The 11 Best Free Email Marketing Services – How far can $0 get you?

 

The 11 Best Free Email Marketing Services – How far can $0 get you?

So you’ve decided to start focusing more effort on your ‘small’ business, and perhaps you’re still working out of your bedroom, but your customers don’t need to know that.
You’ve been sending out emails to your list of around 50-200 recipients that you’ve built up over the last few months, but Outlook isn’t quite cutting it anymore. Sometimes your emails get lost in the void that is spam folders, and then there was that one time you accidentally CC’d instead of BCCing! That sadly caused a few unsubscribes, which, of course, had to be removed manually.
There must be a better way, right?
It might be time to try out a more professional email tool. But wait, before you cry out ‘professional = expensive’, there are actually a bunch of free email marketing services that can do the job well. No more spam surprises and no more embarrassing personal data breaches.

So who are these free email marketing services you speak of?

Good question. I’ve put them into a handy table for you below!

Provider	What's included for free?	Comments
MailerLite	1,000 subscribers No email limit Access to all features	MailerLite offer all features at all tiers, whether you’re on their free plan, or paid. This includes autoresponders, sophisticated webforms, reporting and full support options. Includes a small ad. (Read our full review)
MailChimp	2,000 subscribers 12,000 emails p/m Reporting List management Mobile features	Unlike MailerLite, you have restricted features available on the free account (e.g. advanced segmentation and delivery by time-zone). But you still have a more generous subscriber amount, and it’s just as user-friendly. And most importantly, you can't use their email or chat support. There's also a small ad banner in each email you send. (Review)
Benchmark	2,000 subscribers 14,000 emails p/m Webforms List management Basic A/B testing	Benchmark’s numbers look very similar to MailChimp’s. As most email marketing software these days they sport a drag and drop editor. Not all features are included in the free plan. (Review)
Omnisend	15,000 emails p/m 3 forms/landing pages A/B testing Website tracking	Aside from a sizeable sending allowance, the free plan of this ecommerce-focused tool also comes with a lot of cool extras, including A/B testing and website tracking.
SendInBlue	Unlimited subscribers 9,000 emails p/m Webforms Basic reporting	SendInBlue’s free plan is a little more restricted in terms of emails. You can have up to 9,000 p/m, but there is also a daily limit of 300. You also have their branding present in all emails. (Review)
Mailjet	Unlimited subscribers 6,000 emails p/m Reporting	Similar to SendInBlue, Mailjet have a sending limit on their free plan, and a daily limit of only 200 emails.
CleverReach	250 subscribers 1,000 emails p/m Reporting Webforms	CleverReach have one of the more restrictive free plans out there, in terms of subscriber and email numbers. However, there is a small ad in your outgoing emails that can’t be removed.
Drip	100 subscribers Unlimited email sends Automations Forms	A 100-subscriber limit probably won’t get you very far, but on the upside, you do get access to automations, forms, and analytics.
Mailify	1,000 emails 10 SMS Access to all areas 30 day trial only	Their service is free to use for only 30 days, but in that time you get to try out some useful features including automation, SMS and landing pages. Plus, their templates are some of the most modern-looking out there.
MoonMail	2,000 subscribers 300 emails p/m Basic support List segmentation	This Amazon-powered email service is disappointingly stingy in their free plan, with a limit of just 300 emails per month and 1 campaign per day.
YMLP	Unlimited subscribers 1,000 email p/m	YMLP (Your Mailinglist Provider) is threadbare in both form and function. The design looks as if it's a relic from the 90s, and you'll need to be versed in HTML, or have a designer handy, to get something useful from the editor.

> For in-depth reviews, please also check out our ranking table.
With the above table, you can see that it’s perfectly possible to use a free newsletter creator for your small business needs, at least up to a certain point, depending on how big your dreams (a.k.a. contact lists) become.

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MailerLite – when free really means free!

As its name suggests, MailerLite’s focus is on delivering a simple, no-frills email marketing service. The result is an easy-to-use newsletter tool with some surprisingly useful features (think landing pages, forms, and marketing automation). What we really love? That their generous ‘Free Forever’ plan gives you unlimited access to all of them.
What we liked: Their tool is super intuitive, so even if you’re an email marketing novice, you’ll have no problem getting campaigns up and running. And as long as you have less than 1,000 subscribers, you can send unlimited emails, and even set up automations and landing pages for free.
Where they should improve: Unfortunately their template range isn’t the most extensive – you’ll most likely need to edit them or build your own. There’s no spam or design testing, and while we like their workflow-based automation editor, it’s limited to just a handful of automation functions (sending trigger-based emails, updating contact fields etc).
Who is the free plan suited to? We think MailerLite is one of the best free email marketing services around. But we think it’s especially handy for budget-conscious businesses looking for an easy, all-in-one solution for their inbound marketing.