Email software for clinics and practices, priced and limited honestly.

What a practice actually needs from email

Clinic email has four jobs, and they carry different risks. Appointment reminders and confirmations are operational messages that patients expect, and they should carry as little detail as possible: the practice name, the date, the time and a way to confirm or reschedule. Recall campaigns bring back patients who are overdue for a visit, such as a dental cleaning, a diabetic eye exam or a routine check-up. Newsletters and health education build trust between visits, and they usually go out to a broader list that has opted in. Review requests ask recently seen patients for feedback on a public platform.

Each job depends on a different list and a different trigger. A recall campaign needs a field for last visit date that the tool can use to decide who receives a message. A newsletter needs a clear opt-in and a way for patients to unsubscribe. A reminder needs an appointment time that is synced from the scheduling system, or a manual export that someone updates each week. Before you compare platforms, decide which of these four jobs will carry the most weight in your practice, because that choice will eliminate several tools early.

Pricing is the second filter. Most of the platforms in this guide charge by contact count, by sending volume or by people band, so a list that looks small on paper may land in a higher tier once every patient, former patient and prospect is counted. Clinics often keep long lists of past patients for recall purposes, which is useful but expensive on contact-based pricing. Work out your real list size before you open any pricing page.

What it costs at three list sizes

A practice\u2019s real cost depends on how many contacts sit on the list, and most vendors publish prices only for certain sizes. The table below uses 500, 5,000 and 10,000 contacts. Where a vendor does not publish a price for that size, the cell says so rather than estimating. Use it as a starting point and confirm the figure on the pricing page before you sign up.

Two calculations show how the gap grows. At 5,000 contacts, Moosend on annual billing costs $38 a month, or 12 × $38 = $456 a year. Mailchimp at the same size costs $100 a month, or 12 × $100 = $1,200 a year. The difference is $744 a year before you add any features, so the cheaper plan is only the right choice if it covers your reminders, recalls and reporting. Drip at the 4,501 to 5,000 people band is $89 a month, or 12 × $89 = $1,068 a year, and it is priced by people rather than by sends.

Brevo is priced differently. Its free plan is limited by daily sends rather than by contacts, so a clinic with a large list and a light schedule can often stay on the free plan longer. Once you need more sending capacity, the Starter plan at $9 a month and the Standard plan at $18 a month are the next steps, both billed monthly. Brevo\u2019s Professional plan is priced by monthly volume from $499 a month, and it is aimed at much larger senders than most clinics.

Tools we would not recommend for clinics

Klaviyo, Customer.io and Loops are capable platforms, but they are built for different buyers. Klaviyo starts at $20 a month for 500 profiles, $100 a month at 5,000 profiles and $150 a month at 10,000, and its features center on retail and ecommerce data. Customer.io\u2019s Essentials plan starts at $100 a month, and its Premium plan is custom-priced for large profile volumes, which suits health systems with dedicated data teams rather than a single clinic. Loops is priced at $99 a month on its Growing Audience plan, and it is designed for SaaS onboarding rather than patient communication.

These tools are not wrong for every business, but a clinic that buys them will pay for data features and integrations that it cannot use, and will have to build the recall and reminder logic itself.

Compliance: what can and cannot go in the account

The most important decision in clinic email is what you put into the tool. The safe content is marketing, scheduling reminders without clinical detail, general health education and review requests. Diagnoses, test results, treatment plans, medication names and any detail that links a named patient to a condition do not belong in marketing email, and they should not be stored in a tool that has no BAA in place.

A Business Associate Agreement is the contract that makes a vendor responsible for protected health information on your behalf. The pricing pages used for this review do not describe BAA terms, so do not assume that any tool in this list will sign one. Ask each vendor in writing, and keep the answer on file. If the answer is no, the tool can still be used for marketing, but the practice must keep clinical information out of it.

Consent is the second requirement. Patients should opt in to marketing email, and the opt-in should be recorded in the tool. For text messages, many countries have their own consent rules; in the United States, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act governs automated texts, so have counsel review how consent is captured. Reminders about an existing appointment may fall under different rules from promotional messages, so check the category of each message before you set up a flow.

Finally, keep the suppression list. Anyone who unsubscribes, asks not to be contacted or has moved practices should be removed from every list the tool holds, and the removal should carry over when you change platforms.

How to choose for your practice

Start with the list size. Count every contact you would keep, not just active patients, and read the price at that size on each pricing page. A clinic with 500 contacts has a very different choice from one with 10,000. Next, decide which of the four jobs matters most: reminders, recall, newsletters or events. Tools that are strong at events, such as Constant Contact, can be weak at recall logic, and the reverse is also true.

Then check the compliance position. If the tool will not sign a BAA, keep it to marketing and operational messages. If you want reminders with any clinical context, the answer has to come from counsel and the vendor together, not from a pricing page.

Finally, test the cheapest route first. Brevo\u2019s free plan and MailerLite\u2019s free tier let you build a recall flow before you pay anything. Once a flow works, you know what you need, and the price comparison above tells you which plan to buy. Clinics that run dental or salon businesses alongside a medical practice can compare industry-specific guidance on our dental clinics and salons and spas pages.

Pricing for every tool on this page was read from the vendor\u2019s pricing page on 7 October 2026. If a figure has changed, the vendor\u2019s own page is the authority. Our how we evaluate page explains how to report a correction.