MailerLite Review 2026: Pricing, Free Plan, and Verdict

MailerLite is an email marketing platform with a light website and funnel layer built around it. The core is a drag and drop email editor, subscriber management, signup forms and pop-ups, automations, and reporting. On top of that sit landing pages, simple multi-page websites, and digital product selling, so a small operator can run a list and a basic storefront in one place.

The tool fits solo creators, newsletter writers, coaches, and small businesses that want a tidy interface and predictable pricing rather than the depth (and learning curve) of enterprise suites. It competes most directly with Kit, beehiiv, Brevo, and GetResponse. If your priority is a clean sending experience with room to add landing pages and a product or two, MailerLite is squarely in scope. If you need advanced CRM logic, complex branching journeys, or heavy sales automation, tools further up the market will suit you better.

As a reminder, our evaluation here is spec-based: we are reading MailerLite's published limits, not measuring our own account.

MailerLite has four tiers in 2026: Free, Comfort (formerly Growing Business), Power (formerly Advanced), and Enterprise. The prices below are billed monthly at the 1,000 subscriber tier. Annual billing removes roughly 10 percent.

A few notes. Comfort starts at $12 per month at the 500 subscriber tier and Power at $25 per month, and both climb as your list grows. The email ceiling on Free and Comfort follows a 10x rule (250 subscribers gives 2,500 sends, 1,000 subscribers on Comfort gives 10,000), while Power lifts the send cap under a fair use policy. Enterprise is quoted individually for senders above 200,000 subscribers.

The free plan is where MailerLite changed the most, and not in users' favour. It now covers up to 250 active subscribers and 2,500 emails a month. For context, that limit was 1,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails for years, was cut to 500 in late 2025, and dropped again to 250 in 2026. Anyone who remembers MailerLite as the generous free option should recalibrate.

What the free tier still includes is reasonable for zero cost: the drag and drop editor, 3 automations, 3 forms, one landing page, one basic website, one digital product, and two user seats. MailerLite branding appears on emails and pages, and support is limited to an initial window before you rely on the knowledge base.

Compared with rivals, 250 subscribers is now on the low side. beehiiv and Kit both carry free lists into the thousands. MailerLite's free plan is fine for testing the editor or a very small list, but it is no longer a place to grow for free.

MailerLite's automation builder is visual and beginner-friendly. You pick a trigger (a new subscriber, a form submission, a date, a click, or a purchase), then chain steps such as emails, delays, and conditions. The layout is clear, and for the common jobs (a welcome sequence, a lead magnet delivery, a re-engagement flow) it is quick to assemble.

The trade-off is depth. The free plan allows 3 active automations and Comfort allows 50, with the step and branching logic aimed at straightforward funnels rather than the dense, multi-path journeys you get from ActiveCampaign or GoHighLevel. Power removes the automation ceiling and adds multiple triggers per workflow, which helps more advanced setups.

On templates, MailerLite ships a library of newsletter and campaign layouts plus reusable blocks, and paid plans add an AI writing assistant and a subject line generator to draft copy. Power also unlocks a custom HTML editor for teams that prefer to hand-code. It is a capable, tidy system for most creators, without the steep curve of the heavier platforms.

Yes, and this is part of why MailerLite reads as more than a plain email tool. All tiers include at least one landing page and one simple website, with Comfort raising the combined total to 10 and Power making them unlimited. The page builder shares the same drag and drop feel as the email editor, so there is little new to learn.

Digital products are also built in. The free plan allows one product, Comfort allows five, and Power is unlimited. You can sell downloads or paid access and collect payments through connected processors, which suits a creator selling a template pack, an ebook, or a small course without bolting on a separate cart.

The websites are intentionally simple. They are good for a link-in-bio page, a small brochure site, or a product landing page, but they are not a replacement for a full CMS or a dedicated funnel builder. For an email-first operator who wants a modest storefront in the same dashboard, the bundle is genuinely useful. If a sales funnel is your centre of gravity, a purpose-built tool will give you more control.

On a spec basis, MailerLite covers the deliverability fundamentals. It documents standard domain authentication (SPF and DKIM), supports a custom sending domain, and publishes its own deliverability rate as a marketing figure. It also runs a dedicated deliverability team and offers a dedicated IP option on Enterprise for very high-volume senders.

We want to be precise here: we have not measured MailerLite's inbox placement ourselves, because we do not operate a live account. Vendor-published rates are self-reported and should be read as claims, not independent tests. What we can say is that the account approval step MailerLite applies to new signups, which some users find slow, exists partly to keep sender reputation clean, and that outcome tends to help legitimate senders over time.

As with any platform, real deliverability will depend on your list hygiene, authentication setup, and sending habits at least as much as the vendor's infrastructure.

The headline limitation is the shrunken free plan. Dropping from 1,000 to 250 subscribers, and from 12,000 to 2,500 emails, removes the main reason many people chose MailerLite in the first place. Paid prices also rose across the board in 2026, so the value story is weaker than it once was.

A few more to weigh:

• New accounts go through a manual approval step, which can delay your first send by a day or more.
• Automation logic is friendly but shallow relative to CRM-grade tools, so complex branching can feel constrained on Comfort.
• Free plan support is time-limited, after which you lean on the knowledge base.
• The custom HTML editor and some advanced features sit only on Power, the top standard tier.
• Because our review is spec-based, we cannot vouch for day-to-day quirks the way we can for the tools we run live.

None of these are disqualifying, but together they mean MailerLite is now judged on its paid product more than on a headline free tier.

MailerLite scores 7.5 out of 10 in our spec-based 2026 review. It remains one of the cleaner and more approachable email platforms, with a tidy editor, a usable automation builder, and a genuinely handy bundle of landing pages, websites, and digital products at a fair price. Comfort at around $19 a month for 1,000 subscribers and Power at around $39 with unlimited sending are both defensible for a growing creator or small business.

What has changed is the free story. The 250 subscriber, 2,500 email free plan is now a trial rather than a growth path, and the 2026 price rises mean rivals deserve a look before you commit. We would still shortlist MailerLite if you value a clean interface and an all-in-one feel, and we would compare it against Kit and beehiiv on free plan depth and newsletter features first.

You can review MailerLite's current plans on its pricing page. As a spec-based assessment, treat our score as a read of published limits, not a hands-on measurement.