The short answer: the cheapest usable email marketing software for a small business in 2026 is Sender if you want to stay free longest, Moosend or Brevo if you want the lowest paid bill (about $9 per month to start), and MailerLite if you want the cheapest tool that still feels like a finished product (about $12 per month). Mailchimp, the default choice for many businesses, is rarely the cheapest above 500 contacts. The rest of this guide shows why those answers fall out of the pricing math — because with email software, how you are billed matters more than the sticker price.
Affiliate disclosure. We do not have affiliate partnerships with any vendor yet, so every link in this article is a plain link to the vendor’s own site — nobody pays us for clicks or signups, and that does not change what we recommend. If we add affiliate programs later, this article will say so explicitly.
How email pricing actually works (read this before the rankings)
Email marketing pricing looks like feature pricing and is not. The vendor’s real costs have two components — storing your contacts and delivering your messages — and each vendor chooses which one to charge you for. That choice creates the entire price spread in this market. There are three models.
Per-contact pricing (most common). You pay for list size. MailerLite, Moosend, and Mailchimp work this way: your tier (500, 2,500, 5,000 contacts) sets the bill, and it climbs as your list grows whether you send once a month or daily. The model rewards frequent sending — extra sends cost nothing once the tier is paid — and punishes stale lists: on several platforms, unsubscribed and duplicate contacts count toward your bill until you archive them by hand. It is cheapest when your list is small, engaged, and emailed often.
Per-email pricing (rarer, structurally cheaper for big quiet lists). You pay for sends, not storage. Brevo is the major example: contacts are effectively unlimited and the price follows monthly send volume (from about $9 per month for 5,000 emails). If you hold 20,000 past customers you email twice a year, you stop renting storage for 20,000 names every month. The catch is in the fine structure: Brevo’s cheapest bands cap stored contacts (500 on the 5,000-email band, then 1,500 and 2,500, jumping to 500,000 from the 20,000-email band), so a large list can push you into a higher send band than volume alone requires.
Flat-rate pricing (simplest, best at scale). One price regardless of list size — Flodesk at about $38 per month is the reference. It is never the cheapest way to start and often the cheapest way to finish. We note it for completeness; the products below compete on lowest entry cost, where flat-rate does not win.
The free tier is a price, not a gift
Every vendor below offers something free, and the free tier is where the pricing strategy lives. It charges in four currencies instead of cash: send caps (Brevo: 300 emails per day, about 9,000 per month — fine for testing, useless for one campaign to 5,000 people), subscriber caps (MailerLite: 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails per month after its 2025-2026 overhaul), branding (the vendor’s logo in every footer — a credibility tax for a business asking customers to trust a payment link), and gated automation (the welcome, cart-recovery, and win-back sequences that actually earn the money are limited or removed). Do not ask which free plan is best. Ask which first paid tier you will be forced onto, and what it costs at your list size in twelve months. We mapped that full cost curve in our guide to how much email marketing software costs.
When cheapest becomes a false economy
Three failure modes turn a cheap plan expensive, and none appear on a pricing page. Deliverability: an email in spam earns nothing at any discount. At this tier, inbox placement depends far more on your setup — SPF, DKIM, and DMARC configured on your domain, a genuinely opt-in list, regular cleaning of bounces and non-openers — than on the vendor’s brand. Pick the tool that makes authentication and hygiene easy, not just the cheapest logo. Missing automation: if the cheapest tier cannot run a welcome sequence, it cannot do the job the software is for; a $19 plan with automation out-earns a $9 plan without it. Exit cost: templates, forms, and workflows do not export between platforms, so every hour built on a tool chosen for a $3 saving is repaid with interest at migration. The genuinely cheap choice is the cheapest tool you can stay on for two years.
The cheapest options, product by product
All pricing below was researched on 2026-10-03 from vendor pricing pages and current third-party pricing trackers. Vendors repriced repeatedly through 2025 and 2026, so confirm your exact tier before committing. We compare monthly billing, because that is the price you can actually leave.
