Best Email Marketing Software (2026): 8 Tools, Real Prices

The best email marketing software depends on how you make money from your list. For automation-heavy small businesses the best overall pick is ActiveCampaign; for creators and newsletters it is Kit; the best free and cheapest paid option is Sender; Drip is the best fit for ecommerce stores; and GetResponse is the best all-in-one if you also run webinars or courses. Mailchimp is the familiar default, but rarely the cheapest once your list grows.

All prices below are monthly list prices in US dollars at the time of writing, read from each vendor’s own pricing page (or the price data that page loads) between 11 and 15 October 2026. Several of these vendors are our partners and are listed in our marketing tools directory; that does not change the order or the verdicts.

The best email marketing software at a glance

Every vendor prices a different unit (contacts, subscribers, active people or sends), so “from $X” figures are not comparable. This table prices each tool’s entry plan at the same list sizes.

Tool (plan)	Best for	Free plan	Entry price	At 2,500 contacts	At 10,000 contacts	Sends	Users	Trial
ActiveCampaign (Starter)	Automation	None	$19 (1,000)	$49	$189	10x contacts	1	14 days
Kit (Creator)	Creators, newsletters	Up to 10,000 subscribers, broadcasts only	$39 (1,000)	See vendor	See vendor	Unlimited broadcasts	2	14 days
Sender (Standard)	Free plan, lowest price	2,500 subscribers, 15,000 emails/month	$9 (500)	$27	$69	12x subscribers	3	14 days (Professional)
GetResponse (Starter)	Webinars and courses	500 contacts, 2,500 newsletters/month	$19 (1,000)	$29	$79	Unlimited	3	14 days
Drip	Ecommerce	None	$39 (up to 2,500)	$39	See vendor	Unlimited	See vendor	14 days
Campaign Monitor (Lite)	Design-led brands, agencies	None	$13 (500)	$47	$117	5x contacts	Unlimited	30 days
Moosend (Pro)	Cheap automation	None	$9 (500)	$32 (3,000 tier)	$88	Unlimited	5	30 days
Mailchimp (Essentials)	The familiar default	500 sends/month	$13 (500)	$45	$110	10x contacts	3	14 days

Drip’s figures come from Drip’s own pricing page (checked 22 October 2026): $39/month up to 2,500 people, $154 at 10,000 and $369 at 25,000; see our Drip guide for the full tier table.

How we chose (and how we priced them)

We judged each tool on six things: automation depth, list and segmentation tools, deliverability tooling (especially custom domain authentication), ecommerce features and integrations, AI features, and the true monthly cost at realistic list sizes. We left out cold outreach tools such as lemlist and Reply.io: sending one-to-one sales emails to people who never subscribed is a different job with different rules, which we cover in our Reply.io vs lemlist comparison.

Every price comes from the vendor’s pricing page or the price data that page loads, read on the same few days in October 2026. Where a vendor blocks automated access and we could not confirm a tier, the table says “see vendor” rather than repeating third-party figures. This is a pricing and feature comparison, not a deliverability test; we did not send test campaigns from each tool.

ActiveCampaign: best for automation-heavy small businesses

ActiveCampaign is the tool to pick when automation is the point: lead scoring, branching journeys, site-visit triggers and sales follow-up. It has four plans priced by contacts. At 1,000 contacts, Starter costs $19/month, Plus $59, Pro $99 and Enterprise $179 (monthly billing). At 10,000 contacts, Starter is $189 and Plus $239.

The catch is Starter: it allows only 5 actions per automation and one user, which is enough for a welcome email but not a real nurture sequence. Plus and above remove the action limit. Its AI layer, Active Intelligence, includes an AI Campaign Builder, an AI Automation Builder and predictive sending. There is no free plan; the 14-day trial lets you send only test emails, so you cannot run a live campaign before paying.

Kit: best for creators and newsletters

Kit (formerly ConvertKit) is built for people whose list is the business: writers, podcasters, course sellers. The Free plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited forms, landing pages and broadcasts, which makes it the most generous free plan here by list size. According to Kit’s newest help article, though, Free has no Visual Automations or email sequences, so it is broadcast-only.

Creator costs $39/month for up to 1,000 subscribers and adds automations, sequences and 2 users; Creator Pro is $79/month and adds unlimited team members, subscriber scoring and advanced reporting. Kit’s standouts are Creator Network Recommendations, where newsletters recommend each other, and the Kit MCP, which lets Claude or ChatGPT draft broadcasts and sequences in your Kit editor. Prices above 1,000 subscribers rise automatically by tier; check kit.com for your list size. If you are choosing between Kit and ActiveCampaign, our Kit vs ActiveCampaign comparison prices both at the same list sizes.

Sender: best free plan and lowest paid price

Sender is the budget pick that does not feel like one. Free Forever covers 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month and still includes automation, forms, popups, landing pages and transactional email, with Sender branding and one seat.

Paid plans are the cheapest we found at every list size: Standard is $9/month at 500 subscribers, $27 at 2,500 and $69 at 10,000, with 3 users and SMS on paid credits. Professional ($15 at 500, $127 at 10,000) adds 10 users, advanced automation and SMS credits equal to the subscription fee. Watch the annual discount: 30% off applies to your first year only, and renewals get 20% off. Sender has no AI writer inside its editor; its AI route is an MCP server for external assistants.

