Email is the only channel you own outright, which is why the choice of platform outlives most of the campaigns run on it.
This guide ranks the platforms on deliverability, what the price does as the list grows, how much automation you get before the next tier, and whether you can take your subscribers and their history with you when you leave.
AuthorHannah ReiterSenior Analyst, Business Applications
Vendors can pay for visibility on this page. It never changes what an entry
says about a product, including the criticism, and we earn nothing when you click through to a
vendor. How that works.
In short
What email marketing software does
Email marketing software stores a subscriber list, sends campaigns and automated sequences to it, and reports on what happened, while handling the deliverability plumbing that decides whether any of it reaches an inbox.
Five things, in this order. Feature counts are not among them: they are the least useful
comparison in software, because every vendor ticks every box.
01
Setup effort in email marketing software
What the first ninety days of a email marketing software rollout cost in hours, not in licence fees. A product that needs a partner engagement before it does anything is a different purchase from one a team configures in an afternoon.
02
What email marketing software really costs
What the bill becomes once the modules a normal buyer of email marketing software needs are added, and whether you can read that number without a sales conversation.
03
Getting your data out of email marketing software
How your own data comes back out, in what format, and whether that export is included in the email marketing software contract or billed as a project.
04
Independence from the vendor
Whether you can buy email marketing software, run it and leave it on your own terms. This test decides most of the order on this page, and it is why the largest vendors in email marketing software often sit below the smaller ones.
05
Who the product is built for
The size and shape of company each email marketing software product was actually built for. Most regret in software comes from buying for a company you are not yet.
The fourth test decides most of the order on this page, and it is the reason the largest
email marketing software vendors sit below the smaller ones. A product with a published price, an export
that works and no mandatory implementation partner is a product you can leave.
A platform suite that arrives with a quote, a partner and a two-year commitment may well be
the better software and is still the harder decision to reverse. We rank email marketing software for the
buyer who has to live with that decision without a procurement department, which is a stated
bias rather than a hidden one.
We do not publish a score out of ten. A number like 8.4 is a judgement dressed as a
measurement, and nobody can check it.
What you can check is on this page: what each email marketing tool costs, where the vendor is
established, whether the price is published, and what we think it is bad at. Our full method
is on the how we work page.
Free tier; paid tiers per month with contact tiers, published
Yes
A company already running HubSpot CRM that wants one system
Anyone who needs email and nothing else
Country is where the vendor is headquartered or contracts from, which is a
different question from where your data is hosted. Where the two tell different stories, the
entry says so.
Send-volume pricing instead of per-contact pricing
Ranked #1 of 12 in Best Email Marketing Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingEurope
Charging by send volume rather than by stored contact is the whole point: a list of 50,000 people you email monthly costs a fraction of what the per-contact platforms charge.
Transactional email runs on the same account, which removes a second vendor for most small teams. Where it disappoints is reporting — the analytics answer what happened but rarely why — and shared-pool deliverability needs a proper warm-up before a first big send.
What stands out
Volume pricing
Free tier
SMS and email
Where it costs you
Reporting is the weakest part of the product
Deliverability on the shared pool needs warming up
Right for
A large but quiet list where per-contact pricing would hurt
Wrong for
A team that needs deep segmentation and revenue reporting
FranceFree tier; paid plans by monthly send volume, published
Ranked #2 of 12 in Best Email Marketing Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingEurope
The proposition is straightforward: roughly ninety per cent of what the incumbents do, at roughly half the price, in a cleaner interface. Landing pages and signup forms are included rather than upsold.
Two caveats worth knowing before you migrate: new accounts go through manual approval, which can take a day or two, and the automation builder handles sequences well but runs out at genuinely complex conditional branching.
