Best Email Marketing Platforms for B2B in 2026
Brevo, GetResponse, AWeber, EmailOctopus, Kit and more — how each one meters your bill, what the free tiers really cap, and when your CRM already does this.
The most consequential thing about an email marketing platform is not its templates or its AI subject-line assistant. It is what the vendor counts to decide your bill.
Some platforms meter contacts — you pay for how many people are on your list, whether or not you ever email them. Some meter emails sent, so a dormant contact costs you nothing. A few do both. That choice decides whether your invoice grows with your list or with your sending, and those are very different businesses to be in.
This article is organised around that decision. Prices here geo-localise, render client-side and change quarterly, so what follows leads with structure and links to each vendor's own page for the current number.
First, This Is Not Cold Email
These are two legally and operationally distinct activities, and conflating them is how companies get their sending domain burned.
Marketing email goes to people who asked for it — subscribers, trial signups, webinar registrants, customers. The platforms below enforce that: unsubscribe links required, bounces suppressed automatically, and terms that prohibit uploading purchased lists.
Cold outreach goes to people who never opted in. It is a sales motion needing different infrastructure — separate sending domains, mailbox rotation, reply detection. If that is what you are shopping for, read our guide to the best cold email software for small teams instead; several vendors below will close your account for trying it here.
The practical test: if a recipient could plausibly say "I never signed up for this," you are in the wrong category.
The Structure Comparison
| Platform | What it meters | Free tier cap | Automation depth | Best fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) | Emails sent | 300 emails/day — a daily cap, not a list-size cap | Deep — workflows, SMS, transactional, CRM | Big lists, low send frequency |
| GetResponse | Contacts; sends unlimited on paid plans | 500 contacts, 2,500 newsletters/month, forever | Deep at upper tiers — funnels, webinars | Teams wanting a suite, not just email |
| AWeber | Subscribers; send allowance is a multiple of your tier | 500 subscribers, 3,000 emails/month, lifetime | Moderate — solid autoresponders, dated builder | Simple newsletters, long-running lists |
| EmailOctopus | Subscribers, with a monthly send allowance | 2,500 subscribers, 10,000 emails/month | Shallow by design — basic sequences | Cost-sensitive teams sending plain, useful email |
| Kit (formerly ConvertKit) | Subscribers; broadcasts unlimited on every plan | 1,000 subscribers (Newsletter plan) | Good — tag-based logic, visual automations | Founder-led, one-voice newsletters |
| MailerLite | Both — subscribers and monthly send volume | 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails/month | Moderate, well-executed | Design-led marketers on small lists |
| Mailchimp | Contacts, with send caps per tier | Small — aimed at accounts under ~250 contacts, low send allowance | Deep, but the good parts sit at higher tiers | Teams already in the ecosystem |
| Loops | Subscribed contacts synced in | 1,000 contacts, 4,000 sends/month | Moderate — modern, developer-friendly | SaaS lifecycle and product email |
Read the second column first. Everything else is a feature argument; that column is a cost model you will live with for years.
Contact-Metered vs Send-Metered: The Actual Decision
Answer two questions and the shortlist writes itself: how big is your list, and how often do you actually email it?
If you have 12,000 subscribers and send one newsletter a month, contact-based pricing charges you rent on 12,000 records to deliver 12,000 emails. A send-metered platform prices that same activity as 12,000 sends. The gap is the difference between a three-figure and a two-figure monthly line item.
Invert it. If you have 1,500 engaged subscribers, email them twice a week and run three nurture sequences, you send far more than your list size implies — contact-based pricing with unlimited sends is the cheaper architecture, and it stays cheap as frequency rises. Most B2B teams are in the first camp and buy for the second, because contact-metered vendors dominate the search results. If you send monthly or less, start with Brevo's model.
Watch the hybrids — MailerLite's, and effectively AWeber's, where your send allowance is a multiple of your subscriber tier. You can breach either limit independently, and one heavy month pushes you up a tier on a cap you were not tracking.
Brevo
Brevo is the platform to check first if your list is large relative to your sending. It rebranded from Sendinblue in May 2023 — the name most people still search for — and per the company's own announcement the change reflected a move beyond newsletters into CRM, transactional email, SMS and customer data.
The structural point: Brevo meters emails sent, not contacts stored, so you can hold a large database without that alone driving your bill. For a B2B company sitting on years of event registrations and gated-content downloads it emails occasionally, this is the most cost-relevant fact here.
The free plan allows up to 300 emails per day once Brevo approves your account for sending, per Brevo's pricing FAQ as of July 2026. That is a daily cap rather than a list-size cap — an unusual and important shape. It suits a slow, steady trickle, not a monthly blast, because unused daily allowance does not bank, so model your sending as a daily rate before assuming the free tier works. Paid rates localise by region, so read that page for the send volumes on each tier in your own currency.
