Mailchimp alternatives · honest verdict

Mailchimp Alternatives: 5 Email Tools That Don't Bill You for Dead Subscribers

The best Mailchimp alternatives bill you for the emails you send, not the dead weight sitting in your list. That distinction matters, because Mailchimp counts subscribed, unsubscribed, AND non-subscribed contacts toward your plan limit. If you have 5,000 readers and 2,000 people who already opted out, you can get billed for 7,000. Add the same person to two audiences and Mailchimp counts them twice.

We're Sameer and Ankit. We've run email for our own startups and for agency clients, and we watched Mailchimp quietly shrink its free tier to 250 contacts while the paid bill kept climbing. Its Trustpilot sits at 2.7 out of 5, mostly from people raging about escalating costs. We read the top-ranking 'Mailchimp alternatives' lists so you don't have to, then formed our own opinions. Nobody pays us to recommend anything. These are the tools we'd actually move our lists to.

◇The contenders we put against Mailchimp

MailerLite

Brevo

Kit

Omnisend

EmailOctopus

The verdict

If you want the cleanest lean swap, go MailerLite, it does 90% of Mailchimp for a fraction of the friction. Send a lot of email to fewer people? Brevo bills by sends, not contacts, so it gets cheaper as you scale. Newsletter or creator brand: Kit. Selling products online: Omnisend (email plus SMS). And if you just want the cheapest real tool that works, EmailOctopus.

Mailchimp alternatives worth a look

with a genuinely free tier

$0/mo

cheapest paid plan

Starting price, per user / month

MailerLite

Brevo

Kit

Omnisend

EmailOctopus

◢

The picks that earn their seat

MailerLite

The clean, lean Mailchimp swap: a genuinely nice editor, real automation, and pricing that doesn't punish you for growing.

$ Free for up to 500 subscribers and 12,000 emails/month. Paid Growing Business from $10/month with unlimited sends, 3 seats, and automation. Priced by subscriber count, but far gentler than Mailchimp's tiers.

Use when: You want a drop-in replacement that just feels good to use, with a drag-and-drop builder, landing pages, and automation that a non-marketer can set up in an afternoon.
Skip when: You're a software company sending event-triggered product emails. MailerLite is marketing-first, so a developer-led tool like Loops or Resend fits that motion better.

Brevo

The smart pick if you email a lot of people often: it charges by sends, not by how many contacts you hoard.

$ Free plan stores up to 100,000 contacts with a 300 emails/day cap. Paid Starter from around $9/month for 5,000 emails and unlimited daily sends. Watch for add-ons like removing the Brevo footer.

Use when: Your list is big but you send selectively, or you want email and SMS plus a basic CRM in one place. The send-based model gets cheaper than contact-based pricing at scale.
Skip when: You blast your entire list daily. The free tier's 300/day cap bites fast, and high-frequency senders should price out a paid tier before committing.

Kit

The newsletter and creator favorite (formerly ConvertKit): simple forms, clean broadcasts, and tools to sell digital products.

$ Free for up to 1,000 subscribers with unlimited broadcasts and one basic automation. Paid Creator from $33/month removes branding and unlocks unlimited automations and sequences. Subscriber-based pricing.

Use when: You're building an audience as a creator, founder, or media brand, and you want frictionless signup forms plus the option to sell subscriptions and downloads.
Skip when: You need rich, design-heavy HTML campaigns or deep ecommerce automation. Kit leans plain-text and creator-simple by design, and the Creator tier jumps in price fast.

Omnisend

Built for selling online: email plus SMS plus pop-ups, with automations tied to what people actually buy.

$ Free for 250 contacts and 500 emails/month (plus push). Paid Standard from about $11/month for 500 contacts and 6,000 emails. SMS is pay-as-you-go on top, from roughly $0.007 per US text.

Use when: You run a Shopify, WooCommerce, or BigCommerce store and want cart-abandonment and post-purchase flows that drive revenue, not just newsletters.
Skip when: You don't sell products. If you're a SaaS or a pure newsletter, Omnisend's ecommerce muscle is surface area you'll pay for and never touch.

