When you don't own the channels where you reach customers, the ground can always shift beneath you. That's where email marketing shines.
The good news: there's an entire ecosystem of free email marketing tools available, and they have all the features you'll need to build out your email marketing (and then some).
I researched and tested more than 60 email marketing apps with free plans to find the best ones for a variety of use cases and business types. Here are the six best free email marketing apps.
The best free email marketing apps
MailerLite for advanced email marketers
HubSpot for segmentation
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) for all-in-one marketing and sales features
Mailchimp for a growing email marketing program
Sender for the most generous free plan
Loops for email marketing automation
What makes the best free email marketing service?
How we evaluate and test apps
Our best apps roundups are written by humans who've spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. Unless explicitly stated, we spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it's intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. We're never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to any site—we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog.
Full-featured email marketing apps and free ones are far from mutually exclusive. There are tons of options that offer flexible subscriber and send thresholds along with the robust features small businesses need—for free. If you're just getting started with free marketing tools or want to try out a few options before committing to a paid plan, you have plenty of choices.
Here's what I looked for when testing free email marketing services:
The number of subscribers and sends included for free. Some free email marketing platforms are generous in this regard, offering thousands of free sends per month, while others include low caps that mean your "free" platform isn't free for very long. I kept this in mind while testing.
Email templates and customization. You shouldn't have to start your email marketing operation from scratch. The best options come with at least a few fully-designed and professional templates to get your free email campaign started. And in cases where there aren't any free templates, the email editor needs to really shine in ease of use.
Audience segmentation. Success with email relies on being able to deliver the right emails to the right people at the right time. For growing businesses, that means you need capable audience segmentation features with any free email campaign software you choose.
Automation. From transactional emails to triggered campaigns and more, a growing business needs to be able to automate email marketing as your efforts scale.
Scalability. Speaking of, just because you're starting by doing your email marketing for free, it doesn't mean you won't grow out of it. The best free email marketing software can grow with your business—from free to paid when necessary, adding more features and higher limits as you go.
Full email marketing features. There are plenty of capable apps designed for one particular type of email (like newsletters, for example, or transactional emails), but for our purposes here, I focused on full-featured apps you can use across your email marketing operation.
After narrowing down the list based on those criteria, I ran each of the remaining contenders through an extensive testing workflow that included:
Creating an account and completing any onboarding offered by the app.
Looking at core features like the drag-and-drop editor, template library, and overall campaign creation flow.
Testing out additional features like automation, customer segmentation, and alternative editors (like HTML or plain text), along with determining any applicable limits for these features on the free plan.
Where available, I tested out niche features for eCommerce, universal branding, broader marketing automation, and AI, among others.
Lastly, I looked into how costs for each app scale as you outgrow the free plan and move to paid.
Along with each step, I considered the ease of use for core and ancillary features—because with all the options available today, "free" shouldn't have to mean hard to use.
With those criteria in mind, here's the best free software for email marketing.
The best free email marketing platforms at a glance
Best for | Standout feature | Free plan | |
---|---|---|---|
Advanced email marketers | Dynamic content blocks | Up to 1,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month | |
Segmentation | Well-rounded marketing features | Up to 2,000 emails per month and 1,000 static lists | |
All-in-one marketing & sales | Full-featured CRM | Up to 300 emails per day, with unlimited contacts | |
Growing email marketing | Lots of advanced features included for free | Up to 500 contacts and 1,000 sends per month | |
A generous free plan | 40 templates | Up to 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails per month | |
Email marketing automation | Unlimited automation workflows | Up to 1,000 contacts and 2,000 email sends per month |
Best free email marketing software for advanced email marketers
MailerLite
MailerLite pros:
Pre-built content blocks make building emails super quick
Generous allotments for segmentation and automation
Affordable upgrade for unlimited users
MailerLite cons:
No pre-made email templates on the free plan
MailerLite doesn't offer pre-made templates for its free newsletter service, but the dynamic, pre-designed content blocks more than make up for the lack of templates. With blocks for highlighting multiple articles, videos, RSS lists, products, apps, events, and more, MailerLite helps experienced email marketers make quick work of building new campaigns and custom templates.
