By Theo Brandt ยท Updated
Best Budget-Friendly Email Platforms for SaaS (2026)
Brevo is the cheapest way to get automation, transactional email and SMS in one account: Standard reads $18 a month for 5,000 emails. Loops is the better pick when you want a tool built for SaaS and your list is small, because its free plan sends 4,000 emails in a rolling 30 days and paid plans read $48 at about 4,800 subscribers.
Prices checked 7 October 2026; each price links to the vendor page it came from.
What "budget" should mean for a young SaaS
Three price bands matter in practice. At $0 you are on a free plan with a cap, a footer or both. Under about $25 a month you can run onboarding flows for a few thousand contacts. Under about $100 you can add proper segmentation, a second sending stream and a person's worth of seats. The cheapest sticker is rarely the cheapest outcome, because the platform that bills by contacts gets dearer as your signup list grows, while the one that bills by sends gets dearer as your product gets chattier.
This page therefore prices each tool two ways: by list size for the contact-billed tools, and by monthly email volume for the send-billed ones. If your list is under a thousand people and you mostly send receipts, the second table matters more. If you run newsletters and drip sequences to a growing audience, the first does. The same vendor can win one table and lose the other, which is why a single "best budget tool" answer is misleading.
What the free plans actually include
| Platform | Free plan includes | What you give up |
|---|---|---|
| Resend | Transactional: 3,000 emails a month, 100 a day, 3 domains. Marketing: 1,000 contacts, unlimited broadcasts, 10,000 automation runs, 3 segments | The daily cap and the three-segment limit |
| Loops | Unlimited contacts, 4,000 sends in any rolling 30 days, all features, 10 emails per second | Sends reach only your 1,000 newest contacts, and a "Powered by Loops" footer appears |
| Brevo | 300 email sends a day, storage for up to 100,000 contacts | Automation covers only 2,000 contacts, and a day cap of 300 works out near 9,000 sends in a 30-day month |
| MailerLite | 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails a month, 2 seats | Transactional mail, which MailerLite leaves to MailerSend |
| Kit | Up to 10,000 subscribers, unlimited broadcasts, forms and landing pages, tagging and segmentation | Visual Automations and sequences, which start on the Creator plan |
| SendGrid Campaigns | Up to 2,000 contacts and 6,000 emails a month | The Email API is a separate product with a 60-day trial of 100 emails a day |
| Mailchimp | 1 audience, 250 contacts, 500 sends a month (250 a day) | Almost everything beyond a tiny first newsletter |
Sending-only services have free plans too: SMTP2GO allows 1,000 emails a month, MailerSend 500, Mailgun 100 a day and Postmark 100 a month with no overages. They suit a product that only sends receipts and resets, and they come up again in the transactional email category.
Paid plans priced by list size
| Monthly price | 1,000 contacts | 5,000 contacts | 10,000 contacts |
|---|---|---|---|
| SendGrid Campaigns Basic | $0 (free plan) | $15 | $25 |
| Resend marketing | $0 | $40 | $80 |
| MailerLite Comfort | $19 | $49 | $89 |
| Loops | $0 (free plan) | $48 | $99 |
| MailerLite Power | $39 | $69 | $129 |
| Kit Creator (yearly billing) | $33 | $75 | $116 |
| Mailchimp Standard | $20 at 500 contacts | $100 (2,501 to 5,000 band) | $135 (5,001 to 10,000 band) |
| ActiveCampaign Starter (yearly billing) | $15 | $79 | $149 |
Rows are ordered by the 10,000-contact price. Loops' 5,000 and 10,000 columns are its slider readouts at 4,788 and 9,998 subscribers. The Mailchimp row uses the list prices, not the 50% first-year offers. MailerLite's prices are its monthly-billing readouts, and the Kit figures are its monthly rate when billed yearly. The pages behind these numbers are Loops, Resend's Marketing tab, MailerLite, Kit, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign and SendGrid.
