Which Email Marketing Provider is Right for Your Small Business?

Pricing across this whole category has changed a lot since 2022 – several platforms have cut their free-plan limits, restructured their tiers, or moved to entirely different billing models (charging by emails sent rather than contacts, for example). All NZD figures below are approximate conversions from published USD/EUR pricing at current exchange rates (~USD $1 = NZD $1.72) and are rounded – always confirm the live number on the provider’s own pricing page before you commit, since these platforms now update pricing several times a year.

The pros & cons of popular email marketing platforms

Whether it’s regular newsletters and updates, or automated welcome emails and abandoned cart notifications, most small and medium-sized businesses today rely on some form of email and automation to support their marketing efforts. But with the ever-growing range of email software platforms now available, how do you know if you’ve chosen the right one for your business, or if it’s time to trade up?

We’ve done the hard work for you – as an email marketing agency, we’ve revisited a range of the most popular email campaign platforms and updated our review of the same seven picks from our original 2022 comparison, including pros, cons, current costs, and our verdict on what works best for different types of business.

Ready? Let’s get started.

 

Flodesk

Still the design-led choice for small creators and ecommerce sellers, Flodesk built its reputation on beautiful templates and dead-simple drag-and-drop editing. Its Shopify and Instagram integrations (plus Zapier for everything else) still make it a natural fit for small-scale online sellers.

What’s changed since 2022:

The single biggest change is pricing. Flodesk’s famous flat rate – $38/month for unlimited subscribers – is gone for new users. On 2 December 2025, Flodesk moved to subscriber-based tiered pricing, closing signups to the old flat-rate plan on 28 November 2025. Existing customers who signed up before that date were grandfathered onto their old pricing, but everyone joining now pays based on list size.

Pros

• Still the best-looking, most beginner-friendly email design tool on the market
• Free plan for list-building (forms, landing pages, link-in-bio)
• Pro and Everything plans unlock unlimited automations and let you remove Flodesk branding
• Checkout feature (Pro/Everything) lets you sell digital products and take payments without a separate tool

Cons

• The old “unlimited subscribers, one flat price” pitch no longer applies to new customers – cost now climbs with list size, and can climb steeply past 10,000 subscribers
• Lite plan caps out at 25,000 subscribers and only includes one automation workflow
• Checkout only works for businesses based in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, NZ and the Euro area
• Still no live chat support

Pricing

• Free: $0
• Lite: from ~US$19/mo (~NZ$33/mo)
• Pro: from ~US$25/mo (~NZ$43/mo)
• Everything: from ~US$49/mo (~NZ$84/mo)

Prices scale up from there as your list grows – by 10,000 subscribers, you’re looking at roughly US$66-126/month (~NZ$114-217) depending on the plan.

Our score: 7/10

– Still gorgeous, still easy, but the flat-rate advantage that made it a small-business favourite is gone. Worth it if design is genuinely your priority; less of a slam-dunk on price than it used to be.

 

MailerLite

MailerLite is still aimed at businesses that want straightforward email marketing without a steep learning curve, and it’s kept its reputation for a clean, largely glitch-free interface.

What’s changed since 2022:

The free plan has shrunk twice – first from 1,000 to 500 subscribers, then down to 250 subscribers with a 2,500-email/month cap. Paid plans have also been renamed and restructured (current published names are typically shown as an entry-level plan from around US$10–12/month and a higher “premium” tier from around US$25/month, both scaling with your subscriber count) –

 MailerLite has adjusted this naming and its pricing more than once in the past year, so treat exact figures as indicative and check their live pricing page. One genuine improvement: live chat support is now available on the top-tier plan, addressing one of our original complaints.

Pros

• Still simple and user-friendly
• Genuinely useful free plan for very small lists
• Live chat support now available on the higher-tier plan (a real improvement from 2022)
• 10% discount for annual billing; discounts for registered nonprofits

Cons

• Free plan has been cut twice since 2022 and now caps at 250 subscribers
• Transactional email isn’t included – it’s a separate product (MailerSend) with its own cost
• Still fewer bells and whistles than competitors if you want built-in CRM or advanced segmentation
• Pricing structure/naming has changed more than once recently, which can make comparison shopping confusing

Pricing

• Free: $0 for up to 250 subscribers / 2,500 emails per month
• Entry paid plan: from ~US$10–12/mo for 500 subscribers (~NZ$17–21/mo)
• Higher tier: from ~US$25/mo for 500 subscribers (~NZ$43/mo)
• Enterprise: custom pricing for very large lists (100,000+ subscribers)

Our score: 6.5/10

– Still a solid “hassle-free” option, but the shrinking free tier and plan-name churn take some shine off its previous simplicity advantage.

Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)

Sendinblue rebranded to “Brevo” in May 2023, expanding from an email tool into a broader multichannel platform (email, SMS, WhatsApp, chat, and CRM). If you’ve read older reviews mentioning Sendinblue, this is the same company and product under a new name.