Your emails can include more than just text and images, too. There's a countdown timer that dynamically shows the time remaining until you launch a product or before a sale is over. You can add product details, embed a video, pull in your most recent blog posts with a dynamically updating RSS block, and more. It's a great way to send interactive emails instead of just digital letters.
Beyond email content, MailerLite also includes robust automation and audience segmentation features in the free plan. An intuitive builder makes quick work of mapping out automation workflows—or you can hit the ground running with one of the 15 new pre-built flows. Create both persistent and one-time segments and view aggregate statistics by segment, too.
Plus, MailerLite integrates with Zapier—meaning you can automate things like adding new MailerLite subscribers from Google Sheets and sending Mailchimp subscribers to MailerLite. Here are more ideas for how to automate MailerLite, plus some pre-made workflows to get you started.
Add subscribers to MailerLite from newly-updated rows on Google Sheets
MailerLite pricing: Free for up to 1,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month
Deciding between MailerLite and Mailchimp? Read our showdown: MailerLite vs. Mailchimp.
Best free email marketing software for segmentation
HubSpot
HubSpot pros:
Generous free plan
Great for segmentation with HubSpot CRM features
HubSpot cons:
Sub-par email templates
Expensive upgrade and the full suite can be overwhelming
HubSpot has everything you need under one roof. The email marketing features are well-rounded and offer a lot for free: up to 2,000 emails per month, 10 active lists, and reporting. When you're ready to scale, you can add additional HubSpot tools for CRM, full marketing automation, customer service, sales, and more.
The email tool throws you into the editor as soon as signup is finished, so you can get moving quickly. For those new to HubSpot or email marketing more broadly, the next stop is the user guide, detailing everything you need to know to build beautiful, effective campaigns in HubSpot. With HubSpot's new AI features, things get even easier.
Included in the free plan are 1,000 static lists and 10 "active" lists, which include super quick options to segment, say, hard-bouncers or recipients who open but don't click.
While HubSpot offers a generous free plan, costs can scale quickly as you outgrow it. Pricing for the full Marketing Hub starts out reasonably at $18 per month, but if you need a lot of contacts or features like omnichannel marketing automation, A/B testing, or custom reporting, you'll need to be prepared to pay up.
Plus, HubSpot integrates with Zapier, so you can do things like automatically create and update HubSpot contacts from your contact management tool and copy new leads from your ads into HubSpot. Here are more ideas for how to automate HubSpot, plus some pre-made workflows to inspire you.
Copy new lead responses from Facebook Lead Ads to a HubSpot form
HubSpot pricing: Free for up to 2,000 emails per month, 1,000 static contact lists, 10 "active" contact lists, and 1 automation workflow
Deciding between HubSpot and Mailchimp? Read our showdown: HubSpot vs. Mailchimp.
Best email marketing tool for all-in-one marketing and sales
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)
Brevo pros:
Pre-built, goal-oriented email automation
Generous automation limits on the free plan
Broad marketing and sales feature set
Brevo cons:
Strict 300 email/day send limit
If you're looking for one tool to handle all your marketing and sales needs, Brevo is a great option. Since rebranding from Sendinblue to Brevo, they've added several new features like a full-featured CRM, centralized solutions for sales meetings, calls, and chat, and streamlined deal tracking.
On top of these, the app still offers a variety of templated automation flows, based on your goals. You can choose your workflow to improve engagement, increase traffic, grow revenue, or build relationships.