GetResponse: best for webinars and courses in one tool

GetResponse bundles email with landing pages, a website builder, a course creator and webinars, so it suits coaches and educators who would otherwise pay for three tools. There are three plans plus Enterprise. Starter costs $19/month at 1,000 contacts, $29 at 2,500 and $79 at 10,000, with unlimited sends and 3 users. Marketer ($59 at 1,000) adds unlimited automation workflows and ecommerce features; webinars start on Creator ($69 at 1,000, up to 100 attendees).

The free plan covers 500 contacts and 2,500 newsletters a month. Two caveats: Starter gets only one custom automation workflow, and the pricing page localises currency, so visitors in Europe may see euro prices that do not convert one-to-one from these dollar figures. SMS and transactional email are Enterprise-only.

Drip: best for ecommerce stores

Drip is built around online stores on Shopify, WooCommerce and BigCommerce, with segmentation, automation workflows, onsite pop-ups and revenue reporting tied to store data. According to Drip’s own pages, it costs $39/month for up to 2,500 active people with unlimited email sends, every plan has the same features, and you are billed only for active people. There is a 14-day trial with no card and no free plan.

Drip’s MCP connector lets an AI assistant read your revenue and campaign data and draft campaigns that wait for your approval. The trade-off is price at scale: it costs $154/month at 10,000 people and $369 at 25,000, at the time of writing, and Drip itself concedes it lacks the predictive lifetime-value scoring of bigger ecommerce suites. Compare it with the other options in the marketing directory.

Campaign Monitor: best for design-led brands and agencies

Campaign Monitor is for teams that care how emails look and want several people working in one account: every plan includes unlimited users, and it has agency features for managing clients. Lite costs $13/month at 500 contacts and $117 at 10,000; Essentials is $31 and $182; Premier is $171 and $300.

The trap is Lite’s send cap of 5x your contacts a month (2,500 emails at 500 contacts), which a weekly newsletter will hit. Essentials and Premier have unlimited sends. Lite already includes the AI Writer, and the website builder is a $10/month add-on, included on Premier. Annual billing saves 10%, and the 30-day trial is limited to 500 contacts and 500 emails.

Moosend: cheap automation if you can live without a free plan

Moosend has one self-serve plan, Pro, priced by contacts: $9/month at 500, $16 at 1,000, $48 at 5,000 and $88 at 10,000 with monthly billing. Annual billing saves 20% (for example, $70/month at 10,000). Pro includes unlimited sends, automation, landing pages, the AI Writer and 5 team members.

Watch the fixed tiers: there is no 2,500 tier, so 2,001 contacts bills at the 3,000 tier ($32). If you send rarely, pay-as-you-go credits start at $350 for 350,000 emails and never expire. There is no permanent free plan, only a 30-day trial with no card. Constant Contact announced it was acquiring Moosend from Sitecore in June 2025.

Mailchimp: the default, and where it gets expensive

Mailchimp is our benchmark, not a partner. Its templates and integrations are real strengths, and for a few hundred contacts the $13 Essentials plan is fair. The Free plan is limited to 500 sends a month.

Costs climb quickly: Essentials goes from $13 at 500 contacts to $45 at 2,500 and $110 at 10,000; Standard goes from $20 to $60 and $135. Mailchimp also bills unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts unless you archive them, which quietly inflates your tier. Generative AI starts on Standard, not Essentials.

If you like Mailchimp’s simplicity but not its price, MailerLite is worth a look (it is not a partner either). Its plans are now Free, Comfort (from $12/month) and Power (from $25/month), and its free plan covers 250 subscribers, not the 1,000 many older lists still quote.

Before you send: deliverability rules that apply to every tool

No tool can fix a sender that fails these checks. Google’s sender requirements, in force since February 2024, apply whichever platform you use:

• Every sender to Gmail needs SPF or DKIM, valid DNS and a spam complaint rate below 0.3% (Google recommends below 0.1%).
• Anyone sending more than 5,000 messages a day to Gmail needs SPF and DKIM, a DMARC record (a policy of none is enough), a From domain that aligns with them, and one-click unsubscribe plus a visible unsubscribe link in marketing mail.

In practice, authenticate your own domain inside the tool before your first campaign: Kit calls it a Verified Sending Domain, ActiveCampaign asks you to verify a sending domain, and GetResponse and Sender list custom DKIM as a feature. Whatever tool you pick, find its domain authentication guide and send from a domain you own, not a Gmail address.

Under the US CAN-SPAM Act, every marketing email also needs a valid physical postal address and a clear way to opt out, and opt-outs must be honoured within 10 business days. Kit, for example, will not send anything until you add a mailing address. This is a practical checklist, not legal advice; GDPR and other local rules may add consent requirements.

Which email marketing software should you choose?

• Solo creator or newsletter writer: start on Kit Free, and move to Creator when you need a welcome sequence. Pick Sender instead if you want automation without paying.
• Shopify or WooCommerce store: Drip, if its pricing works at your list size; GetResponse Marketer if you want webinars and a store in one place.
• B2B or service business with leads to nurture: ActiveCampaign Plus, since Starter’s 5-action limit will block real nurture flows.
• Budget-first small business: Sender, then Moosend if you want an AI writer and unlimited sends.
• Agency managing clients: Campaign Monitor Essentials, for unlimited users and unlimited sends.
• Already on Mailchimp and paying too much: archive unsubscribed contacts first, then price the same list on Sender, GetResponse and Moosend.

Your list grows faster with a good signup page; if your email tool’s builder is limiting, pair it with Leadpages or Unbounce. If you draft emails with an AI assistant, our guide to writing better prompts will get you closer to your own voice. Compare every option in the marketing tools directory, or browse more guides.