- Brevo is the best email marketing software for most small businesses in 2026: it prices by emails sent, so every paid plan includes unlimited contacts.
- SendPulse is the best all-in-one pick: a free-forever plan with 15,000 emails a month, plus chatbots, SMS, a CRM, an SMTP service and an email verifier in one account.
- Mailchimp is still the easiest place to start, but its free plan covers only 250 contacts and pricing climbs quickly as a list grows.
- Check official pricing at your real list size: the gap between platforms widens sharply between 500 and 10,000 contacts.
- Whatever you choose, authenticate your domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, which Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook now require from bulk senders.
For most small businesses, the best email marketing software in 2026 is Brevo: it has the lowest official pricing, charges by emails sent and includes unlimited contacts. Next comes SendPulse, an AI-driven email marketing and chatbot platform with a free-forever plan that covers 15,000 emails a month and puts email, SMS and chat in one account. Third is Mailchimp, which offers the easiest start and the most integrations.
The others each win a specific case. Pick MailerLite for a budget-friendly editor with landing pages, Constant Contact if you want phone support and events, and Kit if you are a creator. ActiveCampaign suits deep automation, and HubSpot fits a small business that already runs on its CRM.
How we compared email marketing software for small business
We compared every platform on the same five criteria below and checked each price on the vendor’s own pricing page on September 24–25, 2026, because that is the number you will actually pay. Where a vendor’s pricing page could not be read, we used 2026 pricing reviews and marked the figure as approximate.
We also ran our own public DNS checks on each vendor’s domain (DMARC and BIMI) with the same lookups our DMARC checker uses. Recent small-business reviews on G2 and Capterra are worth reading alongside this list for support and billing experiences.
How to choose email marketing software for a small business
Five things decide whether a platform fits a small business:
- Official pricing at your list size. Most tools price by contacts, a few by emails sent. Check the official pricing page at your real list size, not the headline “from” price.
- Free plan limits. A free plan is only useful if it covers your list: limits range from 250 contacts to 10,000 subscribers.
- Automation features. A welcome series and an abandoned-cart or re-engagement flow are enough for most small businesses. Deeper branching matters later.
- Deliverability and authentication. Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook now require SPF, DKIM and DMARC for bulk senders. The software should walk you through all three, and you can confirm the result with our SPF checker and DKIM checker.
- Extra channels and support. SMS, chat, landing pages and a CRM save you a second subscription; phone or live-chat support saves you time.
Email marketing software for small business compared (official 2026 pricing)
| Software | Best for | Free plan | Official starting price | Automation | Extra channels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brevo | Lowest cost at volume | 300 emails/day, unlimited contacts | About $9/mo (5,000 emails) | Visual workflows | SMS, WhatsApp, chat, CRM |
| SendPulse | All-in-one growth | 500 subscribers, 15,000 emails/mo | About $8/mo (500 subscribers, annual) | Automation 360 flows | Chatbots, SMS, web push, CRM, landing pages |
| Mailchimp | Easiest start | 250 contacts, 500 sends/mo | $13/mo Essentials (introductory discount) | Flows (4 steps on Essentials) | SMS, landing pages, 300+ integrations |
| MailerLite | Budget editor + sites | 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails/mo | $12/mo Comfort | 50 automations (Comfort) | Websites, landing pages |
| Constant Contact | Phone support, events | No (free trial) | About $12/mo Lite (500 contacts) | Basic on Lite | Events, social, SMS |
| Kit | Creators | Up to 10,000 subscribers | $33/mo Creator (1,000 subscribers) | Visual automations (paid) | Digital products, SMS |
| ActiveCampaign | Deep automation | No (14-day trial) | About $15/mo Starter (1,000 contacts, annual) | 5 actions per automation on Starter | CRM on higher plans |
| HubSpot | CRM-led teams | 2,000 sends/mo with branding | $7/mo per seat Starter (1,000 contacts) | Essential automation | Full CRM, live chat |
Prices are the lowest paid tier on each vendor’s pricing page, checked September 24–25, 2026; “about” marks figures taken from 2026 pricing reviews. Most tools raise the price as your list grows.
The best email marketing software for small business in 2026
1. Brevo
- Priced by emails sent, with unlimited contacts on every plan
- Marketing and transactional email in one account
- SMS, WhatsApp and chat included
- Limitation: Brevo logo on free and Starter emails unless you pay an add-on
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is the best value for most small businesses because its pricing follows how much you send, not how big your list is. A shop with a large list that emails twice a month pays far less than it would on a contact-based tool. The free plan sends 300 emails a day, and paid plans start from about $9 a month.
It also bundles SMS, WhatsApp campaigns, live chat, a simple CRM and transactional email, so a small team can run receipts and newsletters from one account. The trade-offs: the free plan’s daily cap, and automation that is less deep than ActiveCampaign’s.
