Best email marketing platforms for small business and startups

 

TL;DR

Among email marketing platforms for small business and startups, MailerLite fits most small businesses, Sender or Kit fit startups on a free plan, Loops fits SaaS products and Klaviyo fits online stores. MailerLite is one of the cheapest to pay for, with 50 automations and landing pages on its entry plan: free up to 250 subscribers, paid plans from $12/month. It is also what we use at grafista. Sender's free plan covers 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month with automation, and Kit's covers 10,000 subscribers but no automations. Brevo's free plan stores up to 100,000 contacts, which suits a large list you email rarely, but it caps sending at 300 emails a day. Mailchimp connects to 300+ tools, but its free plan is tied with Klaviyo's for the smallest here: 250 contacts and 500 emails a month.

 

How we compared them

We picked seven platforms that small teams actually shortlist and judged them on two things: what you pay at a small list size, and how much setup stands between signing up and sending your first campaign.

All prices are in USD and were checked on October 3, 2026. Where a vendor's pricing page shows prices, we used it. Brevo's contact caps per tier come from its help center, and Klaviyo's tier prices from recent third-party pricing trackers, because its pricing page loads them in a slider. Email platforms change pricing often (MailerLite's paid plans are now called Comfort and Power, Brevo added contact caps to its paid plans on October 1, 2025, Klaviyo switched to active-profile billing in February 2025), so check the live page before you commit.

One thing to understand before comparing prices: platforms bill in two different ways.

• By contacts: MailerLite, Mailchimp, Kit, Sender, Loops and Klaviyo. You pay for the size of your list, even if you rarely email it.
• By emails sent: Brevo. You pick a monthly email volume, and each volume tier comes with a cap on stored contacts (500 contacts at 5,000 emails, 1,500 at 10,000, 500,000 from 20,000 emails up).

 

Free plans compared

The free plans differ far more than the paid ones. Kit's free plan covers 40 times more subscribers than Mailchimp's.

• Kit: up to 10,000 subscribers, unlimited broadcasts, Kit branding, no automations or email sequences.
• Sender: up to 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month, automation included, Sender branding.
• Loops: unlimited stored contacts, but sends only to your 1,000 newest contacts, capped at 4,000 emails in any rolling 30 days, Loops footer.
• Brevo: up to 100,000 stored contacts, capped at 300 emails a day, Brevo logo.
• MailerLite: up to 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, 3 automations, MailerLite logo.
• Mailchimp: up to 250 contacts, 500 emails a month (max 250 a day), no scheduling, Mailchimp branding.
• Klaviyo: up to 250 active profiles and 500 emails a month, email support for the first 60 days only.

If you need automation on a free plan, Sender covers the largest list with it: 2,500 subscribers. Brevo and Loops also include automation for free, but Brevo's 300-a-day cap means one campaign to 1,000 people cannot go out on a single day, and Loops stops at 1,000 contacts. Kit's free plan is the largest but sends only one-off broadcasts.

 

1. MailerLite: best overall for small businesses

MailerLite is a newsletter and automation tool. Even the free plan includes all three of its email editors: drag and drop, simple and custom HTML. It also includes a landing page builder, a website builder and signup forms, so a small business can run its whole list-building setup from one account.

MailerLite says every paid plan gets its full feature set, and the two paid plans differ mainly in limits: automations, seats, landing pages and monthly sends. That removes most of the guesswork about which tier unlocks which feature. Data is stored in the EU, which matters if you sell to European customers.

What we use at Grafista

We run grafista's email on MailerLite. We send a newsletter campaign every one to two weeks, and automation emails to new users every few days. We chose it a few years ago because it was the cheapest option to start with, and we have stayed because it is easy to use and does everything we need.

For transactional email, such as verification codes or password resets, MailerLite's pricing page points to MailerSend, a separate product from the same company. We use MailerSend for our verification codes and for the emails that tell people someone invited them to an organization. If your product needs both kinds of email, this pairing is an alternative to Loops: two separate tools from one company instead of one combined platform. MailerSend still needs a developer to connect it to your app through its API or SMTP.

Pros

• Three editors (drag and drop, simple, custom HTML), even on free
• Paid plans differ mainly in limits, priced by list size and volume
• Landing pages, websites and forms included
• 14-day trial of premium features, no card required

Cons

• Free plan is small: 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month
• Free plan has no API or MCP sending
• Comfort plan caps sends at 10 times your subscriber tier, so frequent senders need Power

Pricing. Free covers 250 subscribers. Comfort starts at $12/month billed monthly, or $10.80/month billed yearly, and includes unlimited templates, 50 automations and logo removal. Power starts at $25/month billed monthly and adds unlimited emails, seats and automations. Yearly billing saves 10%, and nonprofits get 30% off.

