Best Email Marketing Platform for Small Business (2026): Prices and Limits Compared

Constant Contact is built for people who are not full-time marketers, which describes most small business owners. Every plan includes the editor, templates, sign-up forms, social posting and, most importantly, live phone and chat support. It can also promote events and take payments, which suits studios, clinics, shops and service businesses that run classes or open days.

Which plan to pick: Standard at $35 a month is the right plan for most small teams. It adds 3 users, scheduling, subject line A/B testing, automatic resend to non-openers and reporting on who opened and clicked. Lite at $12 works for a single owner sending a simple monthly newsletter.

Watch out for: list growth. The listed prices are monthly starting prices, and each plan costs more as your contact list grows. Prepaying for 12 months saves up to 15%. Check the price for your real list size before you commit.

MailerLite charges for the size of your list and how much you send, not for access to features. That makes it one of the cheapest ways to get real automation: the Comfort plan starts at $12 a month and includes automated workflows, landing pages, a subscriber preference center and an AI writing assistant. Power, from $25 a month, adds unlimited seats, unlimited sending and 24/7 live chat.

Which plan to pick: Comfort for most small businesses. Move to Power if more than 3 people need access or you send more than 10 emails per subscriber a month.

Watch out for: the free plan is limited to 250 subscribers, so plan on a paid tier once your list is growing.

Brevo’s pricing model is different from the others: you pay for the number of emails you send, not the number of contacts you keep. For a business with a large customer list that only gets a monthly newsletter, that can be much cheaper than a contact-based plan. The free plan allows 300 emails a day with no time limit.

Which plan to pick: start free. Move to a paid plan when you need to send to your whole list on the same day, or when you want the Brevo branding removed.

Watch out for: the daily cap. A promotion to 3,000 customers would take ten days on the free plan, so upgrade before a time-sensitive sale.

Mailchimp is the name most people know, and its main advantage is reach: more than 300 integrations, so the booking tool, shop or form builder you already use probably connects to it. Plans scale cleanly from Free to Essentials, Standard and Premium, with more seats, larger sending allowances and deeper automation at each step.

Which plan to pick: Standard if you want real automation, since Essentials limits each automated flow to 4 steps. Essentials is enough for scheduled newsletters with a simple welcome email.

Watch out for: price. Mailchimp’s paid plans are priced by contact count, and the pricing page we could read showed local currency rather than US dollars, so we do not list a US starting price. Run your real list size through Mailchimp’s calculator and compare it with MailerLite or Constant Contact.