Free Mailchimp alternatives
Mailchimp's free plan is 250 contacts and 500 sends a month — capped at 250 a day, with one user. Almost everything on this page gives you more, and two of them give you forty times more.
Ranked below by what you can actually ship on, with the limit that stops you first named in every row. It's almost never the number in the headline.
The limit that bites first
Headline subscriber counts are what vendors advertise. The daily cap, the automation limit and the footer branding are what decide whether you can use it.
| Provider | Free tier | What stops you first | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kit (formerly ConvertKit) | Up to 10,000 subscribers with one basic visual automation | One basic visual automation — sequences are the paid product | Permanent |
| Sender | 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month, with automation included | Volume, eventually. Automation, landing pages and forms are all included | Permanent |
| Email Bump | 5,000 contacts and 5,000 emails a month | A 'Powered by Email Bump' badge on marketing footers. No daily cap; domains and seats unlimited | Permanent |
| EmailOctopus | 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails a month, with EmailOctopus branding | EmailOctopus branding on every send, 30-day reports, 1 user, 1 form | Permanent |
| beehiiv | Up to 2,500 subscribers with unlimited email sends | No ad network, no paid subscriptions and no Send API on the free plan | Permanent |
| Zoho Campaigns | 2,000 contacts, 6,000 emails a month and 5 users | Volume — but 5 users, where most free plans allow one | Permanent |
| Brevo | 300 emails a day, forever, with contact storage into the tens of thousands | 300 a day is a hard daily wall that doesn't roll over | Permanent |
| EngageBay | 250 contacts, free for teams of up to 15 members | 250 contacts and 2 email sequences — but 15 team members | Permanent |
| Mailchimp | 250 contacts and 500 sends a month, capped at 250 a day, 1 seat | 250 a day, which bites before the 500-a-month limit does | Permanent |
| MailerLite | 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, 2 seats, 3 automations | 250 subscribers and 3 active automations | Permanent |
| Benchmark Email | 500 contacts and 2,500 sends a month, 1 user, 1 domain | 500 contacts, 1 user and 1 sending domain | Permanent |
| CleverReach | 250 recipients and 1,000 emails a month, permanently | 250 recipients and 1,000 emails a month | Permanent |
| Omnisend | 250 contacts, 500 emails a month and 500 web push notifications | 250 contacts — an evaluation allowance, not a plan | Permanent |
| Klaviyo | 250 active profiles and 500 email sends a month, plus $5 of mobile messages | Sending stops entirely past 250 profiles or 500 monthly sends | Permanent |
| HubSpot Marketing Hub | Free Marketing Hub for up to 2 users, with basic email, forms and live chat | 2 users, and the real automation is $800/mo away on Professional | Permanent |
| Buttondown | Up to 100 subscribers | 100 subscribers, and automations are a $29/mo add-on | Permanent |
| listmonk, Mautic, Keila, Sendy | Free or one-time licence | The software costs nothing; your sending provider and your time still do | Self-hosted |
From each vendor's own pricing page. Free tiers change more often than paid ones — check before you commit a launch to one.
How to read these
Mailchimp's daily cap is the real number. 500 sends a month sounds workable until you notice the 250-a-day ceiling underneath it. Two sends to a 250-contact list and the month is spent. Kit, Sender and EmailOctopus all use monthly allowances with no daily wall.
Seats, because Mailchimp allows one. If a second person needs to log in, Mailchimp's free plan is already out. EngageBay allows fifteen team members free, Zoho Campaigns five, MailerLite two, and Email Bump has no seat limit on any plan.
Whether the free tier survives contact growth. Mailchimp bills for unsubscribed contacts until you archive them, and that behaviour carries into how quickly you leave the free tier. Platforms that drop unsubscribed contacts automatically keep you under a ceiling for longer.
Archive before you compare
Mailchimp bills for unsubscribed contacts until you archive them yourself, and most people never do. Before comparing any free tier against what you pay today, archive your unsubscribed and cleaned contacts and look at the real number.
Plenty of accounts turn out to be 40% larger than the audience they actually email. That changes every quote on this page, and it sometimes means the free tier you're looking at is bigger than the paid list you thought you had.
Mailchimp alternatives, asked and answered
What is the best free Mailchimp alternative?
For a newsletter, Kit — 10,000 free subscribers against Mailchimp's 250, though only one basic automation. For automation on a free plan, Sender: 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails with workflows included.
For a product that also sends receipts and password resets, Email Bump's free plan covers 5,000 contacts and 5,000 emails with flows, segments and a transactional API on the same key.
Why is Mailchimp's free plan so small?
250 contacts, 500 sends a month and a 250-a-day ceiling, with one user. It's an evaluation tier rather than something to run on, which is a reasonable commercial choice and does make it one of the smallest here.
The daily cap is the part people hit first — one import or one launch and the month's allowance is spent in an afternoon.
Do free plans put branding on my email?
Some do. EmailOctopus brands every send on free, Loops adds a 'Powered by Loops' footer, and Email Bump adds a badge to marketing footers but never to transactional sends. Kit, MailerLite and Sender don't.
All of them remove it on the first paid plan, so it's a question about your free period rather than forever.
5,000 contacts and 5,000 emails, free
No daily cap, unlimited seats and domains, and campaigns, flows, segments, SMTP and the transactional API all on the free plan. Marketing footers carry a badge until you upgrade.