It takes a lot of dedication and hardwork, and business can take a while until things start to get busy and improve. To get the ball rolling with your business, you need to find and engage with your customers – but most ways to do this are costly and as a new business owner, you may not have the spare funds to throw into marketing just yet.
So why not try email marketing? It is an effective way to contact your customers and it won’t even cost you a cent!
If you are in need of some email marketing services with plans that cost you absolutely nothing, then take a look at the list of our favorite email marketing services below. Each has their own plans with individual tools and features, so you are sure to find the right one for you.
Must Have Features And Perks
When you are looking for the right email marketing service, there are few things you will want to keep in mind. A lot of providers will offer you a bunch of different perks and benefits, but which ones are you most likely to use and which ones are there to try and make up for the free plan’s pitfalls?
Email Allowance And Subscriber Limits
The first thing you need to look at when you find a free plan for email marketing services is how many emails you can send and how many subscribers you can have. Free plan services will try and cap both fairly low to try and push you into paying for a premium plan that offers you more freedom.
Some free plans come with monthly email send limits, or daily. Other free plans may try and tempt you in with unlimited subscribers but hit you with an incredibly low email send allowance.
You will want to find a provider with an even balance when it comes to email limits and subscribers. Remember – the whole reason why you are looking for this service is so you can send emails to your customers. A free plan that does not allow you to send out many emails is not really doing its job.
Email Automation
A key feature to look for in a good free plan is email automation. Email automation is a really powerful and useful tool when it comes to email marketing because what this feature does is send emails out to specific customers at specific times.
This means that you won’t miss important dates or deals due to human error. You could be off doing more important work while your email marketing service is sending out emails for you.
It is a great way to target customers based on their preferences and behavior, which is why it is such an important benefit to have in a free plan email service.
Some free plans will include automation, others won’t – that is why you have to comb through the services offered by a company’s free plan to find out if you get automation for free or if it is kept for paying customers.
Don’t worry, though – we have included in our reviews below if these free plans contain automation or not so you don’t have to research them all individually.
Bonus Features And Free Perks
Every free plan is different, and each company will offer you a different amount of cool features with their free plan. Some will definitely have more than others so you need to weigh up which ones are most beneficial to you.
If you are new to email marketing, then you may want to consider email marketing services that offer free email or website builds as part of their free plans. These will help you build your brand and increase your business’s presence online.
Some are really easy to use and offer templates for you to make really professional emails. However, most will force you to include their own branding in the email somewhere as part of the deal for having free services.
Another handy feature to have is a landing page. Landing pages are individual pages where a visitor ‘lands’ after they click on a link or ad. Some businesses use landing pages to greet visitors so they feel more welcome at this new website.
They are a very useful tool to use to make your website more accessible, so they are definitely a feature to look for in free email service plans.
With all these different features and bonuses of free plans, it is easy to be overwhelmed, so we hope this has served as a handy little guide of the most important features to look for when browsing for a free email marketing service.
With all that in mind, let’s move onto the reviews!
When it comes to world-leading names in the email marketing industry, Mailchimp is one of the best known by businesses across the globe.
This company began all the way back in the early 2000s and started out helping small businesses gain access to tools and resources to help them grow and expand. Today, Mailchimp is used by internet bloggers, e-commerce websites, and small businesses alike as they offer so many features for no cost at all.
Their free plan is perfect for smaller businesses as it includes 10,000 sends per month for up to 2000 subscribers. As your business and customer base grows, you can later upgrade your plan but subscriber cap drops to only 500 subscribers.
Automated emails are also an option on their free plan, so you can take scheduling emails off your to-do list and your customers get regular interaction with your business at the right times. The automation tools even include options for different campaigns, product recommendations, and even abandoned carts.
They also provide you email support for 30 days, giving you free access to their knowledge base and marketing glossary so you can familiarize yourself with all the business internet-related jargon.
There is also a creative assistant on hand to help you find beautiful designs to bring into your email templates using their drag-and-drop editor that makes creating your emails simple.
Overall, it is really easy to see why Mailchimp is such a popular email service. Their free plan goes above and beyond to help growing businesses and even goes beyond emails alone – they also offer multichannel tools to help promote your business on social media sites, and give you full control over designing the layout and content of your emails and website.
With so much on offer for no charge, Mailchimp is a service company worth checking out.
