Email Marketing

What is the best email marketing software in 2026?

Published 2026-09-20 · Researched and price-checked on official sources

The best email marketing software in 2026 depends on which meter you pay by: MailerLite charges by subscriber count ($12/mo for up to 500 on Comfort), Brevo by send volume ($9/mo for 5,000 emails on Starter). Both figures come off the vendors' own pricing pages, checked on September 20, 2026.

Key facts

What matters

MailerLite Comfort is the cheapest paid tier per subscriber we verified: $12/mo to 500 subscribers, $19/mo to 1,000, and $10.80/mo if you pay yearly.
Brevo Starter bills by sends, not contacts: $9/mo for 5,000 emails a month, or $96.96 billed annually.
beehiiv launches free to 2,500 subscribers; Scale is $49/mo, or $43/mo billed annually ($517/year).
Klaviyo's free plan stops at 250 active profiles and 500 sends a month; its first paid email plan is $20/mo for 251 to 500 profiles.
Omnisend shows Standard at $11.20/mo, but that is a 30% three-month intro: $33.60 today against a three-month total of $48.00.

Which email marketing software is cheapest? It depends on the meter

Almost every comparison page puts one number next to another number that measures something different. Three meters are in play, and they produce different winners.

Subscriber or contact count. MailerLite Comfort starts at $12/mo for up to 500 subscribers and $19/mo at 1,000. Mailchimp bills on contacts, which is a wider bucket: unsubscribed and archived records can keep you in a higher tier.
Emails sent. Brevo Starter is $9/mo for 5,000 emails a month, and GetResponse prices monthly plans by list size while leaving sends unlimited from $19/mo for 1,000 subscribers.
Profiles plus usage credits. Klaviyo's free plan includes 250 active profiles, 500 email sends, and a fixed $5 of mobile-message credit and $5 of Composer credit each month. Going past any of those means moving up.

The practical rule: a small list that sends often is cheapest on a send-metered plan, and a large list that sends rarely is cheapest on a per-subscriber plan. If you compare only the number in the advertisement, you will pick wrong about half the time.

Before comparing brands, write down two numbers: your subscriber count and the emails you send in a normal month. A 2,000-subscriber list sending twice a month produces roughly 4,000 emails, which sits inside Brevo's $9 Starter allowance; the same list on MailerLite falls into the 2,500-subscriber tier at $33/mo. Run the same arithmetic at 800 subscribers sending weekly and you get 3,200 emails, which still fits the entry tier. The pair of numbers decides the winner, not the brand.

Verified prices for seven email marketing platforms (September 20, 2026)

Each figure below was read from the vendor's own pricing page on September 20, 2026. Where a page hides a number behind a selector or a JavaScript-rendered table, that is stated instead of guessed.

MailerLite: Free covers 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails a month and 2 seats. Comfort is $12/mo up to 500 subscribers, $19/mo at 1,000 and $33/mo at 2,500; paying yearly drops those to $10.80, $17.10 and $29.70. Power starts at $25/mo ($22.50 yearly) and drops the monthly send ceiling. API and MCP sending is a paid-plan feature.
Brevo: Starter is $9/mo for 5,000 emails a month, or $96.96 billed yearly; Standard is $18/mo, or $194.04 yearly. Your plan covers marketing email, transactional email and SMS on one invoice, with SMS credits sold separately.
GetResponse: Starter is $19/mo, or $15.58/mo paid annually, which the page states as savings up to $41 a year; Marketer is $59/mo ($48.38 annually) and Creator is $69/mo ($56.58 annually). Its pricing FAQ says monthly plans start at $19 for unlimited messages to 1,000 subscribers.
beehiiv: Launch is free up to 2,500 subscribers. Scale is $49/mo, or $43/mo billed annually at $517/year, and Max is $109/mo, or $96/mo annually at $1,151/year. Scale carries a 0% take rate on paid subscriptions, and beehiiv's page notes Stripe's standard 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction still applies.
Klaviyo: Free covers 250 active profiles, 500 email sends and 150 SMS/MMS credits a month. The first paid email plan is $20/mo for 251 to 500 active profiles, and email plus SMS is $35/mo at the same profile range. Larger paid configurations are built in a plan picker rather than published as a table.
Omnisend: the free plan sends up to 500 emails a month. Standard is shown at $11.20/mo and Pro at $41.30/mo, both labelled as a 30% discount where you pay $33.60 and $123.90 today against three-month totals of $48.00 and $177.00. Standard includes 6,000 emails a month for 500 contacts; SMS starts at $0.007 per message.
Mailchimp: its plan table is gated behind a contact-count selector, so the numbers below carry a date. The last browser-verified read (August 16, 2026) put Essentials at $13/mo for 0 to 500 contacts, Standard at $20/mo at the same tier, and Premium at $350/mo at 1,501 to 2,500 contacts. Paid plans still advertise a 14-day trial on the page today.

