Best Mailchimp Alternatives in 2026: Free, Hosted and Self-Hosted Email Tools

Mailchimp alternatives fall into three groups: hosted email platforms, publishing tools built for writers, and software you run yourself. MailerLite suits newsletter writers and small teams that want a simple editor, Brevo suits small businesses that want email, SMS and a CRM in one account, and Listmonk suits technical teams that want to send to large lists from their own server.

The list below starts with hosted tools, then covers Ghost as an open-source publishing platform, then self-hosted newsletter software. A section on deliverability explains why self-hosting an app does not mean self-hosting your inbox placement.

Why people look for Mailchimp alternatives

Mailchimp is an email and SMS marketing platform with automations, templates, AI tools, audience management and reporting. Mailchimp's pricing page shows why many small senders shop around:

• Price follows your contact count. The Essentials, Standard and Premium plans all scale with the number of contacts, so a growing list moves you up a tier even if you send the same number of emails.
• Introductory discounts. The pricing page highlights a first-year discount on paid plans, so compare the regular rates as well as the headline figure before you decide.
• A small free plan. The free tier is capped at a small audience, which a newsletter that is starting to grow outgrows quickly.
• Closed source and hosted only. There is no self-hosted version, and your audience data lives in Mailchimp's platform.
• A wide product for a narrow job. SMS, landing pages, social tools and AI content features are useful for some teams, but a writer who only sends a weekly newsletter pays for a platform built for more.

How we picked

Every tool here sends email to a subscriber list and lets you design, schedule and measure campaigns. For hosted products, Enlisted records the pricing model and whether a free plan exists. For open-source tools, it checks the licence, GitHub activity and whether the project can be self-hosted. Tools built only for developers' transactional email were kept out of the main list, though they matter for self-hosting and appear in the deliverability section. See how Enlisted ranks tools, or browse every email marketing tool in the directory.

1. MailerLite: best all-round hosted alternative for newsletters and small teams

MailerLite is an email newsletter and automation tool for small businesses, creators and freelancers, with a drag-and-drop editor that includes AI assistance. People design newsletters visually, build subscriber lists with forms and set up automated emails that go out by timing or subscriber behavior.

Beyond email, it offers landing pages, a website builder, a blog tool and transactional email notifications triggered by activity on a website or app. There is a free plan for a small subscriber list, a trial of paid features, and paid plans that rise with subscriber count. If MailerLite is the tool you are leaving, see MailerLite alternatives.

• Best for: newsletter writers and small teams that want a simple editor, landing pages and basic automation in one hosted tool.
• Watch out for: as with Mailchimp, paid pricing scales with subscribers, and there is no self-hosted version.

2. Brevo: best for email, SMS and transactional messages in one account

Brevo, formerly Sendinblue, is an engagement platform that combines email and SMS campaigns, marketing automation, a CRM, live chat and transactional messaging. Transactional messages such as order confirmations can go out by email, SMS and WhatsApp through an SMTP relay or API.

It has a free-forever plan, and paid plans are priced by email volume. Integrations include Shopify, WordPress and Stripe. If you are leaving Brevo instead, see Brevo alternatives. The HubSpot alternatives guide covers it from the CRM side.

• Best for: small businesses that want campaigns and application email in the same account.
• Watch out for: its breadth, covering a CRM, chat and SMS, is more than a newsletter-only writer needs.

3. beehiiv: best for writers who want to grow and monetize a newsletter

beehiiv is a hosted newsletter publishing platform where writers compose and send issues, publish them on a built-in website and use growth tools to build an audience. Its approach centers on growth and monetization, with referral programs, paid subscriptions and advertising options.

Because the website and newsletter live in one system, you do not need a separate blog. It has a free plan and is used by independent writers, media startups and brands that run editorial newsletters.

• Best for: independent writers and small media brands that want publishing, growth tools and paid subscriptions together.
• Watch out for: it is built for publishing, so an online store looking for purchase-triggered flows should look elsewhere on this list.

4. Buttondown: best for Markdown writers and developers

Buttondown lets independent writers publish newsletters by composing in Markdown, scheduling or sending issues, and keeping a public archive of past editions. It also has an API for connecting the newsletter to other systems, and it describes itself as the last email platform a writer will need to switch to.

