MailerLite has quietly become the answer for creators who want automation sophistication without paying for it. The visual automation builder — trigger-based sequences, conditional splits, RSS-to-email — is the kind of feature you'd expect to be gated behind an ActiveCampaign-sized budget, and here it's available at the entry tier.
We assessed MailerLite alongside the rest of our newsletters & email reviews, including Beehiiv, Ghost and Kit, so the score below is relative to that field.
The free plan covering up to 1,000 subscribers with most core features intact makes it a genuinely reasonable starting point rather than a crippled trial, which matters for a creator not yet monetizing a list.
Where it lags slightly is deliverability reputation — nothing dramatic, but shared-IP sending on cheaper tiers makes Gmail Promotions-tab placement more likely than with platforms that have a longer-established sender reputation. Segmentation, once your list grows past a few thousand and you want layered behavioral conditions, also feels less mature than dedicated CRM-style tools.
For a newsletter writer bootstrapping a list from zero, though, MailerLite's combination of free-tier generosity and real automation depth is hard to beat on price.
| PLAN | PRICE | WHAT YOU GET |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 /mo | up to 1,000 subscribers |
| Growing Business | $9 /mo | starts at 500 subscribers, scales with list size |
| Advanced | $18 /mo | more automation and segmentation |
Small creators and side-project newsletters watching costs closely — and anyone who wants MailerLite to do the heavy lifting in this category.
you need enterprise-grade segmentation at large list sizes — if that's a dealbreaker, see every newsletters & email tool we've tested.
- Is MailerLite worth it in 2026?
- A budget-friendly email platform that punches well above its price with automation and landing page tools most cheap tools skip. We rate it 8/10, and it's the strongest pick for small creators and side-project newsletters watching costs closely.
- How much does MailerLite cost?
- MailerLite lists Free at $0/mo, Growing Business at $9/mo, Advanced at $18/mo. List prices change often, so confirm with the vendor before you buy.
- What are the downsides of MailerLite?
- Deliverability reputation slightly behind premium rivals Fewer advanced segmentation options at scale Support response times slower on free tier Template design options more limited than Beehiiv
- How did BestCreates review MailerLite?
- Editorially reviewed: Evaluated against our documented editorial framework — features, ease of use, pricing accuracy, support and integrations — using vendor documentation, pricing pages and published user evidence rather than hands-on testing. The score is relative to the other tools we cover in this category.
Editorially reviewed. Evaluated against our documented editorial framework — features, ease of use, pricing accuracy, support and integrations — using vendor documentation, pricing pages and published user evidence rather than hands-on testing. Read our review standards.
BestCreates is written and edited by Carlos Gil. Every tool is assessed against the same documented framework — the jobs creators hire it for, ease of use, pricing accuracy, support and integrations — and each review states in the open how it was assessed.
LAST CHECKED SEP 16, 2026
SIGNED BY CARLOS GIL · FOUNDER & EDITOR, THE BEST NETWORK · OUR DISCLOSURE POLICY