Two of these pages also settle their own overage question in the FAQ: MailerLite raises your account to the next tier when you pass a limit, and its free plan stops sending API and campaign mail until you upgrade. Nothing else on the list promises an identical policy in public.

What a 1,000-subscriber list costs on each platform

One size makes the meters converge: a list of roughly 1,000 subscribers that sends weekly. Here is what the published pages say at that size.

MailerLite: Comfort is $19/mo at the 1,000-subscriber tier ($17.10 yearly). The plan's send allowance is ten times the ceiling of your tier, so that tier carries 10,000 emails a month.
GetResponse: $19/mo for unlimited messages to 1,000 subscribers, which is the figure in its own pricing FAQ.
Brevo: Starter's $9/mo covers 5,000 emails a month. A 1,000-subscriber list sending four times a month fits inside that allowance; five sends a month does not.
beehiiv: you would not pay at 1,000 subscribers at all, since Launch is free up to 2,500. Scale at $49/mo buys monetization tooling rather than capacity.
Klaviyo: the published ladder stops at 251 to 500 active profiles ($20/mo for email, $35/mo with SMS). Past that, Klaviyo builds a price in its plan picker instead of printing a table.
Omnisend and Mailchimp: neither publishes a number at exactly 1,000 on the page we read. Omnisend's card is quoted at 500 contacts, and Mailchimp's table only renders after you pick a contact bucket.

At that size the price spread is $9 to $49, and the difference is mostly about what the plan includes beyond sending: segmentation, automations, transactional mail or store integrations.

The intro discount hiding in these price pages

Four of the seven lead with a rate you will not pay next quarter.

Omnisend prices Standard at $11.20/mo on the card, which is the 30% three-month intro: $33.60 today against a $48.00 total for the first three months.
beehiiv quotes Scale at $43/mo, which only holds if you pay $517 up front for the year; monthly billing is $49.
GetResponse shows $15.58/mo for Starter, the annual rate against $19 monthly.
MailerLite applies a flat 10% for yearly billing across every tier, so $12 becomes $10.80 rather than a first-year promo.

None of that is dishonest, and the annual numbers are usually the better deal. The trap is memory: you remember $11.20 or $43, then budget from it. Plan from the yearly total and the tier you expect to be in after twelve months of list growth, because that is the rate the next invoice uses.

Free tiers compared: what $0 actually covers

Free plans differ far more than paid ones, mostly at the sending end.

beehiiv Launch: free up to 2,500 subscribers, the largest free ceiling here.
MailerLite Free: 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails a month, 2 seats, with campaigns, automations, a website and forms included.
Klaviyo Free: 250 active profiles, 500 email sends, plus $5 of mobile messages and $5 of Composer usage a month.
Brevo: a free-forever plan with no credit card, aimed at solopreneurs, with paid sending starting at 5,000 emails a month.
Omnisend Free: 500 emails a month.
Mailchimp Free: 250 contacts and 500 emails a month (verified August 16, 2026).

At a similar list size, a free MailerLite account can send five times the mail of a free Mailchimp or Omnisend account. If your list is a newsletter rather than a store list, beehiiv's 2,500-subscriber free tier is in a different category from the rest.

