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Best email marketing platforms for small businesses

The small-business constraint is rarely the feature list. It is that nobody has three hours a week to run the tool, and that the bill has to stay predictable as the list grows.

So this page weights two things the enterprise comparisons ignore: how fast you can get a competent campaign out of the door, and how steeply the price climbs between subscriber bands. A platform that is cheap at 1,000 subscribers and brutal at 10,000 is a trap, not a bargain.

What we weighted

Stated up front so you can disagree with the criteria rather than only with the conclusion.
  • Effective monthly cost at 2,500 to 10,000 subscribers
  • How steeply price escalates across bands
  • Time to a first competent campaign
  • Whether landing pages and forms are included or sold separately
  • Support availability when something breaks on a send day

Ranked by cost

2,500 subscribers mailed four times a month, with automation and signup forms required, the smallest configuration that describes a business rather than a hobby.

Cost calculator

Contacts you actually hold, after bounces.

Campaigns plus automated sends. This is what breaks plans.

Billing
Features you need

Ticking a box removes every plan that does not include it. Leave them all clear to see the full field.

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Cheapest

Sender

Free Forever

£0/mo

Lowest effective monthly cost of every plan that meets your requirements.

Visit Sender

Best value

Brevo

Standard

£22.50/mo

Of the plans costing up to 2x the cheapest paid option, the one with the highest capability score.

Visit Brevo

Best automation

ActiveCampaign

Starter

£33/mo

Highest automation score among plans that actually include automation on that tier.

Visit ActiveCampaign

Best free plan

Sender

Free Forever

£0/mo

The most capable plan that costs nothing at your subscriber count.

Visit Sender
  • 1Sender

    Free Forever

    £0
    ≈ £0/mo
    CheapestBest free plan
    Monthly
    £0
    Annual (per mo)
    £0
    Subscribers
    2,500
    Emails/mo
    15,000
    AutomationLanding pagesEcommerceForms

    Up to 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month. Sender branding on emails.

    Visit SenderRead more
    Verified8 September 2026source
  • £14
    ≈ £14/mo
    Monthly
    £16
    Annual (per mo)
    £14
    Subscribers
    2,500
    Emails/mo
    25,000
    AutomationLanding pagesForms

    Unlimited landing pages, forms and users. Reports kept indefinitely. Send allowance is 10x your subscriber band, with a 10,000-email floor.

    Visit EmailOctopusRead more
    Verified8 September 2026source
  • 3GetResponse

    Starter

    £18.04
    ≈ £18.04/mo
    Monthly
    £22
    Annual (per mo)
    £18.04
    Subscribers
    2,500
    Emails/mo
    Unlimited
    AutomationLanding pagesForms

    One custom automation workflow plus a welcome series. No ecommerce tools, SMS or webinars.

    Visit GetResponseRead more
    Verified8 September 2026source
  • $26
    ≈ £19.17/mo
    Monthly
    $32
    Annual (per mo)
    $26
    Subscribers
    3,000
    Emails/mo
    Unlimited
    AutomationLanding pagesEcommerceForms

    Unlimited email sends on every band. SMTP server and transactional emails included.

    Visit MoosendRead more
    Verified8 September 2026source
  • 5AWeber

    Lite

    $29.17
    ≈ £21.51/mo
    Monthly
    $35
    Annual (per mo)
    $29.17
    Subscribers
    2,500
    Emails/mo
    25,000
    AutomationLanding pagesForms

    1 email list, 3 landing pages, 3 automations, 1 custom segment, 3 users. AWeber branding.

    Visit AWeberRead more
    Verified8 September 2026source
  • 6MailerLite

    Comfort

    $29.70
    ≈ £21.90/mo
    Monthly
    $33
    Annual (per mo)
    $29.70
    Subscribers
    2,500
    Emails/mo
    25,000
    AutomationLanding pagesEcommerceForms

    50 automations, 10 landing pages, 10 signup forms, 3 user seats. Send allowance is 10x your subscriber band.