Sender — the most generous free plan (starts at $0)
Sender offers the most usable free tier in the category: 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails per month at $0, with automation, segmentation, popups, and landing pages included rather than gated. Paid plans start at about $9 per month (Standard, removing branding and adding SMS) and about $15 per month (Professional, adding advanced automation and a dedicated IP). The free plan carries Sender branding, and reporting and native integrations are thinner than the larger platforms. If cash is the binding constraint and your list is under 2,500 subscribers, Sender gives you the longest free runway with real automation — check its integration list first if your store or CRM needs a specific native connection.
Best for: brand-new lists and bootstrapped businesses that want maximum free runway with automation included.
Moosend — the cheapest full-featured paid plan (about $9 per month)
Moosend has no free plan, only a 30-day trial with full features — and that honesty is part of the appeal. One Pro plan includes everything (unlimited sends, automation, landing pages, forms, A/B testing, reporting) from the entry price: about $9 per month billed monthly, about $7 billed annually, for 500 contacts. The contact-based ladder runs about $16 at 1,000 contacts, about $24 at 2,000, about $48 at 5,000 (about $38 annual), about $88 at 10,000 (about $70 annual), and about $315 at 50,000. Annual billing saves about 20 percent. Transactional email (receipts, password resets) is not in Pro — it needs the custom Moosend+ tier. Under 5,000 contacts, Moosend is the best price-for-features ratio here; past 10,000, the per-contact ladder catches up with everyone.
Best for: small businesses under about 5,000 contacts that want every feature unlocked at the lowest paid price.
MailerLite — the cheapest polished product (about $12 per month)
MailerLite overhauled pricing through 2025-2026: Growing Business became Comfort, Advanced became Power, and the free plan shrank to 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails per month with branding on every email. Paid plans bill by active subscriber only — unsubscribed and bounced contacts do not inflate your bill, a real saving over Mailchimp. Comfort starts at about $12 per month for 500 subscribers (5,000 emails, 50 automations, templates, no branding), running about $19 at 1,000 subscribers, about $33 at 2,500, about $49 at 5,000, and about $89 at 10,000. Power (about $25 at 500 subscribers) removes the send cap and adds multiple automation triggers and live chat. Annual billing saves about 10 percent. MailerLite costs a few dollars more than Moosend at entry and earns it in the editor and automation builder, which are widely regarded as the cleanest in the budget tier. Our MailerLite vs Brevo comparison works through that crossover in detail.
Best for: businesses that want cheap without feeling cheap — creators, service businesses, and small stores that will live in the editor weekly.
Brevo — cheapest for large lists you email rarely (from about $9 per month)
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) bills per email sent, not per contact stored. The free plan allows 300 emails per day (about 9,000 per month) with up to 100,000 stored contacts, transactional email included, automation capped at 2,000 contacts. Paid plans start at about $9 per month (Starter, from 5,000 emails) and about $18 per month (Standard, adding full automation, A/B testing, landing pages, and branding removal); Professional jumps to about $499 from 150,000 emails, with no intermediate tier — a real cliff if your volume grows into the gap. Two details decide whether Brevo is cheap for you: Starter keeps branding unless you buy logo removal (about $9 to $12 per month), which erases its advantage over Standard; and the cheap bands cap stored contacts (500 at 5,000 emails, rising to 500,000 only from the 20,000-email band), so a 3,000-contact list can force a higher band than your sends require. Brevo’s never-expiring pay-as-you-go credits suit seasonal senders well. For a large database mailed infrequently, no per-contact rival comes close; for a small list mailed weekly, the structure is unremarkable.
Best for: large lists with infrequent sending, seasonal senders, and anyone consolidating marketing email, transactional email, and SMS in one account.
