Best email marketing tools for small business

Mailchimp

The default choice, and still the one most small businesses have heard of. Mailchimp covers email plus SMS, landing pages, sign-up forms and a light CRM, so you rarely outgrow the feature list. The free tier is the stingiest of the big names at 250 contacts and 500 sends a month, and pricing climbs steeply once your list grows, which is the usual reason people leave.

Brevo

An all-in-one platform that bundles email, SMS, a CRM, live chat and transactional sending under one login, which makes it unusually broad for the money. Brevo prices by emails sent rather than by contacts stored, so a big list you email occasionally costs far less here than almost anywhere else. The free tier is capped at 300 emails a day rather than by list size. The breadth is also the drawback: each module is decent rather than best-in-class.

MailerLite

The value pick for a solo owner or a small team that wants a clean editor and does not need a CRM bolted on. The paid plan is one of the cheapest here and still includes automations, a website builder, landing pages and sign-up forms. The free tier is small at 250 subscribers and 2,500 monthly emails, but it is a real working account rather than a crippled demo. Approval for new accounts can be slow, which occasionally trips people up on day one.

Kit

Formerly ConvertKit, and built around the person writing the emails rather than a marketing department. The free plan is the most generous in this table by a wide margin, carrying up to 10,000 subscribers, which is why so many newsletters start here. Paid plans add a visual automation builder, paid-newsletter subscriptions and a creator referral network. It is expensive per subscriber compared with the general-purpose tools, and the templates are deliberately plain.

ActiveCampaign

The automation specialist: if your reason for buying is multi-step journeys, conditional logic and behavioural triggers, this is the deepest tool of the group at a small-business price. It also carries a built-in CRM and site tracking, so sales follow-up lives beside the marketing. There is no free tier at all, only a 14-day trial, and the learning curve is the steepest here.

Klaviyo

Built for online stores, and the tool most Shopify merchants graduate to once email becomes a real revenue line. It pulls order and browsing data straight from the store, so segments like lapsed buyers or cart abandoners are a few clicks rather than a project. SMS sits in the same account. The free plan stops at 250 contacts and 500 sends, and costs rise quickly with list size, so it is hard to justify if you are not selling products.

Omnisend

The cheaper ecommerce alternative to Klaviyo, aimed at Shopify and WooCommerce stores that want pre-built automations working on day one. Email, SMS and web push share one account, and 24/7 live support is offered on every plan including the free one. The free tier allows 250 contacts and 500 emails a month. It is narrower than the general-purpose tools: outside of a store, much of what you pay for goes unused.

GetResponse

A broad suite that reaches well past email into landing pages, sign-up funnels, webinars and paid courses, which is the reason to pick it over a pure email tool. Every paid plan includes unlimited monthly sends, so a small list you mail often will not push you into a higher tier. The entry plan allows only one automation workflow. New accounts get premium features free for the first 14 days and then drop to a limited free version rather than being locked out.

AWeber

One of the oldest names in email marketing, and it still sells to the same audience: owner-run businesses that want the thing to work without a setup project. Plans are priced by subscriber band with a published table, so there are no surprises about what the next tier costs. Entry-level Lite caps you at one list, three automations and three landing pages. There is no longer a free plan, only a 14-day trial, and the interface shows its age.

EmailOctopus

The deliberately minimal option: email marketing and nothing else, at the lowest paid price in this table. You get a drag-and-drop editor, automations, forms and landing pages, and none of the SMS or CRM modules the bigger suites charge for. The free plan is unusually roomy at 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails a month, though it carries EmailOctopus branding and only one landing page. There is no free trial of the paid tier, by design.

beehiiv

A newsletter business in a box rather than a general email tool: it ships a hosted website, a subscribe page, an ad marketplace and paid subscriptions alongside the sending. The free Launch plan carries 2,500 subscribers with unlimited sends, which is the most generous free sending here. The first paid tier is also the most expensive entry price in this table, because it is priced for people monetising an audience rather than mailing customers.

Flodesk

Chosen for how the emails look. Flodesk's templates and editor are aimed at people who care about design but do not want to hire one, and every paid plan includes unlimited sends. Pricing used to be a flat fee regardless of list size and now scales with subscribers, which changed the calculus for large lists. The free plan is the weakest here: it builds forms, landing pages and link-in-bio pages but cannot send email at all.

Zoho Campaigns

The pick for a business already inside Zoho's ecosystem, where it plugs straight into Zoho CRM and the rest of the suite. Its forever-free plan is one of the largest on offer, holding up to 2,000 contacts and 6,000 emails a month, and paid tiers are priced by contact band starting at 500. Standalone it is less polished than the tools built purely for email, and the pricing is only shown through an on-page calculator rather than stated in plain text.