Comparison

The best Flodesk alternatives

Flodesk built its following on the best-looking templates in email and a flat price that didn't care how big your list got. The published prices now scale with subscriber count, and that change is what most people are reacting to when they search this.

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 we're clear our templates aren't the reason to pick us.

20 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 design quality elsewhereCampaign Monitor

The other platform people choose because the templates win pitches.

Cheapest like-for-likeMailerLite

From $12/mo, a genuinely nice editor, and a permanent free tier.

Best for creators selling thingsKit

10,000 free subscribers and native commerce beyond checkouts.

Best free planSender

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

Best when the list has a product behind itEmail Bump

Behavioural segments, flows and a transactional API on one plan. That's us.

Context

What actually goes wrong with Flodesk

The design is genuinely excellent. The reasons people move are the price model and what the product doesn't do.

The flat unlimited pricing is gone. Flodesk's reputation was built on paying one price regardless of list size. The published prices now start from a subscriber count — Pro from $28/mo at 1,000 subscribers, Everything from $54/mo — so a large list no longer rides free. If you chose Flodesk for the flat rate, that's the thing that changed.

It's expensive at small sizes. $28/mo at 1,000 subscribers against MailerLite's $12 and EmailOctopus's $9. You're paying for the templates and the checkouts, and if you use neither, the premium is hard to justify.

Automation is shallow. Workflows rather than behaviour-driven journeys. Fine for a welcome sequence and a nurture series, limited once you want branching on what someone actually did.

No transactional API and no ecommerce data model. Receipts and password resets need a separate provider. And while the Everything plan sells through checkouts, it doesn't reason about products and orders the way Klaviyo or Omnisend do.

The baseline

What Flodesk costs, from their own pricing page

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

At 1,000 subscribers

The plans

Forms, landing pages, segmentationFree

Scales with subscribers

Up to 25,000 subscribersLite — Unlimited email sends, analytics, 1 workflow

$28/mo

$25/mo billed annuallyPro — Unlimited workflows, advanced analytics, 1 checkout

$54/mo

$49/mo billed annuallyEverything — Unlimited checkouts, sales pages, subscriptions and payment plans

Worth knowing

The fine print

Prices now scale with subscriber count rather than being flat.
Unlimited email sends on paid plans — there is no multiplier.
Lite includes one workflow; unlimited workflows start on Pro.
Everything adds unlimited integrated checkouts, sales pages and subscriptions.
The free plan includes forms, landing pages and segmentation.

