If you need a full CRM with email marketing bolted on, HubSpot is fine. But if email marketing is your primary need, the dedicated tools above will serve you better and cost less.
Same goes for ActiveCampaign, Drip, and GetResponse. All solid platforms, but they either don’t have meaningful free plans or they’re priced for businesses that have already validated their email strategy. Start with something from this list, then migrate when you outgrow it.
FAQ
Which email marketing tool is completely free?
Brevo and MailerLite both offer genuinely usable free plans. Brevo gives unlimited contacts with 300 daily sends. MailerLite caps at 1,000 subscribers but allows 12,000 monthly sends. Neither requires a credit card to start.
Can I switch email marketing platforms later?
Yes, and it’s easier than you’d think. Every tool on this list lets you export contacts as CSV. Most also support direct migrations from competitors. The main pain point is rebuilding automations, since those don’t transfer between platforms. Plan for a few hours of setup work.
Do I need a website to use email marketing tools?
No. Kit, Beehiiv, and MailerLite all include landing page builders where you can collect subscribers without a website. Beehiiv even gives you a full newsletter website on their subdomain. Though having your own domain looks more professional and helps with deliverability.
How many subscribers do I need before paying for email marketing?
With Brevo, technically never (unlimited contacts on free). With Kit, up to 10,000 subscribers on free. Realistically though, once you’re past 1,000 active subscribers you’ll want paid features like advanced automations, A/B testing, and removed branding. That usually costs $10-25/mo depending on the platform.
What’s the difference between email marketing and transactional email?
Marketing emails are newsletters, promotions, and campaigns you send to subscribers who opted in. Transactional emails are triggered by user actions: password resets, order confirmations, shipping updates. Most tools on this list focus on marketing email. Brevo and Loops handle both in one platform, which is convenient if you need both.