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Comparison

The best Buttondown alternatives

Buttondown is the smallest good newsletter tool: markdown, a hosted archive, and add-ons for anything beyond that. People leave when the add-ons stack up, or when one email a day to the whole list stops being enough.

Eighteen alternatives below, with what each costs, what its free tier really gets you, and what it is bad at. We make one of them. It's marked, and its gaps are listed like everyone else's.

18 options Prices checked 2 August 2026 No affiliate links
The short answer

Pick by the reason you're leaving

Nobody replaces a platform in the abstract. Something specific stopped working. Start from that, not from a feature matrix.

Best free tierKit

10,000 free subscribers against Buttondown's 100.

Cheapest paidEmailOctopus

$9/mo billed yearly, with 2,500 free subscribers.

Best for monetisingbeehiiv

Paid subscriptions at a 0% take rate, plus an ad network.

Most generous free planSender

2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month, with automation included.

Best when the newsletter serves a productEmail Bump

Segments, flows and a transactional API on the same plan. That's us.

Context

What actually goes wrong with Buttondown

Buttondown is small on purpose, and every complaint is really about what that purpose excludes.

Add-ons stack faster than you expect. Tagging, segmentation, paid subscriptions, analytics, RSS-to-email and attachments are each +$9/mo. Automations, multiple newsletters and custom-domain archives are +$29/mo. Teams and whitelabelling are +$79/mo. Pick four things and the à la carte model stops being cheaper than a flat plan.

One email a day to the whole list. Standard pricing allows at most one send to your entire subscriber base per day. Fine for a newsletter; a hard constraint if you're running sequences or segmented sends on the same day.

The free tier is 100 subscribers. The smallest permanent free plan in this comparison. Kit gives 10,000, Sender gives 2,500, EmailOctopus gives 2,500 and Email Bump gives 5,000 contacts.

No ecommerce, no CRM, no transactional API. Which is the point — it's a newsletter tool. But a product team that starts here will outgrow it the first time an email needs to fire off something a user did.

The baseline

How Buttondown's pricing is shaped

Everything below is compared against these numbers, read on 2 August 2026.

Base plus add-ons

The model

$0
Up to 100 subscribersFree — Markdown editor, custom domain sending, hosted archives
+$9/mo
eachAdd-ons — Tagging, segmentation, paid subscriptions, analytics, RSS-to-email, attachments
+$29/mo
eachAdd-ons — Automations, multiple newsletters, custom-domain archives
+$79/mo
eachAdd-ons — Whitelabelling, teams
Worth knowing

The fine print

  • Billed on active subscribers only — dormant addresses don't cost you.
  • Standard pricing allows at most one email a day to your entire subscriber base.
  • Subscriber pricing runs through a calculator rather than a fixed table.
  • Automations are a $29/mo add-on rather than a base feature.
  • Privacy-minded by design, with no tracking pixels by default.
Side by side