GetResponse
GetResponse is contact-metered with unlimited monthly email sends on paid plans, which makes it the structural opposite of Brevo. High frequency to a controlled list is what it prices well.
The free plan is genuinely permanent: up to 500 contacts and 2,500 newsletters per month, per GetResponse's own free plan page as of 20 July 2026, with a GetResponse badge on every message. Inactive contacts count toward the limit — standard for contact-metered vendors, and the mechanic that quietly inflates bills.
GetResponse's pricing page served us euro prices, so no dollar figure appears here and none should appear in any roundup that has not confirmed its own region. Check GetResponse's pricing page in your currency; structurally, expect a Starter tier, a mid tier adding automation, and higher tiers bundling webinars and funnels, with the number climbing by contact count inside each. Buy it if you want a marketing suite rather than a send tool — skip it if all you need is a newsletter, because you pay for the funnel machinery either way.
AWeber
AWeber is the veteran, and the clearest hybrid here: you buy a subscriber tier, and your monthly send allowance is a multiple of it. AWeber's own documentation describes Lite as sending "10 times the number of subscribers in your plan per month" and Plus as 12 times, per AWeber's pricing documentation.
The free plan is real and permanent: up to 500 subscribers and 3,000 emails monthly, described there as "lifetime access at no cost." AWeber's marketing pricing page foregrounds a 14-day trial and buries the free plan — the documentation is the more reliable read. That pricing page displayed Lite starting at $12.49/month billed annually and Plus starting at $19.99/month billed annually on 20 July 2026. Those are annual-commitment rates for the smallest subscriber tier, not month-to-month rates. Confirm both on AWeber's pricing page at your actual list size.
AWeber's position in 2026 is reliability over novelty: a long deliverability track record, human support, an interface showing its age. If your requirement is "a newsletter that arrives, for years, without drama," that is a defensible trade. If you want branching lifecycle automation, look elsewhere.
EmailOctopus
EmailOctopus is the value pick and makes no attempt to be anything else. It meters subscribers with a monthly email allowance attached to each tier, and its free plan is the most generous in this comparison: 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails per month, per EmailOctopus's pricing page as of 20 July 2026. Its entry PRO tier displayed at $9 per month, billed yearly on that date, at the smallest subscriber band — the price scales with list size via a slider, so check yours.
For a B2B company sending a useful monthly newsletter to a few thousand opted-in contacts, this free tier is not a trial. It is the answer. Plenty of teams paying three figures a month for an ESP are doing something EmailOctopus would do for nothing.
What you give up is automation depth: sequences are basic, segmentation is simple, and there is no pretence of being a suite. If your nurture logic has more than two branches you will outgrow it — which is the right time to pay for something else, rather than paying in advance for capability you have not designed yet.
Kit (formerly ConvertKit)
Kit rebranded from ConvertKit in September 2024, per Kit's own rebrand announcement. It meters subscribers, and every plan — including the free one — includes unlimited email broadcasts.
The free Newsletter plan covers 1,000 email subscribers, per Kit's pricing page as of 20 July 2026. At 1,000 subscribers that page displayed Creator at $390 billed yearly, which it presents as $33/month, and Pro at $790 billed yearly, presented as $66/month — note those per-month figures are the yearly-billing rate, so month-to-month costs more. They also move with the subscriber slider, so they tell you the shape of the ladder rather than your price. Set the slider to your real list size before drawing conclusions.
Kit is built for creators, and the B2B fit follows: excellent when one named human sends a newsletter in their own voice, mediocre when a team needs orchestration tied to deal stages. Founder-led thought leadership is its shape; account-based nurture is not. Evaluate the tag-based data model first — there are no rigid lists, and that is more flexible for behavioural segmentation but genuinely confusing if your team thinks in lists.
MailerLite, Mailchimp and Loops
MailerLite meters both axes, and says so: its pricing page states you pay for the number of subscribers you have and the volume you send. The free plan covers 250 subscribers and 2,500 monthly emails; paid tiers are Comfort, Power and Enterprise with roughly 10% off yearly. Prices render through a subscriber slider rather than a fixed table, so no figure is quoted here — set the slider on MailerLite's pricing page to your list size. Its advantage is craft: the best-looking editor and templates of the low-cost options.
Mailchimp is contact-metered and remains the default nobody gets fired for choosing. Its pricing page geo-localises aggressively — ours rendered in Spanish and euros — so no figure appears here. Structurally: a small free tier aimed at accounts under roughly 250 contacts, then Essentials, Standard and Premium, with introductory discounts that expire and overage charges above your contact tier. Check whether unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts count toward your billable total, because that is where the money leaks. Read Mailchimp's pricing page at your own contact count, intro discount mentally removed.