Paid plans priced by monthly emails
| Monthly price | 5,000 emails | 10,000 emails | 50,000 emails |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon SES Essentials | $0.80 | $1.60 | $8.00 |
| Brevo Starter | $9 | $17 | $56 |
| SMTP2GO | $10 (Starter) | $10 (Starter) | No 50,000 plan; Professional is $75 at 100,000 |
| Postmark Basic | Plans start at 10,000 | $15 | $55 |
| Brevo Standard | $18 | $35 | $97 |
| Mailgun | Basic starts at 10,000 | $15 (Basic) | $35 (Foundation) |
| Resend transactional Pro | $20 | $20 | $20 |
The SES row is plain arithmetic on the $0.16 per 1,000 emails Essentials rate: 5 x $0.16, 10 x $0.16 and 50 x $0.16, before attachments, dedicated IPs or the engineering time to handle bounces and complaints yourself. Brevo's rows are the monthly-billing readouts on its slider, and Resend, Postmark, Mailgun and SMTP2GO are each vendor's published plan for that volume. The cheapest line is not the best one for everybody, but it sets the floor you are paying a premium over.
Where each shortlisted tool wins and loses
Brevo: the lowest price for automation plus transactional mail
For about $18 a month Standard puts automation, A/B testing and advanced reports on the same account as transactional email, SMS and WhatsApp campaigns, and the free plan stores up to 100,000 contacts. The open question for SaaS is event handling, so read how its API delivers product events into automations before you move your onboarding flow. Watch the extras too: an additional marketing seat on Standard is $9 a month and removing the Brevo logo is a $9 add-on.
Loops: built for SaaS, pricier per contact
Loops reads $48 at 4,788 subscribers and $99 at 9,998, which is above SendGrid's Campaigns and Resend's marketing tab at the same list size. What the money buys is a tool whose flows, broadcasts and transactional endpoint are designed around app signups, with transactional sends included on paid plans and no charge for team seats. It is the pick if one founder wants to build lifecycle email in an afternoon and the list stays under about 10,000. Loops vs Resend sets it against the developer-first alternative.
Resend: free on both tabs, paid when you need volume or contacts
Resend now has a Marketing tab as well as the sending API, so it is no longer transactional-only: $0 at 1,000 contacts, $40 at 5,000, $80 at 10,000. The two meters are separate, so a product with 5,000 contacts and 40,000 emails a month would read $40 plus $20 before extras. It suits teams that write templates as React components. If its limits pinch, Resend alternatives lists the next options.
Amazon SES: the lowest price, with the most work
At $0.16 per 1,000 emails, SES is a fraction of every other sending price here. Standard dedicated IPs are $24.95 a month each and attachment data costs $0.12 per GB. The Pro and Enterprise tiers add fixed monthly fees per account and region ($105 and $500). You write the suppression handling, dashboards and any flows yourself, which only pays off when you have an engineer with spare weeks.
MailerLite and Kit: simple editors, aimed at newsletters
MailerLite's Comfort plan at $49 for 5,000 subscribers is a sound price for newsletters and drip emails, and it lists an EU data storage center with ISO 27001. It does not send transactional mail itself. Kit, formerly ConvertKit, lets you hold up to 10,000 subscribers free but only for broadcasts; the Creator plan at $75 for 5,000 subscribers unlocks automations and sequences. Both fit content-led products better than app-event ones. The ConvertKit alternatives page covers the Kit side.
SendGrid Campaigns and Mailchimp: low entry, awkward steps
SendGrid's Campaigns Basic reads $15 for 5,000 contacts and 15,000 emails, and $25 for 10,000 contacts and 30,000 emails, which is the lowest contact-billed price in the table; the Email API is billed separately, so a product sending both pays twice. Mailchimp's $20 start climbs to $100 for 2,501 to 5,000 contacts, and its first-year 50% offers hide that for a year. Mailchimp alternatives shows what to switch to when the band jump arrives.