What’s changed since 2022:

Brevo still prices by  “emails sent per month rather than contacts stored” – the opposite of most competitors – and every plan, including Free, now allows unlimited contacts. This is a real advantage for a small business with a large-but-rarely-emailed list, since you’re not penalised for contact volume alone. Since October 2025, some plans (Starter, Standard) have introduced contact-limit caps alongside the send-based pricing, so check current terms if you have a very large list. Automation, previously only on paid plans, is now bundled into the Standard tier alongside landing pages and priority support.

Pros

• Unlimited contacts on every plan, including Free – genuinely useful for infrequent senders with big lists
• Deliverability still reportedly strong
• Transactional email included on paid plans (a genuine edge over Mailchimp, which needs a separate Mandrill add-on)
• SMS and WhatsApp messaging built into the platform (extra cost, but no separate tool required)

Cons

• Removing Brevo branding costs an additional ~US$10.80/month on lower tiers
• CRM/live-chat “Sales” and “Conversations” add-ons are priced separately per user and can add up quickly for a team
• Professional plan is a big jump – roughly US$499/month ‘
• Pricing-by-email-volume means a business that emails frequently (daily/weekly newsletters) may find contact-based competitors cheaper

Pricing

• Free: $0 – 300 emails/day, unlimited contacts
• Starter: from ~US$9/mo for 5,000 emails/month (~NZ$15/mo)
• Standard: from ~US$18/mo for 5,000 emails/month (~NZ$31/mo)
• Professional: from ~US$499/mo (~NZ$858/mo)
• Enterprise: custom pricing

Our score: 7/10

– Still a strong, affordable entry point, especially if your list is bigger than your sending frequency. The rebrand hasn’t changed the core value proposition much, but watch the add-on costs.

 

Klaviyo

Klaviyo remains the go-to for small ecommerce businesses wanting solid automation without the complexity of a full marketing-automation platform, and it’s kept its deep integrations with Shopify, Magento and WooCommerce.

 

What’s changed since 2022:

The most significant change is *how* Klaviyo calculates your bill. Before February 2025, you were only charged for contacts you’d actively emailed. Klaviyo now bills based on your total number of “active profiles” – every subscribed contact in your account, whether you’ve recently emailed them or not. For businesses with large, only-partly-active lists, this has meant real cost increases. On the plus side, Klaviyo caps any single price increase at 25% when you’re pushed into a higher tier, and the feature set is now identical across all paid tiers – you’re paying purely for scale, not for unlocking new functionality.

Pros

• Strong ecommerce-specific automation (abandoned cart, predictive analytics, customer lifetime value)
• Feature parity across all paid tiers – no features locked behind higher pricing
• 25% cap on how much your bill can jump at once when you’re moved to a new tier
• Good help resources, including live video training

Cons

• The switch to “active profile” billing (Feb 2025) increased costs for many existing customers – list hygiene now directly affects your bill
• No annual billing discount – you pay the same monthly regardless of commitment length
• Free plan support ends after 60 days (community/help centre only after that)
• Editor still lags behind some competitors on look and feel

Pricing

• Free: $0 for up to 250 active profiles, 500 emails/month
• Email plan: from ~US$20/mo for 251–500 contacts (~NZ$34/mo), scaling to roughly US$150/mo at 10,000 contacts and US$400/mo at 25,000
• Email + SMS plan: from ~US$35/mo, includes SMS credits

Our score: 8/10

– Still the strongest pick for ecommerce automation at small-business scale, but the active-profile billing change is worth understanding before you commit, especially if your list has a lot of unengaged contacts.

 

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is still marketed as an all-in-one solution – email, basic CRM, transactional email, landing pages and ad management – and remains many small businesses’ first stop.

What’s changed since 2022:

The free plan has been cut significantly. It’s gone from 2,000 contacts in 2022, to 500 in 2023, to just **250 contacts and 500 emails/month** as of 2026 – an 87.5% reduction over four years. Automation has also been restructured: any multi-step automation now requires the Standard plan or above, whereas some multi-step sequences used to be available lower down. On the upside, Standard now includes generative AI content tools that didn’t exist in 2022.

Pros

• Interface is still clean, and templates are still easy to use
• Deliverability remains generally good
• Support and help resources are comprehensive
• New: generative AI tools built into the Standard plan for content and subject lines

Cons

• Free plan is now much more of a “trial” than a usable starting point for a small list
• Multi-step automation now gated behind the Standard plan – a real limitation if you were relying on basic automation from Essentials
• SMS still isn’t included on any plan and needs a separate purchase
• Premium plan is a steep jump to ~US$350/month, and prices climb quickly with list size across all tiers

Pricing

• Free: $0 – 250 contacts, 500 emails/month
• Essentials: from ~US$13/mo for 500 contacts (~NZ$22/mo)
• Standard: from ~US$20/mo for 500 contacts (~NZ$34/mo)
• Premium: from ~US$350/mo for up to 10,000 contacts (~NZ$602/mo)

Our score: 6.5/10

– Still a recognisable, capable all-rounder, but the shrinking free tier and the automation now locked behind Standard make it a less generous starting point than it was in 2022.

