Why there is no single winner
The honest version of this page's conclusion.
Every “best email marketing platform” article ranks a winner, and almost none of them tell you the list size the ranking assumes. That omission is doing a lot of work, because the ordering changes completely between a 1,000-subscriber newsletter and a 50,000-contact store, and changes again depending on how often you send.
So this page does two things instead. Below is the full field with entry prices, free plan limits and send caps, so you can see the shape of the market. Then there are eight use-case pages, each with a stated preset and stated criteria, where a recommendation is specific enough to actually defend.
If you know your numbers, skip both and put them into the calculator.
Worked example: 5,000 subscribers, 20,000 emails a month
One concrete scenario, billed monthly, so the rest of the page has something to anchor against.
Cheapest
Kit
Newsletter
$0/mo
≈ £0/mo
Lowest effective monthly cost of every plan that meets your requirements.
Best value
Moosend
Pro
$48/mo
≈ £35.40/mo
Of the plans costing up to 2x the cheapest paid option, the one with the highest capability score.
Best automation
ActiveCampaign
Starter
£67/mo
Highest automation score among plans that actually include automation on that tier.
Best free plan
Kit
Newsletter
$0/mo
≈ £0/mo
The most capable plan that costs nothing at your subscriber count.
The full field
Entry price is the cheapest paid band. Free plan shows the subscriber ceiling and monthly send allowance.
| Provider | Best at | Paid from | Free plan | Uncapped sends | Pricing | Visit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MailerLite | Clean, cheap and capable enough for most lists | $12/mo | 250 subs · 2,500 emails | Yes | Verified | Visit MailerLite |
| EmailOctopus | Low-cost sending for newsletters | £9/mo | 2,500 subs · 10,000 emails | No | Verified | Visit EmailOctopus |
| Brevo | Priced per email sent, not per contact | £6/mo | Unlimited subs · 9,000 emails | No | Verified | Visit Brevo |
| Moosend | Unlimited sending at a low per-contact price | $9/mo | - | Yes | Verified | Visit Moosend |
| Sender | A free tier that most providers charge for | £6.64/mo | 2,500 subs · 15,000 emails | No | Verified | Visit Sender |
| Kit | Built around creators and paid newsletters | $33/mo | 10,000 subs · Unlimited emails | Yes | Verified | Visit Kit |
| GetResponse | Email plus webinars, funnels and courses | £13/mo | - | Yes | Verified | Visit GetResponse |
| AWeber | One of the oldest names, still competitive on the free tier | $15/mo | - | No | Verified | Visit AWeber |
| ActiveCampaign | The deepest automation, at a price | £13/mo | - | No | Verified | Visit ActiveCampaign |
| Omnisend | Ecommerce email and SMS in one place | $16/mo | 250 subs · 500 emails | Yes | Verified | Visit Omnisend |
| Drip | Ecommerce automation for stores that have outgrown the basics | $39/mo | - | Yes | Verified | Visit Drip |
| HubSpot | A CRM platform that also sends email | $20/mo | Unlimited subs · 2,000 emails | No | Verified | Visit HubSpot |
Entry prices are in the provider’s own quote currency, pounds or dollars; the calculator converts to pounds for ranking and shows both figures.
Pick by what you are actually doing
Each of these states its criteria and its calculator preset up front.
- Best free email marketing servicesEvery free email plan is a trial with the clock removed. The provider is betting that you will outgrow one of three limits (subscribers, monthly sends, or a feature you eventually need) and the plans differ enormously in which limit you hit first.
- Best email marketing automation platformsAlmost every provider claims automation. The differences are in what a workflow can branch on, how many workflows you get, and which tier unlocks them, and the last one is where the marketing pages are least forthcoming.
- Best email marketing platforms for small businessesThe small-business constraint is rarely the feature list. It is that nobody has three hours a week to run the tool, and that the bill has to stay predictable as the list grows.
- Best email marketing apps for ShopifyFor a Shopify store the integration is the product. Anything can send a newsletter; what earns its fee is cart recovery, browse abandonment, post-purchase flows and product blocks that pull live catalogue data without you touching HTML.
- Best email marketing platforms for ecommerceEcommerce email is judged on revenue per recipient, not open rate, and the features that move that number are narrow: abandoned cart, browse abandonment, post-purchase sequences, winback, and segmentation on what people actually bought.
- Best platforms for sending a newsletterA newsletter has a different cost shape from a marketing list. You mail everyone, often, and you do not need cart recovery, a CRM or SMS. What you need is a good writing experience and a bill that does not punish you for sending.
- Best email marketing platforms for agenciesAgency requirements barely overlap with everyone else on this site. You need multiple client accounts without multiple logins, enough user seats to put a team on them, reporting a client will accept, and branding that is yours rather than the vendor’s.
- Best email marketing platforms for nonprofitsNonprofit email budgets are scrutinised in a way commercial ones are not, and the discount landscape is inconsistent: some providers publish a standing nonprofit rate, some negotiate case by case, and some offer nothing at all.
Common questions
- Which email marketing platform is cheapest?
- It depends entirely on your subscriber count and how often you send. In our latest check, Moosend was cheapest at the smallest list sizes, EmailOctopus was the lowest-priced contact-based plan from 5,000 to 50,000 subscribers, and Brevo, which charges per email rather than per contact, undercut both for lists mailed a few times a month. Frequent senders should price Moosend and GetResponse, neither of which caps sending on paid plans. Our calculator ranks all twelve at your own numbers.
- Which email marketing platform has the best free plan?
- Kit has the highest subscriber ceiling at 10,000 with unlimited sending, but no visual automation. Sender offers 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month with automation included, which is the most usable free plan for a working business. EmailOctopus offers 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails.
- Does the send limit matter more than the subscriber limit?
- Often, yes. Most subscriber-priced plans allow ten to twelve sends per subscriber per month, and automated emails count toward that. A list mailed twice a week plus automations will hit the send ceiling well before the subscriber ceiling, and the usual result is an upgrade to a contact band you did not need.
- Are these rankings paid for?
- No. Rankings are computed from published pricing and ordered by the price you would actually pay. No provider can pay for placement. We do earn affiliate commission on some outbound links, and the live list of which providers those are is published on our affiliate disclosure page; the ranking function never reads it.
Affiliate disclosure
Email King may earn a commission if you sign up through some of the links on this page, at no additional cost to you. Commission never affects the ranking: results are ordered by the price you would actually pay, calculated from published rate cards. Read the full disclosure.