The best email marketing software for a UK business depends on how often you send, the audience you keep and what happens after someone responds. MailerLite is a useful first trial for a small regular newsletter; Mailchimp for an existing marketing setup with valuable integrations; Brevo for combined messaging needs; Klaviyo for a store using customer and order data; and HubSpot when campaigns need to connect closely with CRM follow-up.
Start by counting stored contacts, eligible recipients, monthly messages and your biggest single campaign. Those figures can lead to different plans even when two businesses have the same mailing-list size.
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Current free-plan limits: compare the units
| Platform | Audience allowance | Email allowance |
|---|---|---|
| MailerLite Free | 250 subscribers | 2,500 sends per month |
| Mailchimp Free | 250 contacts | 500 sends per month; 250 per day |
| Brevo Free | 100,000 stored contacts | 300 sends per day |
| Klaviyo Free | 250 active profiles | 500 sends per month |
These limits come from the current MailerLite, Mailchimp, Brevo and Klaviyo documentation. The audience definitions differ, so the columns are not interchangeable measures.
One newsletter sent to 200 people consumes 200 sends. Four such newsletters use 800 before welcome sequences or other messages. That illustrative workload fits MailerLite’s stated monthly allowance but exceeds Mailchimp’s and Klaviyo’s free monthly allowances. Brevo’s daily ceiling creates a separate question: can the whole audience receive a time-sensitive campaign on the required day?
MailerLite: a starting point for regular newsletters
MailerLite changed its Free plan to 250 subscribers and 2,500 monthly sends on 16 June 2026. Older advice quoting 500 subscribers and 12,000 sends should be checked against the official change notice.
Current paid plans include Comfort and Power. Free allows three active automations with up to five steps; Comfort increases this to 50 automations with up to 100 steps. The pricing page lists two Free seats and three Comfort seats. Quote the subscriber tier and sending allowance together.
Trial the actual newsletter and signup journey you plan to use. Check a phone layout, confirmation message, welcome sequence and unsubscribe path. More sending capacity is useful only when you have something relevant to send and a dependable way to maintain subscribers’ preferences.
Mailchimp: audit contacts before asking for a quote
Mailchimp is worth keeping on the shortlist when its existing templates, store connections and campaigns are valuable to your business. Before changing platform, name the problem the move should solve: a bill, missing capability or difficult workflow.
Its contact definitions matter for pricing. Subscribed, unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts can count towards the plan limit; archived contacts do not. Your billable audience may therefore be larger than the group receiving the next email.
The plan guide places automation flows of up to four steps in Essentials, with expanded automation in Standard. Map the intended messages, delays and conditions before selecting an edition. Do not assume that “three emails” means only three workflow steps.
Brevo: check contact storage as well as sends
Brevo is the current name of Sendinblue; they should not appear as two separate products in your shortlist. Its Free plan stores a large audience but permits 300 emails per day, without carrying unused sends forward.
The current paid plan guide lists Starter from US$9 per month and Standard from US$18 per month. Their lower tiers pair 5,000 monthly sends with 500 stored contacts, 10,000 with 1,500, or 15,000 with 2,500. Confirm tax, currency and billing commitment in the quote. “Brevo prices only by sends” is no longer a complete description.
Illustrative example: a training provider stores 1,500 contacts but sends only two newsletters a month. The 5,000-send tier appears sufficient for 3,000 campaign messages, yet its 500-contact storage cap would not fit that database. The provider must compare a tier covering both measures and its required automation.
Keep operational confirmations and marketing preferences clear when designing a combined messaging setup. A booking confirmation and a promotional newsletter serve different purposes, even when the same platform sends both.
Klaviyo: test the connection to your store
Klaviyo’s current Free plan allows 250 active profiles and 500 monthly email sends. It supports trialling customer-data connections, segmentation and automation within those limits. Free email support is available for the first 60 days; ongoing support entitlements differ by plan.
For an online shop, the decisive test is whether the right order and customer events arrive with the fields your campaign needs. Try a purchase, refund and repeat order with test records. Check that the intended sequence starts or stops, and that staff can trace why it happened.
Do not choose from an attributed-revenue chart alone. Decide how you will distinguish a useful incremental sale from a purchase the customer would have made anyway. Keep the time spent maintaining product data and campaign logic in the budget.
HubSpot: connect marketing to customer follow-up
HubSpot email marketing sits within Marketing Hub and connects campaign work with CRM data. That makes it worth evaluating when a form submission or campaign response needs a salesperson to take a clear next action.
For paid accounts using marketing contacts, exceeding the agreed tier can trigger an automatic upgrade. Reducing the number later does not automatically reduce the tier mid-term. Review the marketing-contact billing rules before importing a large historical database.
Our CRM with email marketing comparison explains that combined buying decision. If you are also choosing the sales system, HubSpot versus Pipedrive considers what the team needs after a prospect responds.
Compare the paid bill at three audience sizes
Request equivalent quotes for today’s audience, expected growth and a busy campaign month. Record the plan, billable contact definition, monthly send allowance, daily restrictions, users, branding removal and automation. Add separate transactional, SMS or AI charges only where you intend to use them.
Write down the actual payment currency, VAT treatment and renewal price. A monthly equivalent on an annual contract differs from a subscription cancellable each month. Dynamic dollar or euro prices should not be presented as guaranteed pound charges.
Preserve suppression and unsubscribe information during migration. Import a small permitted sample first and inspect status, fields and groups before moving the full audience. Keep a usable export and a record of the old automation logic.
Delivery and privacy need their own checks
Follow your platform’s domain-authentication instructions and confirm the resulting messages authenticate correctly. Google’s sender guidance distinguishes baseline requirements from bulk-sender requirements and recommends SPF, DKIM and DMARC. A platform badge or a claimed industry deliverability score does not guarantee inbox placement for your messages.
Email software also does not make the business compliant by itself. The ICO’s electronic marketing guidance explains consent and the limited soft opt-in for qualifying existing-customer situations. Sole traders and some partnerships are treated as individuals; corporate subscribers have different rules, with data-protection considerations still relevant to named contacts. Check the rules for the audience and campaign you actually operate.
Test unsubscribe handling and decide who owns access, retention and deletion requests. If hosting location is a contractual requirement, obtain the supplier’s current written terms rather than relying on a comparison page’s broad “UK data centres” claim.
Choose from one complete campaign rehearsal
Before an annual commitment, build one real template, connect one signup source, follow every automation branch and inspect the result in the system where your team works. Ask a colleague to manage a correction and find the history without help from the person who built it.
Measure useful outcomes such as completed enquiries, registrations and orders. Opens can be affected by mail privacy features, so avoid using a generic open-rate benchmark as a proxy for sales. Our email copy guide helps with the message itself. Choose the platform that supports your actual campaign and follow-up at a cost you can explain.
Optional reference material: search Amazon for Mailchimp. Check the relevance and publication date of individual results. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
Last updated 9 September 2026. Plan details checked against official sources; examples are illustrative.
