Best Email Marketing Tools for Small Business 2026: 10 Compared, Free Tiers Included

The short version: for most small businesses starting out, MailerLite or Brevo will get you further than Mailchimp before you pay a penny, Klaviyo and Omnisend win if you sell physical products online, and ActiveCampaign or HubSpot are worth the money only once you've got a real sales process to automate. Free tiers matter less than deliverability and how badly the tool wants to trap you into staying once you're big.

Why I keep getting asked this question

I've moved three separate email lists between platforms in the last six years, one of them 40,000 subscribers strong, and I've watched clients waste money on tools built for enterprises when they had 200 people on their list. Everyone asks the same thing: what's free, and what happens when I outgrow it. So here are 10 tools I've either used myself, migrated a client onto, or migrated a client away from, with the free tier numbers as they stand right now, not as they were marketed to you three years ago.

A quick warning before the list: every one of these companies changes its free tier terms every 12 to 18 months, usually to make it stingier. Check the current numbers on the provider's own pricing page before you commit, because what I'm quoting here is accurate as of writing but these things move.

How I judged these

I looked at four things for each tool: what you get for free, how the free tier is designed to make you upgrade (every single one of them is), how good the automation is once you're paying, and how painful it is to leave. That last one matters more than any feature list, and nobody talks about it enough.

1. Mailchimp

Free tier: 500 contacts, 1,000 sends a month, one audience, basic templates. Mailchimp is the tool everyone's heard of, which is exactly its problem. It used to be the obvious first choice for a small business; now its free plan is one of the meanest on this list and its paid tiers jump fast once you cross a few thousand contacts. I had a client on Mailchimp go from paying $35 a month to $130 a month in under a year purely from list growth, no extra features used. Still fine for a very small list with simple broadcast needs, but I don't recommend it as a first choice anymore.

2. Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)

Free tier: unlimited contacts, 300 emails a day. This is the most generous free plan on this list if your list is large but your sending frequency is low, which describes a lot of local service businesses. A cleaning company with 2,000 people on a newsletter list sending once a week fits comfortably inside Brevo's free tier forever. Brevo also throws in SMS and a basic CRM, which is useful if you're not ready to buy separate tools for that.

3. MailerLite

Free tier: up to 1,000 subscribers, 12,000 emails a month, and unusually for a free plan it includes automation workflows, landing pages, and a basic website builder. This is the one I now recommend most often to businesses just starting an email list. The editor is clean, deliverability has been consistently good in my own testing across three lists, and the jump to paid plans is gentler than Mailchimp's. If you sell online, pairing this with a well-built storefront matters just as much as the email tool itself, which is worth reading about in this comparison of Squarespace versus Wix for marketing a small store before you pick either.

4. Kit (formerly ConvertKit)

Free tier: up to 10,000 subscribers, but no automation, no A/B testing, and only one email template on the free plan. Kit built its name with creators and coaches selling digital products, and it shows: the tagging system for segmenting your audience by interest is well designed. But the free plan is a taster, not a working tool, because you can't automate anything on it. Fine for building a list before launch, not fine once you need welcome sequences.

5. ActiveCampaign

Free tier: none, just a 14-day trial. ActiveCampaign's Lite plan starts around $15 a month for 1,000 contacts. I'm including it because its automation builder is the best I've used, full stop, better than Mailchimp's and better than HubSpot's at this price point. If you have an actual sales pipeline, follow-up sequences based on customer behaviour, or a service business booking calls off the back of email, this is worth paying for from day one rather than outgrowing three free tools first.

6. Klaviyo

Free tier: up to 250 profiles, 500 email sends, 150 SMS sends. Klaviyo is built for ecommerce and it shows in every menu, every report ties back to revenue per email, revenue per flow, revenue per segment. If you run a Shopify or WooCommerce store, this is the closest thing to a specialist tool on this list. Its free tier disappears fast though, 250 contacts is nothing, so treat it as a trial rather than a permanent home unless you're truly pre-launch.

7. HubSpot Marketing Hub

Free tier: free CRM plus email tool allowing 2,000 sends a month, with HubSpot branding on your emails until you pay. HubSpot's real strength is that email sits inside a full CRM, so you're not stitching together separate customer data and email data by hand. That's valuable once your business has more than one person touching customer records. It's overkill for a solo operator, and the branding on free-tier emails looks unpolished, but for a growing team it can replace three separate tools at once, which is the same logic behind this breakdown of AI tools by what they replace.

8. Omnisend

Free tier: up to 250 contacts, 500 emails a month, plus SMS and push notification credits. Omnisend is Klaviyo's cheaper, slightly less polished cousin, also built for ecommerce, also strong on pre-built automation like abandoned cart and post-purchase flows. If you're running a Wix store, its native integration is smoother than most competitors, and I'd read it alongside this honest look at Wix's ecommerce marketing tools before deciding whether to add a separate email platform at all.