Pros
10,000 emails per month for 2,000 subscribers.
Automated emails so you don’t have to worry about scheduling them yourself.
Email support and access to a creative assistant to help design your emails.
Cons
Those seeking to upgrade as their business grows will be disappointed as the next plan up has a cap at 500 subscribers.
One of the fastest growing email marketing companies in Europe, Sendinblue is a SMS and email marketing software that is perfect for businesses.
The company started out as a digital agency but now has grown into a marketing email provider to help serve small and medium businesses. Today, they offer digital marketing tools to over 175,000 companies worldwide.
Sendinblue offers a free plan that features up to 300 emails per day for an unlimited amount of contacts – yes, you heard, an unlimited amount of contacts. The only thing that may hold you back is the 300 emails per day cap, so if you are running a campaign and want to contact all of your subscribers at once.
Alternatively, you can run drip campaigns that are more flexible and friendlier with Sendinblue’s free plan, or upgrade to their Lite plan for 10 000 emails per month for $25 per month.
Automation services are also available in their free plan, but only up to 2000 subscribers. If you don’t need to message them all at the same time, then that daily email cap will not be a problem and you can stop worrying about scheduling the emails yourself.
Their free plan offers a range of tools and features that are designed to be used by beginners in the world of email marketing. Even if you are not confident with using email editors, you can create your own stunning emails by using the easy drag-and-drop tools and email templates available through Sendinblue.
They even help you create emails that work on a customer’s mobile phone and include SMS (text) marketing, so you can contact your customers through different devices and media with ease.
Unfortunately, if you wanted more features like help with Facebook ads or a landing page builder to help with campaigns, you will need to upgrade your plan – but if you are just starting out and you want to get the basics down first, then Sendinblue is a solid choice to go with when it comes to email marketing.
Pros
Able to reach an unlimited amount of contacts.
Their drag-and-drop tools make creating your emails easy and simple.
Offers the ability to make SMS messages, and mobile-friendly emails to reach out to customers in different ways.
Cons
The 300 daily email limit makes it tricky to contact a lot of customers at the same time.
MailerLite has gained more popularity over the past two years, and has workers spread all across the world. They are certainly no small-fry business as they send over 1 billion emails every month and was recognized in 2019 as one of the fastest growing SaaS (Software as a Service) businesses worldwide.
Their free plan allows you to contact up to 1000 subscribers with 12,000 emails per month. They also have a $10 plan that will allow you to send unlimited emails per month with 1000 subscribers, or a $15 plan with unlimited emails per month to send to up to 2,500 subscribers.
This will be great as your business begins to grow as all you will have to worry about is how many subscribers you have and not if you can contact them all in one day.
Email automation is available in their free plan, but more advanced features like auto resend (resending emails that subscribers did not open) is only available on their premium plans.
However, if you are just starting out, then these kinds of features won’t be as important to you as something like email automation will be.
As for free extra features, Mailerlite also provides a lot of great ways for you to interact with your customers. They offer 5 free landing pages, and the ability to make surveys and quizzes to get customer feedback. They also have pop-ups available so you can really interact with your customers and bring important information to their attention.
Mailerlite has the email marketing services nailed down, but if you are looking for extra features to help with your website – you will have to upgrade to a premium plan.
This is a little disappointing as many competitors are beginning to offer these tools for free as an added bonus, so hopefully Mailerlite will take note of this and begin to include similar services in their free plan.
However, if you are just looking for a reliable email marketing service provider, then Mailerlite ticks the right boxes.
Pros
Email automation is included in their free plan.
Ability to send lots of emails for free with the option to go unlimited for a small fee which is great to utilize as your business grows.
Free features like creating landing pages and pop-ups is great for customer interaction.
Cons
A lot of website related tools and features are only included in their premium plans, while other competitors may offer them for free.
If you are running an e-commerce business then Omnisend is an ideal email marketing service for you. Starting in 2014 as a platform called Soundest, Omnisend now specializes in providing e-commerce businesses with a range of features and services that help promote business and interact with customers.
Their free plan allows you to send 500 emails per month with an unlimited contact list size and a further 500 web push notifications. To upgrade, it all depends on how many more emails you need to send per month so you won’t end up paying for more that you won’t use.
