Last updated: October 10, 2026. Plan details were read from each company's site that day.
Affiliate disclosure: Trident is reader-supported. If you buy through an affiliate link, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The MailerLite button is an affiliate link. The Kit, Mailchimp, Brevo, and beehiiv buttons open each company's own website and are not affiliate links. Learn more
A small business, a creator, and a solo shop do not need the same email tool. One person wants a newsletter and a digital product. Another wants a short welcome series for a store. A third sends a few campaigns a month and would rather not pay until the list is real. The useful comparison is the shape of the plan: how many people you can store, how many messages you can send, and which automations stay locked until you pay.
This guide uses published plan pages. It does not report open rates, inbox placement, or a private test. Where a price was a single figure on the company's site on October 10, 2026, it is quoted with that date. Where the page scales the price with list size, or did not show a number in the text, the guide says to check the current price.
Trident's own newsletter runs on Kit. That is a disclosure of the tool this site uses to send its newsletter. It is not a hands-on review, and Kit has not approved an affiliate link for this page. Using Kit does not move it ahead of a tool that fits a different job.
How to choose without guessing a price
Ask three questions before you compare logos.
- What are you sending? A creator newsletter, a store's welcome series, a transactional receipt, or a mix of email and SMS. A tool built for one of those will feel clumsy at the others.
- What does "free" count? Some caps are subscribers. Some are emails per month. Some are emails per day. A generous subscriber cap with no automations is a different product from a tiny list that includes a welcome series.
- What will you pay at the size you expect in a year? Several of these companies raise the bill as the list grows. An intro price, a yearly discount, and the price at 1,000 people are three different numbers. Budget on the one you will actually be on.
How the five tools compare
| Tool | Free plan, as published | Paid plans, as published | Best fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kit | $0, up to 10,000 subscribers. Unlimited broadcasts. Automations and sequences are paid. | Creator from $39/month and Pro from $79/month, at up to 1,000 subscribers. The price scales with list size. | Creators who will mail a list before they need a stack of automations |
| MailerLite | $0, up to 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, with 3 automations. | Comfort starts at $12/month. Power starts at $25/month. Both move with list size. | A solo business with a small list that wants a few automations early |
| Mailchimp | Under 250 contacts. 500 sends a month, or 250 a day. One audience. One user. No scheduling on the free column. | Essentials, Standard, and Premium. The dollar price depends on contacts. Check current price. | A general small-business list, especially if you already know Mailchimp's store tools |
| Brevo | No credit card to open an account. Up to 300 emails a day once sending is approved. | Starter, Standard, Professional, and Enterprise, plus pay-as-you-go credits. Check current price. | Email plus SMS or transactional mail, with a daily free cap |
| beehiiv | $0, up to 2,500 subscribers, unlimited sends, one publication. | At a 1,000-subscriber setting, the yearly-billing view showed Lite $49 and Pro $95. Confirm the billing unit. | A newsletter you want to publish, recommend, and eventually charge for |
Sources for every cell are linked at the bottom. Confirm the live price before you subscribe. A yearly discount and a first-month offer are not the price you keep.
Kit
Kit, formerly ConvertKit, publishes a creator-focused email platform: broadcasts, forms, landing pages, and digital products. Trident sends its newsletter with Kit. On October 10, 2026, Kit's free-plan help article said the Free plan is $0 while you stay under 10,000 subscribers. It includes unlimited forms, landing pages, and email broadcasts, tagging and segmentation, digital products and subscriptions, A/B testing on broadcasts, and API access. Visual automations, email sequences, rules, RSS campaigns, and earning from Paid Recommendations are on the paid plans.
The same day's Creator-versus-Pro help article listed starting prices for up to 1,000 subscribers: Creator at $39 a month, Pro at $79 a month. Both prices scale with subscriber count, so the pricing page is the only place to see your tier. Kit describes Creator as the core toolset for one or two people on the account, and Pro as the plan for finer deliverability reporting, Facebook audience sync, collaborative editing, engagement scoring, and a newsletter referral program. Pro is also the plan Kit points to when three or more people need access. Creator is limited to two users.
Older Kit help articles still describe a "Newsletter" plan with a different automation allowance. The free-plan article above was marked updated more recently. If your account screen uses another name, trust the pricing page over either write-up.
Who it's for
A creator or solo business that will send a newsletter and maybe sell a digital product, and that can live without a pile of automations until the list justifies a paid plan.
Pros
- The published free cap is 10,000 subscribers, with unlimited broadcasts.