There is a free plan and paid tiers above it. It is used by independent publishers and by developers who want email to behave like a dependable utility.

• Best for: developers and writers who like Markdown and an API, and who want a straightforward place to send a newsletter.
• Watch out for: Enlisted's listing describes writing, archiving, an API and list management rather than visual campaign design or sales-funnel tools.

5. EmailOctopus: best email-only option that sends through Amazon SES

EmailOctopus is an email marketing platform that delivers messages through Amazon SES, which lets it keep sending costs down. It offers a drag-and-drop editor, subscriber lists, signup forms, automations, reports and integrations, and it deliberately leaves out SMS and other extras so customers do not pay for features they will not use.

It has a free plan with no credit card needed to start. Teams that pay for a wide platform but only send email may find this narrower scope easier to live with.

• Best for: creators, newsletter writers and small organizations that want straightforward email.
• Watch out for: there is no SMS or wider marketing suite, so add other tools if you need them.

6. Klaviyo: best for online stores that segment by purchase data

Klaviyo is a marketing platform that connects to ecommerce stores and uses purchase and browsing data to drive email and SMS messages. Brands build segments from that data and send campaigns and automated flows such as abandoned cart reminders and post-purchase follow-ups.

The vendor now calls the product a B2C CRM, with channels that include email, SMS, RCS, mobile app messaging and WhatsApp. There is a free plan for a small number of active profiles, and paid plans scale with profiles.

• Best for: online stores that want store data behind their segments and flows.
• Watch out for: it is built around ecommerce data, so a newsletter writer without a store gains little from it.

7. Ghost: best open-source platform for newsletters, blogs and paid memberships

Ghost is an open-source publishing platform for blogs, newsletters, memberships and paid subscriptions, available as the Ghost(Pro) managed service or self-hosted on Node.js. Where Mailchimp is an email tool, Ghost is the publication itself: you write posts, email them to subscribers and charge for access without stitching tools together.

It is MIT-licensed, and the managed service handles hosting, backups and maintenance. Self-hosting uses a CLI installer with automatic SSL, and it can be extended through documented APIs and themes.

• Best for: independent publishers who want a blog, newsletter and paid memberships on a platform they can own.
• Watch out for: it is a publishing platform, not a marketing automation tool. Ghost's docs say a self-hosted site needs a bulk-mail provider to send newsletters, and name Mailgun as the supported one (see the Ghost docs).

8. Listmonk: best self-hosted newsletter and mailing list manager

Listmonk is a self-hosted newsletter and mailing list manager shipped as a single Go binary with PostgreSQL storage. A web dashboard handles subscribers, lists and email campaigns, and you can install it with Docker or run the binary directly. It is licensed under AGPL-3.0.

There is no hosted version from the project, and it delivers mail through SMTP servers you configure, so campaigns go out through whichever provider you choose. That separation is the reason people run it: your list data sits on your server, and sending costs track what the provider charges rather than a per-subscriber platform fee.

• Best for: developers and technical newsletter owners who want to send to a large list without per-subscriber platform fees.
• Watch out for: you run the server and connect your own sending provider, so deliverability setup is on you.

9. Notifuse: best self-hosted option with a visual builder and automation

Notifuse is a self-hosted newsletter, email marketing and transactional email platform built with Go and React and presented as an open-source alternative to Mailchimp, Brevo, Mailjet, Listmonk, MailerLite and Klaviyo. It is closer to a full marketing tool than Listmonk is.

It has a drag-and-drop visual builder with MJML components and live preview, campaign scheduling, A/B testing of subject lines, content and send times, list segmentation, a visual automation flow builder and Liquid templating. It can send through several providers, including Amazon SES. Self-hosting is free, with paid yearly licences for extra capabilities, and a managed cloud is available with no per-email or per-seat charges.

• Best for: teams that want a Mailchimp-style editor and automations on their own infrastructure.
• Watch out for: its licence is listed as "Other" and some capabilities need a paid licence, so check what the free version includes.

