The typical searcher sends newsletters and automated journeys from Campaign Monitor, now sold as a product of Marigold, and has run into the plan structure: the free access is a 30-day trial, the lowest paid plan caps monthly sends, and the features that matter sit on higher tiers. They move to a platform with a permanent free plan, one priced by send volume, or one aimed at a narrower audience such as creators or online shops.
Sebastiaan SmitsFounderShort answer: The first three alternatives to Campaign Monitor in our email marketing ranking are MailerLite, Brevo and Mailchimp. Places 1 to 3 go to challengers, vendors outside the best-known brands in a category, wherever the category has them; the established names follow from place 4 in their ranked order. Choose MailerLite if you want a permanent free plan and a simple per-subscriber upgrade path. All 11 alternatives below are ranked products from Best Email Marketing Software in 2026, and each says where it differs from Campaign Monitor.
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Campaign Monitor's pricing page lists a Free tier of 500 contacts and 500 sends, but it is a 30-day trial. The Lite plan is the entry point for ongoing use, and the page shows it with a send limit of 2,500 a month, while Essentials and Premier send without a monthly cap. A small sender who mails often has to buy a higher tier than the contact count alone suggests.
Lite includes drip campaigns, unlimited signup forms, automated emails and transactional emails, but Marketing Studio is only a limited trial there. Priority support, inbox preview and full Marketing Studio arrive on Essentials, and phone support, send time optimisation, advanced engagement segments and advanced link tracking only on Premier. Teams comparing it with flatter plan structures often find the step between tiers larger than the step between contact bands.
The pricing page describes Campaign Monitor as part of Marigold and lists Website Builder at EUR 9 a month as an add-on. Buyers who want one vendor focused on a single job, a different pricing logic, or a free plan to stay on while a list is small tend to look at products built around that model.
| Alternative | Headquarters | Free option | Pricing | Key difference | Switch if | Our rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MailerLite | Lithuania | Yes | Free to 250 subscribers; paid per subscriber, published | Low-priced fundamentals for a growing list | you want a permanent free plan and a simple per-subscriber upgrade path | #2 |
| Brevo | France | Yes | Free tier; paid plans by monthly send volume, published | Send-volume pricing instead of per-contact pricing | you would rather pay by send volume and want SMS, WhatsApp or transactional messages in the same account | #1 |
| Mailchimp | United States | Yes | Free tier to 250 contacts; paid plans per contact per month, published | The default, with the ecosystem to match | you want the widest set of integrations and templates and accept contact-band pricing with overages | #9 |
| ActiveCampaign | United States | No free tier | Per contact band per month, published; 14-day trial | Automation depth closer to a marketing suite | automation and CRM logic matter more to you than the email editor | #3 |
| GetResponse | Poland | No free tier | 14-day trial only; paid per contact per month, published | Email plus landing pages and webinars in one subscription | you want webinars, funnels and landing pages from the same vendor that sends the email | #7 |
| Kit | United States | Yes | Free to 10,000 subscribers; paid per subscriber, published | Built for people who sell what they write | you are a creator or newsletter writer with a large free list | #6 |
| Klaviyo | United States | Yes | Free tier to 250 active profiles; paid per active profile, published | Built for ecommerce, priced for it too | you run an online shop and want to message from purchase and browsing data | #10 |
| Omnisend | United Kingdom | Yes | Free tier to 250 contacts; paid per contact, published | Ecommerce automations without the Klaviyo bill | you run a shop and want email, SMS and push from one vendor, with migration done for you | #4 |
| Mailjet | France | Yes | Free to 6,000 emails a month (200 a day); paid by send volume, published | Marketing email and transactional sending on one API | you send transactional or developer-driven mail and want to pay by volume | #8 |
| Constant Contact | United States | No free tier | Per plan and contact tier per month, published | Aimed at small businesses that want a phone number to call | you want a similar small-business email product and will verify its current plans on the vendor site | #11 |
| HubSpot Marketing Hub | United States | Yes | Free tier; Starter per seat, higher tiers per month with marketing-contact tiers, published | Email as one part of a suite you are meant to standardise on | email is one part of a bigger programme and you want CRM, forms and reporting in one system | #12 |
Lithuania · Free to 250 subscribers; paid per subscriber, published
Has a permanent free plan (250 subscribers, 2,500 emails a month, 2 user seats) where Campaign Monitor offers a 30-day trial. Paid plans are priced by subscribers, and Comfort and Power add seats, automations and sites. It is aimed at small businesses and creators and has no agency sub-account focus.
Switch from Campaign Monitor if you want a permanent free plan and a simple per-subscriber upgrade path.
France · Free tier; paid plans by monthly send volume, published
Free forever plan, and paid tiers (Starter, Standard, Professional) are framed around monthly email volume, starting from 5,000 emails a month on Starter. It also covers SMS, WhatsApp, a sales CRM and transactional messaging, which makes it broader than Campaign Monitor's email focus.
Switch from Campaign Monitor if you would rather pay by send volume and want SMS, WhatsApp or transactional messages in the same account.
United States · Free tier to 250 contacts; paid plans per contact per month, published
A larger ecosystem than Campaign Monitor, with a free plan, an Essentials, Standard and Premium ladder, and a 14-day trial of Standard. Pricing is by contact band, the page warns of overages when contact or send limits are exceeded, and the 15 percent first-year discount only applies from 10,000 contacts.
Switch from Campaign Monitor if you want the widest set of integrations and templates and accept contact-band pricing with overages.
United States · Per contact band per month, published; 14-day trial
Built around marketing automation and CRM rather than newsletter design. Four plans (Starter, Plus, Pro, Enterprise) are priced per contact tier, with the number of users and automation depth rising by plan; Starter limits automations to 5 actions each. It asks you to configure more than Campaign Monitor does.