This doesn’t make Omnisend very appealing to most businesses as they follow an anti-spam policy, but to e-commerce businesses, the added features makes the lower email sends worth it.
Automations are pre-built and included in the free plan, along with many other features that are valuable to e-commerce businesses.
Such features include automated emails for abandoned carts and order confirmations, and integrations that pull the products you want to sell into an email. You can also send out discount codes or scratch cards to pull in customers.
There is also a 24/7 support team available to help you set up the pre-built workflow templates for your business.
It’s easy to see how features and tools like these appeal to e-commerce businesses, but even if your business is not e-commerce, you can still use Omnisend as a good free email marketing software.
Pros
A support team is available at any time.
Lots of features that work great for e-commerce businesses including automated emails and integrations.
Anti-spam policy helps you keep on good terms with your customers.
Cons
Small number of email sends per month means that you can quickly outgrow this free plan.
Another great email marketing service is Sender. They are already rubbing elbows with the big businesses like Deloitte and Pizza Hut, but that does not mean that they have forgotten to tailor their services to smaller businesses too.
Sender offers a free plan that allows businesses to send a huge 15,000 emails per month! You can send emails to 2,500 subscribers for no charge! And if you want more? Sender also have a range of plans available or you can try their pay as you go plan for email credits.
However, these emails do contain sender branding so you will be forced to include the Sender logo somewhere on your email, but when you are receiving such an amazing service for free, it only seems fair you give them a little credit.
As for email automation, Sender does include this in their free plan so you can just send out emails automatically and not have to worry about missing an important date.
Sender also has some wonderful tools on offer that can help you run your business more efficiently. They provide support and help when it comes to optimizing your subject lines, and videos can be converted into fun animated GIFs inside emails so they don’t appear boring or flat to your customers.
With so many services on offer for free and a huge amount of emails you can send for no cost at all, it is easy to see why so many businesses use Sender as their go-to platform for email marketing.
Pros
Huge amount of free emails per month with a subscriber cap set at a high 2,500.
Sender has an amazing reputation and works with some well-known brands, giving their name a lot of weight and value.
Lots of tools are available to make your emails more enjoyable and memorable for customers.
Cons
Your emails will have to include Sender branding, but if you choose to upgrade, your emails are completely yours to design (with support, of course).
If you want to get emails out there as quickly as possible, then you should give Benchmark a try. They offer services that are great for busy marketers and business owners so you don’t have to spend hours pouring over your emails to get them right.
Benchmark has made it easy to customize your emails, even when it comes to their code! There is also a drag and drop email builder so you can quickly assemble your email and get them out there, meaning that campaign crafting will become a breeze through Benchmark’s impressive range of tools and services.
They also feature email automation in their free plan, so you can send welcome emails and follow-ups the moment you get a new subscriber while you are tucked up in bed and fast asleep.
The only downside to Benchmark is that they only offer you 250 emails a month with their free plan. It’s disappointing, but you do get unlimited subscribers which their premium plans do not have. All of their premium plans offer unlimited emails but are cost differently depending on the amount of subscribers you have.
So, the option is there for you to stick to Benchmark as your business grows but that will cost you money and limit the amount of subscribers you can have. However, if you are just starting out and are simply testing the waters of email marketing, then Benchmark is a great service provider to use.
Pros
Speedy design tools and drag and drop features to help you build your emails quickly.
You get complete control over your email’s design and customization, including its code.
Email automation is included in the free plan.
Cons
You are limited to 250 emails a month so most businesses will likely outgrow this free plan.
For another great email marketing service provider that works well with eCommerce, there is Zoho.
Zoho is a well known company when it comes to supporting businesses and has worked with some really recognizable names like Amazon and Netflix. They work with more than 70 million users worldwide so you know that they are a well trusted company that provides a good quality of service.
Their free plan allows you to send 12,000 emails a month to 2000 contacts – that is a huge amount of emails for a free email marketing plan. This makes it an ideal company to go with if you want to try out email marketing to help bring in more loyal customers to your business.
Unfortunately, Zoho’s free plan does not come with automation services. Automation is reserved for their paying customers, so if you want this feature with Zoho, you will need to be prepared to dip your hand into your wallet.
But this does not mean that Zoho does not provide any other useful services. In fact, Zoho allows free customers to A/B test your emails (this is a way you can compare two versions of the same thing to find out which is better) and even offers a range of email templates for you to use and build your own emails from.
