Research · Tool comparison · Living page
Email newsletter free plan limits: what each plan includes in 2026
Short version: Kit is the outlier: 10,000 subscribers free, unlimited sends, and one automation sequence at no cost. beehiiv offers 2,500 subscribers with unlimited sends but no automation on its free tier. MailerLite caps at 250 active subscribers with 2,500 monthly sends and three automations (up to five steps each), and is further restricting free accounts starting August 13, 2026. Mailchimp allows 500 contacts but only 500 sends per month with a daily cap of 250. Brevo has no subscriber limit but caps you at 300 sends per day with no automation. The right free plan depends entirely on whether you need automation, how fast you plan to grow, and what happens when you hit the limit.
The comparison at a glance
| Platform | Free subscribers | Free sends | Automation on free? | What happens at the limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kit | 10,000 | Unlimited | 1 sequence | Upgrade required at 10,001 subs |
| beehiiv | 2,500 | Unlimited | None | Upgrade to Scale ($43/mo) required |
| MailerLite | 250 active | 2,500/mo | 3 automations (5 steps max) | Sends locked; no auto-upgrade |
| Mailchimp | 500 contacts | 500/mo (250/day) | Yes (Customer Journeys) | Sends paused at limit |
| Brevo | Unlimited contacts | 300/day (≈9,000/mo) | None | Nothing until Standard ($18/mo) |
Kit: 10,000 free subscribers, unlimited sends
Kit (formerly ConvertKit) offers 10,000 subscribers on its free Newsletter plan, roughly 40× more than MailerLite, 20× more than Mailchimp, and 4× more than beehiiv. There is no expiry and no daily send cap. You can send unlimited broadcast emails to all 10,000 subscribers at once.
The trade-offs on the free plan: one automation sequence (welcome email or similar), no A/B testing, and no advanced analytics. For a newsletter building an affiliate model, the free tier covers the full cold-start phase; you won't hit the upgrade gate until your list is a real business asset.
One detail from our own account: Kit provides full API v4 access on the free tier, which matters if you want to build subscriber flows, automated tagging, or integrations without a paid plan first.
We run on Kit. If you're starting a newsletter and want to stay free through the first several hundred or thousand subscribers: start with Kit's free plan (affiliate link; we earn a commission if you later upgrade to a paid plan).
beehiiv: 2,500 free subscribers, no automation
beehiiv's free Launch plan gives 2,500 subscribers with unlimited sends and no monthly cap. For pure broadcast newsletters, that's a solid free tier: you can send a weekly email to 2,500 people without paying anything.
The gap is automation. Welcome sequences, drip campaigns, and conditional logic all require the Scale plan at $43/mo. For an affiliate newsletter where the welcome email is the first conversion moment, this is a real limitation; free-tier users are manual-send only.
beehiiv also gates all monetization features (Ad Network, paid subscriptions, Boosts) behind paid plans. If the goal is newsletter revenue, the free tier is a proof-of-concept tool. For a creator who wants to publish and grow without worrying about send limits, the free tier covers the basics.
MailerLite: 250 active subscribers, tightening in August 2026
MailerLite's free tier was cut from 500 to 250 active subscribers in mid-2026, and the monthly send limit dropped from 12,000 to 2,500 at the same time. Most 2026 comparison sites still show the old limits. As of July 20, 2026: 250 active subscribers, 2,500 sends per month, 3 automations (up to 5 steps each).
Starting August 13, 2026, MailerLite is restricting the free plan further: the 3 automations remain, but forms are capped at 3 (currently unlimited), landing pages at 1 (currently unlimited), and digital products at 1. If you need more than one landing page on a free plan, MailerLite's August changes remove that option.
The limit behavior is worth knowing: when you hit 250 active subscribers, MailerLite locks sends. Campaigns and automations stop running. The system does not auto-upgrade you. You need to either upgrade or remove subscribers to resume. This keeps you in control of billing, but it means your newsletter goes silent if you're not watching the subscriber count.
The automation depth is a differentiator: 3 workflows with up to 5 steps each is more than Kit's 1 sequence. If you have a modest list (well under 250 and expecting slow growth), MailerLite's automation capability on free is worth considering.
Paid starts at $12/mo (Comfort) for more subscribers and sends.
Mailchimp: automation on free, tight send limits
Mailchimp's free plan includes Customer Journeys, their automation builder. It's the only platform in this comparison, besides MailerLite, to include automation at no cost.
The constraint: 500 contacts, 500 sends per month, with a daily cap of 250 sends. That daily cap is the operative limit. A list of 500 subscribers takes 2 days of max sends to reach. A list of 1,000 subscribers on a paid tier would take 4 days. The free plan is not suited for time-sensitive sends to any list above a few hundred people.
Sending is paused when either the contact or send limit is hit. Paid plans start at $20/mo for Standard.
Data note: Mailchimp's pricing page renders the contact limit via JavaScript, so we could not directly quote the number. The 500-contact figure is cited across multiple 2026 sources including emailtooltester.com and zapier.com, both retrieved July 20, 2026. If you are using Mailchimp, verify the current limit at mailchimp.com/pricing before making a decision based on this number.
Brevo: unlimited contacts, 300 sends per day
Brevo has no subscriber cap; you can import a list of any size on the free plan. The limit is sends: 300 emails per day, roughly 9,000 per month. That sounds substantial until you need to send a weekly broadcast to 5,000 subscribers. At 300 sends per day, one broadcast takes 17 days to reach your full list. The free tier is more useful as contact storage than as a newsletter sending tool at any real list size.
Automation on the free plan: none. Multi-step workflows require Standard at $18/mo. Basic transactional emails work, but drip sequences and behavior-triggered sends require a paid plan.
Brevo's free tier suits someone storing contacts and sending occasional transactional messages. For regular newsletter broadcasting to a list of any size, the 300-sends-per-day cap becomes the limiting factor quickly. Paid starts at $9/mo for Starter.
When does a free plan stop working?
The answer varies by platform and what breaks the plan for your use case:
- Kit: The free plan holds until 10,001 subscribers. If you're monetizing via affiliate links, it covers the entire cold-start phase. You'll be earning before you upgrade.
- beehiiv: The free plan breaks when you want automation or revenue features. 2,500 subs with unlimited sends is real, but without a welcome sequence, you're leaving early engagement on the table.
- MailerLite: The free plan breaks at 250 active subscribers. For a newsletter growing at any pace, that's within the first few months. The send cap (2,500/mo) binds before the subscriber cap for smaller lists with frequent sends.
- Mailchimp: The daily send cap (250) makes the free plan effectively unusable for newsletters once your list passes 250 contacts. At 500 contacts, a single blast takes two days.
- Brevo: The 300-sends-per-day cap becomes the limit the moment you try to send a broadcast to more than a few hundred people.
For affiliate newsletters specifically: each platform's terms on affiliate links in email also matter beyond the free tier limits. Kit's terms explicitly permit affiliate links (with the right labeling); other platforms' positions range from conditional to untested. Worth reading before committing to any platform.
Sources
- Kit: first-hand, Field Tested's Kit account + kit.com/pricing, retrieved July 2026. Our full Kit free tier breakdown →
- beehiiv: beehiiv.com/pricing, retrieved July 20, 2026
- MailerLite: mailerlite.com/pricing, retrieved July 20, 2026; mailerlite.com/help/free-plan-update-faq, retrieved July 20, 2026
- Mailchimp: mailchimp.com/pricing/marketing, retrieved July 20, 2026 (send limits confirmed from page; contact limit per multiple 2026 sources)
- Brevo: brevo.com/pricing, retrieved July 20, 2026