How we compare email marketing software
We list 13 email marketing platforms sold to US businesses. Every figure comes from the vendor's own US pricing page; some are the monthly equivalent of an annual commitment, so read the Contract row beside the number.
The calculator asks for subscribers and emails a month separately, because the vendors here do not all bill on the same one, plus whether you need automation, which sits above the entry tier on much of it. It picks each vendor's plan that covers those numbers on its own meter and sorts by monthly cost. Commission does not change the order.
Stored contacts or emails sent: the two meters email marketing software bills on
Most vendors here charge for the contacts you store. At least one charges for the emails you send instead, and HubSpot prices per seat. A few cap both contacts and sends. The pricing model row is the fastest way to see which you are dealing with.
| Provider | Pricing model |
|---|---|
| ActiveCampaign | Per contact |
| AWeber | Per subscriber |
| Brevo | Per email volume |
| Campaign Monitor | Per subscriber |
| Constant Contact | Per contact |
| HubSpot | Per seat |
| Kit | Per subscriber |
| Klaviyo | Per active profile |
| Mailchimp | Per contact |
| MailerLite | Per subscriber |
| Omnisend | Per subscriber |
| Spreeflo | Per marketing contact |
| Transpond | Per active contact |
Picture two businesses. One holds a big list built over years and mails it once a quarter. The other holds a short list and mails it every morning. On a contact-priced platform the first pays for every dormant name and the second pays almost nothing. On a send-priced platform the positions reverse. So enter your real subscriber count and your real monthly send volume before reading any ordering.
The contacts you cannot email and still pay your email marketing software to store
Every list contains people you will never mail again: they unsubscribed, they hard bounced, or a spam complaint suppressed them. On some platforms you carry on paying for them, because the meter counts rows rather than people you are allowed to contact.
| Provider | Contact billing |
|---|---|
| ActiveCampaign | All contacts (active + inactive) |
| AWeber | Active subscribers (unsubscribes excluded) |
| Brevo | Unlimited contacts (billed by sends) |
| Campaign Monitor | Active subscribers |
| Constant Contact | All contacts including unsubscribed until removed |
| HubSpot | Per seat, plus marketing contacts in blocks of 1,000 |
| Kit | Active subscribers |
| Klaviyo | Active profiles only (excludes suppressed) |
| Mailchimp | All contacts including unsubscribed |
| MailerLite | Active subscribers |
| Omnisend | All contacts including non-subscribers |
| Spreeflo | Peak marketing contacts in the month (non-marketing contacts and form responses unlimited and uncounted) |
| Transpond | Active contacts (fair use: 12x contacts /mo in sends) |
You cannot solve it by deleting them: removing an unsubscribe record is how a later re-import resurrects it and turns a tidy database into a violation. Ask any vendor whether an unsubscribe or a hard bounce reduces your bill, and whether you can export the suppression list if you leave. If the answers are no, price the plan at the list size you expect in two years.
Free plans and automation gates in email marketing software
A free plan here is never uncapped. It is capped on contacts, on sends, on features, or some combination, and the axis decides whether it lasts a month or a year. Automation is the other common gate.
| Provider | Free plan | Automation |
|---|---|---|
| ActiveCampaign | No (14-day trial) | Advanced (Plus+); Basic (Starter) |
| AWeber | No (14-day trial) | Basic (Lite), Advanced (Plus) |
| Brevo | Yes (300 emails /day, unlimited contacts) | Basic (Starter), Advanced (Business+) |
| Campaign Monitor | No (30-day free trial) | Throttled on Lite (limited to its send allowance), unlimited on Essentials |
| Constant Contact | No (free trial) | Basic (Lite), Advanced (Standard+) |
| HubSpot | Yes (free marketing tools, up to 2 users) | Basic (Starter), Advanced omni-channel (Professional+) |
| Kit | Yes (10K subscribers, 1 automation, no A/B) | Basic (Free), Advanced (Creator+) |
| Klaviyo | Yes (250 profiles, 500 emails /mo) | Advanced (flows, triggers, predictive on every paid plan) |
| Mailchimp | Yes (250 contacts, 500 sends /mo) | Basic (Essentials), Advanced (Standard+) |
| MailerLite | Yes (250 subscribers, 2,500 emails /mo) | Basic (Comfort), Advanced (Power) |
| Omnisend | Yes (250 contacts, 500 emails, 60 SMS /mo) | Advanced (Pro); Basic (Standard) |
| Spreeflo | No (forms only) | Yes (Starter+) |
| Transpond | Yes (250 contacts, 3,000 sends /mo, no automation) | Unlimited (Growth+) |
Notice how many free tiers cap the send as well as the list: if you run a daily newsletter to a modest list, check the send allowance on the paid plan too. If a welcome sequence or an abandoned cart flow is the reason you are shopping, the entry price on part of this table is not the price you will pay, which is why the calculator carries an automation toggle. If you are mailing a couple of hundred people occasionally, you probably do not need to pay for anything here this year.
