By Theo Brandt ยท Updated
Newsletter guideBest Email Platforms for SaaS Newsletters in 2026
A company newsletter earns its place in the inbox by keeping one promise on a schedule.
SaaS newsletters come in three shapes: a product update sent to people who already use the app, a publication that tries to grow an audience beyond customers, and a founder letter that is mostly one person's voice. The right tool depends on which of those you run, because each one wants a different kind of list. Whatever the shape, the newsletter needs its own subscription category so that leaving it never cuts off invoices or security notices.
Our pick is Loops for newsletters sent mainly to your own users, since a broadcast can use the same contact properties that drive your product emails. Kit is the runner-up when the list is mostly prospects and cost matters, because broadcasts are free up to 10,000 subscribers, and beehiiv is the pick when growth tools and sponsorship are part of the plan.
Prices checked 7 October 2026; each price links to the vendor page it came from. We have not tested these tools; descriptions come from vendor pricing pages and help pages.
Our pick, and the runners-up
Best overall for a product newsletter: Loops. Free covers the 1,000 newest contacts; paid reads $48 at about 4,800 subscribers and $99 at about 10,000, with unlimited sends and no seat fee.
Best on a budget: Kit. Free to 10,000 subscribers for unlimited broadcasts, landing pages and forms. Automations and sequences start on Creator, $33 a month billed yearly at 1,000 subscribers.
Best for audience growth: beehiiv. Free to 2,500 subscribers; Lite is $109 a month at 5,000 subscribers on monthly billing or $95 on yearly.
Best for a CRM-owned newsletter: HubSpot. Subscription types separate the newsletter from other mail, and the hub's contacts already hold company and owner.
Newsletter cost by subscriber count
| Platform and plan | 1,000 subscribers | 5,000 subscribers | 10,000 subscribers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kit Free (broadcasts only) | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Kit Creator, billed yearly | $33 | $75 | $116 |
| beehiiv Lite, monthly / yearly | Free plan covers 2,500 | $109 / $95 | $139 / $119 |
| Loops | $0 (free plan) | $48 at 4,788 | $99 at 9,998 |
| MailerLite Comfort, monthly | $19 | $49 | $89 |
| Mailchimp Standard | $20 at 500 contacts | $100 (2,501 to 5,000) | $135 (5,001 to 10,000) |
| Resend marketing | $0 | $40 | $80 |
| Customer.io Essentials | Starts at 5,000 profiles | $100 | $145 |
Sources: kit.com/pricing, beehiiv.com/pricing, loops.so/pricing, mailerlite.com/pricing, mailchimp.com/pricing, resend.com/pricing, customer.io/pricing. Kit Pro, with Subscriber Signals, is $158 at 10,000 subscribers.
Do the sending math before choosing a free plan
A weekly issue to a list of 10,000 is four sends of 10,000, or 40,000 emails a month. That fits comfortably inside any plan that does not cap sends, and the free tiers differ sharply on caps. Loops free allows 4,000 sends in any rolling 30 days and only to the 1,000 newest contacts, so a weekly newsletter to exactly 1,000 people uses the whole allowance in four weeks, and a month with five issues goes over. Kit free and beehiiv free both advertise unlimited broadcasts, to 10,000 and 2,500 subscribers respectively. MailerLite's free plan stops at 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, and Comfort allows ten times its subscriber tier each month.
The other cost is the one you do not see in the table: the footer. Free tiers on Loops carry a small Powered by Loops line, and Kit lists removing its branding on Creator. If the newsletter represents your company, treat the first paid plan as the real entry price.
1. Loops
Best for: newsletters to your own users, where a plan name or a feature flag changes what the issue says.
Loops builds campaigns and event-triggered workflows on one contact record, so a product update can go only to people on a paid plan or only to those who have not tried the feature. The events docs describe sending event and contact properties from your app, and the events endpoint takes an optional mailing lists field, which is how readers can be placed in a list on the way in. Free is unlimited contacts but 4,000 sends in any rolling 30 days to the 1,000 newest. Paid plans read $48 at 4,788 subscribers, $99 at 9,998 and $249 at 49,989 (loops.so/pricing). If you need public archive pages, referral tooling or ad sales, confirm them with Loops before buying; they are not the reason to choose it.
2. Kit
Best for: a founder-voiced letter to a mostly external audience, on the smallest budget.