Side by side

All 20, on the things that decide it

Provider	Starts at	Free tier	What it covers	Licence	Data region
Email BumpHosted	$19/mo at 10,000 contacts	5,000 contacts and 5,000 emails a month	The whole product — campaigns, live segments, multi-step flows and behavioural triggers	Proprietary	United States (Amazon SES, us-east-1)
MailerLiteHosted	Comfort from $12/mo; Power from $25/mo	250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, 2 seats, 3 automations	Campaigns, automations, landing pages, forms and websites	Proprietary	European Union (Lithuania)
Kit (formerly ConvertKit)Hosted	Creator $33/mo at 1,000 subscribers ($390/year)	Up to 10,000 subscribers with one basic visual automation	Broadcasts, sequences, visual automations, landing pages, forms and digital product sales	Proprietary	United States
EmailOctopusHosted	Pro from $9/mo billed yearly	2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails a month, with EmailOctopus branding	Campaigns, simple automations, landing pages and forms	Proprietary	United Kingdom
SenderHosted	Paid plans are priced by subscriber count and aren't shown as a static table	2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month, with automation included	Campaigns, automation, landing pages, forms and pop-ups, plus SMS on paid tiers	Proprietary	European Union (Lithuania)
BrevoHosted	Paid plans start at 5,000 emails a month; the price scales with send volume	300 emails a day, forever, with contact storage into the tens of thousands	Campaigns, automation, plus SMS, WhatsApp, a CRM and landing pages	Proprietary	European Union (France)
beehiivHosted	Scale $43/mo at 1,000 subscribers ($517/year)	Up to 2,500 subscribers with unlimited email sends	Newsletter publishing, a website, paid subscriptions and an ad network	Proprietary	United States
ButtondownHosted	Free to 100 subscribers; add-ons from +$9/mo	Up to 100 subscribers	Newsletters, with tagging, segmentation and automations as paid add-ons	Proprietary	United States
MailchimpHosted	Essentials $13/mo at 500 contacts	250 contacts and 500 sends a month, capped at 250 a day, 1 seat	Campaigns, journeys, landing pages, forms, ads and a light CRM	Proprietary	United States
Campaign MonitorHosted	Lite and Essentials are priced by contact count on a slider	500 contacts and 500 emails a month	Campaigns, automated journeys, segments and a website builder on Premier	Proprietary	United States, with Australian origins
ActiveCampaignHosted	Priced per tier and contact count; no static price table is published	None — a 14-day trial	The whole product, plus a sales CRM on the higher tiers	Proprietary	United States (Chicago-headquartered)
GetResponseHosted	Starter $19/mo at 1,000 contacts ($15.58/mo billed annually)	None — a 14-day trial with feature limits	Campaigns, automation, funnels, landing pages, webinars and courses	Proprietary	European Union (Poland)
AWeberHosted	Lite $15/mo at 500 subscribers; $35/mo at 2,500	None — a 14-day trial with no subscriber limit	Campaigns, automations, landing pages and sales tracking	Proprietary	United States
Constant ContactHosted	Lite from $9/mo; Premium from $69/mo	None — a free trial	Campaigns, events, social posting, surveys and basic automation	Proprietary	United States
MoosendHosted	Pro is priced by subscriber count on a calculator	None — a 30-day trial with no credit card	Campaigns, automation, landing pages, forms, plus SMTP and transactional email	Proprietary	European Union (Greece)
Benchmark EmailHosted	Pro from $27/mo	500 contacts and 2,500 sends a month, 1 user, 1 domain	Campaigns, automation, sign-up forms and reporting	Proprietary	United States
KlaviyoHosted	Priced by active profiles on a slider; no static price table is published	250 active profiles and 500 email sends a month, plus $5 of mobile messages	Campaigns, flows, ecommerce segmentation, SMS and push	Proprietary	United States
OmnisendHosted	Standard $11.20/mo for 500 contacts; Pro $41.30/mo for 2,500	250 contacts, 500 emails a month and 500 web push notifications	Ecommerce campaigns and automations, SMS and web push	Proprietary	European Union (Lithuania)
LoopsHosted	Priced by subscribed contacts via a slider, not published as a fixed table	1,000 contacts and 4,000 sends a month, with a Loops footer on your email	Campaigns and loops (their term for automations), plus transactional	Proprietary	United States
GhostSelf-hostable	Starter $18/mo billed yearly; Publisher $29/mo	None on Ghost(Pro), but the software is free to self-host	Publishing, newsletters and paid memberships — no lifecycle automation	Open source (MIT), with a paid managed option	Managed hosting in your chosen region; self-hosted wherever you deploy

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

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.

03Hosted 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.

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

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.

06Hosted 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.

07Hosted 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.

08Hosted service

Buttondown

Best for: Writers who want the smallest possible newsletter tool

Deliberately minimal, privacy-minded and priced à la carte — a small base plus $9, $29 or $79 add-ons for the things you actually use. Free to 100 subscribers.

Starts at: Free to 100 subscribers; add-ons from +$9/mo
Free tier: Up to 100 subscribers
Marketing: Newsletters, with tagging, segmentation and automations as paid add-ons
Data region: United States

What it does well

Billed on active subscribers only — dormant addresses don't cost you.
Markdown-first writing with a hosted archive and custom domain sending.
Add-on pricing means you pay for exactly the features you switch on.
Small, independent and unusually transparent about how it works.

What to watch for

The free tier is 100 subscribers — the smallest here.
Automations are a $29/mo add-on, and teams and whitelabelling are $79/mo.
Standard pricing allows at most one email a day to your whole list.
No ecommerce data, no CRM, no transactional API.

