10 Best Email Marketing Software of 2026

MailerLite covers what a small business or creator needs for a newsletter without a steep price. The free plan includes email campaigns, automations, a landing page, signup forms and all three email editors, though it is limited to 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month. Comfort, from $12 per month, adds unlimited templates, dynamic emails, campaign auto-resend, multivariate testing, an unsubscribe page builder, a preference center and an AI writing assistant, with up to 50 automations and 3 user seats. Power, from $25 per month, removes most limits and adds 24/7 live chat support and multiple automation triggers. MailerLite also lets you sell digital products and bookings and offers MCP and API access on paid plans. The trade-off is that the cheapest plans have caps on automations, forms and seats, so larger teams will move to Power sooner than they expect. For list building and regular sends at a small scale, it is the best balance of features and price we found.

Kit is built around the creator who publishes, grows a list and sells to it. Its free plan is unusually generous, allowing up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited broadcasts, unlimited landing pages and forms, audience tagging and segmentation, and the ability to sell digital products and subscriptions. The step up is Creator, listed at $33 per month billed yearly for 1,000 subscribers, which adds unlimited visual automations and email sequences, polls, RSS campaigns, SMS marketing, app integrations and removal of Kit branding. Pro adds a newsletter referral system, subscriber engagement scoring, deliverability reporting and unlimited users, with a first-year discount that renews at the standard rate. Kit says more than 550,000 creator business owners use it. The weak point for a small business is that the automation tools sit behind a paywall and the paid tiers cost more than MailerLite or Brevo at the same list size. For creators who want to monetize a newsletter, the free tier and commerce features make it a strong second choice.

Brevo prices by how much you send rather than how many contacts you store, which suits small businesses with big lists and an occasional newsletter. The free plan includes 300 email sends per day and storage for up to 100,000 contacts, plus email campaigns, a drag and drop editor, custom templates, transactional emails, basic reporting and multi-channel automation for up to 2,000 contacts. Starter begins at $9 per month for 5,000 monthly sends and removes the daily cap, and Brevo's help center lists Standard from $18 and Professional from $499 per month. SMS campaigns are available as an add-on, and Aura, Brevo's AI assistant, is included on Free. The catches are small but real: the Brevo logo stays on Starter emails unless you buy the add-on, and the 300 daily sends on Free make larger campaigns slow. For a business that wants email and SMS together at the lowest paid price here, Brevo is the value choice.

ActiveCampaign is the automation specialist on this list. Even the Starter plan, from $15 per month billed yearly for 1,000 contacts, includes multi-step marketing automation, AI-powered automation and campaign builders, more than 250 pre-built templates and 15 active business goals, with 10,000 email sends per month and 1 user seat. Plus, from $49 per month, adds cross-channel marketing, generative AI for content and images, landing pages and site messages, and an Enhanced CRM add-on. Pro, from $79, brings predictive sending and conditional content, so one email can show different blocks to different contacts. That depth is the reason to choose it, and also the reason it scores lower on ease of use: building branching automations takes more setup than a MailerLite welcome series. There is no free plan, and segmentation on Starter is limited. For a small business that already knows it wants behavior-based automation, ActiveCampaign gives more for the money than any other tool here.

Mailchimp remains a common first choice, and its feature set explains why. Essentials, from $13 per month after a 14-day free trial, includes pre-built templates, popup forms, email scheduling, testing and the option to remove Mailchimp branding, with monthly sends at 10 times your contact count and 3 seats. Automation is where the tiers matter: Essentials flows are limited to 4 steps, while Standard and Premium allow up to 200 flows and add dynamic content, branded templates, custom reports and generative AI features. Mailchimp lists 300+ integrations on every paid plan and offers onboarding sessions on Standard and Premium. A basic Free plan covers businesses with fewer than 250 contacts, and a Pay As You Go plan suits occasional senders. The downside is value: at the same list size, MailerLite and Brevo cost less, and the automation most small businesses want sits on Standard at $20 per month and up. Mailchimp is a safe, well-supported pick, but rarely the cheapest.

