The best email marketing software for a small business, priced at your list size

The best email marketing software for most small businesses is GetResponse: every plan sends without a monthly cap, the Starter plan includes three users, and its price climbs at a steady rate as your list grows. If the monthly bill matters more than anything else, Sender has the most generous free plan we found and low paid tiers, and Brevo is the one to price out when your list is large but you send rarely, because it charges by emails sent rather than by contacts.

Those three are not the only honest answers. The right email marketing platform depends on two numbers you already know — how many people are on your list and how often you write to them — and on whether one person or a whole team will use it. This page puts both numbers next to every plan so you can check our picks against your own situation.

The seven platforms, ranked

The ranking below is our editorial judgement against the rubric in the next section. The prices are the entry paid plan on monthly billing, for the smallest list size each vendor prices, read on the vendor's pricing page on 22 September 2026.

Mailchimp is not in the table. It is the platform most people compare against, so we cover it in its own section further down, but it pays us nothing and its current pricing puts it above every plan here at the list sizes we checked.

How we ranked them

We scored each platform out of 10 against six weighted questions, and the weights are printed so you can disagree with them. The largest weight goes to the price at your list size, because it is the number that decides whether the tool is still affordable in year two.

• Price at your list size (25): what the entry plan costs at 5,000, 25,000 and 100,000 contacts, on monthly and annual billing.
• Sending model and limits (20): whether sends are capped, and whether the cap is a multiple of your list.
• Automation and segments (20): welcome series, triggers and segments on the plan you would actually buy.
• Sending setup and compliance tools (15): custom sending domains, authentication and unsubscribe handling.
• Seats for a team (10): how many people can log in before the price changes.
• Free plan or trial (10): how far you can go before paying.

We did not send test campaigns and we print no open, click or inbox-placement figures: those numbers vary by list and content, and no vendor publishes them in a form anyone can check. Everything here comes from each vendor's published pricing and feature pages, read on 22 September 2026.

What each platform charges by

Most email marketing software prices by the size of your list, and one of the seven prices by how much you send. That single difference changes which tool is cheapest for you more than any feature does.

GetResponse and Benchmark count contacts; Sender, EmailOctopus, AWeber and Moosend count subscribers; Brevo counts emails sent per month. A list-priced plan then limits sending as a multiple of the list: AWeber Lite allows 10× your subscriber count a month and Plus allows 12×, Sender Standard 12× and Professional 24×, and Benchmark Pro 10× the contact limit. GetResponse is the exception among list-priced tools — its plans list "Unlimited monthly email sends".

If you email a 20,000-person list once a month, a send-priced plan can cost far less than a list-priced one. If you email 2,000 people three times a week, the list-priced plan usually wins. Work out both numbers before you compare anything else.

GetResponse: the best all-round pick

GetResponse is our first choice for most small businesses because nothing on the plan runs out as you send more. Starter costs $19 a month on monthly billing at 1,000 contacts, or $15.58 a month billed annually, and includes three users, unlimited monthly sends, signup forms, a landing page builder and one custom automation workflow.

The price rises with contacts: Starter is $54 a month at 5,000, $174 at 25,000 and $539 at 100,000 on monthly billing. Paying yearly takes about 18% off — $441.98 a month at 100,000. If you need more than one automation workflow, Marketer ($59 a month at 1,000 contacts) adds unlimited workflows, abandoned-cart recovery and five users. There is no free plan; the 14-day trial needs no card.

The weakness is the jump between tiers: at 1,000 contacts, moving from Starter to Marketer triples the bill for the sake of automation.

Sender: the lowest-cost platform that still grows with you

Sender is the pick when cost comes first and you still want room to grow. Its Free Forever plan covers up to 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month with automation and landing pages included, and paid Standard starts at $9 a month for 500 subscribers on monthly billing.

At larger lists Standard is $39 a month at 5,000 subscribers, $149 at 25,000 and $367 at 100,000. Read the annual offer carefully: annual billing lists the same price as monthly, and first-time users get 30% off for the first year only — so the $27.30-a-month figure at 5,000 subscribers returns to $39 in year two. Standard includes three seats and sends up to 12× your subscriber count; Professional gives ten seats and 24×.

Our full Sender review walks through the first-year discount in detail.

Brevo: best when the list is large but the sending is rare

Brevo prices by the emails you send each month rather than by the size of your list, which makes it the platform to price first if you keep a big list and write to it occasionally. Its free plan allows up to 300 emails a day once the account is approved, and paid Starter is listed at $9 a month from 5,000 emails.

Standard is listed at $18 a month and Professional at $499 a month from 150,000 emails, with ten seats included; paying yearly takes 10% off. Every plan includes transactional email through an API and SMTP relay, which means order confirmations and marketing campaigns can run from one account.