 

2. Brevo: best free plan for storing a large list

Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is an all-in-one marketing platform: email, SMS, a CRM, live chat and transactional email in one account, with WhatsApp from the Professional plan. Its paid plans are priced by how many emails you send each month, and since October 1, 2025 each sending tier also caps how many contacts you can store.

The $9 Starter tier stores only 500 contacts, the 10,000-email tier 1,500, and only from the 20,000-email tier up can you store 500,000. The free plan is the exception: it stores 100,000 contacts but sends only 300 emails a day. So Brevo suits two cases: a small list on the free plan, or a large list on a 20,000-email tier or above. The menu also covers many channels, so a team that only wants newsletters will see options it never uses.

Pros

• Free plan stores up to 100,000 contacts
• From the 20,000-email tier, up to 500,000 stored contacts
• Transactional email (API and SMTP) on every plan, including free
• Email, SMS and a free CRM under one login

Cons

• Free plan caps sending at 300 emails a day
• Paid tiers below 20,000 emails store only 500 or 1,500 contacts
• Removing the Brevo logo on Starter is a paid add-on
• Free and Starter limit automations to 2,000 contacts; unlimited workflows, A/B testing and landing pages start at Standard
• More channels and menus than a newsletter-only team needs

Pricing

Free allows 300 emails a day and stores 100,000 contacts. Starter begins at $9/month for 5,000 emails and 500 stored contacts, and removes the daily cap. Standard begins at $18/month at the same volume, and removes the automation limit and adds A/B testing, landing pages and send-time optimization. Professional starts at $499/month for 150,000 emails and 2 million contacts. Yearly billing saves 10%.

 

3. Mailchimp: best if you use many other tools

Mailchimp is the best-known email platform and lists more than 300 integrations, including Shopify, QuickBooks and Canva. If your business already runs on several tools, Mailchimp is likely to connect to most of them.

Essentials and Standard include 24/7 email and chat support, and Premium adds phone support. The trade-off is that features are split across four tiers. Scheduling, branding removal and automation flows are missing from the free plan, and dynamic content, custom reports and branded templates start at Standard.

Pros

• 300+ integrations across ecommerce, accounting, forms and design tools
• Generative AI features at no extra cost on Standard and Premium (beta, English only, select countries)
• Standard and Premium include personalized onboarding sessions
• Pay-as-you-go email credits for infrequent senders

Cons

• Free plan: 250 contacts, 500 emails a month, no scheduling, 1 user
• Essentials limits automation flows to 4 steps
• Overages are billed automatically when you pass your contact or send limit
• Premium jumps to $350/month

Pricing. Free covers 250 contacts. Essentials starts at $13/month and Standard at $20/month, both for up to 500 contacts, with a 14-day free trial. Essentials allows 10 times your contact count in monthly sends, Standard 12 times. Premium starts at $350/month. Nonprofits get 15% off.

 

4. Kit: best free plan for startups building an audience

Kit (formerly ConvertKit) is built for people and companies whose list grows around content: a founder's newsletter, a podcast, a course, a blog. Subscribers are organized with tags rather than separate lists, which keeps one clean list instead of duplicates across audiences.

Its free plan lets you email the largest list in this comparison: up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited broadcasts, landing pages and forms. The catch is that automations and email sequences, such as a welcome series, require a paid plan. The free plan also has no app integrations and 1 user, so connecting your store or CRM means upgrading.

Pros

• Free up to 10,000 subscribers
• Unlimited landing pages and forms on every plan
• Tag-based subscriber model avoids duplicate contacts
• Built-in selling of digital products and paid newsletters

Cons

• No automations or sequences on the free plan
• Free plan has 1 user and keeps Kit branding
• Creator's $33/month entry price is the second highest of the seven, after Loops
• No app integrations on the free plan

Pricing. Free covers up to 10,000 subscribers. Creator costs $33/month billed yearly ($390/year) at 1,000 subscribers and adds automations, sequences, integrations and branding removal. Pro costs $66/month billed yearly at 1,000 subscribers and adds unlimited users and deliverability reporting. Yearly billing saves 17%, and both paid plans have a 14-day free trial.

 

5. Sender: best value for small budgets

Sender is a low-cost platform with a drag-and-drop editor, automation, popups, landing pages and SMS. It positions itself directly against Mailchimp and offers free migration from Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign and MailerLite.

For a startup with a few thousand contacts, Sender's free plan runs automation for the largest list here (against 2,000 contacts on Brevo free and 1,000 on Loops free): 2,500 subscribers, 15,000 emails a month and automation workflows, with no daily sending limit. Premade automation workflows cover common jobs such as a welcome series, and ecommerce blocks include abandoned cart and order summary. It has fewer integrations than Mailchimp or Klaviyo, so check that your store or CRM connects before you move.