If it’s just an email provider you are looking for, then Zoho covers the basics – but you can find other services that have automation included in their plan for free with a similar amount of email sends per month.
Pros
Well trusted and popular company that is used by a lot of big name brands like Amazon.
Useful tools are available in their free plan like A/B testing and templates.
A huge number of free email sends per month with a high subscriber limit that is perfect for growing businesses.
Cons
Email automation is not included in their free plan and is preserved for paying customers while other competitors offer it for free.
Moosend is a company that offers a very generous free plan. They are another company used by a lot of big names like Domino’s and Vogue for tailored communication with customers, and these companies have been vocal with their praise for Moosend.
Moosend’s free plan gives you unlimited emails for 1000 subscribers with no Moosend branding – yep, unlimited emails with no Moosend branding! That means your emails are completely designed to be yours and you don’t have to pay extra to take another company’s logo away!
Not only that, but automation is included with pre-built templates and multi-step marketing automation workflows. There is even a designer so you can completely customize your business’s workflow automation and get those emails out to your customers at the correct time.
Moosend’s free plan gives you so many features for no cost that honestly, it will be quicker to tell you what they don’t give you for free. The free plan does not include landing pages or transactional emails, but you get so many other services and features that it makes up for it.
Some of the free features that you do have access to include a knowledge base, page visit tracking, a range of templates with custom codes, pop ups and email campaigns – the list goes on!
This really is a free plan that you get the most out of in terms of features.
Pros
A generous free plan with a bunch of amazing cool tools and features that you get complete access to for no cost.
Moosend has a lot of valued customers like Domino’s that use this provider to contact their customers.
Email automation is not just only included, but is pre-built and customizable.
Cons
Landing pages are not featured in the free plan, so you will have to find another way to welcome your new customers.
SendPulse’s free plan offers a very generous sending allowance when it comes to emails, making it a popular option for a lot of businesses. The company began in 2015 with a small office team, but now SendPulse is stretched across the world with offices in Russia, Nigeria, and Brazil.
Their goal as a company is to simplify the marketing process for business owners to help their businesses grow – and boy, do they achieve that!
Their free plan offers customers a huge 15,000 emails per month with web push notifications and transactional emails included. The only downside is that your number of subscribers is capped at 500, but that huge sending allowance is enough for you to keep in contact with your customers and make them feel appreciated.
Although the autoresponders are rather basic and generic, at least automation is included in the free plan.
Unfortunately, SendPulse’s generosity seems to reach its limit after your sending allowance. The free plan doesn’t really have any amazing bonus features like A/B testing, but you do have a landing page and 100 MB of image storage.
It would have been nice if the free plan included some more features but at the end of the day, you are looking for a free email marketing service that you want to use to send out a lot of emails to your customers – and this is exactly what SendPulse has mastered.
Pros
A huge sending allowance of 15,000 emails per month.
Automation is included in the free plan.
The free plan also includes a landing page so you can welcome your new customers.
Cons
The subscriber limit is set at a very low 500, so you may grow out of this plan rather quickly.
Another great service provider for you to use is GetResponse. They are a Polish-based company that’s services extend worldwide, reaching over 1 billion subscribers every month. Their services stretch from small businesses to large companies, so you know that their services are high quality and are effective when it comes to promoting your business.
Their free plan offers you unlimited email but lets itself down as it also only allows you 500 subscribers. However, if you have a small but loyal base of subscribers, you can give them ample attention and care without having to worry about the 500 subscriber limit.
As for automation, it seems that this vital feature of email marketing is preserved for paying customers only. You will have to upgrade to their basic plan to gain access to autoresponders, and their plus plan for marketing automation. Another let down that comes at a cost for the unlimited email sending allowance.
But you do get a landing page with the free plan and a website builder to help boost your business’s online presence. This makes GetResponse an ideal provider to use if you are just starting up and need guidance and advice when it comes to making your business’s website and designing the newsletter.
While the features that GetResponse offers in their free plan are rather basic, the unlimited sending allowance still makes it a very attractive free plan to a lot of business owners and bloggers.
Pros
Unlimited email sending allowance makes this free plan a contender.
GetResponse are known around the world and have a huge customer base, so you know that their services are high-quality.
Free website build and landing page is included to help you set up your business’s online presence.