Kit's free plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited landing pages, forms and email broadcasts, plus tagging and segmentation. Automations and sequences begin on Creator at $33 a month billed yearly for 1,000 subscribers, rising to $75 at 5,000 subscribers, $116 at 10,000 subscribers and $166 at 25,000 subscribers; Pro adds Subscriber Signals, unlimited users, deliverability reporting and a newsletter referral system at $66 a month for 1,000 subscribers, or $158 at 10,000 (kit.com/pricing). A 14-day trial and free migrations are listed. Compare it with the next entry in ConvertKit vs beehiiv. Product-state data is not its focus, so tie it to the app through tags.
3. beehiiv
Best for: a publication whose purpose is to grow beyond customers and maybe carry ads.
The pricing page lists newsletter publishing, a website, podcasts, community, digital products, an ad network, automations and an API. Free covers up to 2,500 subscribers with unlimited sends, one publication and one team seat. Lite is $49 a month with yearly billing at the entry stop and allows paid subscriptions, automations and audience polls; Pro is $95 and adds advanced analytics and priority support. At 5,000 subscribers Lite reads $109 monthly or $95 yearly, and at 10,000 it reads $139 or $119 (beehiiv.com/pricing). It does not know your product's users, so graduation into onboarding needs a second system.
4. MailerLite
Best for: a plain, inexpensive newsletter with landing pages and basic automation.
The free plan gives 250 subscribers, two seats and 2,500 emails a month; Comfort and Power start at $12 and $25 on a 500-subscriber stop, and on monthly billing read $19 and $39 at 1,000 subscribers, $49 and $69 at 5,000, and $89 and $129 at 10,000. The pricing page also says its data storage center is in the European Union with ISO 27001 certification (mailerlite.com/pricing). Keep service mail elsewhere, because MailerLite is a campaign tool, not a delivery API.
5. HubSpot
Best for: a newsletter that sales and customer success also read from, and need to see engagement from.
Marketing Hub lets you tie each recipient's newsletter activity to the contact, company and owner. Its subscription types let a person opt out of the newsletter without losing other mail, which is the cleanest way to honor the separation this page keeps coming back to. HubSpot's pricing page lists Starter at $7, Professional at $800 and Enterprise at $3,600 a month, with free tools available. A suite of that size is more than a newsletter alone justifies.
6. Customer.io
Best for: teams that already run lifecycle journeys there and want the newsletter on the same profiles.
Customer.io sends one-off newsletters as well as event-driven journeys, and documents a subscription center in 29 languages, which helps for international readership. Essentials is $100 a month at 5,000 profiles, $145 at 10,000 and $235 at 20,000, with 1 million emails included (customer.io/pricing). Editorial tools such as archives and scheduling workflows are lighter than in the publishing platforms, so someone must own the calendar outside the tool.
7. Mailchimp
Best for: a team that already knows the editor and needs nothing exotic.
The free plan covers 250 contacts and 500 sends a month; Standard starts at $20 for 500 contacts and reads $100 at 2,501 to 5,000 contacts and $135 at 5,001 to 10,000 (mailchimp.com/pricing). At 10,000 contacts it costs more than MailerLite or Kit for roughly the same newsletter, so the case rests on familiarity. Segmenting by product behavior becomes manual.
8. Brevo
Best for: a newsletter that shares a bill with transactional mail.
Brevo bills on monthly sends rather than list size, so a large list that you email rarely can cost less than on contact-priced tools. The plans article lists a free plan with 300 sends a day, Starter from $9 and Standard from $18 a month at 5,000 emails, and Professional at $499 (plans article). Check archive pages and team roles before you commit if several people edit.
9. ActiveCampaign
Best for: a newsletter that feeds a sales pipeline through nurture branches.
Starter is $15 a month at 1,000 contacts billed annually, with Plus at $49, Pro at $79 and Enterprise at $145 (activecampaign.com/pricing). Write down what the newsletter promises before adding behavioral branches, so that readers who subscribed for a monthly letter do not receive a sales sequence.
10. Klaviyo
Best for: a product whose readers also buy through a catalog.
Klaviyo prices email by active profile: $30 for 1,000 profiles, $100 for 5,000 profiles and $150 for 10,000 profiles, with a free plan for 250 active profiles and 500 sends a month (klaviyo.com/pricing). Its automations are commerce-shaped, and an editorial cadence can collide with them, so keep the newsletter in its own flow.
