A no-cost newsletter: 20 tools priced at 1,000 and 10,000 subscribers

Most newsletters start the same way: a sign-up box on a website and an issue every week or so. The tools that do this price by list size, and the bill usually starts once the list passes a few hundred or a few thousand people. We priced twenty of them at two sizes, 1,000 and 10,000 subscribers, and put our own newsletter on b59.link next to them, along with what it can't do.

All prices are in US dollars, monthly billing, from each vendor's own pricing page or help docs on 2026-10-23. The cost is the cheapest plan that holds the list and sends it about four issues a month. A free plan that can't send one issue to the whole list in a day (Brevo allows 300 emails a day, Mailjet 200) is priced at the cheapest plan that can.

Twenty tools at 1,000 and 10,000 subscribers

text

What a newsletter costs per month, sending about 4 issues a month
(monthly billing, USD, checked 2026-10-23)

Tool               Free plan                              1,000 subs       10,000 subs
-----------------  -------------------------------------  ---------------  ---------------
b59.link/nl        yes                                    $0               $0
Substack           any size; 10% if you charge readers    $0               $0
Kit                up to 10,000 subscribers, branding     $0               $0
Beehiiv            up to 2,500 subscribers                $0               $139 (Lite)
EmailOctopus       2,500 subs, 10,000 emails a month      $0               $44.50 (Pro)
Sender.net         2,500 subs, 15,000 emails a month      $0               $69 (Standard)
Zoho Campaigns     2,000 contacts, 6,000 emails a month   $0               $49 (Standard)
Loops.so           emails only the first 1,000            $0               $99 (Growth)
Mailjet            200 emails a day                       $9 (Starter)     $40 (Essential)
Buttondown         first 100 subscribers                  $9               $79
Moosend            none, 30-day trial                     $16 (Pro)        $88 (Pro)
Brevo              300 emails a day                       $17 (Starter)    $46 (Starter)
Ghost(Pro)         none, trial                            $18 (Starter)    $105 (Publisher)
GetResponse        500 contacts*                          $19 (Starter)    $79 (Starter)
MailerLite         250 subscribers                        $19 (Comfort)    $89 (Comfort)
Flodesk            forms only, no sending                 $25 (Lite)       $72 (Lite)
AWeber             none, 14-day trial                     $25 (Lite)       $100 (Lite)
Mailchimp          250 contacts                           $29.96           $87.59
Constant Contact   none, trial                            from $12         not verified
listmonk           free software, you host it             hosting+sender   hosting+sender

* GetResponse's free plan limits come from its help page as quoted in search results.
Mailchimp runs 50% off for the first 12 months ($14.98 / $43.80).

At 1,000 subscribers eight hosted options cost nothing. At 10,000 only three do: Substack, Kit and b59.link. Substack is free at any size but takes 10% of paid subscriptions if you charge readers, sends from its own domain, and its embed form can't be styled. Kit's free plan stops at exactly 10,000 subscribers and carries Kit branding. The cheapest paid plans at 10,000 are Mailjet at $40 (priced by emails, 50,000 a month), EmailOctopus at $44.50 and Brevo at $46.

Some free plans are smaller than they look. Flodesk's free plan builds forms and pages but can't send email. Loops keeps any number of contacts but only emails the first 1,000. Beehiiv is free to 2,500 and then $139 a month at 10,000 on Lite, the highest figure in the table.

Two years, added up

A list grows, so the free plan that covers year one may not cover year two. Here is one newsletter with 1,000 readers for a year and 10,000 the next:

text

Two years of one newsletter: 1,000 readers all of year one, 10,000 all of
year two. 12 x the monthly price, no yearly discount, trials ignored.

Tool            Year 1 (1,000)   Year 2 (10,000)   Two years
--------------  ---------------  ----------------  ---------
b59.link/nl     $0               $0                $0
Substack        $0               $0                $0
Kit             $0               $0                $0
EmailOctopus    $0               $534              $534
Mailjet         $108             $480              $588
Zoho Campaigns  $0               $588              $588
Brevo           $204             $552              $756
Sender.net      $0               $828              $828
Buttondown      $108             $948              $1,056
Flodesk         $300             $864              $1,164
GetResponse     $228             $948              $1,176
Loops.so        $0               $1,188            $1,188
Moosend         $192             $1,056            $1,248
MailerLite      $228             $1,068            $1,296
Mailchimp       $360             $1,051            $1,411
Ghost(Pro)      $216             $1,260            $1,476
AWeber          $300             $1,200            $1,500
Beehiiv         $0               $1,668            $1,668

Mailchimp is $29.96 and $87.59 a month, rounded to the dollar per year.

Free plans with a 2,000 or 2,500 cap (Zoho Campaigns, EmailOctopus, Sender, Beehiiv) cost nothing in year one and between $534 and $1,668 in year two. Tools priced by emails sent, like Mailjet and Brevo, stay cheap at 10,000 if you send weekly or less.

What you get on b59.link/nl

Our newsletter is a subscriber list, a subscribe panel for your site and an HTML editor that sends each issue to the list. Create the list at b59.link/nl, copy two lines of HTML (or a small React component) and paste them where the sign-up box should go. There is no iframe: the script draws the form in your page.

html

<div data-b59-list="<list id>"></div>
<script src="https://b59.link/sdk/b59-lists.js" async></script>

Issues are written in HTML with a live preview beside the source. Send as campaign writes one email to every active subscriber, each with a footer and its own unsubscribe link. The Campaigns table shows how many are pending, sent and failed, and the Subscribers tab exports everyone as a CSV at any time.

An account gets 10,000 data-collecting requests a month (sign-ups and people you add by hand both count), so the 10,000 column above is a whole month's allowance arriving at once. Sending issues isn't counted against that number.

What it doesn't do

There are no open or click reports, no scheduled sends, no automations or welcome sequences, no paid subscriptions and no hosted archive of past issues. Sign-up is single opt-in, with no confirmation email. The panel shows a small "Powered by b59.link" line, and you write issues in HTML rather than a drag-and-drop editor. If you want to charge readers, Substack or Ghost are built for it; if you want automations on a free plan, Kit up to 10,000 is where we would look. If you want a list, a sign-up box and a way to send it an issue, you don't need to pay for it.

Start a newsletter list, paste the subscribe panel on your site, and write the first issue when you are ready.

Start a newsletter

Sources

Pricing pages checked on 2026-10-23: support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/360037607131, kit.com/pricing, beehiiv.com/pricing, emailoctopus.com/pricing, sender.net/pricing, zoho.com/campaigns/pricing.html, loops.so/pricing, listmonk.app/docs, buttondown.com/pricing, mailjet.com/pricing, moosend.com/pricing, brevo.com/pricing, ghost.org/pricing, getresponse.com/pricing, mailerlite.com/pricing, flodesk.com/pricing, aweber.com/pricing.htm, mailchimp.com/pricing/marketing (USD), constantcontact.com/pricing. Prices change; if you spot one that has, tell us in the comments. The same twenty tools are side by side on shortlist20.com/l/newsletter-tools.