 

ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign remains our pick for small businesses that want serious marketing automation, lead funnels and CRM combined – this is still the platform Marketing Minds uses internally and for many of our clients

What’s changed since 2022:

ActiveCampaign restructured its whole plan lineup in August 2024. The old “Lite / Plus / Professional / Enterprise” naming became “Starter / Plus / Pro / Enterprise“, with some features rearranged and previous plan bundles replaced by standalone add-ons (CRM pipelines, SMS credits, custom reporting are now priced separately rather than bundled in). Existing customers were migrated automatically with price increases capped at 30%. On the positive side, the new Starter plan is actually a cheaper entry point than the old Lite plan was. ActiveCampaign has also added WhatsApp messaging as a channel, sold as its own product line or bundled into “Cross-channel” plans.

 

Pros

• Still an elaborate, powerful automation builder – best-in-class for the mid-market
• Extensive: landing pages, CRM, lead scoring, SMS/WhatsApp, web personalisation
• New Starter plan entry price is lower than the old Lite plan was
• Suitable for both B2B and B2C use cases on one platform

Cons

• Add-ons (CRM pipelines, SMS, custom reporting) are no longer bundled in some plans and can meaningfully add to your bill
• Real automation functionality generally requires the Plus plan or above, not Starter
• No free plan, only a 14-day trial
• The three-product structure (Marketing / Sales / Bundle) makes comparison shopping more confusing than it used to be

Pricing

• Starter: from ~US$15/mo (~NZ$26/mo)
• Plus: from ~US$49/mo (~NZ$84/mo)
• Pro: from ~US$79/mo (~NZ$136/mo)
• Enterprise: from ~US$145/mo (~NZ$249/mo)

Our score: 8.5/10

– Still intuitive relative to its power, and still our go-to recommendation for small businesses ready to invest in real automation. Just budget for add-ons if you need CRM pipelines or SMS.

 

HubSpot

HubSpot remains the platform we mention for completeness rather than a typical recommendation for SME clients – still the leading enterprise marketing automation suite, and still priced accordingly.

What’s changed since 2022:

HubSpot moved to “seat-based pricing” in March 2024, and restructured pricing and packaging further at its INBOUND 2025 event. The core CRM remains free with unlimited free “view-only” seats, but paid features now require paid seats on top of the plan cost. The gap between Starter and Professional has, if anything, become more stark: Starter is around US$20/month per seat, but Professional starts at roughly US$890/month (including 3 seats and 2,000 contacts) plus a mandatory one-off US$3,000 onboarding fee in year one.

Pros

• CRM is genuinely free and solid at any tier
• Starter tier is honest value for very basic needs
• Professional/Enterprise tiers offer serious multichannel automation, attribution reporting and AI tools (Breeze) once you’re past the cliff
• Excellent support and training resources

Cons

• Still “free or expensive, no middle ground” – arguably more pronounced now, with a ~44x price jump from Starter to Professional
• Mandatory $3,000 onboarding fee for new Professional customers in year one
• Seat-based pricing adds another cost variable most small businesses aren’t used to budgeting for
• Migration away from HubSpot, once you’re integrated, remains tedious

Pricing

• Free CRM: $0
• Marketing Hub Starter: from ~US$20/mo per seat, 1,000 contacts (~NZ$34/mo)
• Marketing Hub Professional: from ~US$890/mo, 3 seats, 2,000 contacts (~NZ$1,531/mo), plus a ~US$3,000 (~NZ$5,160) one-off onboarding fee
• Marketing Hub Enterprise: from ~US$3,600/mo, 5 seats, 10,000 contacts (~NZ$6,192/mo)

Our score: 7.5/10

–  The product is still excellent at the top end, but the price gap to get there is now even more pronounced, and the onboarding fee is a new cost small businesses need to know about upfront.

 

Freshsales (Freshworks)

Freshsales is worth including with a caveat: it’s primarily a “sales CRM”, not a dedicated email marketing platform like the other six on this list. Email sequences, tracking and basic automation are built in, but it’s designed around managing a sales pipeline and contacts, not designing and sending newsletter-style campaigns to a list. If you want broader email marketing functionality (campaigns, drip newsletters, list segmentation for marketing rather than sales), Freshworks sells a separate, more marketing-focused product line – worth checking directly with Freshworks if that’s what you need, since packaging in this space changes often.