All 18, on the things that decide it

ProviderStarts atFree tierWhat it coversLicenceData region
Email BumpHosted$19/mo at 10,000 contacts5,000 contacts and 5,000 emails a monthThe whole product — campaigns, live segments, multi-step flows and behavioural triggersProprietaryUnited States (Amazon SES, us-east-1)
Kit (formerly ConvertKit)HostedCreator $33/mo at 1,000 subscribers ($390/year)Up to 10,000 subscribers with one basic visual automationBroadcasts, sequences, visual automations, landing pages, forms and digital product salesProprietaryUnited States
beehiivHostedScale $43/mo at 1,000 subscribers ($517/year)Up to 2,500 subscribers with unlimited email sendsNewsletter publishing, a website, paid subscriptions and an ad networkProprietaryUnited States
EmailOctopusHostedPro from $9/mo billed yearly2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails a month, with EmailOctopus brandingCampaigns, simple automations, landing pages and formsProprietaryUnited Kingdom
MailerLiteHostedComfort from $12/mo; Power from $25/mo250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, 2 seats, 3 automationsCampaigns, automations, landing pages, forms and websitesProprietaryEuropean Union (Lithuania)
SenderHostedPaid plans are priced by subscriber count and aren't shown as a static table2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month, with automation includedCampaigns, automation, landing pages, forms and pop-ups, plus SMS on paid tiersProprietaryEuropean Union (Lithuania)
GhostSelf-hostableStarter $18/mo billed yearly; Publisher $29/moNone on Ghost(Pro), but the software is free to self-hostPublishing, newsletters and paid memberships — no lifecycle automationOpen source (MIT), with a paid managed optionManaged hosting in your chosen region; self-hosted wherever you deploy
SubstackHostedFree to publish; 10% of paid subscription revenuePublishing is free at any list sizeNewsletter publishing, paid subscriptions, a reader app and a discovery networkProprietaryUnited States
BrevoHostedPaid plans start at 5,000 emails a month; the price scales with send volume300 emails a day, forever, with contact storage into the tens of thousandsCampaigns, automation, plus SMS, WhatsApp, a CRM and landing pagesProprietaryEuropean Union (France)
MailchimpHostedEssentials $13/mo at 500 contacts250 contacts and 500 sends a month, capped at 250 a day, 1 seatCampaigns, journeys, landing pages, forms, ads and a light CRMProprietaryUnited States
LoopsHostedPriced by subscribed contacts via a slider, not published as a fixed table1,000 contacts and 4,000 sends a month, with a Loops footer on your emailCampaigns and loops (their term for automations), plus transactionalProprietaryUnited States
BentoHosted$29/mo for up to 5,000 active users100 transactional emails a month; the marketing platform has a 30-day trialCampaigns, automations, CRM, segmentation, forms and pop-upsProprietaryUnited States
ActiveCampaignHostedPriced per tier and contact count; no static price table is publishedNone — a 14-day trialThe whole product, plus a sales CRM on the higher tiersProprietaryUnited States (Chicago-headquartered)
Campaign MonitorHostedLite and Essentials are priced by contact count on a slider500 contacts and 500 emails a monthCampaigns, automated journeys, segments and a website builder on PremierProprietaryUnited States, with Australian origins
MailcoachSelf-hostableHosted from $9.99/mo base, including 2,000 emailsNone; the hosted base plan is $9.99/moCampaigns, lists, automations and transactional sendingCommercial, with a separate self-hosted licenceWherever you deploy the self-hosted version
listmonkSelf-hostableFree to run; you pay your SMTP provider for the sendingSelf-hosted — the software is freeLists, subscribers, campaigns and templatesAGPL-3.0Wherever you deploy it
SendySelf-hostable$69 one-time licence; you pay Amazon SES for sendingNot free, but there is no recurring costLists, campaigns, autoresponders and reportsCommercial one-time licenceWherever you host it
MauticSelf-hostableFree to run; you pay for hosting and a sending providerSelf-hosted — the software is freeFull campaign builder, segmentation, landing pages, forms and lead scoringOpen sourceWherever you deploy it

Read off each vendor's own pricing or documentation page on 2 August 2026. Where a vendor renders prices from a slider and publishes no static table, the cell says so instead of repeating a number from someone's affiliate post.

In detail

Every option, and what it's bad at

01Hosted service

Email Bump

Best for: Teams tired of send multipliers, seat limits and paid add-ons

Contact-priced marketing automation with the transactional API included rather than sold as an add-on. Sending isn't a multiple of your list size, seats aren't rationed, and unsubscribed contacts stop counting toward the bill.