Which platform fits which business

Newsletter or paid-subscription publisher: beehiiv. Free to 2,500 subscribers, $49/mo on Scale, and no platform take rate on paid subscriptions on that plan.
Small list, tight budget: MailerLite Comfort at $12/mo for 500 subscribers, with 2,500 free emails a month before you pay anything.
Marketing plus transactional email on one bill: Brevo, from $9/mo for 5,000 emails, with SMS credits as a separate line.
Ecommerce: Klaviyo for profile-based billing and event segmentation, or Omnisend if you want email and SMS on one subscription starting at $0.007 per SMS.
Large list, low send frequency: GetResponse, where $19/mo covers 1,000 subscribers with unlimited sends.
Deepest automation library and the incumbent ecosystem: Mailchimp, accepting that you pay by contact count and the Standard tier at 1,501 contacts costs $60/mo.

What to check before you pay

Four things move the real cost after signup, and only some of them are on the pricing page.

Tier creep. Subscriber and contact tiers are ceilings. Crossing one raises the bill on both meters, and MailerLite states that accounts are upgraded automatically rather than blocked.
Overage rules. Mailchimp's pricing page states that overages apply when contact or send limits are exceeded; its free plan pauses sending instead.
Add-ons. Omnisend sells personalized content and personalized sending time as add-ons starting at $5/month each on top of Standard.
The date on the number. Every figure here was verified on the vendor's page on September 20, 2026, except Mailchimp's plan table, which is browser-gated and dated August 16, 2026. Check the page again before you buy, especially in a promotional quarter.

The cheapest plan is the one whose meter matches how you actually send. If you are unsure of your own sending volume, start on a free tier that does not require a card, measure a month, then move to the meter your own numbers point at.

At a glance

Platform	Entry paid price	Billed by	Free tier
MailerLite	Comfort $12/mo to 500 subscribers ($10.80/mo yearly)	Subscribers	250 subscribers, 2,500 emails/mo
Brevo	Starter $9/mo for 5,000 emails ($96.96 yearly)	Emails sent	Free-forever plan, no card
GetResponse	Starter $19/mo, or $15.58/mo paid annually	List size, unlimited sends	No free plan
beehiiv	Scale $49/mo, or $43/mo billed annually ($517/yr)	Subscribers	Up to 2,500 subscribers
Klaviyo	$20/mo for 251-500 active profiles	Active profiles	250 profiles, 500 sends/mo
Omnisend	Standard shown at $11.20/mo (30% three-month intro)	Contacts and email volume	500 emails/mo
Mailchimp	Essentials $13/mo at 0-500 contacts	Contacts	250 contacts, 500 emails/mo

Entry paid pricing, read from each vendor's own page on September 20, 2026 (Mailchimp row dated August 16, 2026).

FAQ

Is MailerLite cheaper than Mailchimp?

On published list price, yes at the sizes we could compare. MailerLite Comfort is $12/mo up to 500 subscribers and $19/mo at 1,000, while Mailchimp's last verified reading (August 16, 2026) put Essentials at $13/mo and Standard at $20/mo for 0 to 500 contacts. Mailchimp also bills on contacts rather than subscribers, so archived records can cost you a tier.

Do email marketing platforms charge by contacts or by emails sent?

Both models are in use. MailerLite, beehiiv, Mailchimp, Klaviyo and Omnisend price by list or profile size, while Brevo Starter sells 5,000 emails a month for $9 and GetResponse gives unlimited sends from $19/mo for 1,000 subscribers. The meter decides who is cheaper, so compare your own subscriber count and monthly send volume against each one.

Which email marketing software is best for a list under 500 subscribers?

MailerLite Comfort at $12/mo for up to 500 subscribers and Brevo Starter at $9/mo for 5,000 emails are the two cheapest paid starting points we verified. If your list is a newsletter rather than a store list, beehiiv's Launch plan is free up to 2,500 subscribers, and Klaviyo's free tier covers 250 active profiles at no cost.