MailerLite vs Omnisend
MailerLite vs Mailchimp Free: Same 250 Subscribers, Five Times the Sends
Omnisend's Standard Plan Gives You 500 Contacts — Twice the Free Tier, For $11.20
The short answer
- Entry price
- MailerLite starts at $12/month; Omnisend starts at $11.20/month. Omnisend is $0.80 a month cheaper to start. Entry price is not total cost — check the limit that binds first on each.
- Our rating
- 4.4/5 against 4.2/5. That gap is inside our own margin, so treat these as rated level and decide on the specifics below rather than on the score.
- Against the rest of the category
- Of the 7 email marketing tools we have reviewed that publish a starting price, MailerLite is the 2nd cheapest to start and Omnisend the 1st.
MailerLite
from $12/monthBoth free plans cap at 250 subscribers. MailerLite lets you send 2,500 emails a month against Mailchimp's 500, and its paid entry is $12 against $13. On the specific comparison most people are actually making, it wins on the numbers.
What works
- ✓ Free plan sends 2,500 emails a month — five times Mailchimp's free allowance
- ✓ Comfort starts at $12/month, and Power at $25 removes send limits entirely
- ✓ Free plan includes a website builder and a landing page, not just email
- ✓ The editor is clean and fast; less clutter than the older incumbents
What does not
- ✗ 250 free subscribers is the same tight ceiling as Mailchimp — this is not a generous free tier
- ✗ Free plan allows only 3 active forms and 2 user seats
- ✗ Smaller integration ecosystem than Mailchimp — check your stack first
- ✗ Comfort's send limit is 10× your subscriber tier, so heavy senders climb tiers faster than list growth suggests
Omnisend
from $11.20/monthFree carries 250 contacts and 500 emails a month. Standard at $11.20 doubles the contacts to 500 and lifts sends to 6,000. Pro at $41.30 gives unlimited emails but still only 2,500 contacts — the unlimited is on the axis that was not constraining you.
What works
- ✓ The free plan is permanent, with 500 monthly emails and 500 web push notifications
- ✓ Pro removes the email send limit entirely
- ✓ SMS rates are published and fall with volume, from $0.009 to $0.007
- ✓ Web push is unlimited from the Standard tier upward
What does not
- ✗ Standard's 500 contacts is a very low ceiling for an ecommerce list
- ✗ Pro's 'unlimited emails' comes with only 2,500 contacts
- ✗ Users included per plan are not stated on any tier
- ✗ SMS is billed separately from every plan
Who should pick which
Pick MailerLite if this is the thing that matters most to you:
Free plan sends 2,500 emails a month — five times Mailchimp's free allowance.
What most often rules it out: 250 free subscribers is the same tight ceiling as Mailchimp — this is not a generous free tier.
Pick Omnisend if this is the thing that matters most to you:
The free plan is permanent, with 500 monthly emails and 500 web push notifications.
What most often rules it out: Standard's 500 contacts is a very low ceiling for an ecommerce list.
Figures come from our review of each product, checked against the vendor's own pricing page. We do not convert currencies or rank prices quoted on different billing periods — where that applies it is said above, not quietly resolved.
A third option, and what it is not
Bonfire Terminal is an AI agent that runs as a desktop app on your own machine — no cloud, nothing you type leaves your computer. It does not do what MailerLite or Omnisend do, and we will not pretend it does. If either is doing its job for you, keep it.
What the $27 actually gets you→The way in is the AI Marketers Club — $27 one-time, including 21 days of access. Keeping it after that is a separate purchase; the vendor's FAQ states Bonfire Terminal starts at $5,000. We earn a commission at no extra cost to you, which is why both tools' drawbacks are printed in full above and the $5,000 is here rather than left for you to find later.