Best Free Email Marketing Software 2026, by Exit Bill

Mailchimp's pricing page puts its free plan in one line: "Under 250 contacts? It's free." Every free email plan has a sentence like that, and the sentence stops before the part that decides what you pay: the month you're over.

I price that second half first. For each free plan below I found the limit that ends it, then the cheapest paid plan that keeps you sending once you're past it, at monthly billing, because an upgrade you didn't plan for lands on the monthly price unless you choose a year up front. I call that number the exit bill. The free allowance tells you when the bill starts. The exit bill tells you how big it is, and the two rankings don't match.

Where I land: if you want a free plan you won't regret leaving, start on Zoho Campaigns or systeme.io. Both hold 2,000 contacts free and exit for $17 a month. If you'll only ever send a newsletter with no automated emails, Kit Free holds 10,000 people, but its exit bill is $169. If you need a short welcome series from day one on a small list, MailerLite Free runs one up to 250 subscribers and exits at $12.

The exit bill, ranked

Each row is the free plan as the vendor lists it in October 2026, the limit that ends it, and the first month on the cheapest paid plan that covers you once you're over.

*Mailchimp's page draws its prices with a script I couldn't read from the saved page. The $13 comes from EmailToolTester's Mailchimp pricing review, updated August 5, 2026; TinyCommand's breakdown (updated September 15, 2026) and GroupMail's list the same figure. Mailchimp's own page confirms the tier boundaries: 500, then 501 to 1,500, 1,501 to 2,500 and 2,501 to 5,000.

Brevo's row needs its own line. Its free plan stores 100,000 contacts, but it only sends 300 emails a day, and its cheapest paid plan caps contacts as well as emails. Starter at $9 covers 5,000 emails and 500 contacts. The $17 step covers 1,500 contacts, the $25 step 2,500, and only the $32 step lifts the contact cap to 500,000. So a weekly newsletter's Brevo exit depends on the list: $9 at 500 people, $17 at 1,000, $25 at 2,000 and $32 at 3,000.

Four ways a free plan ends

The ten plans above stop being free for four different reasons, and the reason decides when you'll meet the bill.

A contact count. MailerLite, Mailchimp, GetResponse, Zoho, systeme.io, EmailOctopus, Sender and Kit all end at a subscriber number. Check how each one counts. Mailchimp's help center says "Subscribed, unsubscribed, and non-subscribed contacts are included in your contact count," so people who left your list still use up the 250. Archiving them is how you get under: "Archived, cleaned, and deleted contacts don't count toward your contact total," the same page says. If you're leaving Mailchimp for a paid tool, that rule changes the comparison too: price Moosend on your subscribed contacts, not Mailchimp's total. MailerLite counts active subscribers, and I covered what MailerLite's free plan locks at 251 separately.

Emails in a day. Brevo and Mailjet let you store a large list and cap the sending instead. Brevo's FAQ says that once your account is approved, "you can start sending up to 300 emails per day." Mailjet's says "You can send up to 6,000 emails per month (with a sending maximum of 200 emails per day)." A daily cap ends the free plan at the size of a single send, not the size of your list. A list of 400 people can't receive one campaign in a single day on either plan.

A feature. Kit's free plan sends broadcasts to 10,000 people but runs no automated sequences, so a five-email welcome series costs at least $39 a month, at any list size. I worked out when that $39 starts to matter against MailerLite over two years. GetResponse gives new accounts premium features for 14 days, then, in its own words, "after the first 14 days, you lose access to the premium features." Mailchimp's comparison table lists automation flows as not included on Free.

The calendar. Moosend doesn't have a free plan, though its trial screen calls it one. In the trial account I set up for this site on October 8, the plan card read Free, a banner counted down 30 days, and the account allowed 1,000 subscribers with one landing page and one form, both marked unpublished. That exit is a date rather than a list size, so Moosend sits outside the ranking. Its pricing page lists Pro from $9 monthly at 500 contacts.

A bigger free plan doesn't mean a bigger bill, or a smaller one

The tempting reading of the table is that a bigger free plan means a bigger bill later. That holds at the extremes. Kit holds the most and exits steepest, and the two 250-contact plans and Mailjet's 1,000 exit for $9 to $13. Everywhere else it breaks. The two 500-subscriber plans, GetResponse and AWeber, exit for $19 and $25, more than plans four or five times their size.

Zoho Campaigns and systeme.io hold eight times MailerLite's free list and exit for $5 more. GetResponse holds twice MailerLite's and exits for $19, more than either 2,000-contact plan. Per thousand contacts at the moment you leave, the exit bills run from $8.50 (Zoho and systeme.io) to $51.80 (Mailchimp).