Loops meters subscribed contacts synced to the platform; its free Early Stage plan covers 1,000 subscribed contacts and 4,000 sends per month, all features included, with a Loops footer. Paid pricing runs through a slider that did not render a fixed table for us — check Loops' pricing page. Built for product-led SaaS lifecycle email driven by product events; the wrong tool for a content-marketing newsletter operation.
List Hygiene Is a Pricing Lever, Not a Chore
On any contact-metered platform, every subscriber who has not opened an email in two years is a line item you renew annually. Nobody bills you for them separately — they sit inside your tier, pushing you toward the next one. It is the most underused cost lever in B2B marketing, and it does two things at once.
It cuts the bill. Sunset contacts with no engagement over a defined window — twelve or eighteen months is common — and you may drop a whole pricing tier. That is a permanent reduction, not a one-off saving.
It improves deliverability. Mailbox providers weigh engagement, and repeatedly sending to addresses that never open teaches them your mail is unwanted, which affects placement for the subscribers who do want it.
Do it deliberately: identify the non-engaged segment, run a short re-permission campaign, remove everyone who does not respond, and export first. Do it before every renewal — our SaaS renewal negotiation playbook covers using a shrinking contact count as leverage instead of quietly paying for a tier you have outgrown downward.
On Deliverability, Honestly
Deliverability claims are the most polluted part of this category. Vendors publish percentages with no methodology, and roundups repeat "average open rate" figures that trace back to nothing. We are not adding to that. What is defensible without numbers:
Your sending reputation is mostly yours, not your platform's. Authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), consistent volume, low complaint rates and real engagement do the work, and every platform here supports authentication on a custom sending domain. Shared IP pools mean your neighbours affect you — the strongest argument for the more expensive tiers anywhere on this list, and for choosing a vendor that polices its own customers.
When You Should Not Buy This at All
Three cases where the honest answer is "you already have it" or "you do not need it."
Your CRM includes marketing email. HubSpot bundles it, and so do most all-in-one suites. If you pay an ESP to send one newsletter a month while a CRM you already own does exactly that, you are paying twice for one job and splitting contact data across two systems that will drift. Our HubSpot vs Pipedrive comparison covers which platforms include marketing email natively and which expect you to bolt one on.
You send less than once a month. A quarterly update to 800 people does not need a platform. EmailOctopus, Kit or Brevo will all do it free, permanently. A paid plan here is the purest stack bloat: a recurring cost attached to an occasional activity.
You have no list yet. An ESP does not create subscribers. If your signup path is a footer link nobody clicks, the constraint is capture, not sending — our guide to the best form builders for lead capture is the more useful purchase. Build the list on a free tier; upgrade when the cap actually binds.
The de-stacking version: this category has unusually good free tiers, and they are permanent products rather than trials. Start free, hit a real wall, then buy the platform whose meter matches the wall you hit. A sales tech stack audit will usually find something you already own that sends marketing email, and our budget CRM roundup applies the same discipline on the other side of the stack.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I pay per contact or per email sent?
It depends on the ratio between your list size and your sending frequency. If you have a large list you email monthly or less, send-metered pricing like Brevo's is usually cheaper, because you are not renting storage on records you rarely touch. If you have a small, engaged list you email several times a week, contact-metered pricing with unlimited sends works out better.
What is the best free email marketing platform for B2B?
EmailOctopus has the most generous permanent free tier here, at 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails per month as of July 2026. Kit's free Newsletter plan covers 1,000 subscribers with unlimited broadcasts, and Brevo's free plan allows 300 emails per day — a daily cap rather than a list-size cap, which suits low-frequency senders with big databases. All three are permanent plans rather than trials — confirm current caps on each vendor's own page.
Is Sendinblue still available, or did it become something else?
Sendinblue rebranded to Brevo in May 2023 and the product continues under that name. Same company, considerably expanded since — the rename reflected a move beyond newsletters into CRM, transactional email, SMS and customer data. If you are searching for Sendinblue reviews or pricing, look for Brevo instead.
Can I use an email marketing platform for cold outreach?
No, and most of these vendors' terms prohibit it explicitly. Marketing platforms are built for opted-in contacts and share IP reputation across customers, so uploading a purchased or scraped list risks account termination and damages other senders. Cold outreach needs separate sending domains and purpose-built tooling — see our cold email software guide.
Does my CRM already include email marketing?
Often, yes. HubSpot and most all-in-one platforms bundle marketing email, and many mid-market CRMs include basic campaign sending. Check what your existing CRM tier covers before buying an ESP — paying separately to send one newsletter a month, while splitting contact data across two systems, is a common and avoidable duplication.
Why do so few of these platforms publish a straightforward price?
Because pricing here is driven by a subscriber or volume slider, and most vendors localise currency by region. A headline figure is almost always the entry tier at the smallest list size on annual billing, which is rarely what you will pay. Set the slider to your actual contact count and check the billing term and currency on the vendor's own page before budgeting.