You can get from account setup to actually editing emails in just a few clicks, and the streamlined campaign creation flow keeps the breadth of available campaign types (Brevo supports email, SMS, WhatsApp, web push, and Facebook Ads campaigns) from feeling overwhelming. From there, you can build your emails with dozens of pre-made templates and a drag-and-drop editor. Then, either send them as email newsletters or use Brevo's automation workflows to send them on a schedule.
You can't send as many emails at once as you can from other free email marketing tools, but you can manage more contacts—the free plan comes with unlimited contacts—and split them into focused lists. Brevo also lets you buy pre-paid credits to send more than your daily email limit and offers an affordable $12 whitelabeling add-on that's available with any plan.
Expand Brevo's capabilities by integrating it with Zapier to automatically create new Brevo subscribers from new Google Contacts, Mailchimp subscribers, Facebook Lead Ads leads, and more. Discover more popular ways to automate Brevo with Zapier, or take a look at these ideas to get you started.
Add new Mailchimp subscribers as Brevo subscribers
Brevo pricing: Free for up 300 emails per day and unlimited contacts
Best free email marketing service for growing email marketing programs
Mailchimp
Mailchimp pros:
User-friendly UI with helpful tips and best practices
Includes customer journey mapping, list segmenting, A/B testing, and more
Scalable pricing
Mailchimp cons:
Relatively limited free plan compared to the other options on this list
One of the most popular email marketing apps thanks to its friendly branding, Mailchimp is a great place to start your email marketing program if you're planning to scale it quickly. The app includes a landing page builder, customer journey mapping, list segmentation, retargeting ads, and even A/B testing—all in its free plan.
An approachable editor that includes helpful tips and best practices along the way makes Mailchimp an accessible option for both new and experienced email marketers. For example, when setting up a subject line, a sidebar reminds you about recommended character length, emoji use in subject lines, and more.
Once you're ready to move beyond what the free plan offers, Mailchimp makes scaling accessible with three different paid tiers. Plus, Mailchimp can handle email programs of any size: if you can afford to let it grow with you, you'll never have to switch to another app.
Mailchimp integrates with Zapier, allowing you to do things like automatically subscribe new form responders, leads, or spreadsheet entries to a Mailchimp list. Learn more about how to automate Mailchimp, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.
Create Mailchimp subscribers from new Typeform responses
Add subscribers to Mailchimp for new Google Sheets rows
Subscribe new Facebook Lead Ad leads to a Mailchimp list
Mailchimp pricing: Free for up to 500 contacts and 1,000 sends per month
If you love Mailchimp but just need a super simple, bare-bones option for email newsletters, the brand also offers TinyLetter.
Best free email marketing software for a generous free plan
Sender
Sender pros:
Super generous subscriber and send limits
Full access to automation and segmentation
Reasonable upgrade costs
Sender cons:
Clunky drag-and-drop editor
If you're looking to get a whole lot of value for free, Sender is your best bet. The ultra-generous free plan includes 2,500 subscribers, 15,000 emails each month, and full access to more advanced features like automation and audience segmentation. At a time when most email marketing apps are reining in their free plans, Sender's really stands out.
You won't get a lot of fancy email templates here, but the app does offer nearly 40, most of which are of passable quality. The drag-and-drop editor isn't my favorite, but it works. The automation feature doesn't include any pre-built workflows, but it's easy to use and includes 11 standard triggers. You can build audience segments based on all the standard dimensions you expect, along with a number of eCommerce-specific ones.
Speaking of which, if you're looking to use Sender for eCommerce, you'll probably have to upgrade eventually, but the paid plans are super affordable, too—just $47.50 per month gets you 10,000 subscribers, 120,000 email sends, SMS features, whitelabeling, and up to three users.
Plus, you can use Sender together with Zapier to automate even more of your email marketing workflow, like syncing new Sender subscribers across other apps and publishing emails to other channels. Here are some ideas, but you can connect Sender to thousands of other apps in your tech stack.
