The best email newsletter services for small businesses

EmailOctopus is the best email newsletter service for most small businesses in 2026. Its Pro plan costs $20 a month at 2,500 contacts and $44.50 at 10,000, the lowest combined price of the 12 services we priced, its free plan emails up to 2,500 subscribers with a welcome sequence, and contacts who unsubscribe stop counting toward the price. Sender is effectively tied and the better pick if you want A/B testing and 24/7 live chat: it scores higher on features and billing rules and costs $96 a month at those two sizes against EmailOctopus's $64.50. If your list is under 2,500 and every dollar counts, Zoho Campaigns is cheapest at $4 a month for 500 contacts.

The headline prices most comparisons quote are the entry tiers. What decides your bill is the price once your list grows, and the billing rules underneath it: the cost table shows all 12 services at 500, 2,500, 10,000 and 25,000 contacts, and the billing traps section shows where a cheap plan turns expensive.

The best email newsletter services for small businesses, ranked

EmailOctopus

EmailOctopus ranks first and suits most small businesses: it is the cheapest service here that removes its branding and sends automated welcome emails at 10,000 contacts and across 2,500 and 10,000 combined. Only Zoho Campaigns is cheaper at 500 and 2,500 contacts, and Sender and Moosend at 500. Pro costs $10 a month at 500 contacts, $20 at 2,500 and $44.50 at 10,000, billed monthly, and each tier sends 10 emails per contact a month, so a weekly newsletter fits with room to spare (EmailOctopus pricing). Its billing rules are among the fairest we read: "All your unsubscribes do not count towards the subscriber limit", hard bounces and complaints are unsubscribed automatically, and pending double opt-in contacts don't count either (how contacts are counted). It is also the only service we found that can move your plan back down on its own when your list shrinks (how pricing works). One catch: a contact on two lists counts twice, so keep one list and use tags.

The free plan covers 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails a month, with up to three automations of five steps, enough for a welcome series (free plan details). EmailOctopus also makes the email authentication that inbox providers ask for easier than most: verifying your domain gives you the DKIM, SPF and DMARC records, with one-click setup if Cloudflare or Vercel runs your DNS (domain verification).

What EmailOctopus lacks is testing: its plan comparison lists no A/B testing at all. And its export makes a ZIP of the contacts you select, without saying whether unsubscribed contacts keep their status, which cost it points on billing rules.

Sender

Sender ranks second and suits businesses that want A/B testing, live chat and unlimited automation. It is about a tenth of a point behind EmailOctopus, a tie in practice, and on yearly billing it would rank first (see how we scored). It scores higher than EmailOctopus on features and billing rules; the gap is price. Standard costs $27 a month at 2,500 subscribers and $69 at 10,000 (Sender pricing), $31.50 a month more than EmailOctopus at those two sizes combined. Sender takes "Best features for the price" because it is the cheapest of the three services that score full marks on our feature list: unlimited automation steps, pop-ups, A/B testing, three users and 24/7 email and live chat on Standard.

Sender's free plan matches EmailOctopus's on our scale and is the more generous of the two in practice: 2,500 subscribers, 15,000 emails a month with no daily limit, automation with unlimited steps, and 24/7 email and chat support, with Sender's branding on emails and forms (free plan). Its active subscriber count leaves out "those that have unsubscribed, bounced, or reported spam" (active vs unique subscribers). If you go over your limit, sending stops until you upgrade (exceeding plan limits), and Sender refunds nothing for unused or partly used plans (refund policy).

MailerLite

MailerLite ranks third and suits businesses that want landing pages and many automations on one plan. AI answers name it first more often than any other service (six of the 16 we sampled), and on features and billing it earns that: Comfort includes 50 automations of up to 100 steps, pop-ups, 10 landing pages, A/B testing and three users, and "Unsubscribed and Bounced contacts don't count toward your limit" (plan and billing). It costs $33 a month at 2,500 subscribers and $89 at 10,000 (MailerLite pricing), more than the two services above it.

Two things hold it back. The free plan shrank on June 16, 2026, from 500 subscribers and 12,000 emails a month to 250 and 2,500 (free plan update), and after the first 14 days free users get community support only. And Comfort's support is email only: 24/7 live chat comes with Power or with 50,000 subscribers or more (support options). Note also that any address active at any point in your billing cycle counts toward that cycle's limit, even if you delete it later.