    Visit MailerLiteRead more
    Verified8 September 2026source
  • 7Brevo

    Standard

    £22.50
    ≈ £22.50/mo
    Best value
    Monthly
    £25
    Annual (per mo)
    £22.50
    Subscribers
    Unlimited
    Emails/mo
    10,000
    AutomationLanding pagesEcommerceSMSFormsCRM

    Unlimited automated workflows, A/B testing, web and event tracking, send-time optimisation, 1 landing page. No Brevo logo.

    Visit BrevoRead more
    Verified8 September 2026source
  • 8Drip

    Drip

    $39
    ≈ £28.76/mo
    Monthly
    $39
    Annual (per mo)
    Same
    Subscribers
    2,500
    Emails/mo
    Unlimited
    AutomationEcommerceSMSForms

    Every feature is included on every band. Unlimited sending up to 30,000 contacts; above that the allowance is 12 sends per contact. Up to 50 workflows.

    Visit DripRead more
    Verified8 September 2026source
  • 9Omnisend

    Standard

    $44
    ≈ £32.45/mo
    Monthly
    $44
    Annual (per mo)
    Same
    Subscribers
    2,500
    Emails/mo
    30,000
    AutomationEcommerceForms

    Send allowance is 12x your contact band. Unlimited web push.

    Visit OmnisendRead more
    Verified8 September 2026source
  • £33
    ≈ £33/mo
    Best automation
    Monthly
    £33
    Annual (per mo)
    £33
    Subscribers
    2,500
    Emails/mo
    25,000
    AutomationLanding pagesForms

    Send allowance is 10x your contact band. 1 user, limited segmentation, 5 actions per automation.

    Visit ActiveCampaignRead more
    Verified8 September 2026source
  • 11Kit

    Creator

    $49.17
    ≈ £36.26/mo
    Monthly
    $50
    Annual (per mo)
    $49.17
    Subscribers
    3,000
    Emails/mo
    Unlimited
    AutomationLanding pagesEcommerceForms

    Unlimited sends. Visual automation builder, email sequences and third-party integrations included.

    Visit KitRead more
    Verified8 September 2026source
  • 12HubSpot

    Marketing Hub Starter

    $100
    ≈ £73.74/mo
    Monthly
    $120
    Annual (per mo)
    $100
    Subscribers
    5,000
    Emails/mo
    25,000
    AutomationLanding pagesFormsCRM

    Send allowance is 5x your marketing contact band. Simple automation only.

    Visit HubSpotRead more
    Needs review8 September 2026source

Ranked by the effective monthly cost on your chosen billing cycle, converted to pounds where a provider quotes in another currency. Only the cheapest qualifying plan per provider is shown. Prices are the provider’s own published rate. Always confirm before buying.

Our shortlist

Who we would actually look at first for this use case. This is an editorial judgement and it is deliberately separate from the price ranking above, where the two disagree, both are shown.

  1. 1.MailerLite

    #6 on price for this preset

    The best balance of price, capability and time-to-first-campaign. The default answer for most small businesses.

    Read the full reviewVisit MailerLite

  2. 2.Moosend

    #4 on price for this preset

    Unlimited sending on the entry plan, so a bad month of extra campaigns never produces a surprise bill.

    Read the full reviewVisit Moosend

  3. 3.Brevo

    #7 on price for this preset

    Worth checking if you hold a large list and mail it rarely. Paying per send instead of per contact inverts the maths.

    Read the full reviewVisit Brevo

  4. 4.EmailOctopus

    #2 on price for this preset

    One of the cheapest options if you genuinely only need to send newsletters and will not miss ecommerce or CRM.

    Read the full reviewVisit EmailOctopus

Who this page is not for

Businesses that need a sales pipeline as well as a mailing list should look at the CRM-led options instead. A mailing tool with tags is not a substitute for deal tracking.

Other use cases

Open this preset in the full calculator →

Affiliate disclosure

Email King may earn a commission if you sign up through some of the links on this page, at no additional cost to you. Commission never affects the ranking: results are ordered by the price you would actually pay, calculated from published rate cards. Read the full disclosure.