09Hosted 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.

10Hosted 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.

11Hosted 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.

12Hosted service

GetResponse

Best for: Course creators and anyone who needs webinars in the same tool

An all-in-one that includes things nobody else bundles — webinars, course hosting, a website builder — with unlimited sending on every plan.

Starts at: Starter $19/mo at 1,000 contacts ($15.58/mo billed annually)
Free tier: None — a 14-day trial with feature limits
Marketing: Campaigns, automation, funnels, landing pages, webinars and courses
Data region: European Union (Poland)

What it does well

Unlimited monthly email sends on every plan, including the $19 entry tier.
Webinars, courses and a website builder in the same subscription.
Polish company, so EU data handling comes as standard.
Abandoned-cart recovery and sales funnels on Marketer.

What to watch for

Starter allows exactly 1 automation workflow — the automation is really on Marketer at $59/mo.
No free plan.
Users are capped at 3 on Starter and 5 on Marketer and Creator.
Breadth means some modules feel less finished than the email core.

13Hosted service

AWeber

Best for: Small businesses who want unlimited users at a low tier

One of the oldest email tools still standing, and it has aged better than most. The Plus plan gives unlimited users at $30/mo — a seat policy the newer platforms reserve for their top tiers — and there's a done-for-you setup service if you'd rather someone else built it.

Starts at: Lite $15/mo at 500 subscribers; $35/mo at 2,500
Free tier: None — a 14-day trial with no subscriber limit
Marketing: Campaigns, automations, landing pages and sales tracking
Data region: United States

What it does well

Plus gives unlimited users at $30/mo — most competitors charge far more for that.
Unlimited landing pages and automations on Plus.
A Done For You tier that includes a 1:1 setup call and weekly newsletter drafts.
Decades of deliverability experience behind it.

What to watch for

Sending is capped at 10× subscribers on Lite and 12× on Plus.
Lite allows only 3 automations and 3 landing pages.
No free plan — a 14-day trial.
Sales tracking carries a 0.6% transaction fee.

14Hosted service

Constant Contact

Best for: Small local businesses who want a phone number to call

One of the oldest email marketing companies still operating, and still the answer for a restaurant, a gym or a non-profit that wants an event tool, a template and someone on the phone rather than a chat widget.

Starts at: Lite from $9/mo; Premium from $69/mo
Free tier: None — a free trial
Marketing: Campaigns, events, social posting, surveys and basic automation
Data region: United States

What it does well

Event management and registration built in, which almost nobody else has.
Phone support with actual humans, which small businesses value more than features.
Templates and an editor aimed squarely at non-marketers.
Decades of deliverability experience.

What to watch for

Sending is capped at a multiple of your contact list, rising with the tier.
Lite is a single user; automation and segmentation arrive on Standard.
No free plan.
Feels dated next to the newer platforms, and priced as if it doesn't.

15Hosted service

Moosend

Best for: Unlimited sending on a budget, with a long trial to prove it

A Sitecore-owned platform that leads on unlimited sending and a 30-day no-card trial. There's also a credits model — buy 350,000 sends for $350 — which suits anyone whose volume is lumpy.

Starts at: Pro is priced by subscriber count on a calculator
Free tier: None — a 30-day trial with no credit card
Marketing: Campaigns, automation, landing pages, forms, plus SMTP and transactional email
Data region: European Union (Greece)

What it does well

Unlimited email campaigns and sends on every paid plan.
A 30-day trial with no card, which is unusually long.
A credits option — $350 for 350,000 sends — for irregular volume.
SMTP and transactional email included rather than a separate product.

What to watch for

No permanent free plan.
Pro pricing is a calculator rather than a published table.
Smaller integration catalogue than the big names.
Brand recognition is low, which matters if you need internal buy-in.

16Hosted service

Benchmark Email

Best for: Straightforward campaigns at a low flat price

An unfashionable, long-running option with a simple two-tier structure: a small free plan and a Pro plan from $27/mo that covers 2,500 to 100,000 contacts.