What stands out
Low price
Clean editor
Landing pages
Where it costs you
Manual account approval delays new senders
Automation logic runs out at genuinely complex branching
Right for
A growing list that needs the fundamentals at half the price
Wrong for
A team that needs multi-branch lifecycle automation
LithuaniaFree to 1,000 subscribers; paid per subscriber, published
Ranked #3 of 12 in Best Email Marketing Software in 2026.
Published pricingNorth America
This is the most capable automation engine at mid-market pricing, with multi-branch logic, conditional content and a CRM attached. Teams that invest a week in mapping their lifecycle get something the simpler tools cannot approach.
Teams that do not end up paying for a machine they never start — and that is the common outcome. Be honest about whether anyone will own the automation before you buy on the strength of it.
What stands out
Deep automation
Built-in CRM
Conditional content
Where it costs you
The automation builder rewards setup time you may not have
Overkill, and overpriced, if you only send newsletters
Right for
A team that will actually build multi-step lifecycle automation
Ranked #4 of 12 in Best Email Marketing Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingEurope
Omnisend ships the flows a small store actually needs — abandoned cart, browse abandonment, win-back, post-purchase — already built and reasonably worded, so the first useful automation is live the same day.
Email and SMS sit in one flow builder rather than two products. Segmentation is where it trails Klaviyo: once your catalogue has real structure and you want to segment on product affinity, you will feel the difference.
What stands out
Prebuilt ecommerce flows
Email and SMS
Published pricing
Where it costs you
Segmentation is shallower once the catalogue gets complex
Only makes sense for ecommerce
Right for
A small store that wants abandoned-cart flows working today
Wrong for
A publisher or a B2B list
United KingdomFree tier; paid per contact, published
Ranked #5 of 12 in Best Email Marketing Software in 2026.
Published pricingNorth America
The best of this group at making an email look designed rather than assembled, with client accounts that suit agencies. Automation is basic and the platform has seen little investment since its acquisition.
What stands out
Strong templates
Agency accounts
Brand controls
Where it costs you
Automation is basic
Little visible investment since the acquisition
Right for
A brand or agency where the email has to look designed
Wrong for
A team that needs lifecycle automation more than typography
United StatesPer month by subscriber count, published
Email plus landing pages and webinars in one subscription
Ranked #6 of 12 in Best Email Marketing Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingEurope
GetResponse bundles things most competitors sell separately — landing pages, forms, and a webinar platform that is good enough to replace a dedicated one at the small end. For a company running monthly lead-gen events that bundle is worth real money.
What you give up is polish in the automation editor and the last few percentage points of inbox placement, which matters less for a fortnightly newsletter than for an abandoned-cart flow.
What stands out
Webinars included
Landing pages
Published price
Where it costs you
Automation builder feels dated
Deliverability trails the leaders
Right for
A small business that runs webinars and needs the list in one place
Wrong for
A high-volume ecommerce sender chasing every point of deliverability
PolandFree to 500 contacts; paid per contact per month, published
Ranked #7 of 12 in Best Email Marketing Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingNorth America
Kit is built on the assumption that the email is the product, not the advertisement for it. That shows in the free tier, in the commerce features that let you sell a course or a subscription without leaving, and in templates that look like plain text on purpose because plain text converts for this audience.
It also shows in what is missing: catalogue-aware segmentation, deep ecommerce reporting and the design tooling a brand team expects.
What stands out
Generous free tier
Creator commerce
Simple automation
Where it costs you
Reporting is thin by ecommerce standards
Templates are deliberately plain
Right for
A writer, creator or coach selling directly to a list
Wrong for
An online shop that needs product-level segmentation
United StatesFree to 10,000 subscribers; paid per subscriber, published
Marketing email and transactional sending on one API
Ranked #8 of 12 in Best Email Marketing Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingEurope
Mailjet earns its place on the pricing model and the hosting. Paying per email rather than per contact suits a company with fifty thousand addresses that hears from it twice a year, which is the case that makes contact-priced tools expensive.
