What is the best email marketing tool for a small business?
The one whose free or entry plan fits your list size and the one feature you need most, usually a welcome series. Here is what each vendor's own pricing page showed in US dollars on 5 Nov 2026. Prices change often and some are promotional, so check the page before you pay.
| Tool | Free plan limits | Lowest paid price shown | Billing basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mailchimp | 250 contacts; max 500 sends a month or 250 a day | Essentials $8.85/mo for 12 months (50% off offer); the price after the offer wasn't in the page text | Contacts; Essentials sends up to 10 times your maximum contact count; overages apply |
| MailerLite | 250 subscribers; 2,500 emails a month | Comfort $12/mo billed monthly for 500 subscribers ($10.80/mo billed yearly) | Subscribers; Comfort at 500 includes 5,000 emails a month |
| Kit | Up to 10,000 subscribers, unlimited broadcasts; no automated sequences or visual automations | Creator $33/mo for 1,000 subscribers ($390 billed yearly) | Subscribers |
| Brevo | Up to 300 emails a day once Brevo approves your account | Starter from $9/mo (yearly billing shows 10% off), from 5,000 emails a month | Emails per month (Starter from 5,000) |
| Klaviyo | 250 active profiles; 500 email sends a month; email support for the first 60 days | Built in a plan calculator; no starting price in the page text | Set in a plan calculator |
A quick rule from the table: under 250 people, any free plan works. Between 250 and 10,000, Kit's free plan holds the list but can't send an automatic welcome series. If you send to everyone at once, Brevo's free plan caps you at 300 emails a day.
If you already work in Siela, its built-in CRM includes email sequences and bulk campaigns with open and click tracking, which may be enough for a small B2B customer list.
How much does email marketing cost for a small business?
For a list of under 1,000, roughly $0 to $400 a year at today's list prices. A worked example shows where the money goes.
Example (sample numbers). Northwind Bakery has 800 subscribers, sends one newsletter a week and wants a three-email welcome series for about 40 new sign-ups a month.
- Monthly sends: 800 × 4 = 3,200 newsletters, plus 40 × 3 = 120 welcome emails, so 3,320 emails a month.
- Mailchimp Free, MailerLite Free and Klaviyo Free: no, all three stop at 250 contacts.
- Brevo Free: no for a one-day send, since 800 is more than 300 a day.
- Kit Free: holds 800 subscribers, but the welcome series would be manual because sequences aren't on the free plan.
- Brevo Starter: $9 × 12 = $108 a year, and 5,000 emails a month covers 3,320.
- MailerLite Comfort at the 1,000-subscriber tier: $19 × 12 = $228 a year billed monthly, or $17.10 × 12 = $205.20 billed yearly, with 10,000 emails a month.
- Kit Creator at 1,000 subscribers: $33 × 12 = $396 billed monthly, or $390 billed yearly.
- Mailchimp Essentials: 800 contacts falls in the 501 to 1,500 band; set the slider on the pricing page to see that band's price.
The cheapest option isn't automatically the right one. Count the features you'll actually use in the first three months; for most shops that's a sign-up form, a welcome series and a monthly campaign.
How do you build an email list with consent?
Ask people at the moment they're already dealing with you, and record that they said yes. Google's sender guidelines say to send email only to people who want to get messages from you, because they're less likely to report you as spam.
Places to ask, with no list buying:
- At checkout or booking: an unticked box with a plain line of what they'll get.
- At the counter: a printed QR code to your sign-up form.
- On your site: a form offering something useful, such as a price list or checklist. Kit, for example, lists delivering an opt-in incentive file on its free plan.
- In person, after a job: ask, then add them only if they say yes.
Business cards from a trade show and a list of people who never asked are a different activity: that's cold email, with its own rules, covered in is cold email legal. To grow a newsletter through readers, see the Morning Brew referral numbers.
What does CAN-SPAM require from a small business?
Every commercial email needs honest headers and subject lines, your postal address, and a working opt-out you honour within 10 business days. The FTC's compliance guide lists the main requirements, checked 5 Nov 2026:
- Don't use false or misleading header information.
- Don't use deceptive subject lines.
- Identify the message as an ad.
- Include your valid physical postal address. A street address, a PO box registered with USPS, or a registered private mailbox all count.
- Explain clearly how to opt out of future marketing email. A menu of email types is fine, but it must include an option to stop all marketing.
- Honour opt-outs within 10 business days, keep the opt-out working for at least 30 days after you send, and don't charge a fee or ask for more than an email address.
- Once someone opts out, don't sell or transfer their address.
- Monitor what others, such as an agency, send on your behalf.
The guide says each separate email in violation can bring penalties of up to $53,088, and the law makes no exception for business-to-business email. Messages whose primary purpose is transactional, such as a receipt, are exempt from most provisions. This is a summary of the FTC's guide, not legal advice; outside the US, other laws apply.
What do Gmail and Yahoo require from email senders?
Since February 2024, all senders to Gmail must authenticate with SPF or DKIM and keep spam complaints below 0.3%. Bigger senders have more rules. The table compares the two help pages, checked 5 Nov 2026.
| Requirement | Gmail | Yahoo |
|---|---|---|
| Authentication, all senders | SPF or DKIM | SPF or DKIM at a minimum |
| Authentication, bulk senders | SPF, DKIM and DMARC (policy can be none) for senders of more than 5,000 a day to Gmail | SPF and DKIM, plus a DMARC policy of at least p=none |
| Spam rate | Below 0.3%; Google's guidelines also say to keep it below 0.10% | Below 0.3% |
| Unsubscribe | One-click unsubscribe and a visible link for bulk marketing mail; Google recommends honouring requests within 48 hours | One-click unsubscribe for bulk senders; honour within 2 days |
Google's guidelines say that if you use an email service provider, check that it authenticates your domain's email with SPF and DKIM. Check the result with the free DMARC checker, which reads your domain's DMARC record and policy.