10. phpList: best self-hosted list manager with queue throttling and bounce handling

phpList is open-source email marketing software for building, sending and analyzing newsletters and campaigns, available self-hosted or as a hosted service. It manages subscriber lists, personalizes messages from subscriber attributes and tracks results from a web or command-line interface.

Its feature list leans toward the operational side of sending: real-time analytics, segmentation, a message queue with throttling by domain, automated bounce processing, CSV and Excel import and built-in Amazon SES support. It has a plugin architecture and APIs, and the hosted version is described as free to get started.

• Best for: organizations and publishers that want control over sending speed and bounce handling on their own server.
• Watch out for: it centers on lists, queues and analytics rather than a design-led editor, so test the interface against what your team expects.

11. Mautic: best open-source option when you need marketing automation, not just newsletters

Mautic is open-source marketing automation software for integrated campaigns, including email, contact segmentation and multi-channel marketing. The README describes unlimited segmentation and automation, and it lets you run everything on your own infrastructure with your own database.

It is more than a newsletter app, which makes it a fit when you want journeys that react to what contacts do. The same strengths come with more setup than a plain list manager, and the same tool appears in Enlisted's HubSpot alternatives guide as the open-source marketing hub.

• Best for: marketing teams with technical help that want automation they control.
• Watch out for: managed hosting through partners is a paid service, the licence is listed as "Other", and you still need a way to send email at volume.

Self-hosting a newsletter tool: you still need a sending service

Installing a newsletter app gives you control of your list, templates and reporting. It does not give you inbox placement. Receiving mail servers decide whether to deliver, filter or reject a message based on the sender's domain and IP reputation, and a new server has none.

That is why most self-hosted tools hand off delivery:

• Listmonk connects to SMTP servers you configure.
• Sendy sends through Amazon SES, and phpList has built-in SES support.
• Notifuse can send through several providers, including SES.
• Ghost's docs require a bulk-mail provider for self-hosted newsletters.

Sending services in the catalogue include Amazon SES, built for developers and high-volume senders with per-message pricing, Postmark, whose message streams keep transactional and bulk sending separate, plus Mailgun, SendGrid and Resend. Postal is an MIT-licensed mail delivery platform you run on your own servers, and Mailtrain bundles Zone-MTA for delivery.

Whichever route you take, plan for the same groundwork: authenticate your sending domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC records, handle bounces and complaints, honor unsubscribes, and increase volume gradually on a new domain or provider. Running your own mail server is possible, but then the IP reputation is yours to build and protect.

More Mailchimp alternatives

Hosted

• Kit: the email and audience platform for creators formerly known as ConvertKit, with a free plan.
• Flodesk: email design and automation with ready-made templates for creators and small brands.
• Sender: email and SMS marketing with automation workflows and migration guides for people moving from Mailchimp.
• Mailjet: marketing campaigns plus transactional email through APIs, from one platform.
• ActiveCampaign: marketing automation with a built-in CRM.
• GetResponse: email, autoresponders, landing pages and webinars.
• Constant Contact: an email tool for small businesses with templates, event promotion and surveys.
• Omnisend and Moosend: hosted email and automation tools for ecommerce and small teams.
• Loops: email for SaaS companies, combining campaigns, sequences and transactional email.

Open source and self-hosted

• Sendy: a proprietary self-hosted newsletter application sold for a one-time fee that sends through Amazon SES.
• Mailtrain: a GPL-3.0 Node.js newsletter application with segments, templates and RSS campaigns. Check recent activity on its listing before adopting it.
• BillionMail: an AGPL-3.0 project that pairs a mail server built on Postfix, Dovecot and Rspamd with newsletter tools. See the deliverability section above before you rely on it.
• Plunk: an AGPL-3.0 email platform for transactional email, campaigns and workflows that can be self-hosted.
• Markdown Ninja: an AGPL-3.0 Markdown-first CMS for blogs, documentation and newsletters.

Which Mailchimp alternative should you choose?

Start with how much you are willing to run. If the answer is nothing, pick from the hosted tools and use the free plans to compare editors and automations. If you can host and would rather avoid per-subscriber pricing, choose Listmonk or Notifuse and budget for a sending service. For writers who care about the publication as much as the email, Ghost and beehiiv are worth a look first. The full list of Mailchimp alternatives is on Enlisted.