Cheap Email Marketing: The Lowest-Cost Plans for Small Stores (2026)

Short answer: For a small store there is no single cheapest tool, because each vendor prices a different way. On the prices we could verify, Brevo Starter is the lowest paid plan at 1,000 contacts ($17 a month), Kit has the largest free plan (10,000 subscribers), and EmailOctopus and Sender let you start free up to 2,500 subscribers. Free plans keep the vendor’s branding, and the real cost shows up when your list grows.

How we made this page. We have not used any of these tools. This article is based on the published pricing pages of each vendor, read on November 8, 2026, plus two earlier pages on this site where a vendor’s page gave too little: Omnisend pricing (prices checked October 20, last checked November 2, 2026) and Brevo vs Mailchimp (checked November 7, 2026). All prices are US dollars on regular month-to-month billing unless stated, and may have changed since.

Disclosure. We may earn a commission from some links (EmailOctopus, Kit, Omnisend, Benchmark, Moosend, GetResponse). We do not earn one from Brevo, Mailchimp or Sender. We tried to keep the order of this page driven by the numbers, not by commission.

Black Friday note (Nov 12, 2026): we are checking live store prices against our own tracked records through Dec 1 — see the Black Friday price check for what is actually discounted.

What cheap means for a store

A low sticker price can mislead in three ways. Some tools bill by contacts stored, some by emails sent, and a few cap both. A free plan may exclude the automations a store most wants, such as welcome series and abandoned-cart emails. And a tool that moves you up a tier when your list grows can double the bill in a month. So the sections below compare three things: the monthly cost at five list sizes, the limits of each free plan, and the billing rules that change the total.

Monthly price at 500 to 10,000 contacts

Only some vendors publish a price at each list size. Where we could not read a number on the pages we checked, the table says “not published” rather than estimating one.

* Brevo bills by emails sent, and each email tier also caps stored contacts. The figures assume 4 emails per contact per month, as in our Brevo vs Mailchimp comparison, and come from Brevo’s public pricing API. Starter is $9 for up to 5,000 emails and 500 contacts, then +$8 (10,000 emails, 1,500 contacts), +$16 (15,000 emails, 2,500 contacts), +$23 (20,000 emails) and +$37 (40,000 emails). At 1,000 contacts the 500-contact limit pushes you to the $17 tier whatever you send up to 10,000 emails. If you send more, Brevo costs more.

** Mailchimp’s contact bands were read on October 23, 2026 and re-confirmed on November 2, per our November 7 article. Prices vary by country. For the whole band table see our Mailchimp pricing guide.

*** Omnisend’s pricing page returned almost nothing on November 8, so these are the figures on our Omnisend pricing guide, last checked November 2, 2026.

What the table does and does not tell you:

• † Sender’s $9 is not a month-to-month price. Its Standard plan (500 subscribers, up to 6,000 emails a month) shows $9 a month “billed once as $216”, which is 24 months paid up front; the page also says you save 30% on 12 months. We could not read a plain monthly price, so the table leaves it blank. Sender was also showing a Black Friday offer of 40% off Standard for first-time users on November 8 ($5.40 a month, billed as $129.60), which we do not count.
• Benchmark Pro is $12 a month at 500 contacts ($10 a month billed annually). Its page has a price selector for 1,000, 2,500, 5,000 and 10,000 contacts, but the page text we read did not show those prices.
• EmailOctopus shows Pro at “$9 per month, billed yearly”, but the page text did not tie that figure to a subscriber count, and gave no price ladder. Check the slider on the page.
• Kit shows Creator at $33 a month for 1,000 subscribers (or $390 a year, which Kit says saves $78). No other tier was readable.
• Moosend and GetResponse did not show prices by list size in the text we read. Moosend lists a 30-day free trial, and GetResponse a 14-day trial, both without a card.

Reading it fairly: at 1,000 contacts, among the tools with a verified number, Brevo Starter ($17) is lowest, then Omnisend ($20), Mailchimp ($26.50) and Kit ($33). That is a statement about 1,000 contacts on these dates, not a ranking of the tools. Kit’s Creator plan includes unlimited sending and automations, and the others differ in what they include.