Why 0.3% is smaller than it sounds. Say 400 of your 800 subscribers use Gmail and you send to them all on one day. Two spam reports is 2 ÷ 400 = 0.5%, over the 0.3% line. One report is 0.25%, already above the 0.1% that Google's sender FAQ says to stay under. Google calculates the rate daily. The best protection is the consent step above and an unsubscribe link people can find.
Is email marketing still effective in 2026?
Yes, if you judge it by clicks and sales rather than opens. Two vendors publish benchmarks from their own customers' campaigns. Both are vendor data, not independent studies.
| Source and method | Open rate | Click rate | Unsubscribe rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| MailerLite: 3.6 million campaigns from 181,000 accounts, Dec 2024 to Nov 2025, published 3 Dec 2025 | 43.46% | 2.09% | 0.22% |
| MailerLite, e-commerce only | 32.67% | 1.07% | 0.18% |
| Mailchimp: campaigns sent to at least 1,000 subscribers, data as of Dec 2023 | 35.63% | 2.62% | 0.22% |
| Mailchimp, ecommerce only | 29.81% | 1.74% | 0.19% |
Both vendors warn that Apple Mail Privacy Protection affects open rates; MailerLite says it marks emails as opened automatically, so real open rates are lower than dashboards show. MailerLite also links its higher 2025 unsubscribe rate to Gmail making unsubscribing easier. For a small list, clicks are the number to watch: on 800 subscribers, a 2% click rate is 800 × 0.02 = 16 people. Sales and replies matter more than either, and the sibling post on email marketing for lead generation covers tracking those.
Why are people leaving Mailchimp?
In the two r/smallbusiness threads I read, the reasons were price, features moving to higher plans and complexity. That's two threads with 9 and 12 readable comments, so treat it as a sample of opinions, not a survey.
- In a January 2023 thread, the poster said features from a former $30 a month plan now seemed to be only on Enterprise-level plans. One commenter put it as "It feels like a cash grab."
- In a November 2024 thread, a poster with 500 to 700 contacts and a quarterly newsletter wanted to stay around $100 to $200 a year. Replies suggested MailerLite, Constant Contact and others; one commenter said their Mailchimp emails seemed to go to spam before switching.
The pricing page explains part of it: Mailchimp's free plan stops at 250 contacts, and paid plans add overage charges when you pass the contact or send limit. Before switching, export your contacts with their consent records, and keep your unsubscribed list so you don't email those people again.
What should you do in your first month?
Week 1: pick the tool
Count your contacts who actually opted in and pick from the table by that number.
Week 2: set up the domain
Verify your sending domain in the tool, then check SPF, DKIM and DMARC.
Week 3: add sign-up points
Checkout box, counter QR code and one website form, using the wording above.
Week 4: send one email
One useful item, one offer, your postal address and an unsubscribe link. Count clicks and sales a week later.
Once a monthly email runs, the post on what marketing to automate first helps you decide what to hand to software next.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best email marketing platform for a small business?
It depends on list size and features. Under 250 contacts, Mailchimp, MailerLite and Klaviyo all have free plans. Kit's free plan holds up to 10,000 subscribers but has no automated sequences. For paid plans, Brevo Starter showed $9 a month and MailerLite Comfort $12 a month for 500 subscribers when checked on 5 November 2026.
Do I need permission to email my customers?
The FTC's CAN-SPAM guide focuses on what each message must contain: honest headers, your postal address and a working opt-out honoured within 10 business days. Gmail's guidelines go further in practice, telling senders to email only people who want their messages. Asking first keeps spam complaints low. This is general information, not legal advice.
What happens if I go over a free plan's limit?
Sending stops or costs more. Mailchimp's pricing page says sending on the free plan will be paused if you exceed the contact or send limit, and paid plans have overage charges. Klaviyo says free accounts that pass 250 active profiles or 500 monthly sends can't send more until the next billing cycle or an upgrade.
What is a good email open rate for a small business?
Vendor benchmarks put the overall figure at 43.46% for MailerLite customers in 2025 and 35.63% for Mailchimp campaigns in data from December 2023. Both warn that Apple's Mail Privacy Protection affects opens, so compare clicks instead: 2.09% and 2.62% respectively. E-commerce lists sit lower on both measures in each dataset.
How many emails can a small business send before Gmail's bulk rules apply?
Google's stricter bulk sender rules apply to senders of more than 5,000 messages a day to Gmail accounts. Below that, every sender still needs SPF or DKIM authentication, valid DNS records, a TLS connection and a spam rate under 0.3%. Yahoo has similar rules for all senders and adds a two-day deadline for honouring unsubscribes from bulk senders.
Sources
- Mailchimp: Marketing pricing (USD) (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- MailerLite: Pricing (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- Kit: Pricing (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- Brevo: Pricing (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- Klaviyo: Pricing (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- FTC: CAN-SPAM Act compliance guide for business (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- Google: Email sender guidelines (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- Google: Email sender guidelines FAQ (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- Yahoo: Sender best practices (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- MailerLite: Email marketing benchmarks (data Dec 2024 to Nov 2025) (3 Dec 2025, checked 5 Nov 2026)
- Mailchimp: Email marketing benchmarks (data as of Dec 2023) (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- r/smallbusiness: Is it just me or did Mailchimp get overly complicated? (6 Jan 2023, checked 5 Nov 2026)
- r/smallbusiness: Mailchimp Alternative? (8 Nov 2024, checked 5 Nov 2026)