10 cheapest email marketing platforms for small business 2026
The price on an email platform's pricing page is a marketing number. The number on your card twelve months in is a different one — and the gap is where small businesses lose money.
Directly, then: among the cheapest email marketing platforms right now, the most generous genuinely free option is Sender, with 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month including automation. The lowest real paid price is Hostinger Reach at $2.49/month annual for 500 subscribers. Everything else is a trade.
Every price below was checked in October 2026. Email pricing moves fast — Mailchimp changed its twice this year alone — so verify on the vendor's own page before you commit a card.
One disclosure, because it changes how you read the numbers: four of the six sources here are independent reviewers. Two — Sender and Moosend — sell products in the market they review, and rank themselves favourably. Their pricing data checks out; their ordering doesn't.
Pricing at a glance
| Platform | Free tier | Paid from | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sender | 2,500 subs, 15,000 emails/mo, automation included | $7–10/mo (1,000 contacts) | The most capable free plan |
| Zoho Campaigns | 2,000 subs, 6,000 emails/mo | $3.50/mo annual ($7 monthly) | Existing Zoho users |
| EmailOctopus | 2,500 subs, 10,000 emails/mo | $8–10/mo | Plain newsletters |
| Hostinger Reach | 100 subs, 200 emails/mo | $2.49/mo annual | Lowest annual cost |
| Brevo | 100,000 contacts, 300 emails/day | $8.08–9/mo (5,000 emails) | Big lists, rare sends |
| MailerLite | 250 subs, unlimited sends | $10–12/mo (1,000 contacts) | Creators needing landing pages |
| Mailjet | 6,000 emails/mo (200/day cap) | $9–19/mo | Unlimited contacts |
| SendPulse | 500 subs, 15,000 emails/mo | $8–12/mo | Multichannel on a budget |
| GetResponse | 500 contacts | $15.58/mo annual ($19 monthly) | Automation depth |
| Mailchimp | 250 contacts, 500 emails/mo | $13/mo (500 contacts) | Beginners — with caveats |
Just outside the ten: Maildroppa from $5/mo (text-only, 100 free subscribers); Moosend from $7–16/mo, trial only; Constant Contact from $12/mo, no free tier; ActiveCampaign from $15–19/mo; Omnisend from $16–20/mo for Shopify.
The 10 cheapest email marketing platforms in 2026
1. Sender
Free: 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month — with automation included, which almost nobody else offers for nothing. Cheapest paid: $7–10/month for 1,000 contacts. The catch: That's the standout number in this piece, and the source reporting it is Sender's own blog. Test the automation builder on your real welcome flow before you build a business on it.
2. Zoho Campaigns
Free: 2,000 subscribers and 6,000 emails a month. Cheapest paid: $3.50/month on annual billing, or $7/month billed monthly, for 500 contacts. The catch: Second-cheapest paid plan here, but the value multiplies only if you already use Zoho CRM or Books. Standalone, the editor feels dated next to MailerLite.
3. EmailOctopus
Free: 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails a month. Cheapest paid: $8–10/month. The catch: The entry tier is deliberately minimal. Fine for a weekly newsletter — thin the moment you want branching automation or segmentation beyond tags.
4. Hostinger Reach
Free: 100 subscribers and 200 emails a month — a demo, not a plan. Cheapest paid: $2.49/month on annual billing for 500 subscribers, the lowest annual cost in the category. The catch: You pay a year up front to get $2.49, and it's a newer product with a shorter track record than anything else here. Cheap entry, less certainty.
5. Brevo
Free: 100,000 contacts, capped at 300 emails a day. Store everyone, send to few. Cheapest paid: $8.08–9/month for 5,000 emails a month. The catch: Brevo bills on volume, not contacts — brilliant for a 20,000-person list you email monthly. But it counts unsubscribed contacts toward your total. Archive them or pay for them.
6. MailerLite
Free: 250 subscribers with unlimited sends. Cheapest paid: $10–12/month for 1,000 contacts. The catch: Landing pages and a site builder at every tier make this the best deal for a creator selling something. But 250 free names goes fast.
7. Mailjet
Free: 6,000 emails a month with a 200/day cap and unlimited contacts. Cheapest paid: $9–19/month, still with unlimited contacts. The catch: Unlimited contacts on paid plans is unusual and genuinely valuable for a growing list. The 200-a-day free cap makes any real launch impossible.
8. SendPulse
Free: 500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month. Cheapest paid: $8–12/month. The catch: Deliverability. One inbox-placement test put SendPulse at 62.8% — but that test ran in January 2024 and may well have moved. A reason to run your own seed test, not a verdict.