Switch from Campaign Monitor if automation and CRM logic matter more to you than the email editor.
Poland · 14-day trial only; paid per contact per month, published
Mixes email with landing pages, funnels, webinars and a course creator. All plans, from Starter, send unlimited emails monthly, but only the Starter plan limits you to one custom automation workflow. There is a 14-day trial instead of a free plan, and pricing falls with annual billing.
Switch from Campaign Monitor if you want webinars, funnels and landing pages from the same vendor that sends the email.
United States · Free to 10,000 subscribers; paid per subscriber, published
Written for creators, with free up to 10,000 subscribers, unlimited landing pages, forms and broadcasts, and paid plans priced per subscriber from the Creator plan. It sells digital products and paid newsletters.
Switch from Campaign Monitor if you are a creator or newsletter writer with a large free list.
United States · Free tier to 250 active profiles; paid per active profile, published
Targets online shops, with a free plan limited to 250 active profiles and 500 email sends a month, and paid pricing based on active profiles instead of all stored contacts. It adds SMS, RCS and WhatsApp channels, and is more at home with store data than Campaign Monitor.
Switch from Campaign Monitor if you run an online shop and want to message from purchase and browsing data.
United Kingdom · Free tier to 250 contacts; paid per contact, published
Aimed at ecommerce brands, selling email, SMS and web push together, with 24/7 live chat and email support stated for every plan including free. Pricing is based on contact list size. It offers free migration, and the product is described by the vendor as a platform for ecommerce.
Switch from Campaign Monitor if you run a shop and want email, SMS and push from one vendor, with migration done for you.
France · Free to 6,000 emails a month (200 a day); paid by send volume, published
Priced by monthly send volume, with a free plan of 6,000 emails a month (200 a day) and 1,000 contacts, then Starter, Essential and Premium from USD 9 to 29 a month. Built for developers who want an API and SMTP relay, branded Sinch Mailjet. Automations only arrive on Premium.
Switch from Campaign Monitor if you send transactional or developer-driven mail and want to pay by volume.
United States · Per plan and contact tier per month, published
A long-standing small-business email product with contact-tier pricing, comparable in shape to Campaign Monitor. We could not retrieve its pricing page in this session, so plan names and prices are not stated here and should be checked directly with the vendor.
Switch from Campaign Monitor if you want a similar small-business email product and will verify its current plans on the vendor site.
Constant Contact, #11 of 12 in our email marketing ranking →
United States · Free tier; Starter per seat, higher tiers per month with marketing-contact tiers, published
A full marketing suite on top of a CRM, where Campaign Monitor is mainly email. Marketing Hub has a free plan (email campaigns, forms, live chat), Starter from USD 10 per seat per month as a limited-time offer, Professional at USD 890 and Enterprise at USD 3,600 a month with seats included.
Switch from Campaign Monitor if email is one part of a bigger programme and you want CRM, forms and reporting in one system.
HubSpot Marketing Hub, #12 of 12 in our email marketing ranking →
Campaign Monitor remains a sound choice for an agency or a brand team that wants designed email, journeys, segmentation and transactional email in one product, with agency features such as sub-accounts and private labelling across the paid tiers. The Premier tier adds send time optimisation, section locking and team template management, which suit a team with several people editing the same templates. If you already mail on Essentials without hitting the send limits, the cost of leaving is migration work rather than a saving you can count.
Automated journeys, drip campaigns and segments are defined inside Campaign Monitor and do not export as logic. List each journey, its trigger and its exit conditions before cancelling, then rebuild them in the new tool and compare sends for a few weeks before switching the old ones off.
Templates built in the Email Template Builder, signup forms embedded on your site and any transactional email sent through the platform each need a counterpart. Check that the new vendor supports transactional sending on the plan you choose, because Mailjet and Brevo both list transactional sending (SMTP relay and API) among their features.
A new platform starts without your sending history, so warm up volume gradually and authenticate the domain first. If you manage clients through sub-accounts, confirm that the destination has an equivalent before you move, since several alternatives are built for a single business or creator.
Its pricing page lists a Free tier with 500 contacts and 500 sends, described as a 30-day trial. Ongoing use starts on the paid Lite plan. MailerLite, Brevo, Kit and Mailjet each publish a free plan without a trial period.
For a small business or creator, yes. It has a permanent free plan with 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month and prices paid plans by subscriber count.
It does not market agency sub-accounts the way Campaign Monitor does, so an agency should check that first.
Brevo and Mailjet both frame their plans around monthly sends. Mailjet's paid plans run from USD 9 to 29 a month for 8,000 to 15,000 emails, and Brevo's Starter begins at 5,000 emails a month. Mailchimp, MailerLite and Kit price by contacts or subscribers instead.
Klaviyo and Omnisend are built for ecommerce. Klaviyo prices by active profiles and has a free plan to 250 profiles and 500 sends. Omnisend combines email, SMS and web push and states 24/7 support on every plan.
Its own pricing page describes it as part of Marigold, and the site presents it as Campaign Monitor by Marigold. We did not find a headquarters or country statement on the pages we checked, so we do not give one here.
Paid plans (Lite, Essentials, Premier) are priced by contact tier from zero to over 50,001, and the page gives a 10 percent discount for annual billing and 15 percent for nonprofits.
Enterprise is a custom annual contract. The monthly amounts did not render in the text we retrieved, so check the live page.
Founder of The Knowledge Engineers and of 2 Steps Ahead, an AI search visibility agency. Editorially responsible for every page on this site; research and drafting are AI-assisted.
Written, edited and fact-checked by Sebastiaan Smits. Last reviewed 16 October 2026. How we review.