EmailOctopus shows the shape inside one vendor. Its Pro plan for 1,001 to 2,500 subscribers costs $20 a month, $11.50 less than the tier you land on at 2,501. That means the free plan ends exactly where Pro gets more expensive. EmailOctopus's FAQ describes the step as automatic: "we’ll move you up to the plan that fits your new contact size," with an email when it happens.

The pattern I take from this: judge a free plan by the exit you can afford, then by how long it lasts.

The same list on every plan: 3,000 people, weekly

An exit bill is priced at a different list size for each tool, so this table holds one size for all of them. I used 3,000, the smallest round number past every contact cap except Kit's and Brevo's. A weekly newsletter to 3,000 people is about 13,000 emails a month.

*Secondary source, as above.

MailerLite moves furthest between the two tables: third-cheapest exit, eighth-cheapest bill here, because its ladder climbs fast after 2,500. Mailjet's and Brevo's places depend on sending weekly. A daily newsletter to 3,000 people is about 90,000 emails a month, which would put both on far larger email tiers. Over a year at this size, the gap between systeme.io and Mailchimp is $58 a month, or $696.

Tool notes, in exit-bill order

Mailjet ($9). Free stores 1,000 contacts. Starter at $9 lifts that to 2,000 and drops the daily cap. The Mailjet logo comes off at Essential ($19), which also lists no contact cap.

Brevo ($9 to $32). The free plan suits a big list that you email in small batches, or a small list you email several times a week. The paid ladder charges for both emails and contacts, so price the step that covers your contacts, not the $9 headline.

MailerLite ($12). Free includes three automations of up to five steps each, so a short welcome series runs at no cost. Comfort starts at $12 for 500 subscribers and reaches $49 by 5,000.

Mailchimp ($13*). The smallest free plan here by sends: 500 a month, 250 a day, and the page says "Sending will be paused if contact or email send limit is exceeded." Its paid bill is the highest in my 3,000 table.

Zoho Campaigns ($17). Free holds 2,000 contacts and 6,000 emails. Standard, which Zoho lists with "Unlimited emails" and "Basic drag-and-drop workflows," is priced by contact tier: $17 for up to 2,500 and $18 for up to 3,000. The free card doesn't list workflows; Standard's does, so plan on campaigns only while you're free.

systeme.io ($17). Free holds 2,000 contacts and the company lists no cap on email sends on any plan. Startup covers 5,000 contacts for $17, the same price from 2,001 to 5,000. If you cancel later with more than 2,000 contacts, its FAQ says "contacts above the limit are archived," not deleted. Email is one part of systeme.io, alongside funnels and courses; I wrote up how its email side compares on its own.

AWeber isn't ranked here: AWeber's official pricing page currently lists only a 14-day trial (checked Oct 20, 2026), not a free plan. After the trial, Lite is $15 a month at 500 subscribers and reaches $60 by 5,000.

GetResponse ($19). Free holds 500 contacts, every email it sends carries a GetResponse badge, and its premium features switch off after 14 days; what the account keeps from day 15 has its own page. Starter is $19 for 1,000, $29 for 2,500 and $54 for 5,000; I priced every GetResponse tier and its yearly discount separately.

EmailOctopus ($31.50). Free holds 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails with EmailOctopus branding, one landing page, one form and one user. The Pro card instead lists full control over email design, with no cap on landing pages, forms or users.

Sender ($39). Free allows 15,000 emails a month for up to 2,500 subscribers, with automation included. Standard is $27 up to 2,500 and $39 up to 5,000, which makes it the steeper of the two priced 2,500-subscriber exits.

Kit ($169, or $39). The biggest free list here, for broadcasts only. Kit's own account wrote in May that "Kit's free plan covers up to 10K subscribers and it scales way more affordably." Past 10,000, Creator for up to 15,000 costs $169 a month, $2,028 over a year. If you'll need a sequence before then, Kit's real exit is the $39 Creator tier (up to 1,000 subscribers), and it can arrive on day one.

Not ranked. beehiiv's free plan holds 2,500 subscribers with no send cap listed, but its pricing page only showed me the Lite price for the default 1,000-subscriber setting ($49 a month billed yearly). I left it out of the table rather than guess.

Numbers that went stale

Free-plan limits changed several times this year, and some ranking pages haven't caught up. Check the date on any list you read, including this one.

EmailVendorSelection's free-plan comparison, which search results showed as three weeks old on October 8, still says of MailerLite: "You can have 500 subscribers and send 12000 emails for free." MailerLite's own FAQ puts it at 250 and 2,500 since June 16, 2026. Zapier's January list gives the same old numbers: "Free for up to 500 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month." Mailtrap's comparison, a day old when I read it, says "Mailchimp caps at 500 contacts and 1,000 sends/month," where Mailchimp's own help center says 250 contacts and 500 sends.