Starts at
$19/mo at 10,000 contacts
Free tier
5,000 contacts and 5,000 emails a month
Marketing
The whole product — campaigns, live segments, multi-step flows and behavioural triggers
Data region
United States (Amazon SES, us-east-1)
What it does well
  • No send multiplier. Most of this list caps you at 10–15× your contact count; sending here is uncapped under fair use.
  • Unlimited team seats on every plan, including free — seats are the quiet upsell everywhere else.
  • Unlimited sending domains, also on every plan.
  • Unsubscribed and bounced contacts stop being billable, so the number you pay for is your real audience.
  • The transactional API, SMTP and inbound email are included, not add-ons.
  • A CLI, an MCP server and agent skills cover the same surface as the API, including creating the account itself.
What to watch for
  • No sales CRM — no pipelines, deals or lead scoring. If you're replacing ActiveCampaign's sales side, this isn't it.
  • No SMS or WhatsApp. Email and inbound email only.
  • No landing page or form builder.
  • US-only sending; no EU data region.
  • A much smaller integration catalogue than the incumbents' hundreds of connectors.
  • The free plan puts a 'Powered by Email Bump' badge on marketing footers.
02Hosted service

Kit (formerly ConvertKit)

Best for: Creators, newsletters and anyone selling their own digital products

Built for individual creators rather than marketing departments, and it shows in the best way: unlimited sending, a free tier that goes to 10,000 subscribers, and commerce built in.

Starts at
Creator $33/mo at 1,000 subscribers ($390/year)
Free tier
Up to 10,000 subscribers with one basic visual automation
Marketing
Broadcasts, sequences, visual automations, landing pages, forms and digital product sales
Data region
United States
What it does well
  • The most generous free tier here by subscriber count — 10,000, not 250.
  • Unlimited email broadcasts on every paid plan; no send multiplier.
  • Sells digital products and subscriptions natively.
  • Pro includes unlimited users, which most competitors reserve for their top tier.
What to watch for
  • The free tier allows one basic automation — the sequences are the paid product.
  • Creator is $33/mo at 1,000 subscribers, well above MailerLite or Mailchimp at that size.
  • Commerce takes a transaction fee on product sales.
  • Built around a creator's mental model; a B2B lifecycle team may find it thin.
03Hosted service

beehiiv

Best for: Newsletters that intend to become a business

Built by ex-Morning Brew people for newsletters that monetise. The free plan runs to 2,500 subscribers with unlimited sends, and paid subscriptions carry a 0% platform take rate — you keep everything past Stripe's fee.

Starts at
Scale $43/mo at 1,000 subscribers ($517/year)
Free tier
Up to 2,500 subscribers with unlimited email sends
Marketing
Newsletter publishing, a website, paid subscriptions and an ad network
Data region
United States
What it does well
  • 2,500 free subscribers with unlimited sending, and no credit card.
  • 0% take rate on paid subscriptions — you pay only Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30.
  • An ad network that matches sponsors to newsletters, on Scale and above.
  • Custom domains and API access even on the free plan.
What to watch for
  • Removing beehiiv branding requires Max at $96/mo.
  • The free plan excludes the ad network, paid subscriptions and the Send API.
  • It's a publishing platform, not a marketing automation tool — no behavioural segments or lifecycle flows.
  • $43/mo at 1,000 subscribers is expensive if you aren't monetising.
04Hosted service

EmailOctopus

Best for: The cheapest way to email a list of a few thousand people

Deliberately minimal and priced accordingly. No CRM, no funnels, no ecommerce data model — a list, a campaign, a simple automation, and a bill that stays small.

Starts at
Pro from $9/mo billed yearly
Free tier
2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails a month, with EmailOctopus branding
Marketing
Campaigns, simple automations, landing pages and forms
Data region
United Kingdom
What it does well
  • 2,500 free subscribers and 10,000 free emails a month — ten times most free tiers.
  • Pro adds unlimited users, which is rare at $9/mo.
  • Reports kept forever on Pro, against 30 days on free.
  • Nothing to learn. It does one thing.
What to watch for
  • Free puts EmailOctopus branding on your email and limits you to 1 landing page and 1 form.
  • Automation is basic — no branching journeys.
  • No CRM, no SMS, no ecommerce data.
  • Not the tool you grow into.
05Hosted service

MailerLite

Best for: Small teams who want a clean builder and a cheap entry price

The most consistently recommended ActiveCampaign alternative for people who found ActiveCampaign too much. Well-designed, inexpensive, and the Power plan drops the send multiplier entirely.

