Free email splits two ways: a hosted free tier you sign up for in minutes, or open source you run yourself for full control and no fees. We weighted cost, ease, what the free tier actually includes and how much you own, then ranked the six best of both routes.
Reviewed by M. HALLORAN·Updated MAY 2026·How we vet
Tools compared6
Criteria weighted5
Last reviewedJune 2026
Paid placements0
How we ranked the field
Free splits two ways: a hosted free tier you sign up for, or open source you host yourself. We scored both on cost, ease of use, what the free option really includes, and how much control and ownership you keep. See the full rubric →
Free or open cost30%
Ease of use25%
Free tier features20%
Control and ownership15%
Deliverability10%
01
RANK
★ Editor’s Choice
Brevo
Best for a no cap free tier
The most generous free tier in the field: 300 emails a day with no limit on how many contacts you store, plus automation and SMS in the paid tiers when you outgrow it. The editor is plainer than the design led tools, but for free, nothing matches the headroom.
Free up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited emails, Kit is the obvious pick for a newsletter or a creator selling their own work. The free plan limits you to one automated sequence, and the design is deliberately minimal.
Mautic is full marketing automation under a free, open license, with no contact fees and no feature gates, hosted on your own server. You get campaigns, lead scoring and segmentation that rival paid suites. The catch is real: you provide the server, the setup and the upkeep.
Visit Mautic ↗Open source · self hostedFree · open source
84
OUT OF 100
04
RANK
MailerLite
Best free tier for design
The cleanest editor here, free to start, so a small sender can ship a good looking campaign fast. Note the 2026 free tier is thinner than it was, now 250 subscribers and 2,500 monthly emails, so heavier senders move to the low cost paid plan.
A single binary that sends bulk campaigns at high speed and manages millions of subscribers on one server, free and open source. It is a focused sender, not a full automation suite, and it expects a technical hand to run it.
If you run a store, Omnisend's free plan gives 250 contacts and 500 emails a month with full ecommerce automation, a fast way to test selling by email. Outside ecommerce it is more tool than you need, and SMS is now gated higher.