Zoho Campaigns

Zoho Campaigns ranks fourth and is the cheapest service here for small lists: Standard costs $4 a month at 500 contacts and $17 at 2,500, with unlimited emails (Zoho Campaigns pricing). At 10,000 contacts it is $49, close to EmailOctopus. Standard includes automated workflows, A/B testing, up to 10 users, and email, phone and chat support (plan comparison).

The free plan is large (2,000 contacts and 6,000 emails a month) but has no automated workflows, so no welcome email. Domain authentication is manual, and "Zoho Campaigns doesn't generate the DMARC record for you" (sender authentication). Its help pages say bounced contacts don't count toward your plan but don't say the same for unsubscribed ones, and we found no page on exporting contacts with their status. Every campaign also goes through Zoho's review before it sends (campaign review FAQ), and we couldn't confirm whether Zoho adds its own branding to emails on any plan.

Kit

Kit ranks fifth and suits a business with a big list and no budget yet. Its free plan is the largest here: newsletters to up to 10,000 subscribers at no cost, with support answered within 24 hours (Kit Free plan), though AudienceBench reports that free-plan support is mostly handled by Kit's AI assistant. But the free plan has no sequences or visual automations, so no welcome email, and Kit branding stays on. Creator removes it and adds every feature we score, including automatic SPF, DKIM and DMARC setup through Entri (verified sending domain). Kit's billing rules are fair: "Only subscribers with the 'Confirmed' status count toward your billing total" (subscriber statuses).

The problem is Creator's price: $59 a month at 2,500 subscribers (Kit's 3,000 tier) and $139 at 10,000, about three times EmailOctopus at that size. Kit's pricing page didn't show us monthly prices above 1,000 subscribers; its billing article confirms $39 at 1,000 and $59 at 3,000, and the 10,000 and 25,000 prices are as reported by AudienceBench in October 2026. Kit is built for creators selling digital products; for a shop's newsletter, the free plan is the reason to choose it.

Brevo

Brevo ranks sixth and suits a business with a large list it emails once a month; where it lands depends on how often you send. Brevo prices by emails sent rather than contacts, so a large list emailed once a month is cheap: $69 a month for 10,000 contacts and $79 for 25,000 on Standard, the lowest price here at 25,000 (Brevo's price service). Weekly sending multiplies the volume by four, so 10,000 contacts emailed weekly costs $89.

The "unlimited contacts" in many answers is out of date for small lists. On Starter and Standard, the three smallest tiers cap the contacts you can store: 500 contacts with 5,000 emails, 1,500 with 10,000 and 2,500 with 15,000; only from 20,000 emails a month can you store 500,000 (Brevo's pricing plans). Reaching the cap moves you up a tier automatically. Standard, not Starter, is the plan to compare: Starter's automation is limited to 2,000 contacts (feature comparison), so it can't run a welcome email for a bigger list, and at 500 contacts Starter plus its logo-removal add-on costs more than Standard's $18.

Brevo's free plan stores up to 100,000 contacts but sends 300 emails a day, so a newsletter to 1,000 people goes out over four days. It includes automation for up to 2,000 contacts. On Standard you get one user (up to three at $12 a month each) and email support only, and pop-up forms need the Professional plan (feature comparison). Domain setup is the easiest here: Brevo connects to your domain provider and adds its code, DKIM and DMARC records for you (domain authentication).

Moosend

Moosend ranks seventh and suits a business that wants a full feature set on one mid-priced plan and can do without a free plan. Pro costs $9 a month at 500 contacts, $32 at 2,500 (its 3,000 tier) and $88 at 10,000, with unlimited sends (Moosend pricing), and includes multi-step automation, pop-up and inline forms, landing pages, A/B testing, five team members, and email and live chat support. Its billing rules are fair: you pay for "unique active subscribers", a contact on several lists counts once (subscription plans), and unsubscribing lowers that count (managing your plan). You can export contacts by status, including unsubscribed and bounced (email lists).

