Newsletter tools compared: Brevo vs MailerLite vs Mailchimp vs Kit vs beehiiv

Choosing the best newsletter platform used to take five minutes: you opened a free Mailchimp account and got on with the writing. In 2026 it deserves an afternoon. Mailchimp’s free plan now stops at 250 contacts, MailerLite has cut its own to 250 subscribers, and five of the tools small teams shortlist most often have grown in very different directions.

I compared Brevo, MailerLite, Mailchimp, Kit and beehiiv on what matters to a team that writes to clients and prospects: the free plan, the real price at your list size, automations, forms, deliverability, the language of the interface and where your subscribers’ data goes. Prices come from the vendors’ official pages and were checked in October 2026.

The short version: Brevo for most service businesses, Kit for creators who sell, beehiiv when the newsletter is the business, and MailerLite or Mailchimp when their editor or integrations are worth paying for sooner. This comparison is part of my guide to sales funnels and newsletters, which explains where a newsletter fits before you pick a tool.

Best newsletter platform at a glance (October 2026)

These are the dollar prices on the vendors’ official pages, so the pound figures are approximate, and VAT may be added. Plans change often: check the live pages for Brevo, MailerLite, Mailchimp and Kit before you pay. beehiiv’s own pages gave conflicting paid prices at the time of writing, so I have left them out.

The column that changes your bill most is “Priced by”. Brevo charges for the emails you send; the other four charge for the people on your list, whether they open your emails or not. Writing once a month to 3,000 contacts is 3,000 emails, within the 5,000 of Brevo’s first paid tier, while on the tools priced by subscriber the bill rises with every person who joins.

Brevo: the default for a business newsletter

Brevo is the former Sendinblue, a French company. Its paid plans are priced by the number of emails you send each month, which suits a business that writes to its clients and prospects once or twice a month.

The free plan stores up to 100,000 contacts and sends 300 emails a day. That is about 9,000 emails a month, but the daily cap is the catch: a newsletter to 1,000 contacts has to be split over four days. Starter, from $9 (about £7) a month for 5,000 emails, removes the daily limit; Standard starts at $18 (about £13.50) and Professional at $499 (about £375). On a paid plan, the email volume you choose also sets how many contacts you can store, so check that the tier covers your whole list.

Brevo also handles transactional emails (order confirmations, password resets), SMS, WhatsApp campaigns and a simple CRM, so a shop or a service business can keep its customer messages in one account.

Who it does not suit: creators who want a polished newsletter website, sponsors or paid subscriptions. Brevo is a marketing tool for businesses, not a publishing platform.

MailerLite: a clean editor, but a much smaller free plan

MailerLite, a European company founded in Lithuania, built its reputation as the friendlier alternative to Mailchimp: a tidy drag-and-drop editor, with landing pages and simple websites in the same account. Its plans are now Free, Comfort, Power and Enterprise, and the free plan has shrunk to 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, with two user seats and three automations: enough for a welcome sequence.

Comfort starts at $12 (about £9) a month for 500 subscribers and Power at $25 (about £19). Comfort is enough for a regular newsletter, a few automations and a handful of forms and landing pages; Power adds unlimited sending and more advanced automation.

It suits a small team with a modest list that wants something simpler than Mailchimp and is happy to work in English. It is a weaker fit for a large list you write to once a month, because every subscriber is billed, whether they read you or not.

Mailchimp: the best-known name, and quick to get expensive

Mailchimp, owned by Intuit, is the tool everyone has heard of, and that is its main strength: almost every website builder, shop and form tool connects to it. Squarespace form blocks, for example, can store sign-ups straight in Mailchimp.

The free plan is now small: 250 contacts and 500 sends a month, with at most 250 sends a day. Essentials starts at about $13 (about £10) a month and Standard at about $20 (about £15), both with a 14-day free trial. The price rises with your contact count, and your monthly sending allowance is a multiple of it: 10 times your plan’s contact limit on Essentials, 12 times on Standard.

Mailchimp suits a team that depends on its integrations, or a shop that wants e-commerce automations without stitching several tools together. For a plain monthly newsletter to a few thousand contacts, a tool priced by emails sent tends to cost less.

Kit: built for creators who sell

Kit is the name ConvertKit took in 2024. It is built for people whose audience is the business: coaches, trainers, writers and consultants who sell courses, templates or paid newsletters.

Its free plan is the most generous of the five if you want to email a large list in one go: up to 10,000 subscribers, with unlimited forms, landing pages and broadcasts. The catch is that sequences, visual automations and RSS campaigns need a paid plan, so a proper welcome sequence means paying. Creator costs $33 (about £25) a month billed yearly, or $39 (about £29) billed monthly, for 1,000 subscribers.

Kit is American and English-first: a strong choice for a solo expert writing in English to a UK or international audience, a weaker one for a team that works mainly in French.

beehiiv: when the newsletter is the business

beehiiv was built for newsletters that are media products. It gives you a website for your issues, a referral programme, an ad network and paid subscriptions, so the newsletter can earn money on its own.

The free Launch plan covers up to 2,500 subscribers with unlimited sends, one publication and one team seat. New accounts start with a trial of the paid plans, Scale or Max, which are priced by subscriber count.

For a B2B service business, beehiiv is more than you need: nobody wants sponsored slots in a newsletter sent to their clients. For a local guide, an industry digest or any newsletter you plan to grow into a publication, it is the tool built for the job.

