Free email plans cap contacts, sends or automations in different places. Here is how Mailchimp, Brevo, Kit and beehiiv compare, and when paying is worth it.
Every platform in this guide has a free plan, and each draws the line somewhere different. That is the first thing to understand about free versus paid email marketing: the question is rarely whether you can start for free. It is which limit you will hit first, how soon, and what it costs to get past it. A cap on contacts and a cap on daily sends are very different constraints.
The four tools covered here are Mailchimp, Brevo, Kit and beehiiv. Two are general marketing platforms and two are built for newsletter creators, which is deliberate: the trade-off looks different depending on whether you are mailing customers or an audience.
Free plans are measured in different units, and the unit matters more than the headline number.
Mailchimp's Free plan counts both contacts and sends: 500 contacts and 1,000 emails per month, with no more than 500 in a day. Brevo ignores contact count and caps sends at 300 per day, which suits a large, rarely mailed list and rules out sending one campaign to more than 300 people. Kit's free Newsletter plan allows up to 10,000 subscribers and unlimited broadcasts, but only one automation and one email sequence. beehiiv's Launch plan covers 2,500 subscribers with unlimited sends and includes the newsletter website and archive.
Before comparing prices, write down your expected list size in a year, your sending frequency, and how many automated flows you need; the wrong free plan will push you onto a paid tier within weeks.
Paid tiers mostly buy four things: automation, branding removal, seats and support.
Automation is the common paywall. Mailchimp's Essentials tier, advertised at approximately $13 per month for 500 contacts as a 12-month promotion, adds basic automation and A/B testing, but the Customer Journey Builder with branching waits for Standard at approximately $20 per month. Brevo puts automation workflows, A/B testing and landing pages on Standard at approximately $18 per month for 5,000 emails. Kit's Creator plan, $33 per month for 1,000 subscribers, removes the one-automation limit. beehiiv adds automations, A/B testing and custom domains on Scale at approximately $39 per month.
Branding removal varies: Kit drops its badge on the first paid tier, beehiiv removes it only on Max at approximately $99 per month, and Brevo sells removal as an add-on even on paid plans. Every free plan here supports a single user; Mailchimp's Essentials allows 3 seats, Kit's Creator 2, and Brevo and beehiiv unlock multiple users on Business and Max. Support is the quiet one: Mailchimp adds email and chat support on Essentials, Brevo phone support on Business; on a free plan you solve your own problems.
Mailchimp, Kit and beehiiv charge by list size. The entry prices above cover 500 or 1,000 contacts; a list of several thousand costs more on every tier, and Mailchimp's Premium starts at approximately $350 per month for 10,000 contacts. Contact-based pricing rewards a clean list and penalizes hoarding unengaged subscribers.
Brevo charges by email volume instead: Starter at $9 per month and Standard at $18 per month both begin at 5,000 emails. A large list mailed rarely and a small list mailed often can land in the same band, the opposite of how the other three behave.
Kit's free plan has a wrinkle: it allows 10,000 subscribers, but Creator is priced by list size from 1,000 upward, so a creator with 6,000 free-plan subscribers who needs a second automation pays the rate for that list, not the entry price.
Mailchimp connects to more third-party tools than the other three, including Shopify, WooCommerce, Salesforce, QuickBooks, Stripe and Canva, and has iOS and Android apps. Brevo covers Shopify, WooCommerce, Salesforce, HubSpot and Make, and brings SMS, WhatsApp and transactional email under one account. Kit connects to Shopify, WooCommerce, WordPress and Stripe, though third-party integrations are a paid-tier feature. beehiiv's list is short: Stripe, Zapier and Google Analytics. Drop any platform that does not connect natively to the systems you already run; Zapier bridges gaps but adds a second subscription and a second place to break.
Lock-in comes less from the subscriber list than from what you build around it: tagged segments, multi-step automations, landing pages and embedded forms. Some features are platform-specific by design. beehiiv's newsletter website, recommendation network, ad network and Boosts only work inside beehiiv; Kit's Creator Network is the same; Brevo's built-in CRM keeps contact history beside the email data. These are reasons to choose a tool and reasons you will hesitate to leave it.
A free tier shows how a tool feels, and paid features can be tried too: Mailchimp and beehiiv offer 30-day trials, Kit 14 days. Brevo offers no trial, so its free plan is the only way to evaluate it. Kit's editor favors clean, mostly text-based emails, while Mailchimp's interface has grown busier as features were added. Use the trial to build one real automation; if the workflow annoys you at that scale, it will annoy you more later.
| Tool | Starting paid price | Free plan | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mailchimp | approximately $13 per month for 500 contacts | 500 contacts, 1,000 sends per month | Small businesses and ecommerce stores |
| Brevo | approximately $9 per month for 5,000 emails | 300 emails per day, no contact-based fee | Large lists mailed infrequently |
| Kit | approximately $29 per month for 1,000 subscribers | 10,000 subscribers, 1 automation | Creators selling digital products |
| beehiiv | approximately $39 per month for 1,000 subscribers | 2,500 subscribers, unlimited sends | Newsletters planning to monetize |
Free plans are useful for one thing above all: learning whether a tool fits how you work before money is involved. Pick the one whose limits match your list, your sending rhythm and your team, and treat the first paid tier as the real price.
For a wider shortlist, see the best email campaign tools, or marketing automation if you need more than email. Everything in the category sits under Marketing.
Prices and features referenced were reviewed in September 2026 and may change. Check the vendor's pricing page before you decide.
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