Who hasn’t heard the cliché ” the money’s in the list?” Like many, this saying has an element of truth to it. But it’s not just the hard selling Internet marketers with giant lists that can benefit from email marketing.
Just the facts? … Jump to Comparison Chart
You can be sure your competitors are using email marketing …
87% of marketers used email campaigns
Email Marketing Opportunities
Almost any affiliate or blogger will gain from having an email strategy. Email marketing can be used for …
- Staying in touch with your audience
- Marketing your content
- Funnel building for affiliate campaigns
- Direct affiliate offers
- Branding your website
As you can see, email marketing presents lots of opportunities to grow any online business.
Go to our affiliate marketing guide for more tips.
But … email marketing services can be expensive. It is easy to have a $50-$100/mo email marketing bill as a small blogger or affiliate marketer. Potentially much more than your hosting bill. This cost and the concern about a learning curve that wastes money has put many off from email marketing.
Free email marketing to the rescue!
Free Email Marketing Details
There are many email marketers that offer a free level of service. They do this to entice new business. These are not free 14 or 30-day trials (which all of the email marketing companies offer). These are totally free plans with no expiration. Email marketing companies know that many will outgrow the free level metrics and purchase a subscription. It is like an extended trial to them.
There will be limitations on the free plans. Typically the free plans will have restrictions like …
- Subscriber Count — Most email marketers will have a maximum number of subscribers in your list. If it is unlimited there will be a maximum number of emails you can send per month.
- Email Volume — Free plans will usually have a maximum number of emails you can send in a month. Some set a daily limit. If this is unlimited there will be a subscriber count maximum.
- Feature-set — Email marketing gets more and more sophisticated. Many of the service companies are also adding other marketing channels. The free email marketing accounts will usually have a limited set of features.
- Branding — Many of the free plans have branding messages on all of your outbound emails e.g., “Powered by Mailchimp.”
Even when these limitations are considered, free email marketing plans are a great value. They let you start building a list now, stay engaged with your subscribers and effectively use email in your marketing strategy from day 1.
We looked at every email marketing company we could find to see who had the best free service level. All of these also had a minimum feature set that included; drag&drop editing, auto-responders, list management, opt-in forms.
Best Free Email Marketing Providers
There are lots of email marketing service companies out there — most have a free trial. That is fine and gives you a chance to try their most advanced features. The problem is it is too short a time-period. Many are 14-days, some are 30-days. Between importing lists and creating new emails and campaigns, you blink and the trial is over.
We wanted to find the best “always free” email marketing companies for smaller blogs and affiliates. These free programs don’t expire and are ideal for …
- New marketers who want grow a list
- Affiliates with many sites and separate lists
- Smaller companies with < 2000 subscribers
- Sites that just need basic email marketing
These are the 21 best free email marketing companies. There should be a good fit for everyone.
1 — Benchmark
Product Features: Email newsletters & marketing
Emails per Month: 250
Subscriber Limits: unlimited
Free Service Link: Benchmark Free Plan Signup
Benchmark is the only email marketing service I know that includes an image editor in the email designer. This can come in really handy if you want to edit and image or add a bit of text to it. They also hit all the right buttons for the typical email marketing affiliate or blogger.
Benchmark Features
- Code editor for detailed tweaks or techies
- Templates by market and occasion
- Color schemes (like skins) to be consistent and complimentary
- A/B testing and lots of integrations
- Powerful drag & drop editor
Benchmark Email Designer Photo Editor
The free plan allows for unlimited subscribers but is pretty stingy on the monthly email allotment … just 250 emails per month.
Free Plan Details
- 250 emails per month
- Unlimited opt-in subscribers
- Basic drip campaigns
- Sign-up forms
- 10mb free Image storage
Premium Pricing: The Pro premium plan is $22/mo for an unlimited number of emails to 1,000 subscribers. The Pro plan adds a number of features
Who Should Use the Free Benchmark Tools?
Even though you can have an unlimited number of subscribers on your list, the low number of free emails per month limits you. At only 250 emails per month it is not ideal for users who wanted to send to an entire list on a steady basis.
