Email software for bloggers: choose by how you publish and earn

What a blogger’s email stack has to do

A blog’s list works differently from a store’s list or a SaaS onboarding list. Readers arrive from search, social posts and other blogs, and many of them stay for one topic rather than one product. The tool you choose has to handle four jobs well, and each job points to different features.

Publishing rhythm. New posts should reach subscribers on a schedule without someone pressing send each time. RSS-to-email and scheduled broadcasts do this. Confirm the feature on the plan you intend to buy, because vendors often package it differently from the base plan.

Reader segmentation. A reader who joined for beginner gardening posts should not receive every advanced piece on soil chemistry. Tags, interest fields and segments let you send the right follow-up. Tag-first tools such as Kit are built around this; list-first tools handle it with segments and workflows, which often means more setup.

Monetisation. Affiliate sequences, digital product launches and paid tiers each need different plumbing. Affiliate sequences need automations that run over several days. Paid tiers need subscription billing and access control. Product launches need a sequence and a clear buy button. Check the plan that includes the feature you need, not only the headline price.

List economics. Some tools charge by contact count, some by monthly email volume and some by active people. A blog that publishes daily to a modest list and a blog that sends weekly to a large archive will pay very different amounts for the same tool. Work out your own numbers before you compare headline prices.

Tool by tool: what each one does for a blog

Each section covers one tool from a blogger’s point of view: what it does well for a publishing business, where it falls short, the price that applies, and a link to the vendor’s pricing page. Read the sections for the blog types that match yours and skip the rest.

Kit: the blogger-native starting point

Kit suits a blog that wants to start with a free list and grow into products and automated sequences without changing tools. Subscribers can be tagged by topic, so a reader who signs up through a gardening post can receive gardening material rather than a generic weekly digest. The free plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers and includes landing pages, forms, unlimited email broadcasts, tagging and segmentation, and the ability to sell digital products and subscriptions. For a blog whose first revenue is a guide or a template, that means you can start selling before you pay a monthly fee.

Where it falls short: visual automations and email sequences start on the Creator plan, so a multi-day affiliate welcome series or a product launch sequence needs a paid plan. Subscriber signals and deliverability reporting sit on the Pro plan. Kit is built around creators, so a blog with several staff editors who need deep editorial workflow may find it narrower than a newsroom system.

Price: Free up to 10,000 subscribers. Creator is $33 a month billed annually, and Pro is $66 a month billed annually. Paid plans come with a 14-day free trial and no credit card needed. Full details are on the Kit pricing page.

MailerLite: a free start for a small blog

MailerLite is a sensible choice for a blog that publishes on a steady rhythm and wants costs at zero for as long as possible. The free plan covers up to 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, enough for a new blog to build a publishing habit before paying for anything. Confirm that RSS-to-email or scheduled publishing is included on the plan you plan to use, because that is the feature a feed-driven blog depends on.

Where it falls short: the Comfort plan’s monthly email allowance is 10 times its subscriber tier ceiling. A daily publisher should count planned sends before choosing a tier. If your revenue plan depends on several overlapping sequences, compare the segmentation options on each plan first.

Price: Free for up to 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month. Comfort is $12 a month billed monthly or $10.80 a month billed annually at the 500-subscriber starting tier. Power is $25 a month billed monthly or $22.50 a month billed annually, with unlimited monthly emails at the same starting tier. See the MailerLite pricing page.

Mailchimp: familiar, with costs that climb in bands

Mailchimp is widely known, and a new blogger can learn one tool for lists, sending and reporting. A new blog can start on the free plan, which covers up to 250 contacts and 500 sends a month, with a maximum of 250 sends a day. That familiarity matters when you are also learning to write, design and publish.

Where it falls short: the price rises in bands as the contact list grows. Standard starts at $20 a month at the 500-contact selector, with up to 6,000 emails a month at that size. The published bands continue at $100 a month for 2,501 to 5,000 contacts (up to 60,000 emails a month) and $135 a month for 5,001 to 10,000 contacts (up to 120,000 emails a month). A blog at the top of the 10,000 band pays $135 × 12 = $1,620 a year before any other add-ons, so budget for the band you will reach, not the one you have today.

Price: Free up to 250 contacts. Standard starts at $20 a month for 500 contacts. Check the Mailchimp pricing page for the band that matches your list and the current billing options.