9. GetResponse
Free: 500 contacts. Cheapest paid: $15.58/month annual, $19/month monthly. The catch: Not cheap by this list's standards — but it's the deepest automation you can buy near this price, and it scored 90.9% inbox placement in that same January 2024 test. If automation is the point, overpaying slightly here beats underpaying elsewhere.
10. Mailchimp
Free: 250 contacts and 500 emails a month, with automation stripped out. Cheapest paid: $13/month for 500 contacts. The catch: It's here because everyone starts here, not because it's a bargain. The free contact allowance has fallen from 2,000 in 2022 to 500 in 2023 to 250 in 2026, and paid prices rose about 11% in January 2026, plus 11–13% in April for legacy accounts. The direction of travel is clear.
Are you billed per contact or per email?
This one choice can halve your bill, and most people never make it deliberately.
Brevo and Mailjet charge for emails sent. Mailchimp, MailerLite and Omnisend charge per subscriber stored. So a 15,000-person list you email monthly is dramatically cheaper on volume billing — while a 600-person list you email three times a week is cheaper per contact.
Run both numbers before you sign anything. Four minutes.
Where do the hidden costs come from?
Platforms that bill on contact count — Mailchimp and Constant Contact among them — charge for unsubscribed and inactive contacts unless you archive them manually, pushing real spend 20–40% above the listed plan price.
That's the big one. The rest stack fast:
- Automation caps. Most sub-$15/month plans limit automation steps — killing welcome sequences and cart recovery, the exact flows that make email profitable.
- Add-ons. SMS, transactional email, extra integrations, priority support. Each modest; together they double a $10 plan.
- Shared IP pools. Budget tiers put you on shared infrastructure, so you inherit other senders' reputation.
- Annual-vs-monthly. Annual billing typically saves 15–20%, so the advertised price usually isn't the monthly one.
- Migration. Switching later means rebuilding templates, automations and segments. Doable — not free.
And free tiers tighten. Mailchimp's shrank three times in four years. Assume yours is smaller next year.
Where Doxiboo fits — and where it doesn't
Straight answer: Doxiboo is not a budget pick. Starter is $19/month — more than every platform ranked above — and there's no free tier, just a 14-day trial, no card required.
At that entry price: one email account, up to 1,000 contacts, five active campaigns, up to 500 recipients per campaign, AI email generation, analytics dashboard, templates and scheduling, email support. Professional at $79/month raises that to 5,000 recipients per campaign; Enterprise is custom.
The one honest argument for paying more: AI campaign generation is included at the entry tier, where most cheap platforms either don't offer AI writing or gate it behind a higher plan. If the lowest possible monthly cost is your only criterion, the free tiers above beat Doxiboo outright — take one.
Frequently asked questions
What is the cheapest email marketing platform in 2026?
For free, Sender's plan is the most generous — 2,500 subscribers, 15,000 emails a month, automation included. For paid, Hostinger Reach starts at $2.49/month annual, then Zoho Campaigns at $3.50/month annual. All figures were checked in October 2026; verify before you buy.
Can I run email marketing for free long-term?
Yes, but plan for the ceiling. Sender, Zoho Campaigns and EmailOctopus all offer 2,000-plus subscribers free, which covers most solo creators for a year or more. Free tiers keep shrinking, though — treat any free plan as temporary, not permanent infrastructure.
Why is my email bill higher than the advertised price?
Usually contact-count billing. Mailchimp and Constant Contact charge for unsubscribed and inactive contacts unless you archive them by hand, pushing real spend 20–40% over the listed price. Add-ons for SMS and transactional email do the rest.
Does a cheaper platform mean worse deliverability?
Not necessarily, but budget tiers use shared IP pools, so your reputation is partly someone else's. January 2024 inbox-placement testing ranged from Constant Contact at 91.7% down to SendPulse at 62.8% — data that's now two years old and may have shifted. Run your own seed test.
How do I choose between ten near-identical cheap platforms?
Match the billing model to your sending pattern, then check whether the entry plan allows the automations you need. Our guide to choosing an email marketing platform has the full checklist, and if AI capability matters more than price, the AI platform roundup is the better comparison.
Final thoughts
Email still earns its keep — 41% of marketers rate it their most effective channel against 16% for social — so spending something here is rational. Spending blindly isn't.
Start on a free tier. Sender for automation, Zoho if you're already in that ecosystem, MailerLite if you need a landing page. Then recalculate at 1,000 contacts, because that's where contact-based billing bites.
If what you need is AI building the sequence rather than the lowest line item, Doxiboo starts at $19/month — not the cheapest option here, and we won't pretend otherwise. Start your free trial: 14 days, no card, and you'll know whether the AI earns the difference.