2 — Campayn
Product Features: Email newsletters
Emails per Month: 12,500
Subscriber Limits: 500
Free Service Link: Campayn Free Plan Signup
Campayn is a solid email marketing service with the usual bells & whistles. They have a great forms editor that includes Facebook forms and popup lightbox ones.
Campayn Features
- Hosted forms
- Prebuilt automation options like birthdays, welcome, new blog post
- Reporting including activity/interaction, Geolocation, and device uses
- Powerful drag & drop editor
- One-ckick recipient add to calendar feature
The free plan is one of the more generous …
Free Plan Details
- 12,500 emails per month
- 500 opt-in subscribers
- Support via email only
- 1 autoresponder per free account
Who Should Use the Free Campayn Tools
The free email plan from Campayn is great for someone with a small list that you send to often. With the maximum 500 users you can send 5 times per week and be under the 12,500 emails per month.
Go to our affiliate tools guide for related products.
3 — Clever Reach
Product Features: Email marketing & newsletters
Emails per Month: 1000
Subscriber Limits: 250
Free Service Link: CleverReach Free Service
CleverReach is another dedicated email service company. They have a focus on newsletters with lots of templates as well as a template converter.
Clever Reach Features
- Drag & drop editing
- Many templates
- Easy import of subscribers
- Test sending of finished emails
- Automated mailings
The free plan allows you to send 1,000 emails per month but your contact list is limited to 250 people.
Free Plan Details
- 1,000 emails per month
- 250 opt-in subscribers
- Opt-in forms
- Analytics and reporting
Premium Pricing: The Unlimited plan is $23/mo for unlimited emails to 1,000 subscribers.
Who Should Use the CleverReach Free Plan
Small list can be fine with CleverReach. If you have less than 250 subscribers you can mail them weekly with CleverReach. Other good fits are casual users or those that like the CleverReach premium plan and want an easy transition.
4 — Email Octopus
Product Features: Email newsletters
Emails per Month: 10,000
Subscriber Limits: 250
Free Service Link: Email Octopus Free Service
EmailOctopus’s strength is email newsletters at a value price. They have most of the features of the big players at a lower price point. Plus they have a cool name and logo!
Email Octopus Features
- Drip sequences and automations
- Responsive design templates
- Hosted and embedded opt-in forms
- GDPR compliant
Free Plan Details
- 10,000 emails per month
- 2,500 opt-in subscribers
- Analytics and reports are store for 30 days only
- Email Octopus branding on emails sent
Premium Pricing: The Pro plan is $20/mo for 50,000 emails to 1,000 subscribers. Amazon SES version is $19/mo for unlimited emails to 1,000 subscribers.
Who Should Use the Email Octopus Free Plan
It’s a pretty generous free plan. Many affiliates can go a long time with weekly emails to 2,500 subscribers. If you don’t need lots of advanced features, Email Octopus is great for staying in contact with your audience.
5 — EngageBay
Product Features: CRM, Chat, Email Marketing
Emails per Month: 1,000
Subscriber Limits: 1,000
Free Trial Link: EngageBay free plan
Engagebay is more than just email. So if you want to try out an integrated suite of CRM tools it is a good fit. They are also a great value.
Engagebay Features
- Landing Pages
- Autoresponders
- Chat CRM tool
- Email sequences
- Push notifications (requires Growth plan)
Free Plan Details
- 1,000 emails per month
- 1,000 opt-in subscribers
- Autoresponders
- Email Broadcast
- Landing Pages
- Live Chat
- Branded emails
Premium Pricing: The Basic plan is $15/mo for 10,000 emails to 15,000 subscribers. Additional CRM features can be found in the Growth plan at $50/mo (25K emails/mo to 50k contacts)
Who Should Use the Engagebay Free Plan
The free version of the All-in-One plan from Engagebay is ideal for someone that wants to grow both an email list and have additional marketing and CRM capabilities that will grow with them. The email limits of 1,000 per month are on the low side.