EU data residency is available and documented, which for some buyers ends the discussion. The trade is capability: the automation builder handles a welcome series comfortably and runs out of room after that.
What stands out
Transactional and marketing
EU hosting
Priced on volume
Where it costs you
Marketing automation is basic
Roadmap set by the parent company
Right for
A team that wants product email and campaigns on one bill
Wrong for
A marketer who wants sophisticated lifecycle automation
FranceFree to 6,000 emails a month; paid by send volume, published
Ranked #9 of 12 in Best Email Marketing Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingNorth America
Mailchimp remains the easiest platform to hand to someone who has never sent a campaign, and the integration list means whatever else you run probably connects.
The problem is the pricing model: you pay per contact whether or not they read anything, and the cheapest tiers remove features you will want within a month. It is a reasonable default for a business whose list is small and whose priority is getting a decent newsletter out.
What stands out
Largest integration list
Templates
Free tier
Where it costs you
Per-contact pricing bills you for subscribers who never open
The cheapest tiers strip out things you will want
Right for
A non-specialist who needs to send a decent newsletter tomorrow
Wrong for
A store where every euro of send cost has to earn its keep
United StatesFree tier; paid plans per contact per month, published
Ranked #10 of 12 in Best Email Marketing Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingNorth America
Klaviyo treats an email list as an extension of the store rather than a separate database, so browse history, order value and product affinity are available in segmentation without a connector.
For a store doing meaningful revenue that produces flows the general-purpose tools cannot match, and the reporting attributes revenue per message. Away from ecommerce the value collapses: you are paying a premium per contact for a data model you are not using.
What stands out
Ecommerce data model
Revenue reporting
Deep Shopify link
Where it costs you
Expensive for a list that is not attached to a store
Setup assumes ecommerce data you may not have
Right for
A Shopify or WooCommerce store that wants revenue per email
Wrong for
A B2B newsletter with no product catalogue behind it
United StatesFree tier to 250 contacts; paid per contact, published
Aimed at small businesses that want a phone number to call
Ranked #11 of 12 in Best Email Marketing Software in 2026.
Published pricingNorth America
Sells support as the product, and for a business without a marketer that is a fair trade. The automation and segmentation are a generation behind, and the price does not reflect that.
What stands out
Phone support
Event tools
Simple editor
Where it costs you
Automation and segmentation are a generation behind
Priced as though the support is worth the gap
Right for
A small business with no marketer that wants a phone number to call
Email as one part of a suite you are meant to standardise on
Ranked #12 of 12 in Best Email Marketing Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingNorth America
Marketing Hub is sold as the marketing half of a suite, and judged that way it is strong: the email tool reads from the same contact record as sales, so attribution and lifecycle reporting work without a data project.
Judged as an email tool on its own it is poor value, because you are paying for a platform. Watch the tier boundaries rather than the headline price — the features most buyers actually want sit above the first paid tier, and higher tiers carry a mandatory onboarding fee.
What stands out
CRM built in
Full marketing suite
Steep tier jumps
Where it costs you
Tier jumps are steep and contact-based
Onboarding fees on higher tiers
Right for
A company already running HubSpot CRM that wants one system
Wrong for
Anyone who needs email and nothing else
United StatesFree tier; paid tiers per month with contact tiers, published
Email marketing software stores a subscriber list, sends campaigns and automated sequences to it, and reports on what happened, while handling the deliverability plumbing that decides whether any of it reaches an inbox. The differences that matter are rarely in the feature list, so this is
the order we would work through them.
01
Decide whether you need a published price
12 of the 12 tools here publish what they cost; the other 0 quote per organisation, which means a sales conversation before you can compare anything.
If you are buying without a procurement function, start with the ones that publish: Brevo, MailerLite, ActiveCampaign, Omnisend, Campaign Monitor, GetResponse, Kit, Mailjet, Mailchimp, Klaviyo, Constant Contact, HubSpot Marketing Hub.