Pros

• Free: 2,500 subscribers, 15,000 emails a month, automation included
• No daily sending limit on any plan
• 24/7 email and live chat support, even on the free plan
• EU data residency

Cons

• Free plan keeps Sender branding and 1 seat
• A/B testing and SMS require a paid plan
• Smaller integration library than Mailchimp or Klaviyo
• Advanced reports and SMS automation only on Professional

Pricing

Free covers 2,500 subscribers. Standard costs $9/month billed yearly ($108/year) for 500 subscribers and 6,000 emails a month, and removes branding. Professional costs $15/month billed yearly ($180/year) for 500 subscribers and adds advanced automation and priority support. New users get 30% off the first year. A pay-as-you-go option starts at $29 for 5,000 emails.

 

6. Loops: best for SaaS startups

Loops is an email platform built for software companies. It handles three kinds of email in one place: marketing campaigns, product emails triggered by what users do in your app, and transactional emails such as password resets. Customers listed on its site include Linear, Perplexity and Clerk.

Marketers can send campaigns without code, but most of the value comes from connecting Loops to your product through its API or integrations. That means a developer needs to spend time on setup. For a startup that already has one, Loops replaces two tools (a newsletter platform and a transactional email API) with one.

Pros

• Marketing, product and transactional email in one platform
• Unlimited sends on paid plans, transactional email included
• No charge for team seats
• Every feature on every plan, including free

Cons

• Needs developer time to get full value from event-based emails
• Built for SaaS, not for ecommerce stores
• Highest entry price of the seven
• Free plan sends only to your 1,000 newest contacts

Pricing

Free includes unlimited stored contacts and up to 4,000 sends in any rolling 30 days to your 1,000 newest contacts, with a Loops footer. The paid Growing Audience Plan is priced by subscribed contacts, with unlimited sends and all features: $49/month for 5,000 subscribers and $99/month for 10,000.

 

7. Klaviyo: best for online stores

Klaviyo is built for ecommerce. It pulls order, product and browsing data from Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce and the rest of its 350+ app integrations, then uses it for segments and automated flows like abandoned cart, browse abandonment and post-purchase emails.

For a store, that depth is the reason to choose it: an abandoned-cart flow starts from a prebuilt template instead of a blank canvas. For a service business or a B2B startup, most of those features go unused and you pay for them anyway. Expect more reports, segment conditions and flow settings to learn than in MailerLite or Sender.

Pros

• Segments built on order, product and browsing data
• Prebuilt flows for cart, browse and post-purchase emails
• Email, SMS and WhatsApp in one platform
• 350+ integrations

Cons

• Free plan: 250 active profiles, 500 emails a month
• Bills on all active profiles, including people you never email
• Costs rise quickly with list size
• Steeper learning curve than general-purpose tools

Pricing

Free covers 250 active profiles, 500 emails and 150 SMS credits a month. The Email plan starts at $20/month for 251 to 500 profiles, with monthly sends at about 10 times your profile count. Email + SMS starts at $35/month. Since February 2025, Klaviyo bills on every active profile in your account, so suppressing inactive contacts lowers your bill.

 

Which one should you pick?

Match the platform to how you sell and how often you send, not to the longest feature list.

• Local business or service company, under 1,000 contacts: MailerLite. Landing pages, website builder and 50 automations from $12/month.
• Startup with no budget and a list of a few thousand: Sender free if you need automation, Kit free if you only send newsletters.
• Large list, one or two campaigns a month: Brevo on a 20,000-email tier or higher, which stores up to 500,000 contacts. Check the monthly price for your volume on Brevo's pricing page.
• SaaS product with a developer on the team: Loops for onboarding, product and transactional email in one tool.
• SaaS product that wants newsletters and transactional email in separate tools: MailerLite plus MailerSend, the setup we run at grafista.
• Shopify or WooCommerce store: Klaviyo, or Sender if Klaviyo's price is too high at your list size.
• Already running many connected tools: Mailchimp, for the integration coverage.

Whichever you choose, authenticate your sending domain (SPF, DKIM and DMARC) before your first campaign. Gmail and Yahoo require it for bulk senders, and your platform's help center lists the DNS records to add.

 

Designing the graphics for your emails

Every platform above has an email editor, but the images inside (the newsletter header, the sale banner, the event announcement) usually come from somewhere else. For a small team that means reusing one template image every week or opening a separate design tool for each campaign.

Grafista can easily generate those graphics for you using AI. Each design comes out fully editable (text, images, shapes and decorations) in a canvas editor, and an AI agent handles bigger changes when you ask for them. Download the result as PNG and drop it into MailerLite, Mailchimp, Brevo or any other editor.