6 — FreshMarketer
Product Features: Email & Marketing Automation
Emails per Month: unlimited
Subscriber Limits: 500
Free Service Link: Freshmarketer Free Service
Freshmarketer segments its functionality into 3 ares; acquisition, engagement, and retention. Enail marketing is a major part of their strategy. The email features include …
Freshmarketer Features
- Highly personalized
- Hundreds of templates
- Visual automation builder
- Drag & drop editor
The free plan has lots of goodies …
Free Plan Details
- Unlimited emails per month
- 500 opt-in subscribers
- Web form tracking
- Basic email builder
Premium Pricing: The Unlimited plan is $49/mo for unlimited emails to 1,000 subscribers.
Who Should Use the Freshmarketer Free Plan
The free plan is good for users with 500 or fewer subscribers with frequent contact. You could mail daily to your list if you wanted. The capabilities are limited however. You don’t get the template library or drag & drop editor for instance.
7 — Hubspot
Product Features: CRM with Email Marketing
Emails per Month: 2000
Subscriber Limits: Unlimited
Free Service Link: Hubspot Free Service
Hubspot is a powerhouse of a marketing company. Many corporations use their marketing and CRM tools. Some of the features of the email marketing tools include …
Hubspot Features
- Great templates
- Drag & drop editor
- Lots of personalization capabilities
- Polls and surveys are included.
- A/B testing and analytics
The HubSpot free plan is more than just email marketing. It includes …
Free Plan Details
- 2,000 emails per month
- Unlimited subscribers
- Ad management
- Opt-in forms
- HubSpot CRM features
Premium Pricing: The Unlimited plan is $23/mo for unlimited emails to 1,000 subscribers.
Who Should Use the HubSpot Free Plan
If you are looking for a single company for all of your sales, marketing and CRM tools HubSpot is a great company. They have free plans for almost all of their functional areas so you can get started for nothing and grow with them.
8 — MailChimp
Product Features: Email newsletters
Emails per Month: 10,000
Subscriber Limits: 2,000
Free Service Link: Mailchimp free service
When bloggers think email marketing the first company that often comes to mind is Mailchimp. They were one of the first with a solid free plan. They have expanded their feature-set into eCommerce integrate tools …
MailChimp Features
- Drag and drop builder
- lots of beautiful templates
- Landing pages.
- Instagram and Facebook tools
- Automation tools include abandoned cart, welcome, and product recommendations.
Free Plan Details
- 10,000 emails per month
- 2,000 opt-in subscribers
- 7 Marketing Channels
- Custom Domains
- Mailchimp branding
Premium Pricing: The Unlimited plan is $19/mo for unlimited emails to 1,500 subscribers.
Who should use the Free Mailchimp Plan?
Mailchimp continues to be a good choice for e-commerce, bloggers and they are affiliate friendly (you just can’t recruit affiliates) They did recently change how they count subscribers and include those in your unsubscribed lists.
9 — Mailer Lite
Product Features: Email newsletters & surveys
Emails per Month: 12,000
Subscriber Limits: 1,000
Free Service Link: Mailer Lite Free Service
Mailer Lite provides a very generous free email plan. They are focused on email not CRM though they do let you create and embed surveys in your emails — cool. They provide a rich set of email marketing features …
Mailer Lite Features
- Embedded forms and popups
- Landing Pages
- Email automation
- Tagging to create interest groups
- A/B split testing
The free plan does not restrict you in terms of features and has a generous allowance of email volume though the 1,000 subscriber maximum can be limiting. There premium pricing is also a good value if you decide to upgrade later …
Free Plan Details
- 12,000 emails per month
- 1,000 opt-in subscribers
- Landing Pages
- Autoresponders
- Analytics & List management
Premium Pricing: The Unlimited plan is $10/mo for unlimited emails to 1,000 subscribers.
Who Should Use the Mailer Lite Free Plan
The free plan is great for anyone with fewer than 1,000 subscribers.The email feature set is much better than many of the competitors.
10 — Mailjet
Product Features: Email newsletters
Emails per Month: 6,000 (200 per day)
Subscriber Limits: unlimited
Free Service Link: Mailjet Free Service
Mailjet services two markets with its email marketing product — marketers and other email senders and developers integrating email. For email marketers they have all of the standard features. For developers they have both an api and an SMTP relay server option.