Mailchimp — the expensive benchmark (rarely the cheapest)
Mailchimp is included as an honest ceiling. The free plan covers 250 contacts and 500 emails per month. Essentials starts at about $13 per month for 500 contacts and climbs to about $45 at 2,500, about $75 at 5,000, and about $110 at 10,000; Standard reaches about $100 at 5,000 contacts. The mechanism: Mailchimp bills on contacts stored, including unsubscribed contacts until you archive them manually, so a neglected list raises its own bill. Its editor, templates, and integration ecosystem are genuinely strong — but every rival above undercuts it, usually by 30 to 50 percent at 5,000 contacts. If you are on Mailchimp and cost is the complaint, that gap is the migration case.
Best for: businesses that prioritise the largest integration ecosystem over cost. Not recommended on price alone.
Comparison table (researched 2026-10-03)
Entry prices are monthly billing in USD. Per-contact prices rise by tier; Brevo follows send volume, so its row shows the send band. Verify your exact size on the vendor’s pricing page before buying.
| Platform | Free plan limits | Entry paid price | At about 5,000 contacts | Billing axis | Automation on cheapest paid tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sender | 2,500 subscribers, 15,000 emails per month | About $9 per month | Scales by subscribers; check slider | Subscribers | Yes (also on free) |
| Moosend | No free plan; 30-day trial | About $9 per month (500 contacts) | About $48 per month (about $38 annual) | Contacts | Yes, full Pro features |
| MailerLite | 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails per month | About $12 per month (Comfort, 500 subscribers) | About $49 per month | Active subscribers | Yes (50 automations on Comfort) |
| Brevo | 300 emails per day, up to 100,000 contacts | About $9 per month (Starter, 5,000 emails) | Depends on sends, not contacts | Emails sent | No on Starter; yes on Standard (about $18) |
| Mailchimp | 250 contacts, 500 emails per month | About $13 per month (Essentials, 500 contacts) | About $75 per month (Essentials) | Contacts stored (incl. unsubscribed) | Limited on Essentials; fuller on Standard |
Bold takeaways from the table:
- The cheapest first dollar is Sender ($0), then Moosend (about $9). If month-one cash is the constraint, that ordering is the answer.
- At 5,000 contacts the budget field compresses to roughly $48 to $49 per month (Moosend, MailerLite), while Mailchimp Essentials sits near $75. Entry-price drama matters less than list hygiene at this size.
- Brevo exits the contacts column entirely, which is precisely its advantage: low sends relative to list size makes it structurally cheaper than any per-contact plan.
- Check the automation row before the price row. Brevo Starter (the $9 headline) lacks full automation; every other cheapest paid tier includes it. A plan without welcome and cart sequences cannot pay for itself.
Verdict: the cheapest pick for your situation
Starting from zero, cash tight: Sender. The 2,500-subscriber free plan with automation included is the longest runway before email software costs anything. Graduate when you outgrow the cap or need branding removal and deeper reporting.
Cheapest real paid platform, everything unlocked: Moosend. About $9 per month (about $7 annual) buys the full feature set with unlimited sends — the best price-for-features ratio here under about 5,000 contacts. Budget for about $48 per month at that size, and note the transactional-email gap if receipts matter.
Cheap without feeling cheap: MailerLite. About $12 per month for the cleanest editor and automation builder in the tier, billed only on active subscribers. The small premium over Moosend buys a tool you will not need to migrate off.
Large list, rare sending: Brevo. Send-based billing is a structural saving no contact-based plan matches for that shape. Buy Standard (about $18), not Starter — the branding add-on erases Starter’s advantage, and Standard is where automation lives.
Already on Mailchimp and cost is the complaint: model the switch. At 5,000 contacts, Moosend or MailerLite roughly halves a Mailchimp Essentials bill. Migration is a weekend of rebuilding templates and flows — finite, and cheaper than a year of overpaying.
One closing principle: price the tool at the list you expect in twelve months, with automation switched on. The cheapest email software is the one whose year-two bill you already know and whose welcome sequence is already earning. Pick that one, authenticate your domain, clean your list quarterly, and the platform line in your budget stays boring — which is what cheap is supposed to feel like.
Prices checked 2026-10-03. Email vendors repriced repeatedly through 2025 and 2026; confirm your exact tier, contact definition, and branding terms on the vendor’s pricing page before committing.