Costs that never reach the headline price
- Branding. Loops' free plan adds a small footer, Brevo charges $9 a month to remove its logo, and Kit lists branding removal from the Creator plan up.
- Seats. Loops does not charge for team seats; Brevo charges $9 per extra marketing seat on Standard; Mailchimp caps Standard at 5 seats and Essentials at 3.
- Dedicated IPs. SES lists $24.95 a month per standard IP, Resend $30 a month for Scale customers above 3,000 emails a day, Mailgun $59 per extra IP, and Postmark starts at $50 a month per IP for senders at 300,000 emails a month or more on Pro or higher. A shared pool is fine at budget scale; just know the price of the next step.
- Billing terms. ActiveCampaign and Kit publish annual rates, so the monthly figure assumes you pay for the year; Customer.io's Essentials is billed monthly.
- Contact growth. Every contact-billed plan raises the price in bands. Plan the next band before a launch, not after.
The wider picture of how email plans are priced is in email platform pricing explained.
When a budget tool is the wrong choice
A cheap plan stops being cheap when it makes you build around its gaps. Three signs: a customer's security review asks for a data processing agreement or a certification that the plan does not list, your onboarding depends on product events across email, push and in-app messages, or one engineer spends a day a month babysitting a workaround. At that point Customer.io at $100 for 5,000 profiles, or its Startup Program for companies that raised under $10M, is a fairer comparison than the $18 plan you started on. Founders in the earliest stage can also read email for early-stage SaaS for sequencing the first few flows.
Which one to pick
- Receipts and resets only, under 3,000 emails a month: Resend free, or SMTP2GO or Postmark if you prefer their dashboards.
- Receipts plus a welcome sequence, one developer: Resend free on both tabs, then Brevo Standard at $18 or Loops at $48 once the free caps bite.
- Lowest total bill with SMS and WhatsApp as options: Brevo.
- Founder-run, no engineer to spare for email: Loops.
- Newsletter or course audience attached to the product: MailerLite Comfort or Kit.
- Heavy transactional volume and a capable engineer: Amazon SES, with Mailgun vs SendGrid as the managed middle ground.
Frequently asked questions
What is the cheapest way to send receipts and onboarding emails together?
Stay on free plans until a limit forces you off. Resend's free transactional tier covers 3,000 emails a month at 100 a day, its free marketing tier covers 1,000 contacts, and Loops' free plan allows 4,000 sends in a rolling 30 days. When you outgrow them, Brevo's Standard plan reads $18 a month for 5,000 emails and includes automation, and Amazon SES charges $0.16 per 1,000 emails if you are willing to build the tooling yourself.
Is a free plan or a cheap paid plan the better start for a new SaaS?
Start free if your list is under about 1,000 people and you can live with a footer or a send cap, because Loops, Resend and Brevo all let you build real flows at $0. Move to a paid plan when a cap blocks a launch or you need the footer gone: Brevo's logo-removal add-on is $9 a month, and Loops reads $48 at 4,788 subscribers. A free plan that silently stops delivering during a launch week costs more than the subscription.
Why does Mailchimp look cheap and then jump?
Its Standard plan starts at $20 a month for 500 contacts, but the next bands read $100 for 2,501 to 5,000 contacts and $135 for 5,001 to 10,000, and the 50% first-year offers ($50 and $67.50) end after 12 months. If you expect 5,000 contacts within a year, Loops at $48, Resend marketing at $40 or MailerLite Comfort at $49 reads lower at that size.
When should a startup leave budget tooling behind?
When a buyer's security review asks for things a cheap plan does not list, when product events need to trigger messages across several channels, or when engineering time spent on workarounds costs more than the next plan. Customer.io Essentials starts at $100 a month for 5,000 profiles, and companies that raised under $10M can apply to its Startup Program for a free first year, so the jump may be smaller than it looks.