Mailjet Features
- Drag & Drop email editor
- List management and segmentation tools
- Highly responsive email for any display using MJML
- Complete analytics
The free plan has lots of goodies …
Free Plan Details
- 6,000 emails per month
- 200 emails per day
- Unlimited opt-in subscribers
- API and SMTP relay
- Contains Mailjet logo/branding
Premium Pricing: The Basic plan is $10/mo (annual billing) for 30,000 emails to an unlimited number of subscribers.
Who Should Use the MailJet Free Plan
The limits on sending make Mailjet a tougher fit for most. You can only send 200 email per day.
11 – MoonMail
Product Features: Email newsletters
Emails per Month: 300
Subscriber Limits: 2000
Free Services Link: MoonMail Free Service
Moonmail has a solid product though they are quite skimpy with the free email plan. From a feature standpoint they have all the tools most email marketers would need …
MoonMail Features
- Web forms and email validation
- List Segmentation
- Automations
- GDPR Compliant
Moonmail is quite stingy with the free plan. Not only can you only send 300 emails per month, you can only have 10 contacts per campaign from a list of up to 2,000 contacts…
Free Plan Details
- 300 emails per month
- 2,000 opt-in subscribers
- Opt-in forms
- Analytics and reporting
- MoonMail Branded
Premium Pricing: The Unlimited plan is $24/mo (annual billing) for unlimited emails to 25,000 subscribers.
Who Should Use the Moonmail Free Plan
The sending limits are just too limiting for most people.
12 — Moosend
Product Features: Marketing platform with Email
Emails per Month: Unlimited
Subscriber Limits: 1,000
Free Service Link: Moosend Free Service
Moosend bills itself as a marketing platform. They provide email marketing and landing pages, as well as e-commerce automations. …
Moosend Features
- Drag & drop editor
- A/B split testing
- Analytics and segments
- Landing pages
- Drag & drop automations editor
The free plan has all features except landing pages and some techy stuff like dedicated ip and SMTP relays. It is one of the few free plans that has no branding from the vendor. …
Free Plan Details
- Unlimited emails per month
- 1,000 subscribers
- Automations
- Opt-in forms
- NO Moosend logo/branding
Premium Pricing: The Unlimited plan is $10/mo for unlimited emails to 2,000 subscribers.
Who Should Use the Moosend Free Plan
The free plan is great for anyone with less than 1,000 subscribers. Also, the next step up to 2,000 subscribers is a value at $10/mo. With no branding and unlimited sending they are a great place to start.
13 — Omnisend
Product Features: E-commerce focused with Email.
Emails per Month: 15,000 (2,000 per day)
Subscriber Limits: Unlimited
Free Service Link: Omnisend Free Services
OmniSend is tailored for people running online stores. They provide multi-channel marketing automation tools that can work with email, SMS messages, web push notifications, Facebook messenger, WhatsApp and even pull products from your store for emails.
Omnisend Features
- Multi-channel marketing -- email, SMS, Social
- Email drag & drop editor
- Templates for email
- Landing Pages
- Wheel of Fortune
- Popups
The free plan is primarily for email marketing. It does not contain the SMS, automation or other advanced features. You need to be in the Pro plan ($99/mo) for social media marketing and SMS.
Free Plan Features
- 15,000 emails per month
- 2,000 emails per day
- Unlimited subscribers
- Opt-in forms
- A/B testing
Premium Pricing: The Standard plan is $20/mo for 15,000 emails to 1,000 subscribers.
Who Should Use the Free Omnisend?
Omni-send is targeted at the retail community. If you are running a store they are worth a look. The real power of Omnisend requires you to step up to the Pro plan which is a great tool for any store owner.
14 -- Reachmail
Product Features: Email newsletters
Emails per Month: 15,000
Subscriber Limits: 500
Free Service Link: Reachmail Free Services
Reachmail has both email marketing and email list cleaning services. List cleaning allows you to remove known spam traps, abandoned mailboxes and other problem email addresses. Reachmail's email marketing tools have all the features most marketers need. With their generous email limits on the free account Reachmail is a top choice.
Reachmail Features
- Automations and drip campaigns
- Drag & drop editor for emails
- Analytics and reporting
- List segmentation and management
The free plan has almost all of the features of the paid plans. There will be a branded footer and no Landing Pages. ...