Cons
Automation is not included in the free plan, along with some other desired features.
HubSpot is a software that a lot of businesses use to reach their customers. The company provides a lot of marketing and business services, but they also have a free marketing emails service that you can use to keep in touch with your subscribers and customers.
Although you can have an unlimited number of subscribers with HubSpot’s free plan, you are capped at 2000 emails per month. That is quite a low email sending allowance and does influence quite a few customers to look elsewhere for an email marketing service.
After all, the main purpose of this service is to send emails and a lot of businesses will want a higher sending allowance so they can grow without limitations.
Also, HubSpot does not offer automation – another blow to this company’s free plan.
It’s really unfortunate because HubSpot does offer quite a few features that can help you personalize your emails so your customers will feel appreciated.
Not only that, but your customers are more likely to click on links and open emails that appeal to them personally, so HubSpot’s CRM services are a big plus. You can also customize sign up and pop up forms, build a landing page, and track your online ads.
It’s just a shame that the two features most people look for in an email marketing service – automation and a high email send allowance – are not provided for free with HubSpot.
Pros
You are allowed to have unlimited subscribers, which is very generous for a free plan.
HubSpot has incredible CRM services that help improve your relationship with your customers and helps to get them clicking on links and emails more often.
You have the option to make a landing page, which is a very useful feature to have for free.
Cons
The free plan offers a very small monthly send limit of 2000 emails, defending the purpose of the service in the first place.
If you like the unlimited subscriber feature of HubSpot but you are put off by the low email sending limit, then a better alternative is Mailjet.
Mailjet’s free plan offers the same subscriber feature, meaning that you can have as many subscribers as you can get without worrying about reaching a limit or cap. Their sending allowance is also far more generous with a maximum 6000 emails per month and a daily limit of 200 emails.
Although it still is not as generous as other competitors, it is one of the higher sending allowances that comes with unlimited subscribers.
However, there is still no automation with this free plan. Just like with HubSpot, Mailjet also only offers automation with their more premium plans despite it being such a valuable feature.
Mailjet tries to make up for this with an advanced email editor that is easy to use so you can personalize and create your emails like a professional.
They also offer you access to a few basic statistics like email opens and link clicks so you can see what kind of language or information drew your customers in – but is this enough to make up for the lack of automation?
Pros
Mailjet provides an advanced email editor to help you make professional emails.
The free plan also allows you to track statistics like link clicks and email opens, helping you tailor your future emails to encourage this customer behavior.
Unlimited contacts and has a higher email allowance than some competitors.
Cons
Does not offer automation as part of the free plan.
For a really simple and easy to use email service provider, we would recommend you try out EmailOctopus. This company was founded back in 2014 with a mission to provide simple email marketing that is better value than their competitors.
This has made EmailOctopus a popular provider with bloggers and charities, as they offer discounts to non-profit organizations.
As for their free plan email marketing service, it is fairly generous. It hits the nail on the head when it comes to emails and subscribers – the free plan offers a monthly limit of 10,000 emails and a cap at 2,500 subscribers!
For a free plan, that is pretty good although you cannot remove the EmailOctopus branding from your emails’ design.
The generosity does not stop there – EmailOctopus also offers automation with their free plan including multi-step automations, unlimited automated email sequences, and time based automated campaigns.
So with the must have features covered, what else does EmailOctopus give you?
The free plan also comes with unlimited landing pages, including mobile-friendly templates so you customers can access your website with ease from any device. There is also a landing page builder with an easy to use drag and drop editor, and you have access to the company’s knowledge base at all times.
However, you only have access to your statistics and reports for the first 30 days with a free plan.
All in all, EmailOctopus is a reliable and generous email marketing service provider that gives a lot in its free plan. Of course, if you want more advanced tools and features you will have to upgrade to a premium pro plan, but the free plan offers so much that you may want to stay with it forever.
Pros
Lots of automation options available with the free plan.
Comes with unlimited landing pages and a drag and drop landing page builder so you can include them in your website with minimal fuss.
The free plan offers a generous monthly email send allowance and has a high subscription limit.
Cons
Statistics are only available for the first 30 days, after which you can only access them by upgrading to a premium plan.
For very early businesses, we recommend that you try using CleverReach for your first ever email marketing experience.