02
Work out what the first ninety days cost in time
Licence cost is the number in the contract; setup effort is the number that surprises people. Ask every shortlisted vendor who does the configuration, how long it took the last customer of your size, and what happens if that person leaves halfway.
03
Check the exit before the entry
Ask for an export of your own data in a format you can open, and ask whether it is included or billed as a project. A vendor that hesitates here is telling you what renewal negotiations will feel like in three years.
04
Match the tool to the size you are, not the size you plan to be
Most regret in this category comes from buying for a headcount that never arrived. The entry-level products here are not worse; they are aimed at a different company.
05
Decide how much the jurisdiction matters
These 12 vendors are established in 5 countries across 2 regions (North America 7, Europe 5). Where a vendor is established decides which government can compel access to what it holds, which is a different question from where the servers are. For most buyers that is a factor, not a veto.
Sends, subscribers or contacts: three meters, three bills
Every vendor here charges for the same thing in a different unit, and the unit decides who is cheap for you. Brevo and Mailjet meter monthly sends, which suits a large list you mail rarely. MailerLite, Kit and Klaviyo meter subscribers or contacts, which suits a small list you mail constantly.
Mailchimp counts a contact whether or not it has opened anything in three years. The same 20,000 addresses can sit at either end of a five-fold price range depending on which meter you picked.
Work out your sends per month and your list size, then price both models.
Ask whether unsubscribed and bounced addresses still count towards the bill.
Check what happens in a launch month when volume triples for four weeks.
Deliverability is the product, not a feature
An email that lands in spam cost the same to send as one that arrives. The things that decide it are unglamorous: whether the vendor makes you authenticate your sending domain, whether it puts you on a shared IP with other people's list hygiene, and whether it will tell you your complaint rate before a mailbox provider does.
Kit and Klaviyo are strict about authentication at signup, which feels like friction and is the reason their delivery holds up.
Send a test to Gmail, Outlook and a corporate address before you commit.
Ask whether you are on a shared or dedicated IP, and what the neighbours are.
Find the complaint and bounce reporting in the trial. If it is hidden, that is the answer.
Automation depth is where the tiers diverge
Every product on this page sends a campaign to a list. The differences start at the second step of an automation: branching on behaviour, waiting for a condition, updating a field, splitting a test.
ActiveCampaign and Klaviyo are built around that graph and price accordingly; Mailjet and Campaign Monitor keep it deliberately shallow. Buying the deep one and never building the graph is the most common overspend in email marketing software.
Sketch your most complex sequence before the trial, then build it in the trial.
Count how many steps the entry plan allows before the automation is cut off.
Ask whether an automation can write back to the contact record, or only send.
Getting the list back out
A subscriber list is portable in theory and awkward in practice. The addresses export from every product here; the engagement history, the tags, the automation state and the consent timestamps often do not.
That consent record is the part you cannot recreate, and under GDPR it is the part you need. Brevo, MailerLite and GetResponse export it as a field; several of the American products treat it as internal telemetry.
Export a full list during the trial and open the file.
Check that the opt-in date and source come out with the address.
Ask what happens to scheduled automations on the day you stop paying.
What goes wrong most often when buying email marketing software
Choosing on the free tier. Free tiers here are sized for a list that is about to outgrow them, which is the point of them.
Importing a list you bought or inherited. One bad import damages a sending reputation that takes months to rebuild, and the vendor will suspend you before the mailbox providers do.
Comparing the entry plans. Automation, reporting and sending domains sit a tier or two up at almost every vendor on this page.
Leaving consent records behind in the old system. The addresses migrate easily; the proof that you may mail them is the thing that does not.
07
Frequently asked questions
9 answers
What is the best email marketing in 2026?
Brevo leads our ranking of 12. Charges for what you send rather than how many contacts you store, which is the cheaper model for a large but quiet list.
The automation builder is capable without being a project, and transactional sending is on the same account. Reporting is the weakest part.