Free Plan Details
- 15,000 emails per month
- 5,000 subscribers
- Opt-in forms
- A/B testing
Premium Pricing: The Bronze plan is $10/mo for 30,000 emails to 7,500 subscribers.
Who Should Use the Reachmail Free Plan
The free plan is one of the best plans from a volume and features setandpoint.
15 -- Red Cappi
Product Features: Email marketing platform
Emails per Month: Unlimited
Subscriber Limits: 100
Free Service Link: Red Cappi Free Services
Red Cappi's mission is to make email marketing easy for everyone. With over 2 billion emails sent by their 13,000+ customers they seem to be succeeding. They don't sacrifice key features for ease of use though ...
Red Cappi Features
- Great easy to use email editor
- Automation and autoresponders
- A/B split testing
- Email deliverability testing
The free plan has all the same features as the paid plans. It has unlimited sending but does have a low number of subscribers. ...
Free Plan Details
- Unlimited emails per month
- 100 opt-in subscribers
- Autoresponder
- Opt-in forms
- Reporting and list management
Premium Pricing: The Unlimited plan is $15/mo for unlimited emails to 1,000 subscribers.
Who Should Use the Red Cappi Free Plan
Even with unlimited sending, just 100 subscribers Red Cappi's free program is fairly limited. But easy to use along with a free plan and low-priced upgrades still makes Red Cappi a natural fit for new affiliates and bloggers.
16 -- Sender
Product Features: Email marketing
Emails per Month: 15,000
Subscriber Limits: 2,500
Free Service Link: Sender Free Services
Sender is a partner of ActiveCampaign. They have a focus on customers looking to increase revenue with email marketing. Sender emphasizes their automation capabilities. They have all of the needed features of most email marketing campaigns at a value price.
Sender Features
- Good email deliverability
- Push notifications to your subscribers
- Unlimited users
- Opt-in forms
- Responsive templates
The free plan has all of the features of the paid plans. The only difference is that the free plan will have Sender.net branding in the footer.
Free Plan Details
- 15,000 emails per month
- 2,500 opt-in subscribers
- Branding in footer
- All premium plan features
Premium Pricing: The Unlimited plan is $10/mo for 60,000 emails to 5,000 subscribers.
Who Should Use the Sender Free Plan
This is one of the most generous free plans. And they do not limit the feature set with the free plan. If you can accept the branding in the footer they are a top choice.
17 -- Sendicate
Product Features: Email marketing & newsletters
Emails per Month: 1,000
Subscriber Limits: 500
Free Service Link: Sendicate Free Services
Sendicate provides basic email marketing. They have a focus on design with lots of high quality templates. They do not have much in the way of advanced automations. Their email features include ...
Sendicate Features
- Drag & drop editor for emails
- Statistics and reporting
- Subscription and opt-in forms
- Subscriber segmentation
The free plan has lots of goodies ...
The free plan has the same features as the paid plan.
Free Plan Details
- 1,000 emails per month
- 500 opt-in subscribers
- Autoresponders
- Reporting & Analytics
Premium Pricing: The Unlimited plan is $15/mo for unlimited emails to 1,000 subscribers.
Who Should Use the Sendicate Free Plan
Sendicate is not my first choice for a free plan. They only allow 500 users and you have a maximum of 1000 emails per month.
18 -- Sendinblue
Product Features: Marketing Platform
Emails per Month: 9,000 (300 per day)
Subscriber Limits: 500
Free Services Link: Sendinblue Free Service
Sendinblue is a leading marketing platform vendor based in France. They have a single integrated platform with email marketing, SMS, landing pages, chat, and advertising. They also integrate with your eCommerce site.
Sendinblue Email Features
- Drag and drop email editor
- Automations including coupons and abandoned cart email messages
- Integrations with eCommerce platforms
- A/B Split testing
- WordPress plugin
- Heat mapping
The free plan allows for unlimited contacts but only 300 emails per day. The free plan does not include the other marketing features like chat, landing pages, Facebook ads. It also requires branding in the footer.
Free Plan Details
- 9,000 emails per month
- 300 emails per day
- 500 opt-in subscribers
- Subscription & Opt-in forms
Premium Pricing: The Essential plan is $39/mo for 60,000 emails to an unlimited subscriber list.
