EmailOctopus hands you 2,500 subscribers and four emails each

69 places EmailOctopus in the Usable band, third in this category behind Sender at 77 and Brevo at 73, and comfortably ahead of the paid incumbents. That mid-table position is the right read of the tool rather than a knock against it: generosity scores 80, which is close to the top of the file, and feature depth scores 68, which is where a deliberately narrow product lands when it is judged against a category full of suites.

The gap between EmailOctopus and Sender is almost entirely sending volume, 10,000 emails against 15,000, plus the popups and extra reach Sender bundles free. The gap the other way is that nothing else here lets you bring your own delivery infrastructure. Freedom at 60 reflects both sides of that at once, and the reasoning underneath spells it out.

The free plan gives you campaigns, automation, landing pages and signup forms, which is a complete newsletter tool. What it meters (as of July 2026):

• 2,500 subscribers.
• 10,000 emails a month, tracked independently of the subscriber count. A list of 600 people on a daily email hits this while sitting at a quarter of the subscriber cap.
• EmailOctopus branding on every send.
• Capped reporting history, so the free plan trims your own data as well as your sending. You cannot study long-term open-rate trends without upgrading.

The feature gaps are a product decision rather than a paywall, and they apply at every price. There is no CRM, no SMS, no popups, no paid-newsletter or membership feature, and segmentation is simpler than what Brevo or MailerLite offer. The editor is basic in a way design-led senders notice immediately.

Practical test: multiply your list size by how many emails you send a month. If that number passes 10,000, the subscriber cap is irrelevant to you.

Pro starts at $9 a month billed annually, and what that entry price covers is the one figure here we would not plan around without checking. Our record, taken in July 2026, has it at 500 subscribers and 10,000 emails, which is fewer subscribers than the free plan allows. That reads like an error, either ours in transcribing it or theirs in publishing it, and we have not been able to re-confirm it, so treat it as a flag to look yourself rather than as a finding. What is not in doubt is what Pro buys: branding removal, unlimited automation, full reporting history and priority support, with the price climbing by subscriber count up to 500,000 contacts. Annual billing saves about 10% against monthly.

That means the ladder reintroduces the exact model people leave Mailchimp over, per-subscriber pricing, just at a much lower rate. Which brings you to the thing EmailOctopus does that nobody else in this category does.

EmailOctopus Connect routes your campaigns through your own Amazon SES account, so you pay Amazon's near-wholesale rate for delivery and EmailOctopus for the software sitting on top. At six-figure send volumes that is dramatically cheaper than per-subscriber pricing anywhere else here. We are not quoting an SES rate, because Amazon's pricing is not a fact we hold in this repo, so price it yourself before you commit.

The single thing people upgrade for is branding removal. The second is reporting history.

Yes, within limits, and the limit is your sending frequency rather than your audience. This is a genuine free newsletter tool with automation and landing pages included, and nothing switches off inside the caps.

The people who never pay: a writer with 1,000 subscribers on a fortnightly issue, a small business emailing 800 customers once a month, anyone whose list grew fast but whose sending stayed occasional. The people who pay quickly: anyone mailing a full 2,500-person list weekly, since that is 10,000 emails exactly and leaves no room for a resend; anyone who needs the branding gone; and anyone who wants more than the last few weeks of reporting.

Two mismatches worth naming. If you want popups and a nicer editor at the same free price, Sender's free plan covers more ground. If you are technical and your list is large enough that any per-subscriber pricing looks silly, listmonk's free plan removes the vendor entirely and leaves you the same SES bill.

Free EmailOctopus alternatives has the ranked list, and the best free email marketing tools puts all eight side by side.