Free plan limits compared

A few details change how usable these are:

• Kit Free has no visual automation builder and no automated email sequences, and no RSS campaigns. Those start on Creator. For a store that wants a welcome series, that matters more than the 10,000-subscriber limit.
• EmailOctopus Free keeps reports for 30 days and allows 1 landing page, 1 form and 1 user. Chat support lasts the first 30 days, and email support continues.
• Benchmark says every feature is on every plan including Free, and the limits are room, list verification and branding removal.
• Sender Free allows 1 seat, and its A/B testing and advanced ecommerce reports start on paid plans.
• Mailchimp Free pauses sending if you pass its contact or send limit.
• Brevo’s 100,000 stored contacts on Free comes from its pricing API. We could not confirm a separate monthly cap, so check before importing a large list.

Hidden costs to check before you commit

Automatic upgrades. Kit says that if you go over your plan’s limit, it will automatically upgrade you to the next subscriber tier. EmailOctopus says it will move you to the plan that fits your new list size and send an email when it does. Benchmark says it will notify you and offer an upgrade, and “won’t auto-upgrade”. Moosend says you need to upgrade when the list exceeds the plan limit. Mailchimp bills overages automatically on paid plans; on Free, sending pauses.

Who counts as a contact. On Mailchimp, subscribed, unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts all count, while archived, cleaned and deleted contacts do not. Moosend counts unique email addresses. A long-lived list with many unsubscribes can sit in a higher band than you expect, so clean it before importing.

Send limits on paid plans. Benchmark paid plans send up to 10 times the contact limit a month (a 5,000-contact plan can send 50,000 emails). Mailchimp’s multiple is 10 times on Essentials, 12 on Standard and 15 on Premium. Kit says it has no sending limits on any plan. Brevo prices on volume itself, so sending more raises the bill.

Annual discounts. The percentages shown: Kit 17%, Sender 30% (and up to 60% over 24 months in a promotion), Moosend 20% yearly or 15% twice a year, EmailOctopus 10%, Brevo 10%. Omnisend usually offers 30% off if you pay three months upfront (per our Omnisend guide). Paying yearly is only cheap if you keep the tool, so read the refund terms. Kit states a refund within the first 30 days on monthly or annual plans.

Add-ons. On Benchmark, extra users cost $15 a month each. Moosend’s transactional email, dedicated IPs and hosted files are paid add-ons. Brevo’s pricing API lists extra marketing seats at $12 a month each from the second seat, and on Starter removing the Brevo logo is a $12-a-month add-on (it is included on Standard, which starts at $18). Sender sells pay-as-you-go email at $5.80 per 1,000 emails.

Which one to pick

Choose EmailOctopus if you want a free start for a list under 2,500 and expect to pay a low entry price later. Check the slider for your list size, as we could not read a price ladder.

Choose Kit if your list is large for a free plan (up to 10,000) and you mostly send plain newsletters. Plan to pay $33 a month at 1,000 subscribers once you need sequences or automations.

Choose Brevo if you email occasionally and want the lowest paid price on the numbers above; add $12 a month if you need the Brevo logo off your emails on Starter. See our Brevo review.

Look at Omnisend if cart recovery is the point, and accept a smaller free plan. Our email marketing cost for Shopify guide covers that angle.

Mailchimp is not the cheap option past 500 contacts on these prices, but its free plan is a familiar way to start with a very small list.

One option in more detail

EmailOctopus

Free start

Best for: Small lists that want a free plan with a high monthly email allowance

Pros

• Free for up to 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails a month
• No time limit on the free plan and no card needed
• Pro shown from $9 a month billed yearly

Cons

• EmailOctopus branding on free-plan emails
• Free reports kept for 30 days, 1 landing page and 1 form
• Price by list size not readable in the page text we checked

Visit EmailOctopus

EmailOctopus has no free trial; the free Starter plan has no time limit. Paying yearly saves 10%.

Bottom line

For the lowest bill, start on a free plan and move only when a limit stops something your store needs. At 1,000 contacts, the lowest verified paid plan is Brevo Starter at $17 a month, with Omnisend at $20, Mailchimp at $26.50 and Kit at $33. Because several vendors do not publish a price by list size, check your own list size on each page, and follow changes in our pricing tracker. For store-specific free options, see best free email marketing for Shopify, and for Kit’s tiers Kit pricing.

See EmailOctopus plans

Deciding between email and a CRM first? See email marketing vs CRM.

MailerLite tier details: MailerLite pricing.