beehiiv is designed for people whose newsletter is the product. The free plan allows up to 2,500 subscribers with unlimited email sends, email templates, landing pages, the recommendation network and API access. Lite, from $49 per month billed yearly, adds paid subscriptions with a 0% take rate, ad monetization, automations, audience polls and A/B testing, and raises the limit to 100,000 subscribers. Pro, from $95 per month billed yearly, removes beehiiv branding and adds webinars, advanced analytics, webhooks, dynamic content and priority support. Paid subscription revenue passes through Stripe at its standard 2.9% plus $0.30 fee. That makes beehiiv a strong pick for creators who want to earn from ads and subscriptions. For a local business that just needs a monthly update and a welcome email, it is more than needed and more expensive than MailerLite or Brevo, and automations require a paid plan.

GetResponse prices by list size and does not cap sends, so a business that emails often pays the same as one that emails rarely. Monthly plans start at $19 for 1,000 subscribers, and a 12-month plan saves 18%. Starter includes unlimited sends, AI-powered content generators, a welcome email series, a landing page builder, signup forms and popups, SMS marketing and 1 custom automation workflow. Marketer opens unlimited workflows, advanced segmentation, abandoned cart recovery, sales funnels and web push notifications. Creator adds webinars, a website builder and a course creator for up to 500 students, along with premium newsletter subscriptions. That bundle is the main reason to pick GetResponse over a newsletter-first tool. The limits are clear too: one custom workflow on Starter is tight for anyone planning several automations, and the price for automation-heavy use sits on Marketer. GetResponse offers a full refund within 30 days of signing up.

Klaviyo is the specialist for online stores. Its paid email plans start at $20 per month, and pricing is based on active profiles, the people you actually market to, so a large inactive list does not drive up the bill. Multi-step flows are included in every plan, with prebuilt flows for common store events, and segments can be built from what customers browse and buy. Reporting goes further than most tools here, with revenue attribution for campaigns and multi-touch attribution across email, SMS and push. The free plan covers 250 active profiles and 500 email sends a month, plus web forms, an AI subject line generator and $5 of mobile messages. For a creator or a service business sending a newsletter, much of this goes unused, and the paid entry price is higher than MailerLite, Brevo or Mailchimp. Email support on the free plan lasts 60 days. If you run a store and want automated emails tied to orders, Klaviyo earns its price.

Constant Contact aims at owners who want help as much as software. Every plan includes live 1:1 onboarding and live phone and chat support, which few rivals here offer at the entry level. Lite starts at $10.20 per month billed annually and includes a drag and drop editor, an AI copy generator, templates, web signup forms, social posting to Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, a social ads manager and event and payment tools. Automation is thin at that tier, with 1 automation template and 1 custom segment. Standard, from $29.75 per month billed annually, adds 3 automation templates, an AI campaign builder, resend to non-openers and 10 segments. Custom automations, dynamic content and ecommerce templates wait for Premium from $68. Prices depend on contacts and sends, and overage fees may apply. For a local business that values support and social posting, it is a comfortable choice, but the automation most creators want costs more here than at MailerLite or ActiveCampaign.

AWeber has served small senders for a long time, and its current Lite plan reflects that audience. From $12.49 per month billed annually, with a 14-day trial, Lite includes newsletters, RSS to email, a drag and drop builder, the AI Subject Line Assistant, advanced message analytics, sales tracking, 24/7 support and removal of AWeber branding, with sends up to 10 times your subscriber count each month. The limits are tight: 1 email list, 3 landing pages, 3 email automations, 3 users and 1 custom segment. Plus removes those caps and raises sends to 12 times subscriber volume. A Done For You option sets up templates, landing pages, a signup form and a welcome series for a setup fee. AWeber is easy to pick up and support is always available, but the Lite caps make it less flexible than MailerLite or Kit at a similar price, and there is no permanent free plan. It fits a blogger who wants RSS emails and a few simple automations.