Brevo: priced by send volume, not by reader count

Brevo suits a blog with a large back catalogue. Its free plan includes storage for up to 100,000 contacts, and paid plans are priced by monthly email volume rather than by how many people are on the list. A blog with a big archive and modest sending can therefore keep costs predictable, while a blog that sends often will watch the send count closely.

Where it falls short: the free plan caps sends at 300 a day, so a viral post or a launch day can push you onto a paid plan quickly. Because pricing follows sends, a blog that publishes often should estimate monthly sends rather than subscriber count before choosing.

Price: Free at 300 sends a day. Starter is $9 a month from 5,000 emails a month with no daily sending limit. Standard is $18 a month and adds automation, A/B testing and advanced reports. See the Brevo pricing page for yearly options and higher volume bands.

Ghost: when the blog and the list should be one system

Ghost is different from the other tools here because it is a publishing platform as well as an email tool. It suits a blog that wants its website, newsletter and paid subscriptions managed in one place, so the articles and the members sit in the same system. Ghost(Pro) is the managed hosting option, so you do not run the server yourself.

Where it falls short: moving an existing blog to Ghost is a site migration, with URLs, themes and archives to handle, not only an email migration. If your blog works well on its current platform and you only want a better newsletter, a dedicated email tool is a smaller change.

Price: Starter is $15 a month for up to 1,000 members, with one staff user, a website and an email newsletter. Publisher is $29 a month for up to 1,000 members, with three staff users, custom themes, paid subscriptions and analytics. Business is $199 a month for up to 10,000 members, with 15 staff users and priority support. See the Ghost pricing page.

ActiveCampaign: for blogs that run like media companies

ActiveCampaign suits a blog that has grown into a small media operation, with several editors, a sales process around the audience and a need to track readers through a CRM. Its automation and segmentation go deeper than most bloggers need, but that depth pays off once you have a commercial process to run.

Where it falls short: there is no free plan, only a free trial. A solo blogger who wants a simple tagged newsletter will pay for CRM features that go unused. For basic publishing, a lighter tool will serve you better.

Price: Starter is $15 a month, with the starting price shown at 1,000 contacts. Plus is $49 a month and adds standard segmentation and landing pages. Pro is $79 a month and adds advanced segmentation. Prices scale with contact count. See the ActiveCampaign pricing page.

Moosend: automation at a low monthly price

Moosend is a practical choice for a lean blog that needs automated sequences without paying for a large suite. Its Pro plan for 500 contacts is $9 a month billed monthly, or $7 a month billed annually, with unlimited emails. For a newer blog that has outgrown the free tier of another tool, that is one of the lower-cost routes to automation.

Where it falls short: publisher-specific tooling such as archive handling is lighter than in Kit or MailerLite. Check your plan’s feature list against the workflows you plan to build, and remember that prices step up with the contact band.

Price: Pro for 500 contacts is $9 a month billed monthly or $7 a month billed annually. At 1,000 contacts it is $16 or $13 a month, and at 5,000 contacts it is $48 or $38 a month. A 30-day free trial is available without a credit card. See the Moosend pricing page.

GetResponse: for bloggers who teach

GetResponse suits a blog whose income comes from courses, webinars and paid education. The Creator plan includes webinars, a website builder, a course creator and premium newsletter subscriptions. For a teaching blog, that combination keeps the newsletter, the lesson and the paid access inside one tool.

Where it falls short: the Starter plan includes one automation workflow, so a welcome sequence plus a product sequence needs the Marketer plan. Pure publishing without education products gains little from the extra features, and there is no ongoing free plan.

Price: Starter is $19 a month, or $15.58 a month billed annually, with unlimited monthly email sends and one automation workflow. Marketer is $59 a month, or $48.38 a month billed annually, with unlimited workflows and abandoned-cart recovery. Creator is $69 a month, or $56.58 a month billed annually. A free trial is available. See the GetResponse pricing page.

AWeber: simple broadcasts for traditional blogs

AWeber suits a traditional blog that wants straightforward broadcasts and a simple editor rather than a large feature set. Its published plans are based on subscriber count and monthly send allowance, which makes them easy to read against your own numbers.

Where it falls short: there is no ongoing free plan, only a 14-day trial. The figures on the pricing page are for 500 subscribers, so check the bands above that size before you budget for a growing list.

Price: Lite is $15 a month for 500 subscribers and 5,000 sends a month. Plus is $30 a month for 500 subscribers and 6,000 sends a month. See the AWeber pricing page.

