MailerLite gives its best-in-class editor away and stops you at 250 subscribers
The editor is the reason to be here and you do get it for nothing. What you do not get is room: 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails a month, three signup forms and three active automations (as of July 2026), on a plan that has been cut more than once.
Ten sends per subscriber means the email allowance will never be your problem. The subscriber ceiling will, and most lists cross it inside a few months. This page is mostly about how quickly that happens and whether $12 is the right answer when it does.
Facts checked July 2026
MailerLite free plan at a glance
- Free plan score
- 45/100Limited
- Is it really free?
- Not really
- Paid plans from
- $12/month
45 out of 100, and the distance between a good product and a good free plan
45 lands MailerLite in our Limited band, which we define as a taste of the product rather than a way to get the job done, and it is the second lowest score in this category above Mailchimp's 29. It sits oddly against a tool we rank fourth and genuinely like, which is exactly the split this page exists to make visible.
Generosity does the damage at 30. Sender and EmailOctopus each hand out ten times the subscribers for the same zero dollars, and there is no reading of that number that makes 250 look competitive in 2026. Feature depth at 48 is the second problem, because free meters the parts you would build with rather than the parts you would look at. The one pillar that goes MailerLite's way is not scored separately at all: the editor you get free is the best in the budget tier, and that is the honest reason to start here anyway.
45/100
Limited
A very good editor wrapped around a 250-subscriber trial.
- Free plan generosity35% of the score
30/100
250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month (as of July 2026). The send allowance is ten emails per subscriber so it never binds; the 250-subscriber ceiling does, and most lists cross it quickly. That is a tenth of the subscribers Sender and EmailOctopus hand out for the same money.
- Feature depth for the category25% of the score
48/100
Free meters the parts you would actually build with: 3 active automations, 3 signup forms, and 1 website and landing page, where Sender includes automation and landing pages without a counter. The editor is the best in the budget tier and you do get it free, which is the real reason to start here.
- Freedom and honesty20% of the score
52/100
The free plan has been cut over time and now behaves like a trial in everything but name: live chat support ends after your first 14 days and there is no custom domain. New accounts also pass a manual approval review before sending. Our pricing record does not say whether MailerLite brands free emails, unlike the five tools here where we do know, so treat that as unrecorded rather than absent.
- What free users report20% of the score
58/100
Capterra 4.7 (checked 24 July 2026) and nothing else on file, no G2 and no Trustpilot. It rates a product most reviewers pay $12 a month or more for, which tells us nothing about the 250-subscriber tier, so this sits near the middle.
Scored July 2026. How we calculate the free plan score.
250 subscribers, 3 automations, 3 forms: where the free limits stop you
Free is metered in five places, not one (as of July 2026):
- 250 subscribers. The binding constraint, and the one that moves fastest.
- 2,500 emails a month, which is ten per subscriber, so this cap will not be what stops you.
- 3 active automations. Enough for a welcome series and nothing else. Sender includes automation with no counter on it.
- 3 signup forms, 1 website and 1 landing page.
- No custom domain, and live chat support ends after your first 14 days, which is the detail that makes the free plan behave like a trial in everything but name.
New accounts also pass a manual approval review before they can send, so plan for a day's delay rather than importing a list and mailing it the same afternoon.
One thing we cannot tell you: our pricing record does not state whether MailerLite brands free emails. Five other tools in this category we do have that on file for. Treat it as unrecorded rather than absent, and check your first test send.
$12 a month is the real price of MailerLite
Comfort at $12 a month is where this tool actually lives. It covers 500 subscribers and 5,000 emails at that price, removes the automation and form counters, adds three seats, templates and 24/7 email support, and rises as your list grows. Against Mailchimp's $13 Essentials it is cheaper and includes more, which is the comparison MailerLite is built to win.
Power at $25 adds unlimited seats, the custom HTML editor, popups, extra automation triggers, an AI writing assistant and live chat. Both prices are quoted at 500 subscribers and climb from there, and MailerLite has raised them at every subscriber level over time, so treat the entry figures as a floor.
The thing worth flagging is which features sit on which rung. Popups and the custom HTML editor feel like standard equipment and they are on the more expensive tier, so a small business wanting a popup is looking at $25 rather than $12. Paid newsletter subscriptions and digital product sales through Stripe are the genuine differentiator here, and almost nothing else at this price does them at all.
What people upgrade for is the subscriber count, and they do it sooner than they planned.
Free
Free
Email campaigns, drag-and-drop builder, and a small set of automations
250 subscribers, 2,500 emails/month, 1 website and landing page, 3 signup forms, 3 active automations, no custom domain, live chat only for the first 14 days
Comfort
$12/mo
Unlimited campaigns and automations, 3 user seats, templates, and 24/7 email support
$12/month covers 500 subscribers and 5,000 emails; price rises with list size
Power
$25/mo
Everything in Comfort plus unlimited seats, custom HTML editor, popups, extra automation triggers, AI writing assistant, and live chat
$25/month at 500 subscribers; price rises with list size
As of July 2026. Check current pricing on the MailerLite pricing page.
Is MailerLite really free? Only for long enough to fall for the editor
The free plan is there to show you the product, not to get your work done.
No, and our answer is taster. Two hundred and fifty subscribers with three automations is a demonstration account, and every serious use of an email tool crosses it. The free plan is not there to be lived on, it is there to show you an editor that is genuinely nicer than its competitors' so that $12 feels reasonable when you arrive at it. That is a fair trade and we would still take it, but it is not a free plan.
The only people who stay free indefinitely: someone emailing a personal list of under 250 people, or a business running a single welcome sequence off a form on one page. Everybody else pays, usually within a quarter.
If you want the same shape of tool with a free plan you can settle into, Sender's free plan gives you ten times the subscribers with uncapped automation, and EmailOctopus's free plan is the simpler newsletter version of the same offer. Free MailerLite alternatives ranks them, and the best free email marketing tools covers the category.
Stay on MailerLite if the editor is the whole reason you came, because nothing free matches it. Just budget the $12.
Frequently asked questions about MailerLite
How many subscribers does MailerLite's free plan allow?
250, with 2,500 emails a month (as of July 2026). That is a tenth of what Sender and EmailOctopus give away for free, and the plan has been cut over time rather than expanded.
What is missing from the free MailerLite plan?
Custom domains, live chat support after your first 14 days, and most of the builder's capacity: 1 website and landing page, 3 signup forms and 3 active automations (as of July 2026). The editor itself is not restricted, which is the reason to start here at all.
Does MailerLite put its branding on free emails?
We have not verified that either way. Our pricing record for MailerLite does not state it, unlike the five other tools in this category where we do hold it on file, so we are calling it unrecorded rather than guessing. Check your first test send.
Where to go next
If this free plan does not stretch far enough, these are the tools we would look at instead.