Starts at
Comfort from $12/mo; Power from $25/mo
Free tier
250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, 2 seats, 3 automations
Marketing
Campaigns, automations, landing pages, forms and websites
Data region
European Union (Lithuania)
What it does well
  • Power removes the send cap entirely — unlimited monthly emails and unlimited seats.
  • $12/mo entry is among the cheapest real plans in this category.
  • The editor and templates are genuinely pleasant to use.
  • 24/7 support even on the cheaper paid tier.
What to watch for
  • Free is 250 subscribers and 3 active automations — small.
  • Comfort caps you at 50 active automations and a 10× send multiple.
  • Automation logic is shallower than ActiveCampaign's; complex branching gets awkward.
  • No sales CRM.
06Hosted service

Sender

Best for: The most generous permanent free plan in marketing email

Free forever at 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 monthly emails — with automation, landing pages, forms and transactional sending included rather than held back for paid tiers.

Starts at
Paid plans are priced by subscriber count and aren't shown as a static table
Free tier
2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month, with automation included
Marketing
Campaigns, automation, landing pages, forms and pop-ups, plus SMS on paid tiers
Data region
European Union (Lithuania)
What it does well
  • 2,500 free subscribers and 15,000 free monthly emails — the largest free allowance in this comparison.
  • The free plan includes automation, which most competitors reserve for paid tiers.
  • SMS on paid plans, with free credits on Standard and Professional.
  • Transactional sending is part of the platform.
What to watch for
  • Paid prices weren't rendering on their pricing page when we checked, so budgeting means signing up.
  • Smaller company and integration catalogue than the well-known names.
  • Automation depth is closer to MailerLite than ActiveCampaign.
  • A very generous free tier means a broad shared sender base — warm up carefully.
07Open source (MIT), with a paid managed option

Ghost

Best for: Publications that want a website, a newsletter and paid memberships in one open-source stack

A publishing platform with newsletters attached, and one of the few genuinely open-source options here — Ghost(Pro) is the managed version, and you can self-host the same software for nothing.

Starts at
Starter $18/mo billed yearly; Publisher $29/mo
Free tier
None on Ghost(Pro), but the software is free to self-host
Marketing
Publishing, newsletters and paid memberships — no lifecycle automation
Data region
Managed hosting in your chosen region; self-hosted wherever you deploy
What it does well
  • 0% transaction fee on paid memberships — you keep everything past the payment processor.
  • The site, the archive and the newsletter are one product, not three.
  • Genuinely open source: self-host the identical software at no licence cost.
  • Business at $199/mo gives 10 newsletters and 15 staff users.
What to watch for
  • Starter at $18/mo excludes paid memberships and allows 1 newsletter and 1 staff user.
  • No marketing automation — no behavioural segments or multi-step flows.
  • No transactional email for a product.
  • Self-hosting means running Node, a database and your own sending provider.
08Hosted service

Substack

Best for: Writers who want zero setup and don't mind paying a share of revenue

Free to publish, and Substack takes 10% of every paid subscription plus Stripe's fee. There's nothing to configure and nothing to own — the network and the discovery are the product, and the 10% is the price.