Campaign Monitor: for long-form newsletters

Campaign Monitor suits a blogger who writes long essays and wants each newsletter to look as deliberate as the article. It is aimed at senders who care about layout and presentation more than tag-driven segmentation, so it fits a publication with one editorial voice better than a blog that covers many topics for different readers.

Where it falls short: there is no ongoing free plan. The trial allows 500 contacts and 500 emails over 30 days. Segmentation depth for multi-topic blogs is lighter than in tag-first tools.

Price: Lite is $13 a month billed monthly or $11.70 a month billed annually, at the 500-contact band. Essentials is $31 a month, or $27.90 a month billed annually, with unlimited sends at the same band. Premier is $171 a month, or $153.90 a month billed annually, and adds premier support including phone support. See the Campaign Monitor pricing page.

Drip: for blogs that also sell products

Drip is built for ecommerce-style sending, and it suits a blog with a shop, a course store or merchandise. Its onsite campaigns and dynamic segments let you target readers by activity, which matters when content and product sales sit on the same site.

Where it falls short: there is no ongoing free plan, only a 14-day trial with no credit card needed. A pure publisher without products will not use most of Drip’s store-oriented features, and the price band is set by the number of people on the list.

Price: The 1–2,500 people plan is $39 a month for unlimited email sends, dynamic segments, onsite campaigns and up to 50 workflows. Higher bands are listed on the Drip pricing page.

Tools this page leaves out

Several tools in the wider market are strong products built for other jobs. Klaviyo is organised around ecommerce data, and Customer.io is built for product and lifecycle messaging at scale. Neither is a good first email tool for a blog, so this page does not rank them.

What it costs as your list grows

Headline prices hide the real cost of a blog. The table shows the monthly price that applies at three realistic list sizes, using only the bands each vendor publishes. Where a vendor does not publish a price for that size, the cell says so, and you should check the pricing page before you decide.

Prices are monthly unless stated. “Billed annually” figures are the monthly equivalent. Brevo prices by monthly email volume, so its columns do not map directly to a subscriber count. Each price applies only to the band named in its cell.

Two calculations show the effect. A Mailchimp blog at the top of the 10,000-contact band pays $135 × 12 = $1,620 a year. A Kit blog that adds the Creator plan pays $33 × 12 = $396 a year, and that cost buys automations and sequences rather than list size.

Charging readers: what to check first

A paid tier changes the job of your email tool. You now need subscription billing, access control, a clear way to cancel and a clear line between free and paid issues. Not every list tool does this, and the features that matter are often on a higher plan than the one that sends your free newsletter.

Start by listing what a paying reader gets: an extra weekly issue, a template library, a members-only archive or a course. Then check each candidate for the feature that delivers it. Ghost’s Publisher plan at $29 a month includes paid subscriptions. GetResponse’s Creator plan at $69 a month includes premium newsletter subscriptions and a course creator. Kit’s free plan allows selling digital products and subscriptions, which suits a blogger who wants to sell one guide before running a membership.

Test the upgrade path before you launch. A free reader should see a clear offer, a paying reader should get access straight away, and the cancellation option should be easy to find. Payment terms and fees are set by each vendor and are not included in the plan prices on this page, so read the vendor’s pricing and help pages before you go live.

Setup and migration for a blog

Moving a blog’s list is mostly a consent and organisation task. The technical part, importing addresses, is quick. The steps below apply to any tool on this page, and the table shows what each step is for.

How to choose the right tool for your blog

Start with the monetisation you plan for the next twelve months, not the one you have today. A blog that plans affiliate sequences needs automation from the start. A blog that will sell a course needs webinars or a course tool. A blog that is only publishing for now can run on a free plan without paying for features it does not use.

Next, estimate your monthly sends and your contact count, and work out which price model fits. Contact-based pricing rewards blogs with engaged small lists and punishes large archives. Send-based pricing rewards blogs with large lists that send rarely, and punishes frequent publishers. Use the arithmetic in the cost section to compare the real numbers rather than the headline figure.

Then check the plan, not only the vendor. Read the pricing page and the help documentation for the exact feature you need, because plan names and inclusions change. If a feature is not clearly listed on the plan you intend to buy, ask the vendor before you commit.

Finally, plan a move you can reverse. Keep your old list export, and do not close your current tool until the new welcome series, tags and publishing schedule have run through a full cycle.