Who Should Use the Sendinblue Free Plan
The biggest limitations are 300 emails per day and 500 subscribers. If you have a smaller list this may not be a problem and 9,000 emails per month is plenty if you only have 500 subscribers. The Sendinblue WordPress plugin plugin is a nice feature that weighs in their favor as well.
19 -- SendPulse
Product Features: Multi-channel marketing
Emails per Month: 15,000
Subscriber Limits: 500
Free Trial Link: SendPulse Free Plan
SendPulse is a multi-channel marketing company. They have tools for email marketing, SMS, Push, FaceBook Chatbox and more. In the email marketing area their features include ...
SendPulse Features
- Drag & drop editor
- Subscription and opt-in forms
- Triggered emails
- Email personalization
The free plan has the basic email capabilities but lacks the "professional features" ...
Free Plan Details
- 15,000 emails per month
- 500 opt-in subscribers
- auto responder
Premium Pricing: The Subscription 1000 plan is $12/mo for unlimited emails to 1,000 subscribers.
Who Should Use the Sendpulse Free Plan
The free plan is generous in its monthly sending quota of 15,000 emails but a bit low in the maximum subscribers of 500. This plan is best for people who have few subscribers or are interested in growing into the other marketing tools from SendPulse.
20 -- Zoho
Product Features: Business software platform
Emails per Month: 12,000
Subscriber Limits: 2,000
Free Services Link: Zoho Free Email
Zoho has a huge number of products. They have multiple products for Sales, Marketing, Finance, Help Desks, HR and more. Their email marketing products is under the Zoho Campaigns label. The mail marketing product integrates with Zoho CRM. Some of the key features are ...
Zoho Features
- “Smart Email Marketing”
- Drag & drop editor
- Automations
- Deliverability and quality testing
Zoho Forms Editor
The free plan has lots of goodies ...
Free Plan Details
- 12,000 emails per month
- Unlimited opt-in subscribers
- Opt-in forms
- HTML forms tool
Premium Pricing: The Unlimited plan is $10/mo for unlimited emails to 1,000 subscribers.
Who Should Use the Zoho Free Plan
The free plan is a bit unknown and very generous. If you do a good job of list cleaning for people who have not opened etc. it will take some time for most blogger to get to 2,000 active subscribers. The plan is also a natural for people using other Zoho products, particularly the CRM suite.
Free Email Marketing Service Plans
| Email Marketing Company* | Max. Emails/mo | Max. Subscribers | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| * Ordered by email sending limit per month | |||||
| Moosend | Unlimited | 1,000 | |||
| FreshMarketer | Unlimited | 500 | |||
| Red Cappi | Unlimited | 100 | |||
| Omnisend | 15,000 (2,000/day) | Unlimited | |||
| Reachmail | 15,000 | 5,000 | |||
| Sender | 15,000 | 2,500 | |||
| Sendpulse | 15,000 | 500 | |||
| Campayn | 12,500 | 500 | |||
| Zoho | 12,000 | 2000 | |||
| Mailer Lite | 12,000 | 1,000 | |||
| Email Octopus | 10,000 | 2,500 | |||
| MailChimp | 10,000 | 2,000 | |||
| SendinBlue | 9,000 (300/day) | Unlimited | |||
| Mailjet | 6,000 (200/day) | Unlimited | |||
| Hubspot | 2,000 | Unlimited | |||
| Engagebay | 1,000 | 1,000 | |||
| Sendicate | 1,000 | 500 | |||
| CleverReach | 1,000 | 250 | |||
| Moonmail | 300 | 2,000 | |||
| Benchmark | 250 | Unlimited | |||
Wrapping Up
Email marketing has stood the test of time and free plans are a great way to get started. It takes time to build a quality email list and there is no reason to be paying large monthly fees when these free plans are available.
Remember though, once you start building a list it is critical that you send to it a few times per month. Once a list goes stale it is very hard to recover. Purge your list of non-openers and you will be able to keep under the free plan limits for many months. Even better if you are using a paid plan you will save money. You can use the cost savings for more content or marketing.