Create new stories in Medium from new Sender campaigns
Sender pricing: Free for up to 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails per month
Best free email marketing software for automation
Loops (Web)
Loops pros:
Generous free plan
Lots of pre-built automation templates
Scalable upgrade
Loops cons:
Rich text editor only
Plain text templates
Loops is an email marketing app built, from the foundation on up, for automation. The app calls automated workflows "loops" (hence the name), and they're unlimited—even on the free plan.
Loops is designed for SaaS companies, and many of the features reflect that. With 17 pre-built loops to choose from, you can make quick work of building out automations for common subscription use cases like welcoming new paid users, inviting users to upgrade, and encouraging engagement.
The app also includes audience segmentation that's on the basic side but easy to use. As a whole, Loop's user interface is simple, clean, and supremely easy to navigate.
Now, this recommendation comes with one big caveat: Loops only includes a rich text editor and a few plain text email templates. If that works for your email marketing strategy, this is a great option—just know that you won't be building out highly-designed visual-laden campaigns.
You can also use Loops with Zapier to broaden the automation horizons by sending events to Loops, adding new subscribers from other apps, and more. Here are some examples for you.
Add new Webflow form submissions as contacts in Loops
Send scheduled events every month in Loops using Schedule by Zapier
Loops pricing: Free for up to 1,000 contacts and 2,000 email sends per month
What about a free eCommerce email marketing tool?
You may have noticed I don't have a "best for eCommerce" category this year—that's intentional. While I tested a number of apps with useful eCommerce features, it turns out there isn't really such a thing as a free lunch in this space.
Apps like Mailchimp and Sender offer features like eCommerce-specific audience segmentation dimensions and online store integration, but the subscriber and email send limits on their free plans won't get you very far when it comes to eCommerce.
As for an email marketing tool that's tailor-made for eCommerce, Klaviyo and (my former pick) Omnisend are both super capable options. Both apps severely limit their free plans to just 250 contacts and 500 sends per month, though, so I can't recommend them if you're looking for a free email marketing solution—they won't be free for very long. That said, if you're willing to pay for niche-specific features, free plans will enable you to briefly test out both Omnisend and Klaviyo before you have to open your wallet.
Other email marketing tools with generous free plans
In addition to the picks above, I tested a number of other tools that offer exceedingly generous free plans. For example:
ConvertKit (1,000 subscribers and unlimited emails)
EmailOctopus (2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails per month)
Mailjet (1,500 subscribers and 6,000 emails per month)
SendGrid (2,000 subscribers and 6,000 emails per month)
Systeme.io (2,000 subscribers and unlimited emails)
Zoho Campaigns (2,000 subscribers and 6,000 emails per month)
These apps didn't make the cut based on lack of certain features or certain usability issues, but they definitely offer a long runway before you have to start paying for your email marketing. So if your main concern is getting the most bang for your (lack of) buck, test these out and decide for yourself.
Email marketing services FAQ
Still have questions about choosing an email marketing service? Here are some common questions people have about how to pick the right app.
What makes a good free email marketing software?
While different platforms will suit different people best, you'll want to keep an eye out for features like email templates and customization, audience segmentation, automation, scalability, and how many subscribers and sends are included in a free plan.
Why use an email marketing software?
Email is one of the most effective ways to market your business. Why? Email is universal, as almost everyone has an email address. Plus, email is widely recognized as having a high return on investment (ROI) compared to other mediums. Email marketing software streamlines the entire process, ensuring you're getting the most out of the time you put into it.
Can I start email marketing for free?
Absolutely. Each platform listed in this article is free to get started with, and as long as you don't exceed contact limits for the free plan, you can send emails to your email list for free.
Automate your email marketing tool
Once you've picked your free newsletter software, here are a few ideas for how to automate your email marketing tool. Then take a look at more ways to use marketing automation to grow your business.
Related reading:
This piece was originally published in February 2015 by Matthew Guay and has also had contributions from Jessica Greene. The most recent update was in December 2023.