2. SendPulse
- Free-forever plan: 15,000 emails a month for up to 500 subscribers
- Email, chatbots, SMS, web push and a CRM in one account
- Built-in SMTP service and email verifier
- Limitation: pricing scales with subscriber count
SendPulse is an AI-driven email marketing and chatbot platform built for scaling businesses: it helps a small business attract leads and convert them into customers from one account. Its free-forever plan covers up to 500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month, with the drag-and-drop editor, subscription forms and basic automation. Paid plans start at about $8 a month for 500 subscribers, billed annually.
Where it pulls ahead of email-only tools is breadth. SendPulse combines marketing, sales and support in one platform: automated funnels, a CRM that unifies every channel and contact, and chatbots for Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, TikTok and Viber. It also covers SMS campaigns, web push notifications, pop-up forms, a website builder for landing pages and online stores, and a course builder. Built-in AI agents handle tasks such as collecting customer data, creating deals and drafting content.
For deliverability-minded senders it includes an SMTP service (12,000 free transactional emails a month) and an email verifier (100 free checks a month), so you can clean a list before importing it. SendPulse is an international company with an office in Brazil; it is a Meta Partner and an official WhatsApp Business API provider, and it integrates with 40+ services.
The downsides: pricing scales with subscribers, and the many channels bring a learning curve if you only need email. Automation is also less deep than ActiveCampaign or Klaviyo for complex ecommerce logic. Finally, SendPulse does not yet publish a BIMI record on its own domain (checked September 25, 2026).
3. Mailchimp
- Easiest onboarding and templates
- 300+ integrations
- Strong reporting and A/B testing
- Limitation: free plan limited to 250 contacts
Mailchimp is the name most small-business owners already know, and its onboarding shows why: templates, a clear campaign builder and more than 300 integrations get a first newsletter out quickly. Essentials starts at $13 a month, with Mailchimp currently advertising an introductory discount on paid plans for the first 12 months.
The catch is price growth. The free plan covers 250 contacts and 500 sends a month (250 a day), and Essentials limits automation flows to four steps. Once your list grows, contact-based pricing climbs faster than on Brevo or SendPulse.
4. MailerLite
- Clean, fast editor
- Websites and landing pages included
- Low paid pricing
- Limitation: free plan now small, and fewer channels (no chat or WhatsApp)
MailerLite pairs a clean drag-and-drop editor with a website and landing page builder, which suits a small business that wants one simple tool for its newsletter and its signup pages. Paid plans start at $12 a month on Comfort.
Its free plan has shrunk to 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, so most businesses will move to Comfort quickly. New accounts may also need to pass MailerLite’s account review before they can send.
5. Constant Contact
- Phone and chat support
- Events and social tools
- Good templates for local businesses
- Limitation: no free plan, and pricier as lists grow
Constant Contact has served small businesses for decades, and it shows in the support: phone and chat help, event registration and social posting are built in. That makes it a comfortable pick for local services and community businesses.
It is pricier than the leaders and has no free plan, only a trial. Lite starts at about $12 a month for 500 contacts, and monthly send limits are tied to your contact count (roughly 10× on Lite, 12× on Standard and 24× on Premium).
6. Kit
- Free for up to 10,000 subscribers
- Sell digital products natively
- Strong tagging and segmentation
- Limitation: automations only on paid plans
Kit (formerly ConvertKit) is built for creators and solo businesses that sell digital products, courses or paid newsletters. Its free plan is the most generous by list size at up to 10,000 subscribers, with unlimited landing pages, forms and broadcasts. The Creator plan starts at $33 a month for 1,000 subscribers.
Visual automations and sequences need the Creator plan, and design options are simpler than Mailchimp’s, which matters less for text-first newsletters.
7. ActiveCampaign
- Most capable automation builder here
- Advanced segmentation on Plus and Pro
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Limitation: no free plan, and Starter caps each automation at 5 actions
ActiveCampaign has the most powerful automation builder in this list: conditional branches, goals and predictive content on higher plans. A small business with a clear funnel will get the most out of it. It has no free plan, but offers a 14-day trial, and Starter costs about $15 a month for 1,000 contacts on annual billing.
The Starter plan limits each automation to five actions, and the price rises with contacts, so it is best for businesses ready to invest time in automation.
8. HubSpot
- Email tied to a full CRM
- Free tools to start
- Excellent reporting
- Limitation: steep jump to Professional ($800/mo plus onboarding)
HubSpot makes sense when your small business already tracks deals in its CRM: email, forms and live chat all feed the same contact records. The free tools send 2,000 emails a month with HubSpot branding, and Marketing Hub Starter costs $7 a month per seat with 1,000 marketing contacts.
The jump from Starter to Professional is steep: $800 a month plus a $3,000 onboarding fee, so check that Starter covers your automation needs before you commit.
