The 7 tools reviewed
Zutphen, Netherlands
Free (2,000 contacts, 12,000 emails/month) / subscription from €210/year (up to 500 contacts); mail credits from €9; excl. 21% VAT
Free tier
Best for: Dutch senders with a large list and low monthly volume
Laposta gives the most room of any free plan on this list: 2,000 contacts and 12,000 emails a month, from Laposta B.V. in Zutphen. A club, a school or a small shop with a few thousand addresses and one newsletter a month can stay on the free tier for a long time, because the monthly email allowance is six times the contact cap.
The free plan is the entry point to a model that mixes two charges once you grow. The cheapest paid subscription is €210 a year for up to 500 contacts, with mail credits from €9, all quoted excluding 21% VAT. That cheapest paid step is sized below the free plan's contact cap, so read the paid tiers carefully before you plan to outgrow the free one.
What Laposta does well
- Largest free allowance here: 2,000 contacts and 12,000 emails a month
- Both named hosting providers and Laposta itself are Dutch
- Open and click tracking can be switched off
Where Laposta falls short
- Paid use combines a yearly subscription with mail credits, which makes costs harder to forecast
- Aimed at newsletters, not at multi-channel campaigns
Standout feature. A free tier sized for a real mailing list rather than a trial.
Paris, France
Founded 2012
Free (300 emails/day, unlimited contacts) / from about €8/month
Free tier
Best for: Large lists mailed rarely, with no contact cap at all
Brevo's free plan has no limit on the number of contacts and allows 300 emails a day. Over a 30-day month that is up to about 9,000 emails, but the allowance resets daily, so a one-off campaign to a large list has to be spread over several days. Brevo is operated from Paris with EU processing.
That daily cap is the trade for the unlimited contacts. A list of 20,000 subscribers fits on the plan, yet sending to all of them takes more than two days, and a timed launch email will not reach everyone at once. Paid plans start at about €8 a month, with automation and A/B testing arriving on a higher tier from about €18.
What Brevo does well
- No limit on stored contacts on the free plan
- Free tier sits next to a CRM, SMS and transactional email on the same platform
- French company with EU processing
Where Brevo falls short
- A daily send cap of 300 spreads large campaigns over several days
- Automation and A/B testing are not part of the free tier
Standout feature. The only free plan here where list size never triggers an upgrade.
Tivoli (RM), Italy
Prices exclude VAT, paid by PayPal, cancel anytime, 20% off on yearly billing, 30-day money-back guarantee on paid plans. Free: up to 500 contacts, 3,000 emails/month, 10 AI credits/month, no Spedito branding. Up to 1,000 contacts €5/month (10,000 emails); 2,500 contacts €9 (25,000 emails); 5,000 contacts €15 (50,000 emails); 10,000 contacts €25; 25,000 contacts €49; 50,000 contacts €89; 100,000 contacts €159. Every feature is included in every plan. Unlimited plan (up to 20 million emails/month) on request. Extras: 200 AI credits €5, dedicated IP from the 10,000-contact plan (€147/quarter or €470.40/year), done-for-you setup €99 one-off, list cleaning from €9 one-time.
Free plan (500 contacts, 3,000 emails/month); 30-day money-back guarantee on paid plans
Best for: Small lists that want every feature without paying
Spedito, from Nutrispace S.r.l. in Tivoli near Rome, offers a free plan for up to 500 contacts and 3,000 emails a month with no Spedito branding on the emails. Its pricing page states that every feature is included in every plan, so the free tier carries the editor, signup forms and automations instead of a cut-down set.
The first paid step is €5 a month for up to 1,000 contacts (billed excluding VAT, with 20% off on yearly billing), which makes the climb from free to paid unusually small.
The free plan includes 10 AI credits a month, and additional AI credits are sold in packs of 200 for €5. The tool page lists AI text going to Anthropic PBC in the USA under standard contractual clauses, which a data protection officer should read before enabling the AI features.
What Spedito does well
- Free plan carries the same features as the paid plans
- No Spedito branding on free-plan emails
- First paid step is €5 a month for 1,000 contacts
Where Spedito falls short
- Free plan caps at 500 contacts and 3,000 emails a month
- AI features send text to a US provider under standard contractual clauses
Standout feature. Limits come from list size alone, since no feature is held back for paid customers.
Dublin, Ireland
Founded 2010
Free (250 subscribers, 2,500 emails/month) / Comfort from €9.90/month billed yearly
Free tier
Best for: New senders who care about the editor and landing pages
MailerLite's free plan covers 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month and includes the drag-and-drop editor, landing pages, signup forms and basic automation. Customers in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland contract with MailerLite Limited in Dublin, with intra-EEA processing.
