Best Email Marketing Tools for Small Business

By the Sift Space editorial team · Updated October 29, 2026

For a solo owner or a small team, MailerLite is the one to try first: its cheapest paid plan is $12 a month and still includes automations, a website builder, landing pages and sign-up forms, and its 250-subscriber free tier works as a real account. Mailchimp, a dollar more at $13, is the name most owners already know, with a feature list you rarely outgrow, but its pricing climbs steeply as a list grows.

The bigger decision is what kind of business you run. Eight of the thirteen sell themselves as all-purpose tools; Klaviyo and Omnisend are built for online stores, and Kit, beehiiv and Flodesk for creators and newsletters. The other split is depth: ActiveCampaign is the automation specialist with the steepest learning curve, while EmailOctopus does email and nothing else from $9.

Our picks

A solo owner with a small list: MailerLite. $12 a month with automations, a website builder and landing pages included, and a free tier that is a working account.
A Shopify store where email drives sales: Klaviyo. From $20, with order and browsing data pulled straight from the store into segments, and SMS in the same account.
Multi-step automations with a CRM: ActiveCampaign. $19 buys the deepest automation in the group, plus a built-in CRM and site tracking, after a 14-day trial.
Growing a newsletter before paying: Kit. The free plan carries up to 10,000 subscribers, the most generous in the table by a wide margin.
Just email, nothing bolted on: EmailOctopus. From $9 a month billed yearly, with a free plan of 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails a month.

At a glance

Option	Starting Price	Free Plan	Free Plan Contacts	Best Suited For
Mailchimp	$13source	Ongoing free plansource	250source	All-purpose small businesssource
Brevo	$9source	Ongoing free plansource		All-purpose small businesssource
MailerLite	$12source	Ongoing free plansource	250source	All-purpose small businesssource
Kit	$33source	Ongoing free plansource	10,000source	Creators & newsletterssource
ActiveCampaign	$19source	Free trial onlysource		All-purpose small businesssource
Klaviyo	$20source	Ongoing free plansource	250source	Ecommerce storessource
Omnisend	$16source	Ongoing free plansource	250source	Ecommerce storessource
GetResponse	$19source	Ongoing free plansource		All-purpose small businesssource
AWeber	$15source	Free trial onlysource		All-purpose small businesssource
EmailOctopus	$9source	Ongoing free plansource	2,500source	All-purpose small businesssource
beehiiv	$49source	Ongoing free plansource	2,500source	Creators & newsletterssource
Flodesk	$25source	Ongoing free plansource		Creators & newsletterssource
Zoho Campaigns		Ongoing free plansource	2,000source	All-purpose small businesssource

Store, newsletter or general business

If you sell products online, the two ecommerce tools earn their place. Klaviyo ($20) pulls order and browsing history from the store, so segments like lapsed buyers or cart abandoners take a few clicks, and it is where many Shopify merchants move once email becomes a real revenue line. Omnisend ($16) is the cheaper alternative for Shopify and WooCommerce, with pre-built automations and 24/7 live support on every plan, the free one included. Without a store, much of either goes unused.

The creator tools are priced for building an audience rather than mailing customers. beehiiv's $49 entry plan is the highest here, and it ships a hosted site, an ad marketplace and paid subscriptions; Kit's paid plans, from $33, add a visual automation builder and paid newsletters; Flodesk's $25 buys design-led templates with unlimited sends. For a shop or service business sending customer updates, the all-purpose tools are the closer fit.

What happens to the bill as your list grows

Starting Price is the cheapest plan at the smallest list each vendor sells, and every tool here costs more as the list grows. Mailchimp and Klaviyo climb steeply, and Kit is expensive per subscriber next to the general-purpose tools. AWeber publishes its full table of subscriber bands, so the next tier's price is never a surprise.

Brevo is the one that meters differently: it prices by emails sent rather than contacts stored, so a big list you mail occasionally costs far less there than almost anywhere else. Unlimited monthly sends on every paid plan, at GetResponse and at Flodesk, protect a small list you mail often, though GetResponse's entry plan allows only one automation workflow. Flodesk used to charge a flat fee at any list size and now scales with subscribers.

Trying one before you pay

ActiveCampaign and AWeber have no free plan, only 14-day trials. GetResponse gives new accounts premium features for 14 days and then drops them to a limited free version rather than locking them out. Flodesk's free plan builds forms, landing pages and link-in-bio pages but cannot send email, so it collects sign-ups without mailing them.

Among the lasting free plans, Kit's 10,000 subscribers is the outlier. EmailOctopus and beehiiv hold 2,500, with unlimited free sending on beehiiv, and Zoho Campaigns holds 2,000, which suits a business already running Zoho CRM. Mailchimp, MailerLite, Klaviyo and Omnisend all stop at 250. MailerLite's approval for new accounts can be slow, so avoid signing up the morning a campaign has to go out.

The options in detail

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.

How we researched this

Best Suited For takes each vendor's own description of who it sells to, not our judgment of who should use it, and on that reading the table has eight all-purpose tools, two for ecommerce and three for creators. Constant Contact belongs here on merit, but no page of its site was readable, so it has no row; HubSpot has none either, because its email tool is sold only inside a seat-based Marketing Hub bundle, so its starting price would not mean what the other rows mean.

Starting Price is the lowest advertised monthly price at the smallest list size, with two exceptions: EmailOctopus's $9 is its billed-yearly rate, and Omnisend's $16 is the list price rather than its first-three-months discount. Mailchimp, Klaviyo and Omnisend state their prices in plain text only on their own Shopify App Store listings, so those cells cite those pages, and Zoho Campaigns' price is blank because Zoho shows it only through an on-page calculator. Free Plan Contacts is blank where there is no free plan (ActiveCampaign, AWeber), where the cap is on sending instead (Brevo), or where we found no published cap (Flodesk, GetResponse). These are September 3, 2026 prices for the smallest list, so price your own list size on the vendor's page before you choose.