Loops alternatives for SaaS lifecycle teams

What people leave Loops over

The free plan sends to 1,000 people

The free plan allows 4,000 sends in a rolling 30 days, but only to your 1,000 newest contacts. If you have 3,000 subscribers and send a newsletter, the oldest 2,000 do not receive it on the free plan. That is fine for a product with 500 users and confusing for one with 5,000. MailerLite’s free plan covers 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month without a “newest contacts” restriction; Kit’s free plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited broadcasts. Neither caps which subscribers receive your email.

The jump from free to $48 or $99

There is no paid tier between free and the Growing Audience plan. The slider shows $48 a month at about 5,000 subscribers and $99 at about 10,000. A SaaS with 1,200 subscribers that outgrows the free plan’s 1,000-contact send window starts paying $48 a month — not for a feature they need, but for a contact count they crossed. MailerLite Comfort is $12 a month at 500 subscribers and $39 at 2,500; Brevo Starter is $9 a month from 5,000 emails regardless of contact count.

A focused tool means missing features

Loops is intentionally focused: no SMS, no in-app messaging, no object-based account modelling, and a simpler segmentation model than Customer.io or Userlist. For a SaaS that outgrows “onboarding sequence plus newsletter” and starts thinking about account-level triggers, multi-channel campaigns, or revenue attribution, Loops runs out of road. The product is good at what it does; the question is whether what it does is still enough.

Where Loops is still the better choice

Stay if your lifecycle is compact and the product team owns the sends. Loops includes transactional email at no additional charge on paid plans, has no per-seat charge, and its pricing is predictable at a known contact count. The free plan is genuinely usable for a pre-launch product. If your complaint is the 1,000-contact send window, check whether a paid plan solves it before switching — $48 a month at 5,000 subscribers may be cheaper than the rebuild cost of moving.

The alternatives, one by one

MailerLite — newsletters and light automation at a lower entry price

MailerLite is the pragmatic swap if the reason for leaving Loops is the free plan’s contact window or the jump to $48 a month. Comfort is $12 a month at 500 subscribers on monthly billing ($10.80 a month billed annually) with a 5,000-email monthly allowance at that subscriber tier — 10× the subscriber ceiling. The free plan covers 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month with 2 user seats and no restriction on which subscribers receive your email. Where it falls short: MailerLite does not accept custom product events as workflow triggers in the way Loops does. If your onboarding sequence fires on “user completed activation” as an event with properties, you will need to encode that as a tag or segment change instead. Prices: mailerlite.com/pricing.

Kit — a creator list that should not be paying $48 a month yet

Kit’s free plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited landing pages, forms and email broadcasts, plus tagging and segmentation — the editorial basics free, at a size where Loops is $99 a month. Creator is $33 a month at 1,000 subscribers billed yearly ($390 a year) and unlocks unlimited Visual Automations and sequences; Pro is $66 a month on the same billing and adds subscriber-level signals and deliverability reporting. The gap to check: automations and sequences are paid features on Kit, so a drip programme is a Creator cost from day one, and the paid rates scale by subscribers (Creator is $116 a month at 10,000 subscribers billed yearly). Prices: kit.com/pricing.

Customer.io — when the lifecycle needs a real event model

Customer.io is the upgrade path when Loops’ focused model is too small. Essentials is $100 a month for 5,000 profiles with 1 million emails included; the profile selector climbs to $145 at 10,000 and $235 at 20,000. It covers email, push, in-app messaging and WhatsApp from one workflow builder, and supports object-based triggers like “object updated” alongside person events. The trade-off is cost and operational complexity: profiles and objects share one count, bounced and suppressed emails count toward billing, and new accounts start with a daily sending limit that ramps up over about two weeks. If your complaint about Loops is that it is too simple, Customer.io solves that and creates new ones. Prices: customer.io/pricing.

Userlist — account-level modelling for B2B SaaS

Userlist is designed around SaaS accounts and users rather than list membership. Basic is $149 a month at up to 10,000 users ($10 per additional 1,000 users); Professional is $349 a month at 10,000 users ($12 per additional 1,000) and adds A/B split testing, conversion goals, and advanced workflow features. Every plan includes a message allowance of 5× tracked users with a 500,000-message floor; overage is $1 per 1,000. There is no free plan. If your Loops workflows are starting to model accounts and seats manually, Userlist has that concept natively — but you pay for the privilege. Prices: userlist.com/pricing.