Short lists on X do the same. One April post recommended "Mailchimp — free up to 500 subscribers"; another listed "ConvertKit free — 1K subs." Both are wrong for October 2026 in different directions: Mailchimp's is now 250, and Kit's is 10,000.

Two of the best-known free plans have shrunk: MailerLite cut its free plan in June to 250 subscribers and 2,500 sends, half or less of the old limits, and Mailchimp's users got their 250-contact notice last winter. Kit's free plan sits at 10,000 subscribers; its own account was promoting that figure in May. A free ceiling is a number a vendor can reset with one email, which is why the ranking above runs on the exit bill, not the ceiling.

What people say at the limit

The exit bill shows up in how people talk about free plans. In July one MailerLite user, angry about the June cut, wrote that EmailOctopus "offers 2,500 subscribers with their free plan. Once I have that many, it’ll be well worth paying for." That's the plan with the $31.50 exit, chosen by its ceiling. Someone in r/selfpublish on Reddit made the same move that month: "I switched providers rather than pay. EmailOctopus allow up to 2,500 subscribers on their free tier. Kit will give you 10,000."

Mailchimp's current limits arrived as a notice. Last winter, in an r/Emailmarketing thread about Mailchimp's shrinking free plan, one user posted, "Just cut it again today down to 250 contacts, 500/mo, 250/day," and another replied that they'd had the same notification. The Mailchimp end is about getting back under the line. A July post said that to downgrade you have to "archive your contacts, or delete them, 25 at a time until you’re below the 250 threshold of free." A widely shared April thread said Mailchimp had started charging for unsubscribed contacts. The help center confirms that unsubscribed contacts count toward the plan; I didn't find when that rule began.

Brevo's daily cap gets the opposite reaction from people it fits. "I’ve been using their free tier which is 300 emails per day, good so far," one user wrote in May.

What I couldn't price

• Mailchimp's paid prices. The pricing page renders them by script, so the $13 and $75 come from three independent pricing breakdowns that agree, not from Mailchimp. Check its slider before you rely on them.
• beehiiv above 1,000 subscribers. Prices changed in October 2026 and the tier you'd land on at 2,501 wasn't readable from the page I saved.
• What a free account with no card does at the limit. EmailOctopus says it moves you up automatically. I didn't find what that means for an account with no payment method on file.
• Inbox placement. I haven't tested where any of these emails land.

Where to start, by the bill you can live with

• Newsletter only, and you're sure: Kit Free, up to 10,000. Budget $169 a month for the day you pass it.
• You want room and a cheap exit: Zoho Campaigns or systeme.io (sign up for systeme.io at no cost), each free to 2,000 contacts and $17 a month after. Zoho fits plain campaigns; systeme.io fits if you'll also sell a course or run a funnel.
• A welcome sequence from day one: MailerLite Free (three automations of up to five steps), then Comfort at $12. Sender includes automation up to 2,500 subscribers free, if you accept the $39 exit.
• A big list you email rarely: Brevo Free, as long as each send stays under 300 a day.
• You'd rather test a paid tool before committing: a Moosend account on its 30-day clock asks for no card.
• You want GetResponse's tools later: GetResponse Free is small at 500, and its $19 exit sits mid-table.

FAQ

What is the best free email marketing software in 2026?

It depends on what ends the free plan for you. For room plus a cheap exit, Zoho Campaigns and systeme.io (2,000 contacts free, $17 after). For a newsletter with no automation, Kit Free (10,000). For a welcome sequence on a free plan, MailerLite (250) or Sender (2,500).

Which free email plan has the most subscribers?

Brevo stores up to 100,000 contacts but sends 300 emails a day. Among plans that cap subscribers instead, Kit Free holds 10,000, with no automated sequences.

Is Mailchimp still free?

Yes, for up to 250 contacts and 500 emails a month, with a daily limit of 250. Unsubscribed contacts count toward the 250.

What happens if my list passes a free plan's limit?

It varies. Mailchimp pauses sending. EmailOctopus says it moves you to the plan that fits. Kit stops sending above 10,000 until you upgrade. Brevo and Mailjet stop at the daily email cap.

Is Moosend free?

Only for 30 days. The trial allows 1,000 subscribers without a card; after that, Pro is listed from $9 monthly at 500 contacts.

Which free plans still run a welcome sequence?

MailerLite and Sender do, within their caps. Kit Free runs no automated sequences, GetResponse switches its premium features off after 14 days, and Mailchimp's comparison table lists automation flows as not included on Free.