9. GetResponse

Free tier: up to 500 contacts, and unusually, unlimited monthly sends on the free plan itself. GetResponse also bundles a landing page builder and basic webinar hosting into its paid tiers, which suits course creators and consultants running workshops. It's less well known in the UK than Mailchimp or Brevo, which is a shame because its automation on the entry paid plan is more capable than Mailchimp's equivalent price point.

10. EmailOctopus

Free tier: up to 2,500 subscribers, 10,000 emails a month. This is the quiet one on this list, built by a small team, running partly on Amazon's sending infrastructure, and priced noticeably below everyone else once you do need to pay. A newsletter-only business, no automation, no ecommerce, just a weekly send to a growing list, will find this the cheapest sensible option by a wide margin. The editor is more basic than MailerLite's and the automation features are limited, but if you just need to send a good-looking email reliably, it does the job without the extras you're paying for elsewhere.

The uncomfortable bit nobody selling you these tools will say

Here's the truth that gets buried under every "best email tool" listicle: the platform matters far less than your list itself. I've watched businesses spend weeks comparing Klaviyo versus Omnisend versus ActiveCampaign while sending to a list that's 40 percent dead addresses, people who haven't opened an email in two years. Your open rate on any tool will look terrible against a stale list, and no amount of switching platforms fixes that. Clean your list before you migrate anywhere, remove anyone who hasn't engaged in six months, and your numbers will improve more than any tool switch will deliver. I did this with the 40,000-subscriber list I mentioned earlier, cut it to 24,000 engaged addresses, and open rates went from 11 percent to 34 percent in one send, on the exact same platform, with the exact same subject line style.

The other thing nobody says out loud: free tiers exist to get your list big enough that leaving becomes painful. Mailchimp, HubSpot, and Klaviyo all know that once you've built three years of automation, segments, and integrations on their free or entry plan, you won't want to rebuild it elsewhere even when the price triples. That's not a criticism of the tools, it's just how the business model works, and it's worth choosing your platform assuming you'll still be on it in three years, not just assuming you'll upgrade smoothly when you outgrow the free tier.

Which one for which business

• Solo consultant or coach starting a list: MailerLite or Kit
• Local service business with a large, low-frequency list: Brevo
• Ecommerce store on Shopify or WooCommerce: Klaviyo
• Ecommerce store on Wix: Omnisend
• Growing team that needs email tied to a CRM: HubSpot
• Business with a real sales pipeline needing behaviour-based automation: ActiveCampaign
• Newsletter-only business watching costs closely: EmailOctopus
• Course creator or workshop host: GetResponse

Creators often want something lighter, so see email platforms similar to Kit, formerly ConvertKit.

A step-by-step for choosing

• Count your current list size and your realistic sending frequency, not your hoped-for one
• Decide if you need ecommerce-specific automation like abandoned cart, or general newsletter sends
• Pick two tools from the list above that fit your list size and use case
• Send a test campaign to a small segment on each free trial and check the actual open rate, not the promised one
• Ask each provider directly what happens to your price at your next three list-size milestones, in writing
• Only then commit, because switching later costs time you won't get back

If you're weighing this decision alongside a bigger question about what to automate first in your business, whether that's email, your phone lines, or your booking process, it's worth reading how automation performed over 30 real days in this test of an AI answering a business phone, because the same lesson applies: the free trial period never tells you the full story, only the messy real weeks do.

This guide is part of my AI for Small Business: 25 Plain-English Guides to Automation, Marketing, Sales and Admin.

Related: Write for Us Digital Marketing Blog.

Related: ai consultant coaches course creators what to automate first.

Related: growth marketing: guidelines and how to pitch.

If you run an online shop, here are the Klaviyo alternatives that handle abandoned cart and welcome flows.

If you want more sign ups from your website, I've compared OptinMonster alternatives for small businesses. If you'd rather pay once than add another subscription, I've looked at where to find software lifetime deals and how to judge them.

If you run an online shop, my Klaviyo vs Mailchimp comparison covers flows, segments and a simple test.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best free email marketing tool for a small business in 2026?

MailerLite offers the strongest useful free tier right now, up to 1,000 subscribers with automation, landing pages, and 12,000 emails a month included, which is more functionality than most competitors give away for free.

Which email marketing tool has the most generous free tier for contact numbers?

Brevo allows unlimited contacts on its free plan, capped instead at 300 emails a day, which suits businesses with a large list but a low sending frequency, such as a local service business emailing once a week.

Do I need a different email tool for an online store than for a service business?

Not strictly, but ecommerce-specific tools like Klaviyo and Omnisend include pre-built automation for abandoned carts and post-purchase follow-ups that general tools like MailerLite or Brevo don't offer out of the box, so they save setup time if you sell products.

Is it worth paying for email marketing software when free tiers exist?

It's worth paying once you need behaviour-based automation, a larger list than your free tier allows, or reporting tied to actual revenue, but a new business with under 500 contacts rarely needs to pay for email software in the first year.

Comparing generous free plans? Look at the main Brevo alternatives for small lists.

Where to check the details

• the UK government's business support pages
• the UK Information Commissioner's guidance on direct marketing