What holds Moosend back is the free plan: there isn't one, only a 30-day trial for up to 1,000 contacts. Domain authentication is manual: you copy the SPF and DKIM records into your DNS and create the DMARC record yourself (DNS records). If your list outgrows the plan, campaigns don't send until you upgrade or buy credits, and a downgrade waits for the next billing cycle. Moosend, now owned by Constant Contact, doesn't say on its pricing page or in its help center whether Pro emails carry its branding.

GetResponse

GetResponse ranks eighth and suits a business whose list rarely changes. Starter is cheap with unlimited sends ($29 a month at 2,500 contacts and $79 at 10,000, from GetResponse pricing), includes unlimited landing pages and pop-ups, and sets up DKIM, SPF and a DMARC policy automatically (automatic authentication).

Its billing rules are the weakest here. GetResponse bills on "the peak number of active subscribers during the billing month and the total number of contacts added within that billing month, regardless of what happens to those contacts after they are added" (how pricing works), and a contact on two lists counts twice. It doesn't issue refunds (refund policy), and export covers active contacts only. Starter has no A/B testing or tags and allows one custom workflow of up to six steps. The free plan (500 contacts, 2,500 emails a month) stops workflows and support after its 14-day trial (trying GetResponse).

AWeber

AWeber ranks ninth and suits teams that want unlimited users and 24/7 support. Plus has everything we score, with unlimited automations, landing pages and users and priority 24/7 support (AWeber pricing), and it sets up DKIM and DMARC automatically for supported DNS providers. The cost is the issue: Lite keeps AWeber branding, so the plan to compare is Plus at $55 a month for 2,500 subscribers and $135 for 10,000.

Two billing details matter. Going over a limit moves you up a tier automatically, but "When you delete subscribers, your billing tier does not automatically adjust", so you have to ask to move down (pricing FAQ). And AWeber keeps sending to an address "until they have been undeliverable three or more times in a 6-month period" (maintaining your list), where most services here stop after the first hard bounce.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp ranks tenth and suits businesses already on it that archive unsubscribed contacts. Essentials is a capable plan, with forms, pop-ups, landing pages, A/B testing, three seats and 24/7 email and chat support (compare plans), but its billing rules cost more than its price suggests. "Subscribed, non-subscribed, and unsubscribed contacts all count toward your contact limit" (pricing tiers), so you pay for people who left until you archive them. Over the limit, Mailchimp adds "add-on contact blocks" at a price that "depends on your plan and pricing tier" and isn't on the pricing page (additional charges). It doesn't refund monthly plans (refund policy).

Essentials costs $45 a month at 2,500 contacts and $110 at 10,000, with 15% off the first year from 10,000 contacts. Its automation flows stop at four steps. The free plan allows 250 contacts and 500 emails a month, at most 250 a day, with no automated emails and email support for the first 30 days only (pricing plans).

Constant Contact

Constant Contact ranks eleventh and suits businesses that want phone support and will pay for it. It is the service many AI answers call the easiest and best supported, and it does offer chat and phone support from Monday to Saturday. But it has no free plan: the 30-day trial allows 100 email sends in total (free trial). Lite includes one user and one automation and leaves A/B testing to Standard, as listed by Sequenzy, itself an email service. Lite costs $50 a month at 2,500 contacts and $120 at 10,000, as reported in June 2026 by SendX, another email service; Constant Contact's own pricing page refused our automated reads.

The billing rules are mixed. Your price tier is set by "the highest number of active email contacts" (how you're billed), and unsubscribed contacts are inactive (active versus inactive contacts), so they stop counting. Bounced contacts stay active until you remove them, deleting contacts never lowers your tier, and prepaid plans aren't refunded. Lite sends 10 times your contact tier a month, and sends over that cost $0.002 each (send allowance). Every email carries a Constant Contact logo in the footer unless you ask Support to remove it (customize your footer).

ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign ranks last, because it is a marketing automation platform priced for that job. Starter costs $49 a month at 2,500 contacts and $189 at 10,000, from the catalog its pricing page loads, and has no free plan. Starter has one user, no landing pages and five actions per automation. ActiveCampaign doesn't say whether Starter emails carry its branding; if they do, the plan to compare is Plus at $119 and $239. It does offer a full refund within 30 days of your first purchase (money-back guarantee). Choose it if you expect to need its automation and CRM tools, not for a newsletter.