Brevo's affiliate programme turns away sites like this one, so we link Brevo plainly and earn nothing if you choose it. The Brevo review covers where send-based pricing stops being the cheaper option.

EmailOctopus: the cheapest monthly bill

EmailOctopus had the lowest monthly-billing price of the seven plans we priced at every list size we checked. Pro is $31.50 a month at 5,000 subscribers, $94.50 at 25,000 and $345 at 100,000, with unlimited users; paying yearly brings those to $28, $85 and $310 a month.

The free plan covers 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails a month, with EmailOctopus branding on emails, reports kept for 30 days and a single user. From 1,000 subscribers up, Pro sends up to ten times the subscriber count each month and keeps reports for as long as you have the account.

What you give up for the price is breadth: EmailOctopus is a focused sender with forms and landing pages, not a suite with webinars, courses or a CRM. For a business that sends regular campaigns and a welcome sequence, that is often all it needs.

AWeber: unlimited users and lists on one plan

AWeber is the platform to pick when several people need their own logins and you run more than one list. Its Plus plan includes unlimited users, lists, automations and segments, and costs $30 a month for 500 subscribers on monthly billing, or $19.99 a month billed annually.

Lite is cheaper — $15 a month for 500 subscribers, $12.49 a month billed annually — but it is tightly limited: one email list, three automations, three users and one custom segment. At 5,000 subscribers, Lite costs $60 a month and Plus $90; at 100,000 they reach $600 and $750. AWeber's pricing page shows a 14-day trial and no free tier among its plans.

Read the AWeber review if you are choosing between Lite and Plus.

Moosend: automation on a budget, after a long trial

Moosend suits a business that wants automation workflows without a large bill, and wants a long look before paying. Its Pro plan is $9 a month at 500 subscribers on monthly billing and $16 at 1,000, and the trial runs 30 days with no card.

The price climbs faster than its rivals at the top end: $48 a month at 5,000 subscribers and $160 at 25,000 are competitive, but $624 at 100,000 is the highest monthly figure in our price table. Annual billing takes about 20% off ($499 a month at 100,000). There is no free plan; seasonal senders can buy pay-as-you-go credits instead, from $350 for 350,000 emails.

Benchmark Email: simple sending for small lists

Benchmark is the plain choice for a small business that mostly sends one campaign at a time. The free plan covers 500 contacts and 2,500 sends a month, and Pro costs $19 a month at 1,000 contacts on monthly billing or $16 a month billed annually.

Pro rises to $63 a month at 5,000 contacts, $179 at 25,000 and $499 at 100,000, with sends capped at ten times the contact limit. One user is included and each extra user costs $15 a month, which makes it expensive for a team. Benchmark's current pricing and features pages list the editor, forms, contact management, reporting and list verification, but not automation workflows or A/B testing — which is why it sits last here. The Benchmark Email review has the detail.

Where Mailchimp fits

Mailchimp is the reference point most buyers start from, and it pays us nothing, so we describe it rather than rank it. After its current 50%-off-for-12-months offer ends, Standard costs $100 a month at 2,501–5,000 contacts, $310 at 20,001–25,000 and $800 at 75,001–100,000.

Those are higher than every plan in our table at the same sizes. Its free plan exists, but on 22 September 2026 the same pricing page gave two different contact limits for it, so we print neither — check the page on the day you sign up.

What 5,000 contacts costs on each

At 5,000 contacts, the entry paid plans on monthly billing ranged from $31.50 (EmailOctopus) to $63 (Benchmark) on 22 September 2026. Between them sit Sender at $39, Moosend at $48, MailerLite's Comfort plan at $49, GetResponse at $54 and AWeber Lite at $60.

MailerLite appears in price comparisons because buyers ask about it; we do not review or link it here. For the same comparison at 25,000 and 100,000 contacts, with annual billing alongside, see what email marketing costs at 5k, 25k and 100k contacts. Before you commit to any plan, also check the free email marketing software options — a small list may not need to pay at all.

Before your first bulk campaign

Whichever platform you choose, the rules on the receiving side are the same. Google's published sender guidelines, in force since February 2024, require anyone sending more than 5,000 messages a day to Gmail addresses to authenticate with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, offer one-click unsubscribe on marketing mail, and keep the spam rate reported in Postmaster Tools below 0.3%.

In the US, the FTC's CAN-SPAM guidance also applies to business-to-business email: a valid postal address, a clear way to opt out, and opt-outs honoured within 10 business days. The FTC puts the penalty at up to $53,088 for each email in violation. Authenticating your own sending domain and keeping the unsubscribe link working is your job, whichever platform sends the mail. Our guide to bulk email services goes through the sending setup step by step.