How did you rank these email marketing tools?
On what separates products after the demo: how much setup the first ninety days take, what the price becomes once the modules a normal buyer needs are added, how your data comes back out, whether you can buy and leave it without a partner engagement, and who the product is genuinely for.
That fourth test is why the large platform suites usually sit lower here than their market share would suggest. Not on feature counts, and not on a score we invented.
Which email marketing tools publish their pricing?
12 of the 12, with the pricing model each one publishes:
Brevo: Free tier; paid plans by monthly send volume, published.
MailerLite: Free to 1,000 subscribers; paid per subscriber, published.
ActiveCampaign: Per contact per month, published.
Omnisend: Free tier; paid per contact, published.
Campaign Monitor: Per month by subscriber count, published.
GetResponse: Free to 500 contacts; paid per contact per month, published.
Kit: Free to 10,000 subscribers; paid per subscriber, published.
Mailjet: Free to 6,000 emails a month; paid by send volume, published.
Mailchimp: Free tier; paid plans per contact per month, published.
Klaviyo: Free tier to 250 contacts; paid per contact, published.
Constant Contact: Per contact per month, published.
HubSpot Marketing Hub: Free tier; paid tiers per month with contact tiers, published.
The other 0 quote per organisation.
Is there a free email marketing tool?
Brevo, MailerLite, Omnisend, GetResponse, Kit, Mailjet, Mailchimp, Klaviyo, HubSpot Marketing Hub offer a free tier or a free self-hosted edition. Read what the free tier excludes before you plan around it.
Where are these email marketing vendors established?
In 5 countries across 2 regions: North America 7, Europe 5.
Brevo is established in France.
MailerLite is established in Lithuania.
ActiveCampaign is established in the United States.
Omnisend is established in the United Kingdom.
Campaign Monitor is established in the United States.
GetResponse is established in Poland.
Kit is established in the United States.
Mailjet is established in France.
Mailchimp is established in the United States.
Klaviyo is established in the United States.
Constant Contact is established in the United States.
HubSpot Marketing Hub is established in the United States.
Establishment decides whose courts and whose disclosure laws apply, which is a separate question from where the data is hosted.
What should you use instead of Brevo?
MailerLite and ActiveCampaign are the next two on this page.
MailerLite is for a growing list that needs the fundamentals at half the price; ActiveCampaign is for a team that will actually build multi-step lifecycle automation. All 12 are ranked here with what each one is bad at.
Who should not buy Brevo?
A team that needs deep segmentation and revenue reporting. Reporting is the weakest part of the product.
Do you get paid for these rankings?
Vendors can pay for visibility, which affects where and how prominently a product appears. It does not change a word of what the entry says about that product, including the criticism, and it cannot buy inclusion for something that does not belong in the category.
We take no commission when you click through to a vendor and we do not know whether you bought anything. The full arrangement is on our disclosure page.
How often is this email marketing guide updated?
Whenever the facts move: a price change, an acquisition, a product that stops being maintained. The published and updated dates at the top of the page are real, and a review means someone went back to the vendor documentation rather than bumping a date.
These 12 products are the ones we judged worth ranking in email marketing. If yours belongs here and is missing, tell us what it does and who it is for, and we will look at it. Inclusion is an editorial call and it is not for sale — but nobody gets considered for a list they were never put in front of.
People land on this page with a shortlist to make, not a browsing habit to feed. That is a narrower audience than a banner reaches and a far more decided one.
Written by us, about you
We describe the product in our own words, say who it suits and say who it does not. A vendor never writes the entry and never sees it before it goes up.
A correction costs nothing
If a fact about your product is wrong here, tell us and we fix it, whether or not there is any money between us. That offer is older than any commercial arrangement on this site.
Placement is separate, and disclosed
Where a product sits in the ranking can be paid for, and the notice above the list says so on every page. What the entry says about the product is not for sale at any price.
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