EmailOctopus

The no-nonsense cheapest pick: a simple, fast email tool with one of the most generous free tiers around.

$ Free for up to 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails/month. Paid Pro from $9/month (billed yearly) for higher limits, full design control, and reports kept forever. Subscriber-based and refreshingly cheap.

Use when: You want the lowest-cost real tool that sends reliably, with a free tier that actually fits an early list. Great for side projects and budget-conscious founders.
Skip when: You need advanced automation, a visual journey builder, or built-in SMS. EmailOctopus keeps it deliberately simple, so power users will outgrow it.

🔥 Free tool, no signup

On Mailchimp too? See what your whole stack scores.

Pick your tools, get a Stack Bloat Score, your real annual bill, and a roast you probably deserve. Then exactly what we'd cut. We roast the bloat, not you.

Roast my stack

✂ What to cut first

Before you switch, cut the contact graveyard. Most Mailchimp bills are bloated by people who unsubscribed months ago, because Mailchimp keeps counting them until you manually archive them. Clean your list first. You might find your 'expensive' Mailchimp plan was half dead weight, and a free MailerLite or EmailOctopus tier suddenly fits. The deeper cut is matching the tool to how you actually send: if you mail a big list rarely, Brevo's send-based pricing wins; if you're a SaaS sending product emails, a marketing suite is the wrong shape entirely, look at Loops or Resend. Don't buy ecommerce automation you'll never use, and don't pay for 50,000 contacts when 2,000 of them open anything. Cut the dead, cut the mismatch, keep your runway.

FAQs

Why is Mailchimp so expensive now?+

Contact-based pricing plus a shrunken free tier. Mailchimp counts subscribed, unsubscribed, and non-subscribed contacts toward your limit, and bills inactive people until you manually archive them. The same contact in two audiences gets counted twice. As your list grows, you're bumped into higher tiers fast, which is the top reason small teams churn off it.

What is the best free alternative to Mailchimp?+

It depends on list size. EmailOctopus is the most generous (2,500 subscribers, 10,000 emails/month free). Kit is free up to 1,000 subscribers with unlimited broadcasts. Brevo stores up to 100,000 contacts free but caps you at 300 emails a day. MailerLite's free tier (500 subscribers) is the nicest to actually use. Pick by whether your constraint is contacts or send volume.

MailerLite vs Mailchimp, which should a startup pick?+

For most early startups, MailerLite. It covers the same core jobs (campaigns, automation, landing pages) with a cleaner editor and pricing that doesn't balloon with inactive contacts. Mailchimp only makes sense if you're already deep in its ecosystem or need a specific integration it owns. Otherwise the lean swap saves money and headaches.

Is it hard to migrate off Mailchimp?+

Less than you'd fear. You export your audience as a CSV and import it into the new tool, then rebuild your automations (usually just a welcome flow). Most alternatives have Mailchimp import guides. Budget an afternoon, not a week. The risk is forgetting to recreate signup forms, so audit where you collect emails before you flip the switch.

Which Mailchimp alternative is best for ecommerce?+

Omnisend. It's purpose-built for online stores, with email, SMS, and pop-ups plus automations tied to purchase behavior like cart abandonment and post-purchase follow-ups. It plugs into Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce. If you sell products, that conversion focus beats Mailchimp's general-purpose toolkit. If you don't sell anything, skip it for a leaner tool.

Don't just swap a tool, wire the whole stack

Picking Mailchimp's replacement is step one. The wiring is the win.

See how this tool fits into a full, tested stack, and get one wired recipe in your inbox every week.

See the GTM recipes

Researched against: mailerlite.com · brevo.com · kit.com · omnisend.com · emailoctopus.com · zapier.com · emailtooltester.com · retainful.com · mailchimp.com · trustpilot.com · moosend.com · loops.so. Opinions are our own, nobody pays us to recommend anything.