What each service costs as your list grows

Monthly price of the cheapest plan with no vendor branding and an automated welcome email, billed monthly, in US dollars before tax, as of October 21, 2026. Only Brevo's price changes with how often you send; every other plan here allows at least 10 emails per contact a month.

Sending one newsletter a month:

Service (plan)	500 contacts	2,500	10,000	25,000
EmailOctopus (Pro)	$10	$20	$44.50	$94.50
Zoho Campaigns (Standard)	$4	$17	$49	$86
Brevo (Standard)	$18	$49	$69	$79
Sender (Standard)	$9	$27	$69	$149
GetResponse (Starter)	$19	$29	$79	$174
Moosend (Pro)	$9	$32	$88	$160
MailerLite (Comfort)	$12	$33	$89	$179
Mailchimp (Essentials)	$13	$45	$110	$270
Constant Contact (Lite)	$12	$50	$120	$280
AWeber (Plus)	$30	$55	$135	$250
Kit (Creator)	$39	$59	$139	$199
ActiveCampaign (Starter)	$19	$49	$189	$489

Sending weekly, Brevo's Standard plan costs $18, $49, $89 and $139 at the same four sizes; nothing else changes. GetResponse and ActiveCampaign start at 1,000 contacts and Kit at 1,000 subscribers, so their 500-contact price is their smallest tier; Moosend's 2,500-contact price is its 3,000 tier. Kit's 10,000 and 25,000 prices and all of Constant Contact's are from third-party listings dated October and June 2026; check them at checkout.

Paying yearly cuts these prices: 30% off the first year at Sender (20% after that), 25% at Zoho Campaigns, 20% at Moosend, 18% at GetResponse, about 17% at Kit, and 10% at EmailOctopus, MailerLite and Brevo.

Free plans compared

Service	Contacts	Emails a month	Welcome email	Support after the first month
Kit	10,000	Unlimited newsletters	No	Yes, answered within 24 hours
Sender	2,500	15,000	Yes, unlimited steps	Yes, 24/7 email and chat
EmailOctopus	2,500	10,000	Yes, three automations	Yes, email
Zoho Campaigns	2,000	6,000	No	Yes, email and phone
Brevo	100,000 stored	300 a day	Yes, up to 2,000 contacts	Yes, email
AWeber	500	3,000	Yes, one automation	Not documented
GetResponse	500	2,500	Only during the 14-day trial	No
MailerLite	250	2,500	Yes, three automations	Community only
Mailchimp	250	500 (250 a day)	No	No
Moosend	None (30-day trial, 1,000 contacts)	None	No	No
Constant Contact	None (30-day trial, 100 sends)	None	No	No
ActiveCampaign	None (14-day trial)	None	No	No

Every free plan here puts the service's branding in your emails, except possibly Zoho Campaigns, which doesn't say.

What many answers still get wrong

We asked four AI models (GPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity, through their APIs with web search on) four versions of this question in October 2026. Several of the 16 answers repeated limits that changed this year:

• MailerLite's free plan is 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, not 1,000 or 500 subscribers and 12,000 emails. It changed on June 16, 2026 (MailerLite's announcement). Six answers repeated the old limits from older pages.
• Brevo's paid plans aren't "unlimited contacts" for small lists. Up to 2,500 contacts, each price tier caps how many you can store (Brevo's pricing plans).
• Mailchimp's free plan is 250 contacts and 500 emails a month, not 500 contacts and 1,000 emails (Mailchimp's pricing plans).
• Kit's free plan has no automation, not one automation as some answers said: sequences and visual automations need Creator (Kit Free plan).

Billing rules that change what you pay

Check these before you import your list:

• Unsubscribed contacts. Mailchimp counts them toward your price until you archive them. GetResponse counts every contact added during the month, even if they leave. EmailOctopus, Sender, MailerLite and Kit don't count them.
• Going over a limit. Most services move you up a tier at its published price. Mailchimp adds contact blocks at prices it doesn't publish, and Constant Contact charges $0.002 a send over your allowance.
• Shrinking lists. Only EmailOctopus can move your plan back down automatically. AWeber says deleting subscribers doesn't lower your tier until you ask.
• Duplicates. EmailOctopus and GetResponse count a contact on two lists twice. Use one list and tags.
• Refunds. ActiveCampaign refunds a first purchase within 30 days, and Kit refunds plans within 30 days of signing up, as reported by AudienceBench. Mailchimp, Brevo, GetResponse and Sender don't refund unused time, and Constant Contact doesn't refund prepaid plans.

