Email Marketing Tool Comparisons

Ten head-to-head pages for the moment you are down to two candidates. Seven of them measure a challenger against Mailchimp, because that is the account most small businesses already have; the other three pit commerce or automation platforms against each other.

Which matchup to read first

The ten pages fall into three clusters. Find the cluster that matches the question you are asking and start with the first page listed.

Your question	Start here	Then
Should I leave Mailchimp for something cheaper?	MailerLite vs Mailchimp	Brevo vs Mailchimp, Moosend vs Mailchimp
Do I need phone support or event tools?	Constant Contact vs Mailchimp	Campaign Monitor vs Mailchimp for agency-style template work
I run an online store	Klaviyo vs Mailchimp	Drip vs Klaviyo, Omnisend vs Klaviyo
I want automation tied to a CRM	ActiveCampaign vs HubSpot	Mailchimp vs HubSpot

Most matchup pages run in the same order: an overview, the key differences, a pricing comparison, pros and cons for each tool, and a closing "choose A if, choose B if" section. Read the last section first if you are short on time, then go back to the pricing comparison to check the number against your own list.

Why the same list costs different amounts

Before you read any matchup, notice that these vendors charge for different units. Comparing a headline price without the unit is the most common way to pick the wrong plan. Figures are from each vendor's pricing page, read on October 7, 2026.

Platform	What the price scales with	What the entry plan includes
Mailchimp	Contacts, with a send cap	Standard starts at $20 a month at the 500-contact selector and allows up to 6,000 emails a month; the free plan is capped at 250 contacts and 500 sends
MailerLite	Subscribers	Comfort starts at $12 a month for 500 subscribers ($10.80 billed annually); Power at $25 a month removes the monthly email limit
Brevo	Monthly emails	Starter starts at $9 a month for 5,000 emails with no daily limit; Standard at $18 adds automation and A/B testing
Constant Contact	Contacts, with sends as a multiple of them	Lite from $12 a month allows monthly sends up to 10 times your contacts; Standard from $35 allows up to 12 times and adds automation
ActiveCampaign	Contacts, with sends as a multiple	Starter from $15 a month at 1,000 contacts, billed annually, with up to 10 times contacts in sends; Plus from $49
HubSpot	Marketing contacts tier	A free tier with 2,000 marketing email sends a month and HubSpot branding; Starter from $7 a month
Drip	People on the list	$39 a month for 1 to 2,500 people, with unlimited sends and up to 50 workflows
Omnisend	Contacts, with channels	Free with 250 contacts and 500 emails a month; Standard shows $11.20 a month at 500 contacts under a first-three-months offer

A small worked case shows why the unit matters. Take 1,000 contacts and one email a week, about 4,300 sends a month. On Constant Contact's Lite plan the send ceiling is 10 times your contact count, or 10,000, so volume is not a problem; the limit is the plan's feature set. On Brevo's Starter plan 4,300 sends fits inside 5,000 emails. On Mailchimp the $20 starting price is quoted for the 500-contact selector, so a 1,000-contact list means moving the selector and re-reading the price, and the free plan is out of the question at 500 sends a month. The cheapest sticker price on a comparison page is therefore only the starting point; the matchup pages work through the tiers that apply once your list passes the entry band.

Send allowances as multiples of your list

Constant Contact and ActiveCampaign state their send limits as a multiple of your contact count, which makes the ceiling easy to calculate and easy to hit. Constant Contact lists up to 10 times your contacts a month on Lite, 12 times on Standard and 24 times on Premium. ActiveCampaign lists 10 times on Starter and Plus, 12 times on Pro and 15 times on Enterprise.

Put a 2,000-contact list through that rule. A weekly newsletter is about 8,667 emails a month, comfortably inside the 20,000 that a 10-times plan allows. A daily email to the whole list is 60,000 a month, which is above even Constant Contact's Premium allowance of 48,000. In other words, these plans suit a list that is mailed weekly or a few times a month; a business that wants daily sends to everyone should look at the platforms in the compare pages that price by monthly email volume instead.

Questions about the comparisons

• Why is Mailchimp in most of them? Because it is the platform small businesses most often start on, so the useful question is usually whether a specific alternative is worth the switch. Pairs without Mailchimp exist where two other tools compete for the same buyer, such as Drip against Klaviyo for online stores.
• Do the pages declare a single winner? No. A free plan that suits a bakery newsletter is the wrong basis for a store with a product catalog, so each page ends with a verdict for each type of reader.
• A matchup I want is missing. What now? Browse alternatives for the platform you use, which lists replacement options with migration notes, or write to the editor with the two names.
• Should I trust a price on a matchup page? Use it as a way to compare shapes, then confirm the number on the linked vendor page, which is the only place a price is binding.