Email marketing software pricing at your list size
Headline prices hide how quickly costs rise. Here is what each platform charges at three common small-business list sizes (lowest paid plan, monthly price).
| Software | 500 contacts | 2,500 contacts | 10,000 contacts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brevo | About $9 (5,000 emails) | About $9 (5,000 emails) | About $19 (20,000 emails) |
| SendPulse | About $8 | — | — |
| Mailchimp | $13 | About $45 | — |
| MailerLite | $12 | — | About $73 |
| Constant Contact | About $12 | About $75 | About $160 |
| Kit | $33 (up to 1,000) | About $59 (up to 3,000) | — |
| ActiveCampaign | About $15 (up to 1,000, annual) | — | $93 to $149 |
| HubSpot | $7/seat (up to 1,000) | — | — |
Brevo prices by emails sent, so its column assumes about two campaigns a month to the whole list; everyone else prices by contacts or subscribers. “About” marks figures from 2026 pricing reviews. A dash means no reliable published figure for that tier: use the vendor’s own pricing calculator.
Deliverability features that matter for small business senders
Every platform here lets you authenticate your own domain with SPF and DKIM, and you should: since 2024 Gmail and Yahoo require it for bulk senders, and Outlook followed in 2025. As a quick trust signal, we also checked how each vendor protects its own domain.
| Software | DMARC on vendor’s own domain | BIMI logo record |
|---|---|---|
| Brevo | p=reject | Yes |
| SendPulse | p=reject | No |
| Mailchimp | p=reject | Yes |
| MailerLite | p=reject | Yes |
| Constant Contact | p=reject | No |
| Kit | p=reject | No |
| ActiveCampaign | p=reject | No |
| HubSpot | p=reject | Yes |
Checked with public DNS on September 25, 2026. All eight enforce DMARC at reject; BIMI is optional and says nothing about how your own mail will land. Once your platform is connected, check your own setup with the free sender reputation checker.
Which email marketing software should your small business choose?
- Tight budget, growing list: Brevo, because you pay for emails sent, not contacts.
- You want email, chat and SMS in one place: SendPulse, with a free-forever plan and chatbots on the channels your customers use.
- First newsletter, no technical help: Mailchimp.
- Simple newsletter plus a website: MailerLite.
- Local business that values phone support: Constant Contact.
- Creator selling digital products: Kit.
- Automation-heavy funnel: ActiveCampaign.
- Sales team already on a CRM: HubSpot.
If price is your main filter, see our ranking of the cheapest email marketing platforms. For the sending-infrastructure side (APIs, SMTP relays and dedicated IPs), see our bulk email services comparison. If you are moving from Mailchimp, our Mailchimp deliverability guide covers what to check first.
Sources
- Mailchimp pricing (official), checked September 24–25, 2026
- Kit pricing (official), checked September 24–25, 2026
- MailerLite pricing (official), checked September 24–25, 2026
- MailerLite brand assets: application screenshots, used under MailerLite’s intellectual property guidelines
- HubSpot Marketing Hub pricing (official), checked September 24–25, 2026
- SendPulse pricing (official) and SMTP pricing, checked September 24–25, 2026; USD figure via 2026 pricing reviews
- Brevo pricing, Constant Contact pricing and ActiveCampaign pricing: figures via 2026 pricing reviews
- Vendor-domain DMARC and BIMI: public DNS lookups, September 25, 2026
Frequently asked questions
What is the best email marketing software for a small business in 2026?
For most small businesses, Brevo offers the best value because it prices by emails sent and includes unlimited contacts. SendPulse is the best all-in-one alternative with a free-forever plan and chatbots, and Mailchimp is the easiest to start with.
What is the cheapest email marketing software for a small business?
Brevo's Starter plan, from about $9 a month, is usually cheapest for larger lists. For small lists, the free plans from SendPulse (15,000 emails a month), Kit (up to 10,000 subscribers) and Brevo (300 emails a day) cost nothing.
Is Mailchimp still good for small businesses?
Yes for getting started: it has the easiest onboarding and the most integrations. But its free plan now covers only 250 contacts and pricing climbs quickly as your list grows, so compare Brevo and SendPulse official pricing at your list size.
Brevo or Mailchimp: which is better for a small business?
Brevo is cheaper for most lists because it charges by emails sent, not contacts, and includes SMS and WhatsApp. Mailchimp is easier for beginners and has more integrations and templates.
Does a small business need email automation?
At minimum, set up a welcome series and a re-engagement flow. Every tool in this list can do both; ActiveCampaign and SendPulse go furthest with multi-step funnels.
Which email marketing software has the best free plan?
It depends on what you need: Kit allows the most subscribers (up to 10,000), SendPulse the most emails (15,000 a month for 500 subscribers), and Brevo unlimited contacts with a 300-emails-a-day cap.