Free is a smaller allowance than Laposta, Brevo or Spedito offer, and the paid price scales with subscriber count: Comfort starts from €9.90 a month on yearly billing. Removing MailerLite branding is part of the paid plans, so a free-plan newsletter carries the vendor's mark. A list that outgrows 250 subscribers moves to payment quickly.
What MailerLite does well
- Landing pages and signup forms inside the free tier
- ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification listed on the tool page
- Contract with an Irish entity for EEA, UK and Swiss customers
Where MailerLite falls short
- Free plan stops at 250 subscribers
- Branding removal needs a paid plan
Standout feature. The free tier includes landing pages and signup forms that others reserve for paid plans.
Ciudad Real, Spain
Free (250 subscribers, 2,000 emails/month) / Basic, Pro and Enterprise priced by volume, listed from €18, €50 and €157; 20% off with annual billing
Free tier
Best for: Spanish senders who want one-country hosting for free
Acumbamail, S.L.U. in Ciudad Real offers a free plan for 250 subscribers and 2,000 emails a month. According to Acumbamail, all of its infrastructure sits in a data centre in Spain with no international transfers, although the operator of that data centre is not named.
The paid plans are listed from €18 (Basic), €50 (Pro) and €157 (Enterprise), priced by volume, with 20% off for annual billing. The billing period behind those figures is not stated, so the €18 cannot be compared to a monthly price elsewhere without asking. The free plan's 250-subscriber cap puts it level with MailerLite and below Laposta, Spedito and GetResponse.
What Acumbamail does well
- Free plan comes from a vendor that states Spanish-only hosting
- Holds Spain's ENS security certification
- SMS and transactional email available from the same vendor
Where Acumbamail falls short
- Paid prices appear without a stated billing period
- The data centre operator is not named
Standout feature. A free plan that comes with an explicit one-country hosting statement.
Gdansk, Poland
Founded 1998
Free (500 contacts) / from about €16/month; automation from €54
Free tier
Best for: Marketers who may upgrade into webinars and automation
GetResponse, operating from Gdansk since 1998, lists a free tier for up to 500 contacts with limited features, including email marketing, a website builder and landing pages. New accounts also receive a 30-day trial of premium features, so the free tier is easier to judge after the trial ends than during it.
The gap between free and the plans that matter is wide. The paid Email Marketing plan starts from €16 a month for up to 1,000 contacts, while the Marketing Automation plan, which carries the visual workflow builder and webinars, starts from €54. A sender who picked GetResponse for webinars should budget for the €54 plan and not for the free one.
What GetResponse does well
- Free tier for up to 500 contacts with a website builder and landing pages
- 30-day trial of premium features on new accounts
- Polish company operating since 1998, EU data centres
Where GetResponse falls short
- Webinars and the visual workflow builder sit on the €54 plan
- Free tier is described by the vendor as limited in features
Standout feature. A free tier with a website builder, from a vendor that also sells webinars further up.
Prague, Czech Republic
Free (200 emails/month) / Profi 250 CZK/month (150 CZK billed annually), Marketer+ 300 CZK, CDP 2,400 CZK; pay-per-email credits from 1,600 CZK; excl. 21% VAT, billed in CZK or EUR
Free tier
Best for: Czech e-shops testing email before committing to a plan
Ecomail, from Ecomail.cz, s.r.o. in Prague, offers a free plan limited to 200 emails a month, which is the smallest sending allowance in this comparison. It suits a test of the shop integrations with Shoptet, PrestaShop, Shopify and WooCommerce, but not a regular newsletter to more than a few hundred people.
Paid use is priced in Czech koruna, billed in CZK or EUR and quoted excluding 21% VAT: Profi is 250 CZK a month (150 CZK on annual billing), Marketer+ is 300 CZK and CDP 2,400 CZK, with pay-per-email credits from 1,600 CZK. Hosting needs a careful read, because the primary servers run on Amazon Web Services in Frankfurt and Ecomail says data may also be located in the US.
What Ecomail does well
- Native integrations with four shop platforms
- Pay-per-email credits as an alternative to a subscription
- Czech company billing in CZK or EUR
Where Ecomail falls short
- Free plan allows only 200 emails a month
- Primary servers run on a US cloud provider, with possible US storage
Standout feature. A free plan meant for trying shop integrations rather than for running a newsletter.