Starts at
Free to publish; 10% of paid subscription revenue
Free tier
Publishing is free at any list size
Marketing
Newsletter publishing, paid subscriptions, a reader app and a discovery network
Data region
United States
What it does well
  • No monthly fee at any subscriber count — you pay only when you earn.
  • Discovery and recommendations that genuinely grow lists.
  • The reader app and network effect have no equivalent elsewhere.
  • Zero setup: no DNS, no deliverability, no templates.
What to watch for
  • 10% of paid subscription revenue, plus Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30, forever.
  • At $10,000/month in subscriptions that's $1,000/month — far above any flat-fee platform.
  • No automation, no segmentation, no transactional email.
  • Your audience lives on their platform, under their discovery rules.
09Hosted service

Brevo

Best for: Large lists you email infrequently, and teams that want EU-based billing

Formerly Sendinblue. The structural difference from almost everything else here is that Brevo meters emails sent rather than contacts stored — so a big dormant list costs nothing to keep.

Starts at
Paid plans start at 5,000 emails a month; the price scales with send volume
Free tier
300 emails a day, forever, with contact storage into the tens of thousands
Marketing
Campaigns, automation, plus SMS, WhatsApp, a CRM and landing pages
Data region
European Union (France)
What it does well
  • Priced on emails sent, not contacts stored — the cheapest way to hold a large, rarely-mailed list.
  • French company with EU data handling, which settles a lot of procurement reviews.
  • SMS, WhatsApp, CRM and landing pages included in the platform rather than bolted on.
  • The free plan is genuinely usable for a small list.
What to watch for
  • The free plan's 300-a-day ceiling is a hard daily wall, not a monthly allowance.
  • Breadth over depth — the automation builder is less capable than ActiveCampaign's.
  • Deliverability on shared infrastructure gets mixed reports; warm up carefully.
  • The interface carries the scars of a product that has absorbed a lot of modules.
10Hosted service

Mailchimp

Best for: Teams who need the name procurement already recognises

The default answer for a decade, now part of Intuit. Enormous integration catalogue, and a pricing model built around send multipliers and seat counts that gets expensive at the top.

Starts at
Essentials $13/mo at 500 contacts
Free tier
250 contacts and 500 sends a month, capped at 250 a day, 1 seat
Marketing
Campaigns, journeys, landing pages, forms, ads and a light CRM
Data region
United States
What it does well
  • The largest integration catalogue in the category.
  • Template and content tooling that non-marketers can use without training.
  • Predictive segmentation and reporting on Standard and above.
  • Every agency and freelancer already knows it.
What to watch for
  • Free is 250 contacts and 500 sends — a demo, not a plan.
  • Send multipliers apply: 10× on Essentials, 12× on Standard, 15× on Premium.
  • Seats are rationed at 1 / 3 / 5 until Premium, which is $350/mo at 500 contacts.
  • You pay for unsubscribed contacts unless you archive them yourself.
11Hosted service

Loops

Best for: SaaS teams who want lifecycle email without assembling it

Contact-priced, opinionated, and quick to set up, with transactional sending folded in at no extra charge. Less configurable than ActiveCampaign by design.

Starts at
Priced by subscribed contacts via a slider, not published as a fixed table
Free tier
1,000 contacts and 4,000 sends a month, with a Loops footer on your email
Marketing
Campaigns and loops (their term for automations), plus transactional
Data region
United States
What it does well
  • Transactional sending included rather than billed as a second product.
  • Genuinely fast to set up — hours, not a fortnight.
  • The free plan runs a small product.
  • Clean, modern interface with no legacy modules.
What to watch for
  • Free adds Loops branding and caps you at 10 emails/second.
  • Paid pricing sits behind a slider, so budgeting means signing up.
  • Automation is deliberately simpler than ActiveCampaign's.
  • No CRM, SMS or landing pages.
12Hosted service

Bento

Best for: SaaS and store teams who want marketing and transactional at a very low flat price

A small, opinionated platform with unusually blunt pricing: $29/mo for up to 5,000 active users with unlimited sends, automations and seats, and transactional email metered separately at cents per thousand.