CAN-SPAM is an opt-out law, and email marketing software cannot make you compliant
US commercial email is governed by CAN-SPAM, and it is an opt-out regime. You are not required to hold prior consent before sending a commercial message to a US recipient. What you must do is give them a working way to stop, and honor it promptly.
The obligations land on the sender, not the tool. Headers and subject lines must not be misleading, and a commercial message has to be identifiable as one. A valid physical postal address must appear in every commercial message; a footer with no address is the most common failure. The opt-out has to work and be honored: a link that errors, or a suppression list a re-import overwrites, is the same failure. Penalties are assessed per email, so exposure scales with the send.
Every platform here provides the plumbing, and the CAN-SPAM tools row lists what each one ships. Read it as a list of features, not a verdict: a platform can hand you an address footer while you break the law with a purchased list. If you hold data on California residents, CCPA and CPRA add access and deletion rights, and other states have their own versions. None of this is legal advice.
Gmail and Yahoo decide what lands, not your email marketing software
CAN-SPAM sets a floor. The mailbox providers set the real bar: Gmail, Yahoo and Microsoft publish their own bulk sender requirements, and failing those gets you filtered whether or not you complied with the law. Three things are yours to do. Authenticate your sending domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC records; sending from a free mailbox address instead of your own domain is the failure no vendor can fix. Offer one-click unsubscribe in the header, which is separate from the link in your footer. Keep spam complaints low, which is list hygiene and sending frequency rather than which product you bought. The vendor side is real but secondary.
| Provider | Deliverability |
|---|---|
| ActiveCampaign | Very high (94% in independent tests) |
| AWeber | Moderate (strong on Outlook, weaker on Gmail) |
| Brevo | High |
| Campaign Monitor | High |
| Constant Contact | High |
| HubSpot | Not stated |
| Kit | High |
| Klaviyo | Very high (e-commerce specialist) |
| Mailchimp | High (89% in independent tests) |
| MailerLite | High |
| Omnisend | High |
| Spreeflo | No published benchmark |
| Transpond | Not stated |
Treat those as a ceiling, not a promise. A strong reputation will not save a purchased list.
Stores, creators and CRM-led teams buy different email marketing software
This table covers several different jobs, and comparing across them on price alone produces nonsense. Online stores need order data flowing in, so the e-commerce integration row is the qualifying one. Creators price on subscribers and send broadcasts rather than flows. CRM-led teams want the email tool and the contact record in one system, which is why HubSpot's contact billing reads as a different shape. If you text customers, the SMS row narrows the list on its own.
| Provider | E-commerce integrations | SMS marketing |
|---|---|---|
| ActiveCampaign | Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento | Yes (US SMS add-on) |
| AWeber | Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce | No (3rd-party integrations only) |
| Brevo | Shopify, WooCommerce, PrestaShop, Magento | Yes (US supported) |
| Campaign Monitor | Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce (via integrations) | No |
| Constant Contact | Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce | Yes (US SMS add-on) |
| HubSpot | Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento | Yes (paid add-on) |
| Kit | Shopify, WooCommerce | No |
| Klaviyo | Shopify (deep native), WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento | Yes (US supported, in-app credits) |
| Mailchimp | Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento | Yes (US SMS, paid add-on) |
| MailerLite | Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Squarespace | No (separate Transactional product) |
| Omnisend | Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento | Yes |
| Spreeflo | None published (REST API, webhooks and MCP server only) | No |
| Transpond | None native (Stripe, WordPress; stores via Zapier) | No (SMS add-on is UK customers only) |
Switching is easier than it looks: every provider here lists Contract as No, so leaving is a billing decision. What does not transfer cleanly is engagement history and suppression state. Export the suppression list first and import it before your first send on the new platform.