- Tagging, forms, landing pages, and digital products are on the free plan.
- Paid plans are priced from a known starting point at 1,000 subscribers, then scale in the open.
Cons
- Visual automations and sequences require a paid plan.
- The bill climbs with the list. The $39 and $79 figures are starting prices, not a flat rate.
- Commerce fees are listed on the pricing page and were not a single clear number in the text we read. Check them there.
MailerLite
MailerLite's pricing page, read October 10, 2026, describes four plans: Free, Comfort, Power, and Enterprise. The Free plan is $0 for up to 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails a month, and 2 user seats. It includes campaigns, 3 automations, 1 website, 1 landing page, 1 digital product or booking, and 3 signup forms. Comfort, which the page says starts at $12 a month, adds a larger sending ceiling, more automations, and tools such as removing the MailerLite logo, a preference center, and an AI writing assistant. Power, which the page says starts at $25 a month, includes unlimited monthly emails, subject to a fair-use note on the page, and unlimited seats. Enterprise is a sales conversation for very large lists.
Those "starting" prices are the floor. MailerLite prices the paid plans by subscriber tier, and the dollar amount on the slider did not render as a fixed card in the text we read. Use the pricing page with your own subscriber count.
Who it's for
A solo business or a very small team that wants a welcome automation before the list reaches the hundreds, and that does not need a 10,000-person free tier.
Pros
- Three automations are included before you pay.
- The published paid floor is low: Comfort from $12 a month, Power from $25.
- A simple site and a landing page are on the free plan, which is enough for a single offer.
Cons
- The free list stops at 250 active subscribers and 2,500 emails a month.
- Comfort still caps automations, forms, and landing pages. Unlimited feature use is the Power plan.
- The price you see at signup is the price for your current tier, not a promise for next year.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is the general-purpose name most small businesses already recognize. Its marketing pricing page, read October 10, 2026, says accounts under 250 contacts can use a free plan. The comparison table's free column lists a maximum of 500 sends a month or 250 a day, 1 user, and 1 audience. Marketing automation is marked not included on that column. Email scheduling is marked not included. Removing Mailchimp branding is marked not included. Email support on the free plan is listed for the first 30 days.
Paid marketing plans on the page are Essentials, Standard, and Premium. Standard and Premium are where the page puts the larger automation allowances, more audiences, and more seats. Dollar amounts were not a single public number, because Mailchimp prices by contact count and send volume. The page also offers a pay-as-you-go credit option for infrequent senders, and a 14-day trial of Standard or Essentials that requires a payment method. SMS is an add-on on paid plans, in select countries, after an application.
Who it's for
A small business that wants one familiar tool for campaigns and, on a paid plan, store-style automations. A poor fit if you need a large free list or a newsletter product with its own website.
Pros
- The free plan is enough to learn the editor with a list under 250 people.
- Paid tiers add audiences, seats, and automation that the free column does not include.
- Pay-as-you-go credits exist for someone who sends rarely and does not want a subscription.
Cons
- Free sending stops at 500 emails a month, and the contact cap is 250.
- Scheduling, automation, and removing the Mailchimp footer are not on the free column of the comparison table.
- There is no honest single "Mailchimp costs $X" figure. Check the current price for your contact count.
Brevo
Brevo, formerly Sendinblue, describes itself as email plus other channels: SMS, WhatsApp, chat, and a simple CRM. The pricing page read on October 10, 2026 lists Starter, Standard, Professional, and Enterprise, and a free way in. The FAQ on that page says you can create an account without a credit card, and that after the account is approved for sending you can send up to 300 emails a day. Unused daily sends do not carry over. Starter is described as email and SMS for a single user, with SMS credits sold separately, and a drag-and-drop editor. Standard adds marketing automation, A/B testing, and landing pages, with one landing page included. Professional adds more channels, more seats, and phone support. Enterprise is custom.
The pricing cards did not show dollar amounts in the text we could quote. Brevo also sells pay-as-you-go email credits that the FAQ says do not expire. Check the current price for the volume you will actually send. A separate help article describes more free-plan limits, including how many contacts you can store. Use that article if the daily send cap is not the limit you care about.
Who it's for
A business that wants campaign email and transactional email in one account, or that wants SMS next to email, and can live with a daily free cap instead of a subscriber cap.
Pros
- The free entry is measured in daily sends, and the pricing FAQ says it does not expire on a timer.
- Transactional email is described as available on the plans, which matters if you also send receipts and password resets.
- Pay-as-you-go credits are an option when you do not send on a schedule.