Starts at: Pro from $27/mo
Free tier: 500 contacts and 2,500 sends a month, 1 user, 1 domain
Marketing: Campaigns, automation, sign-up forms and reporting
Data region: United States

What it does well

One paid tier, so there's no feature-gating puzzle to solve.
10 sending domains on Pro.
A permanent free plan for evaluation.
Long-established and stable.

What to watch for

Pro sends are capped at 10× your contact limit.
Pro includes one user; additional users are $15/mo each, up to ten.
The free plan is 500 contacts and 2,500 sends.
Feature depth is well behind ActiveCampaign or Klaviyo.

17Hosted service

Klaviyo

Best for: Ecommerce, where revenue attribution per email is the point

The ecommerce standard. Deep Shopify and store-data integration, segmentation built on purchase behaviour, and reporting that ties sends to revenue better than anything else here.

Starts at: Priced by active profiles on a slider; no static price table is published
Free tier: 250 active profiles and 500 email sends a month, plus $5 of mobile messages
Marketing: Campaigns, flows, ecommerce segmentation, SMS and push
Data region: United States

What it does well

Best-in-class ecommerce data model — orders, products and browsing drive segments directly.
Revenue attribution per flow and per campaign, out of the box.
SMS and push in the same platform as email.
Predictive analytics on customer lifetime value.

What to watch for

Free is 250 profiles and 500 sends a month.
Priced on active profiles, and the definition of active is broader than 'subscribed'.
It gets expensive fast as the list grows; that's the standard complaint.
Overkill, and overpriced, if you aren't an ecommerce store.

18Hosted service

Omnisend

Best for: Small ecommerce stores that want Klaviyo's shape at a lower price

Ecommerce-focused automation with email, SMS and web push in one plan, priced well below Klaviyo at the sizes most stores actually operate at.

Starts at: Standard $11.20/mo for 500 contacts; Pro $41.30/mo for 2,500
Free tier: 250 contacts, 500 emails a month and 500 web push notifications
Marketing: Ecommerce campaigns and automations, SMS and web push
Data region: European Union (Lithuania)

What it does well

Pro gives unlimited monthly emails at $41.30/mo.
Web push is unlimited from the Standard plan.
SMS from $0.007 with no separate platform fee.
Free migration and 24/7 support even on the entry plan.

What to watch for

Free is 250 contacts and 500 emails.
Standard's 6,000-email allowance is small if you send weekly.
Built for stores; a B2B SaaS will find the data model a poor fit.
Reporting is thinner than Klaviyo's.

19Hosted 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.

20Open 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.

FAQ

Flodesk alternatives, asked and answered

What is the best Flodesk alternative?

For a similar look at a lower price, MailerLite from $12/mo with a permanent free tier. For creators selling products, Kit. For the largest free plan, Sender. For a big list you email rarely, Brevo.

If design quality is specifically what you're replacing, Campaign Monitor is the other platform people choose for that reason.

Did Flodesk stop being unlimited?

The published prices now start from a subscriber count — Pro from $28/mo at 1,000 subscribers, Everything from $54/mo — rather than a single flat figure regardless of list size.

Sending is still unlimited on paid plans; it's the subscriber side that scales now.

Is there a cheaper alternative with good templates?

MailerLite at $12/mo is the usual answer — the editor and templates are genuinely pleasant and it has a free tier. Campaign Monitor has the strongest design reputation in the category but doesn't publish flat prices.

EmailOctopus at $9/mo is cheaper still and makes no claims about design.

If the list has a product behind it

Flows, events and a transactional API

Track what subscribers do, build live segments from it, and run multi-step flows — with receipts and resets on the same plan and key. 5,000 contacts and 5,000 emails free.

Start free Read the API docs

The best Flodesk alternatives

Pick by the reason you're leaving

What actually goes wrong with Flodesk

What Flodesk costs, from their own pricing page

The plans

The fine print

All 20, on the things that decide it

Every option, and what it's bad at

Flodesk alternatives, asked and answered

What is the best Flodesk alternative?

Did Flodesk stop being unlimited?

Is there a cheaper alternative with good templates?

Flows, events and a transactional API

Keep reading