Brevo — priced by sends, not contacts

Brevo is worth comparing when the contact count is what makes Loops expensive. It is priced by emails sent: free is 300 emails a day with storage for up to 100,000 contacts; Starter is $9 a month from 5,000 emails with no daily cap; Standard is $18 a month and adds marketing automation, A/B testing and advanced reports. A 2,000-contact list mailed twice a month sends 4,000 emails and fits inside Starter. A 2,000-contact list on Loops is free (inside the 1,000-newest-contacts window only if it has not grown past 1,000) or $48 a month if it has. The trade-off: Brevo’s automation is simpler than Loops’ event triggers. Prices: brevo.com/pricing.

beehiiv — when the email product is a publication

beehiiv is the alternative when your “SaaS lifecycle email” is really a newsletter business with referral loops and monetisation. Free covers up to 2,500 subscribers with unlimited email sends and 1 publication; Lite is $49 a month billed yearly ($109 a month monthly) at 5,000 subscribers and Pro is $95 a month billed yearly at the same size with 10 team seats. The gap: beehiiv is publication-first. Product-event triggers, transactional sends to users outside your audience, and account-level segmentation are not the focus. If you are leaving Loops because it is not a newsletter platform, beehiiv is the answer; if you are leaving because the free plan is too small, MailerLite or Kit may be better. Prices: beehiiv.com/pricing.

How to choose

1. Count next month’s subscribers, not today’s. Loops prices by subscribed contacts: $48 at about 5,000, $99 at about 10,000, $198 at about 25,000. If you are near a boundary, model the next band — crossing 5,000 on Loops is not the same as crossing 500 on MailerLite.
2. Decide whether the 1,000-newest-contacts send window on the free plan is the problem or the price. If it is the window, a $48-a-month Loops plan may solve it for less than the rebuild cost of switching. If it is the price, MailerLite and Brevo both enter below $15 a month.
3. Check whether your workflows need event triggers. Loops fires on product events; MailerLite and Brevo rely more on list membership and time; Customer.io and Userlist have deeper event models. Test one real trigger on the alternative before committing.
4. List the Loops features you used this month — transactional sends, no per-seat charge, the email editor, specific integrations — and check each one on the alternative’s pricing page before you move, not after.
5. Budget the rebuild: event instrumentation, workflow logic, and templates do not export as working copies from Loops. Count two or three days of rebuilding against the annual saving.

Moving off Loops without losing subscribers

Loops’ export gives you subscribers and their properties, but workflow logic and event schemas are yours to document before you leave. Move consent first: export your subscriber list with signup source and consent dates, and bring your suppression list with it — anyone who unsubscribed on Loops must stay unsubscribed after the move. Then write down each sequence’s trigger, timing, and exit rule before touching the new tool.

1. Export subscribers with custom fields, signup source, and consent status. Export unsubscribes and bounces as a separate suppression file.
2. Document every sequence: trigger event or condition, email steps, wait times, branch logic, and exit rules. Loops does not export automation as a portable file.
3. Note any transactional sends that run through Loops. If those move to a different tool (Brevo, SendGrid, Mailgun), plan the API change separately from the marketing migration.
4. Authenticate the sending domain in the new tool (SPF and DKIM) before the first real send, and keep the Loops domain records intact until cutover is complete.
5. Import into the new tool, apply the suppression file, rebuild one low-risk sequence, and send it to a small segment first. Compare open and bounce behaviour against your last Loops send, then move the rest of the calendar.

FAQ

Does Loops have a free plan?

Yes. The Early Stage plan is free with unlimited contacts and up to 4,000 sends in any rolling 30 days, but only to your 1,000 newest contacts. It includes all features and a small “Powered by Loops” footer. The next step is the Growing Audience plan at $48 a month for about 5,000 subscribers.

What does Loops cost at 10,000 subscribers?

The Growing Audience plan is $99 a month at about 10,000 subscribers (the slider readout shows 9,998 subscribers at $99 per month). That includes unlimited sends to subscribers, transactional sends to users outside your audience, all features, and no per-seat charge. At 25,000 subscribers the price is $198 a month; at 50,000 it is $249 a month.

Is Loops or MailerLite cheaper for a small SaaS?

MailerLite is cheaper at every size under 5,000 subscribers. MailerLite Comfort is $12 a month at 500 subscribers ($10.80 billed annually); Loops is free up to 1,000 contacts (with the send window) and then $48 a month at about 5,000. If you need event-triggered workflows, Loops has the edge; if you need a free plan without a newest-contacts restriction, MailerLite wins.

Can I use Loops for transactional email?

Yes. Loops includes transactional email sending at no additional charge on paid plans, and the paid plan description lists “transactional sends to users outside your audience” as included. The free plan does not list transactional sends explicitly — check the current pricing page if transactional is a requirement on the free tier.

Which alternative is closest to Loops for SaaS lifecycle email?

Userlist is the closest in philosophy (SaaS accounts and users, product-event triggers) but starts at $149 a month at 10,000 users. Customer.io is closer in feature depth (multi-channel, object model) but starts at $100 a month at 5,000 profiles. If the reason for leaving Loops is price rather than features, MailerLite or Brevo are the practical swaps, not the philosophical ones.