Cons
- 300 emails a day is a hard ceiling on the free plan. A campaign to a larger list has to be spread across days.
- SMS is not included in the email price. Credits are separate.
- Automation and A/B tests are described on Standard, not as part of the free start. Confirm the current price before you assume you can build a long series.
beehiiv
beehiiv is a newsletter platform: the email, a site, recommendations, and tools for charging readers or running ads. Its pricing page, read October 10, 2026 with the subscriber control sitting at 1,000, showed a Free plan at $0, a Lite plan at $49 under the label "Yearly billing," and a Pro plan at $95 under the same label. The page says yearly billing saves up to 20% versus month to month. It does not, in the text we read, spell out whether $49 and $95 are the per-month amounts on a yearly plan or something else. Do not compare those figures to a monthly price from Kit or MailerLite until you confirm the unit on the pricing page.
The limits next to those cards were clearer. Free includes up to 2,500 subscribers, unlimited email sends, 1 team seat, and 1 publication. Lite goes up to 100,000 subscribers. Pro goes up to 250,000. The FAQ says there is no cap on how many emails you send on any plan. It also says beehiiv takes 0% of paid-subscription and digital-product revenue, and that Stripe's processing fee of 2.9% + $0.30 still applies. Automations, polls, and A/B testing are listed on the Lite card as additions on top of Free. Removing beehiiv branding is marked on Pro, not on Free or Lite.
Who it's for
Someone building a newsletter as the product: a public site, a recommendation network, and a path to paid subscriptions. Less natural if you need classic retail automations and a customer database on day one.
Pros
- Free includes 2,500 subscribers and, per the FAQ, unlimited sends.
- The published take rate on paid subscriptions and digital products is 0%, before card processing.
- Website, podcast, community, and digital products are described as included on every plan, with limits that change by tier.
Cons
- The $49 and $95 figures need a billing-unit check before you treat them as monthly prices.
- Automations are listed as a Lite feature, so a free account is closer to "write and send" than "build a funnel."
- Free and Lite keep beehiiv branding, according to the comparison table.
Send it like a business, not like a phish
The tool will not save a list that people did not ask to join. Buying or renting addresses is how new sending domains get filtered and how accounts get closed. Build the list from a form on your site, a checkout you already run, or a signup you can point to.
For commercial email that reaches the United States, use the FTC's CAN-SPAM compliance guide. The short version the FTC publishes: don't use deceptive from-lines or subject lines, identify the message as an ad when the law requires it, include your physical postal address, and give people a way to opt out that you actually honor. CAN-SPAM is an opt-out statute. The platforms above still expect you to mail people who have a reason to be on the list. Those are different rules, and you need both.
Two habits matter as much as the plan you pick. Send from a domain you own, and turn on the authentication settings the tool offers, so the message is not easily mistaken for a bank or a parcel notice. And read the renewal price before the first invoice. A free month is not the cost of staying.
FAQ
Which of these should a solo business start with?
If the list is still small and you want a welcome email now, MailerLite's free plan is the one that publishes automations before you pay. If you are a creator who wants room to grow a newsletter toward 10,000 people before a subscription, Kit's free plan is the one with that subscriber cap, and you will pay when you need sequences. If the product is the newsletter itself, read the beehiiv section. If you need SMS or receipts next to campaigns, read Brevo. Mailchimp fits if you want the general small-business tool and your list is still under the free contact cap.
Does Trident use one of these tools?
Yes. Trident's newsletter runs on Kit. That is disclosed above. It is not a test, and it is not a commission. The Kit button on this page opens Kit's own site.
Are the buttons affiliate links?
The MailerLite button is an affiliate link. The Kit, Mailchimp, Brevo, and beehiiv buttons go to each company's official website and are not affiliate links. The disclosure at the top of this page is the one to rely on. You should not pay extra because of how you arrived.
Why doesn't every row show a dollar price?
Some companies publish one starting price. Kit and MailerLite did, on October 10, 2026. Mailchimp and Brevo price by contacts or by send volume, and the pages we read did not lock a single dollar figure we could quote without pretending the slider had one position. beehiiv showed $49 and $95 on a yearly-billing view, without a clear per-month label in the text. Check the current price on the linked pricing page.
Can I email a list I bought?
Don't. The people did not ask for the mail, spam filters treat that traffic as abuse, and you still have to meet CAN-SPAM's header, address, and opt-out rules. Start with a form you control.
Sources
Read on October 10, 2026, unless a help article's own "updated" line is newer. Plan names change. The pricing page wins if a help article disagrees with it.