Getting your newsletter into inboxes

We don't score deliverability, because no current independent test measures it reliably: EmailToolTester, whose inbox tests were the most cited, stopped publishing them in August 2026, saying seed-list tests had become unreliable. What decides whether your newsletter lands in the inbox is mostly in your hands: a list of people who asked to hear from you, and email authentication on your own domain.

Google asks every sender to set up SPF or DKIM, and anyone sending more than 5,000 messages a day to Gmail accounts to set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC (Google's email sender guidelines). Every service here supports SPF and DKIM on your domain. Brevo, Mailchimp, Kit, GetResponse, MailerLite and AWeber can add the records for you if your domain provider is one they support, and EmailOctopus can if Cloudflare or Vercel runs your DNS; Zoho Campaigns leaves the DMARC record to you. Send from an address on your own domain, not a Gmail or Yahoo address: services such as Mailchimp and Brevo can't authenticate those.

Which one should you choose?

• If you want one answer: EmailOctopus. Start on the free plan; Pro removes the branding at $10 a month for 500 contacts.
• If you want A/B testing, live chat or unlimited automation: Sender. Standard has all three at $27 a month for 2,500 subscribers.
• If your list is under 2,500 and price is everything: Zoho Campaigns Standard, at $4 a month for 500 contacts or $17 for 2,500. Its free plan has no welcome email.
• If you have a big list and no budget yet: Kit's free plan sends newsletters to up to 10,000 subscribers. Plan on paying when you want a welcome sequence.
• If you email a big list once a month: Brevo Standard, at $79 a month for 25,000 contacts. Weekly sending costs more.
• If you're on Mailchimp: archive unsubscribed contacts now so you stop paying for them, then compare your bill with the table above.

How we scored

We did not use these services hands-on. On October 21, 2026 (October 22 for Moosend), we read each vendor's US pricing page (or the price service the page loads), help center and terms, and scored each service against anchors written before scoring. Cost is calculated, not judged: the price at 2,500 plus the price at 10,000 contacts, sending weekly, on the cheapest plan with no vendor branding and a welcome email. Kit's pricing page didn't show us monthly prices above 1,000 subscribers and Constant Contact's refused automated reads, so some of their prices come from dated third-party listings, marked in the table. The call between EmailOctopus and Sender is close and depends on monthly billing: on yearly prices EmailOctopus is still cheaper ($58.05 a month at the two sizes combined, against Sender's $76.80 after its first-year offer), but both would sit at the top of the cost scale and Sender would rank first. How we scored the best email newsletter services lists every score with its source.

Questions people ask

Is there a free email newsletter service for a small business? Yes. Sender and EmailOctopus let you email 2,500 subscribers free, with a welcome email; Kit lets you email 10,000 but without automation. Every free plan adds the service's branding to your emails.

Is Mailchimp still worth it for a small business? Its features are good, but you pay for unsubscribed contacts until you archive them, and at 10,000 contacts Essentials costs $110 a month against $44.50 at EmailOctopus. Its free plan covers 250 contacts.

Is Brevo cheaper than Mailchimp? Not for small lists. Mailchimp Essentials costs less at 500 contacts ($13 against Brevo Standard's $18) and at 2,500 ($45 against $49). From 10,000 contacts Brevo is much cheaper: $69 a month sending monthly or $89 sending weekly, against Mailchimp's $110, and at 25,000 contacts emailed monthly Brevo's $79 is the lowest price on this page.

How much does it cost to send a newsletter to 1,000 people? On a branding-free plan with a welcome email, billed monthly, from $7 a month (Zoho Campaigns Standard) to $45 (AWeber Plus); EmailOctopus Pro is $13.50, Sender Standard $15 and MailerLite Comfort $19. Free plans from Sender, EmailOctopus, Zoho and Kit cover 1,000 people if you accept their branding.