Starts at
$29/mo for up to 5,000 active users
Free tier
100 transactional emails a month; the marketing platform has a 30-day trial
Marketing
Campaigns, automations, CRM, segmentation, forms and pop-ups
Data region
United States
What it does well
  • $29/mo covers 5,000 active users with unlimited marketing sends, automations and seats.
  • Transactional at $5/mo to 12,500 emails, then $0.09 per 1,000 — among the cheapest anywhere.
  • A 30-day trial with no charge during it.
  • Deliverability tooling and analytics included rather than upsold.
What to watch for
  • Small company; fewer integrations and less public track record.
  • Bento Chat is a separate $30/mo add-on and requires the marketing platform.
  • Marketing and transactional are metered separately rather than as one plan.
  • Less polished than the established names, which is the trade for the price.
13Hosted service

ActiveCampaign

Best for: Teams that need marketing and sales automation in one system

The deepest automation builder in the mid-market, with a CRM alongside it. Four tiers, priced on contacts, with sending capped at a multiple of your list and most of the interesting parts sold as add-ons.

Starts at
Priced per tier and contact count; no static price table is published
Free tier
None — a 14-day trial
Marketing
The whole product, plus a sales CRM on the higher tiers
Data region
United States (Chicago-headquartered)
What it does well
  • Automation depth that most of this list doesn't match.
  • Marketing and sales in one system, with custom objects on Enterprise.
  • Over 1,000 integrations.
  • Free migration and onboarding, and no setup fees.
What to watch for
  • Sending is capped at a multiple of your contacts: 10× on Starter and Plus, 12× on Pro, 15× on Enterprise.
  • Seats are rationed — 1 user on Starter and Plus, 3 on Pro, 5 on Enterprise.
  • Starter limits automations to 5 actions each.
  • CRM, transactional email and SMS are paid add-ons on top of the plan.
  • No free plan, and the price scales with contacts whether or not you email them.
14Hosted service

Campaign Monitor

Best for: Design-led teams and agencies sending on behalf of clients

The prettiest templates in the category, and a long history with agencies managing multiple client accounts. Now part of Marigold, with a free tier and unlimited sends from the Essentials plan up.

Starts at
Lite and Essentials are priced by contact count on a slider
Free tier
500 contacts and 500 emails a month
Marketing
Campaigns, automated journeys, segments and a website builder on Premier
Data region
United States, with Australian origins
What it does well
  • Unlimited email sends from Essentials up — no multiplier.
  • Template and design quality that agencies keep coming back for.
  • Send-time optimisation and engagement segments on Premier.
  • 10% off annual plans and 15% off for non-profits.
What to watch for
  • Lite caps sending at 5× subscribers a month.
  • The free plan is 500 contacts and 500 emails — an evaluation allowance.
  • Dollar amounts aren't published as a static table; the page prices by contact band.
  • Automation is shallower than ActiveCampaign's.
15Commercial, with a separate self-hosted licence

Mailcoach

Best for: Developers who want unlimited contacts and their own sending provider

From the Spatie team. Hosted Mailcoach is pay-as-you-go with unlimited contacts, lists and automations, and it will send through your own provider for half the per-email rate. A self-hosted licence is sold separately.

Starts at
Hosted from $9.99/mo base, including 2,000 emails
Free tier
None; the hosted base plan is $9.99/mo
Marketing
Campaigns, lists, automations and transactional sending
Data region
Wherever you deploy the self-hosted version
What it does well
  • Unlimited contacts, lists and automations on the hosted plan.
  • $0.001 per email if you bring your own sending provider, $0.002 if Mailcoach delivers.
  • A self-hosted licence exists for teams who want their own infrastructure.
  • Built by a well-regarded open-source team, with the code quality that implies.
What to watch for
  • Pay-as-you-go means a big send month produces a big bill.
  • No free plan.
  • Smaller ecosystem and integration catalogue than the mainstream tools.
  • Self-hosted pricing isn't published on the hosted pricing page.
16AGPL-3.0

listmonk

Best for: Newsletters at volume, on hardware you already pay for

A single Go binary and a Postgres database that will push millions of newsletters through whatever SMTP you point it at. Mature, fast, and list-first by design.