That said, for a small business that wants “email + a lightweight CRM in one tool” rather than a dedicated newsletter platform, Freshsales is a reasonable low-cost option, particularly if your main use case is one-to-one sales email and follow-up sequences rather than broadcast newsletters.

Pros

• Genuinely cheap entry point relative to CRM competitors like HubSpot or Salesforce
• Built-in email tracking, sequences, and a phone dialer, useful for sales-style outbound email
• Free plan is available for very small teams (up to 3 users)
• Onboarding costs are lower than HubSpot’s

Cons

• Not a true bulk/newsletter email marketing tool – it’s built for one-to-one sales outreach, not broadcast campaigns
• Free plan is limited to 3 users and roughly 1,000 contacts, which a growing list will outgrow quickly
• Real automation and AI lead-scoring features only kick in on the Pro plan, a large jump from Growth
• Chatbot sessions, call minutes, and CPQ/quoting features are metered add-ons not included in the base price

Pricing

• Free: $0 for up to 3 users
• Growth: from ~US$9/user/mo (~NZ$15/mo)
• Pro: from ~US$39/user/mo (~NZ$67/mo)
• Enterprise: from ~US$59/user/mo (~NZ$101/mo)

Our score: 6/10 for email marketing specifically

– a solid, affordable CRM with decent email tooling, but if newsletter-style campaigns are your main need, it’s not really competing in the same category as Flodesk, Mailchimp or the others on this list.

 

Zoho

Zoho Campaigns is Zoho’s dedicated email (and SMS) marketing tool, distinct from Zoho CRM. It’s aimed squarely at small businesses, particularly ones already using other Zoho apps (Zoho CRM, Zoho Books, Zoho Desk etc.), since it integrates natively across the Zoho ecosystem.

It covers the essentials well – a drag-and-drop email builder, list segmentation, automation workflows, and reporting – without the polish (or price) of Mailchimp or Klaviyo. Reviewers consistently describe it as affordable and functional, with the trade-off being a steeper learning curve and a less refined interface than some competitors.

Pros

• One of the cheapest paid entry points in this whole comparison
• Free plan is genuinely usable for a small list (reported figures range around 2,000 contacts / 6,000 emails per month, though check current limits directly as these shift)
• Strong native integration if you’re already using Zoho CRM or other Zoho apps
• Credit-based sending option available as an alternative to a monthly subscription, useful for occasional senders

Cons

• Interface and templates feel less polished than Mailchimp, Flodesk or HubSpot
• Transactional email isn’t included – it requires Zoho’s separate ZeptoMail product
• Litmus-style preview testing is a paid credit add-on, not bundled in
• Less valuable as a standalone tool if you’re not already in the Zoho ecosystem – the main appeal is the integration, not category-leading features

Pricing

• Free: $0 – roughly 2,000 contacts / 6,000 emails per month (confirm current limits on Zoho’s site, as they vary by source)
• Standard: from ~US$3.50–4.70/mo for 500 contacts (~NZ$6–8/mo)
• Professional: priced higher, scaling with contacts and advanced automation – check Zoho’s calculator for your list size
• Credit-based Pay-As-You-Go option: buy email sends in blocks instead of a monthly subscription

Our score: 7/10

– Genuinely good value, especially bundled with other Zoho tools, but a step down in polish from the bigger-name platforms on this list. Best suited to budget-conscious small businesses already living in the Zoho ecosystem.

 

The Final Verdict

Based on our review, here’s who we’d point toward each platform in 2026:

An absolute beginner who just wants to send an email: MailerLite, Mailchimp (mind the shrunken free tier), or Flodesk if design matters most to you.

A small business where cost is a barrier, and there’s little scope for growth: Brevo – its unlimited-contacts-on-every-plan model is genuinely useful if your list is bigger than your sending frequency. Zoho Campaigns is also worth a look here, especially if you’re already using other Zoho tools.

An ecommerce business wanting regular campaigns plus some or extensive automation: Klaviyo as an entry point, then ActiveCampaign as you scale – though budget for Klaviyo’s active-profile billing model and ActiveCampaign’s add-on costs.

A B2B or non-ecommerce business wanting full automation and a leads funnel: ActiveCampaign remains our top pick for most small-to-medium businesses; HubSpot only once you can genuinely justify the Professional-tier cost and onboarding fee.

 

Other options worth a look in 2026:

Kit (formerly ConvertKit) has built a strong following among creators and solo businesses, positioning itself similarly to Flodesk and MailerLite but with a stronger focus on newsletter monetisation and paid subscriptions. 

Omnisend has emerged as a lower-cost ecommerce-focused alternative to Klaviyo, bundling SMS, push notifications and landing pages into its pricing in a way Klaviyo doesn’t.

We haven’t reviewed these in the same depth as the seven platforms above, but they’re worth a look if none of the above feel like the right fit.