Features that matter more than the template gallery

All five have a visual editor and ready-made templates. The differences that cost you time later are elsewhere.

Automations

The first automation you need is a welcome email, then a short welcome sequence for every new subscriber. Check where the free plan stops before you build it: Kit, for example, keeps sequences and visual automations for paying users.

Forms and landing pages

You need at least one sign-up form on your website, and all five give you forms to embed. Kit’s free plan includes unlimited forms and landing pages; with the others, check how many your plan allows. If your site runs on Squarespace, which I set up for clients who want to edit their site themselves, its form blocks connect to Mailchimp directly; the other tools need their own embed code or a connector such as Zapier or Make.

Deliverability and your own domain

Since February 2024 Gmail has required bulk senders to authenticate their domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC and to offer one-click unsubscribe, and since November 2025 it rejects more of the mail that fails these checks. Outlook.com has applied similar rules to senders of 5,000 or more messages a day since May 2025. Your tool sends the emails, but the domain is yours: add the DNS records it gives you before the first send, even with 200 subscribers. My guide to the Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook sender rules goes through them one by one.

Interface language and support

If your team works in French, Brevo is the obvious pick: it was built in France, and its interface, help centre and support are available in French. Mailchimp can also be used in French. Kit, MailerLite and beehiiv are English-first: before you commit, check that you can translate everything subscribers see, from the sign-up form to the unsubscribe page.

Integrations

Mailchimp has the widest choice of ready-made connectors. For the other four, check that your website builder, shop, CRM and booking tool connect natively before you commit: a missing integration costs more in copying and pasting than any difference in price.

GDPR and data location: European tools versus American ones

Under the GDPR, your newsletter tool is a processor: it stores your subscribers’ data and emails them on your behalf, so you need a data processing agreement with it (Article 28). Find it in the vendor’s legal pages and keep a copy with your records before you import a single contact.

Brevo is French and MailerLite European, so your contract is with a company under EU law. That does not put every sub-processor in Europe, so read their sub-processor lists as well. Mailchimp, Kit and beehiiv are American: sending your subscribers’ data to the US relies on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (with its UK Extension for UK data) or on standard contractual clauses.

Intuit, which owns Mailchimp, is certified under the framework, its UK Extension and the Swiss-US framework, and Mailchimp says its standard contractual clauses would apply automatically if the framework fell. I could not confirm a certification for Kit or beehiiv while writing this, so look them up on the official list at dataprivacyframework.gov and read their data processing terms before you decide. As of 19 October 2026 the framework is in force, but it has already faced a court challenge; my article on US tools and the Data Privacy Framework covers it in detail.

Being outside the EU does not take you out of the picture. A consultancy in London, a studio in Geneva or Montreal, or an agency in Casablanca writing to subscribers in France can fall under the GDPR (Article 3). UK senders also answer to the UK GDPR and to PECR, whose regulation 22 sets the rules for marketing emails to individuals, soft opt-in included. Consent and double opt-in are explained in my guide to newsletter consent. This is general information, not legal advice: with sensitive data or a large list, an hour with a data protection lawyer or your DPO is money well spent.

My verdict by profile

A B2B service business

An accountant, a design studio or a building firm writing monthly to clients, prospects and partners: Brevo. Pricing by emails sent suits a list you write to once a month, transactional emails come in the same account, and the French interface helps a team that works in France. If your list is under 250 people and you like MailerLite’s editor, its free plan is a fine start. If you write in English to a large list and need no automation yet, Kit’s free plan goes further than any other.

A creator or solo expert

Kit if you sell courses, templates or coaching: it is built around selling to your audience, and the free plan lets you grow to 10,000 subscribers before you pay for sequences. beehiiv if the newsletter itself is the product and you want sponsors, ads or paid subscriptions. If you are not yet sure email is your channel, read my comparison of LinkedIn newsletters, email newsletters and Substack first.

A shop

Brevo or Mailchimp. Brevo sends your order confirmations and your newsletters from one account, with SMS if you want it; Mailchimp has the longer list of shop integrations. Before choosing, check that your shop platform (Shopify, WooCommerce, PrestaShop or Squarespace) connects natively to the tool.

How to choose in an afternoon

1. Count your sends. 800 contacts once a month is 800 emails; 3,000 contacts every week is about 13,000 a month. That figure decides your bill on Brevo; on the other four, the list size does.
2. List what you need in the next six months: broadcasts only, a welcome sequence, landing pages, selling.
3. Shortlist two tools from the verdicts above. Not five.
4. Open both free accounts, rebuild the same issue and the same sign-up form in each, and send tests to a Gmail and an Outlook address.
5. Before the first real send, authenticate your domain, turn on double opt-in for your public forms and file the data processing agreement.
6. Pick one and commit for a year.

The last step matters most. It is easy to fall for the next shiny tool, and every switch costs you forms, automations and statistics; the tool rarely makes a newsletter work, sending it regularly does. For the rest of a small team’s toolkit, see the marketing tools I use every day and what they cost.

You do not need an agency to set up any of these five tools: the steps above fit in an afternoon. Help starts to pay when the newsletter has to talk to the rest of your systems: forms on several sites, a CRM, a booking tool, or a sequence that changes with what a prospect does. That is automation work, and a few hours of setup there save months of copying and pasting.