The reason why we recommend very early businesses to use this free plan is because the email send allowance and maximum number of subscribers is set so low. CleverReach’s free plan only allows you to have up to 250 recipients and you can only send up to 1000 emails a month.
If your business is fairly small, then this won’t be an issue for you – but as you grow in size and reach more customers, you will grow out of this free plan fairly quickly.
Also, email automation is only available for one automated single track or multilevel email campaign so there are more advanced ways to automate your emails available with other competitors.
CleverReach also provides some rather basic features with their free plan including email support and a reporting tool to help you analyze and optimize your emails. You can also use plugins to connect with your customers and integrate multiple websites to your own, but unfortunately, CleverReach does not provide much else.
Their more advanced tools and services are kept for their paid plans, leaving little scraps for their free plan users. It’s not too bad if you are trying out email marketing for the first time, but once you learn the basics, you will be tempted to go elsewhere for more advanced features available for no cost.
Pros
Has email automation available in its free plan.
Also features other basic services like a plugins and reporting tools
Great for early businesses who have never tried email marketing before.
Cons
Very little send allowance and subscription limit while other competitors have more available for free.
ConvertKit has similar problems to CleverReach – their free plan service does not allow you to have a lot of subscribers. Although it allows you to create unlimited amounts of sales and link pages, ConvertKit caps your subscribers at 250.
And automation? It’s only available if you purchase one of their paid plans instead, which is another disappointment.
However, ConvertKit does a good job of helping you make professional looking emails and allows you to make unlimited content. You can also make unlimited landing pages to connect more personally with each of your customers – something that a lot of free plans omit from their features.
You are also allowed to sell digital products and subscriptions to your customers, allowing you to make money off of our website. Basically, ConvertKit does not offer much in terms of must-have features, but it does do its basic job of helping you email your customers with ease.
Pros
You have the ability to create unlimited landing pages.
Benefit from ConvertKit’s community support.
Allows you to sell digital products and subscriptions.
And finally, we have AWeber – another great starting point for businesses wishing to start email marketing. What makes AWeber a little different from its competitors is how it is also geared towards e-commerce websites and businesses.
AWeber’s free plan has a subscriber limit of 500, but allows you 3000 email sends per month – a lot better than some of the previously mentioned email marketing services. By using the hundreds of templates available, you can make professional newsletters and emails to use to reach out to your customers.
Email automation is included in its free plan too, although behavioral automation is only featured in the paid premium plans. However, email automation alone is a very useful feature so it is impressive that AWeber have decided to include it in their free plan.
AWeber are also quite generous when it comes to bonus features too. You can create unlimited landing pages for free, sell products and services with AWeber e-commerce, and even track your sales and purchase tagging. This is what makes AWeber a good choice for e-commerce websites that are just starting out and finding their footing.
Pros
Offers a moderate 3000 sending allowance per month.
Includes email automation in its free plan to make email marketing a breeze.
It’s a great choice for e-commerce websites as it allows them to sell products and services while tracking sales and tagging.
Cons
Subscriptions are limited to 500 subscribers, which a lot of businesses can quickly grow out of.
Conclusion
So there are our favorite free plan email marketing services and providers!
Of course, they all have their own advantages and disadvantages with their own unique features and limits. The perfect one for you really comes down to what your needs are and how confident you feel with email marketing.
So give email marketing a try as it will help grow your business and improve your relationship with your customers. It’s very simple and easy to do, and as you can see from above – completely free!
Frequently Asked Questions
Are There Any More Marketing Platforms Out There?
Of course! These are just our top 16 marketing platforms that we think are the best out there. There are also lots more including iContact, TotalSend, and Drip just to name a few.
If you were not impressed with any of the ones we have recommended here, then there are plenty more marketing platforms out there for you to research and try.
Which Email Marketing Service Is The Best One?
The best one is the one that meets all your needs and desires. Because they all offer so many different features, what we think is the best one for us might not necessarily be the best one for you.
Although we would strongly recommend for you to try out Mailchimp and Sender, we also recommend you have a browse on their websites first before making any commitments.
Hi, my name is Mark Matthews, and I help to run several businesses through managing their mailing services.
I have a clear and good understanding of what a company or person should consider when choosing between options. I also have a lot of experience when it comes to managing businesses in general, from the best organizational and scheduling apps to use, to teaching owners how to create engaging emails.