11. Iterable
Best for: organizations where the newsletter is one program inside a large cross-channel operation.
Iterable's pricing page says to book a demo and lists no free plan or public price. A publication needs a named editor and a calendar regardless of the journey builder, so the tool adds little to the editorial side.
12. Resend
Best for: developer teams that want to write issues and send broadcasts without a separate publishing product.
The marketing tab includes broadcasts, audiences and segments: free at 1,000 contacts with unlimited broadcast sending, then $40 a month at 5,000 contacts, $80 at 10,000 contacts, $180 at 25,000 contacts and $250 at 50,000 contacts (resend.com/pricing). There is no archive site, referral tooling or sponsor handling, so those become your own work.
13. Postmark
Best for: keeping service mail healthy beside a newsletter run elsewhere.
Postmark documents separate broadcast and transactional streams, and a bulk endpoint for newsletters and announcements sent from a broadcast stream. Basic is $15 for 10,000 emails and $55 at 50,000 (postmarkapp.com/pricing). Use it for the invoice and reset mail that must outlive any newsletter unsubscribe; use a publishing tool for the editorial work.
14. SendGrid
Best for: engineering teams that already send through Twilio and want a campaign tool next to the API.
Marketing Campaigns has a free plan for up to 2,000 contacts and 6,000 emails a month, Basic at $15 and Advanced at $60; the Email API is separate, with Essentials from $19.95 and Pro from $89.95 (Twilio SendGrid pricing). Archive, categories and sponsorship tracking need process around them.
From reader to user without turning issues into funnels
If the newsletter doubles as a product channel, add a handoff instead of selling in every issue. A reader who clicks a specific product link, or signs up from an issue, enters the onboarding track in your lifecycle tool and keeps receiving the newsletter on its own category. Loops, Customer.io and HubSpot can do this on one contact record; with Kit or beehiiv the handoff needs a tag or webhook into the product stack. Sponsorships need the same discipline: label every paid slot, cap it per issue, and keep a record of what each sponsor was promised. See the deliverability guide and the transactional versus marketing notes before you merge any streams, plus the pages on product launches and Loops vs Resend.
Verdict
Choose Loops if the readers are mostly users and the newsletter should reflect product data, at $99 a month near 10,000 subscribers. Choose Kit if the list is mostly outside the product and you want to pay nothing until you need automations. Choose beehiiv if referrals and sponsorship are part of the plan, from a free plan up to 2,500 subscribers. Choose HubSpot only if the CRM already owns the audience, and add Postmark or Resend for the mail that must always arrive.
Pick a cadence you can keep for a year, give the newsletter its own unsubscribe category, and review what each issue changed before adding another automation.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best email platform for a SaaS newsletter?
Loops fits best when most readers are your own users and the issue should know their plan or product usage. Kit is the cheapest route for a newsletter-only list, since broadcasts are free up to 10,000 subscribers, and beehiiv is the pick when the newsletter is a growth channel with referrals and an ad network.
How do I keep the newsletter separate from billing and security email?
Use separate subscription categories so that one unsubscribe never silences the other. HubSpot has subscription types, Customer.io documents a subscription center, and Postmark keeps broadcast and transactional traffic on different message streams. Whichever you use, send invoices and security notices outside the newsletter list.
Will a free plan carry a weekly newsletter?
It depends on the list size. Loops free allows 4,000 sends in any rolling 30 days to the 1,000 newest contacts, so a weekly issue to 1,000 people is 4,000 sends in four weeks and an extra issue breaks the cap. Kit allows unlimited broadcasts to 10,000 subscribers and beehiiv unlimited sends to 2,500, while MailerLite free stops at 250 subscribers.
Can a SaaS newsletter carry sponsors without hurting trust?
Yes, if each placement is labeled, limited to a slot you set per issue, and written down with who sold it and what was promised. beehiiv lists an ad network among its features; on other tools sponsor handling is a manual process. Publish the policy once and link it from the footer.
What should I measure for a company newsletter?
Measure the reader action that matters, not just opens: replies, clicks on a specific product link, signups from the issue, and unsubscribes per send. Loops and Customer.io can tie a click to a product event; Kit and beehiiv report on the audience side. Compare issues with similar content rather than averaging them.