Starts at
Free to run; you pay your SMTP provider for the sending
Free tier
Self-hosted — the software is free
Marketing
Lists, subscribers, campaigns and templates
Data region
Wherever you deploy it
What it does well
  • Over 22,000 GitHub stars and years of production use.
  • One binary plus Postgres — no queue broker, no Redis.
  • Handles very large lists on modest hardware.
  • No per-contact cost at any size.
What to watch for
  • No automation builder. It sends campaigns to lists.
  • Bring your own SMTP and your own deliverability.
  • No CRM, no ecommerce data, no landing pages.
  • The admin UI is functional rather than beautiful.
17Commercial one-time licence

Sendy

Best for: Large lists on a one-off licence and Amazon SES rates

A $69 one-time PHP application you install on your own hosting, which sends through your Amazon SES account. No subscription, ever, at any list size.

Starts at
$69 one-time licence; you pay Amazon SES for sending
Free tier
Not free, but there is no recurring cost
Marketing
Lists, campaigns, autoresponders and reports
Data region
Wherever you host it
What it does well
  • $69 once. No monthly fee at any subscriber count, forever.
  • Amazon SES rates underneath — roughly $1 per 10,000 emails.
  • Runs on ordinary PHP and MySQL hosting, like WordPress.
  • Multi-brand support makes it popular with agencies.
What to watch for
  • You install, update and secure it yourself.
  • You bring your own SES account and own the deliverability entirely.
  • Automation is autoresponders, not branching journeys.
  • The interface is functional and dated.
18Open source

Mautic

Best for: Owning your marketing automation stack outright

The largest open-source marketing automation project — campaigns, segmentation, landing pages, lead scoring — running on your own PHP and MySQL. Free as software, expensive in attention.

Starts at
Free to run; you pay for hosting and a sending provider
Free tier
Self-hosted — the software is free
Marketing
Full campaign builder, segmentation, landing pages, forms and lead scoring
Data region
Wherever you deploy it
What it does well
  • No per-contact pricing, ever. The list can be any size.
  • Feature coverage close to the commercial platforms, including lead scoring.
  • Your data stays on your infrastructure, which answers most privacy requirements.
  • Over 10,000 GitHub stars and years of production use.
What to watch for
  • PHP, MySQL and correctly configured cron — this is a system you administer.
  • Upgrades are known to be involved.
  • You bring your own sending provider and own the deliverability.
  • The interface feels its age next to the commercial tools.
FAQ

Buttondown alternatives, asked and answered

What is the best Buttondown alternative?

For a much bigger free tier, Kit at 10,000 subscribers or Sender at 2,500 with automation included. For the lowest paid price, EmailOctopus at $9/mo. For monetising, beehiiv at a 0% take rate.

If you need automations and segmentation without paying $38/mo in add-ons for them, most flat-priced tools include both.

Is Buttondown's add-on pricing cheaper?

It is if you use one or two add-ons and it isn't if you use four. Tagging plus analytics plus automations plus multiple newsletters is +$76/mo on top of the base — more than MailerLite Power or our $29 tier.

The model rewards restraint, which is very much the product's philosophy.

Can I send more than one email a day?

Standard pricing allows at most one send to your entire subscriber base per day. Segmented sends and sequences interact with that limit, so it's worth checking against your actual schedule before committing.

Most alternatives here have no daily send restriction at all.

When one a day isn't enough

Sequences, segments and no add-on list

Flows, live segments, A/B tested campaigns and a transactional API — all on the plan, not sold separately. 5,000 contacts and 5,000 emails free.

Start free Read the API docs

Keep reading

Email Bump vs ButtondownThe head-to-head, including where Buttondown is the better buy.Every comparisonAll the platforms we've priced and compared, in one index.Email Bump pricingWhat contact-based pricing costs at every list size.