Most comparisons of email marketing services for small businesses are written for software buyers with a budget. This one is written for an owner with a few hundred customers, a delivery round to drive, and no interest in evaluating fourteen platforms.
The useful news is that the decision matters less than it appears. At a list of a few hundred to a few thousand, every mainstream platform sends reliably, builds a signup form and runs an automation. What actually differs is price as your list grows, whether automation is locked behind a paid tier, and whether the platform can hold the one field a delivery business needs: where the customer is.
This post covers the money and the feature trade-offs. What to build once you have picked is in the email marketing playbook for a delivery business, the wording for each message is in the email template collection, and if you are looking for what to actually send each week, start with the local campaign ideas.
The Bottom Line
- Free plans vary enormously: Mailchimp and Omnisend cap at 250 subscribers, MailerLite at 250, EmailOctopus and Sender at 2,500, and Brevo prices on sends rather than contacts with 9,000 emails a month free (EmailToolTester, retrieved 2026-09-24).
- Check whether automation is on the free tier before anything else. Mailchimp, EmailOctopus, Zoho and GetResponse exclude or limit it on free, and automation is the part that earns (EmailToolTester, retrieved 2026-09-24).
- At 1,000 contacts, entry paid plans land roughly $13-$19 a month. Constant Contact is at the top of that band at $19 and has no free tier (Brevo, retrieved 2026-09-24).
- Prices and tier limits change often. Treat every figure here as a starting point to verify on the vendor’s own pricing page before you pay.
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What a delivery business needs from an email platform
Five requirements, in the order they matter. Most “best platform” lists rank on features you will never open; this is the short list that changes the answer for a business that takes orders and drives them out.
- Automation on a tier you can afford. Welcome, order follow-up and win-back sequences produce most of email’s return. A platform that reserves automation for paid plans is more expensive than its free tier suggests.
- A custom field for area or postcode, and segmenting on it. This is the one non-negotiable. Without it you cannot email a single delivery route, which is the whole advantage you have over a national competitor.
- A form you can put anywhere. Website, order page, QR code on a card in the box. Embedded and hosted forms both, ideally.
- An integration with wherever orders arrive. Shopify, WooCommerce, Square, a booking tool, or at minimum a clean CSV import. Order data is what makes reorder timing possible.
- Deliverability you do not have to manage. Any established provider handles this. It is a reason to avoid the cheapest unknown option, not a reason to compare the majors.
Notice what is missing: AI copy generation, landing page builders, SMS suites, CRM. All fine, none of them the reason a small delivery business’s email works or fails.
Free plan limits across the main email marketing services
Free tiers are where most small businesses should start, but they are not comparable. The limits differ by two orders of magnitude, and some withhold the feature that matters.
| Service | Free subscribers | Free emails/month | Automation on free | Entry paid price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brevo | 100,000 | 9,000 | Limited | $9/mo |
| Sender | 2,500 | 15,000 | Yes | — |
| EmailOctopus | 2,500 | 10,000 | No | $10/mo |
| Zoho Campaigns | 2,000 | 6,000 | No | $5/mo |
| MailerLite | 250 | 2,500 | Limited | — |
| Omnisend | 250 | 500 | Yes | — |
| Mailchimp | 250 | 500 | No | — |
| GetResponse | 500 | 2,500 | No | — |
| AWeber | 500 | 3,000 | Simple only | — |
| SendPulse | 500 | 15,000 | Basic | — |
| Constant Contact | No free plan | — | — | $19/mo at 1,000 contacts |
Free plan figures from EmailToolTester; Constant Contact pricing from Brevo. Both retrieved 2026-09-24.
Two patterns stand out in that table. Brevo’s model, paying for sends rather than contacts, suits a business with a large list it emails occasionally, which describes a lot of seasonal delivery businesses. And the 2,500-subscriber free tiers at Sender and EmailOctopus are unusually generous, but EmailOctopus excludes automation on free, which for most readers here cancels the advantage.
What each service costs at 1,000 contacts
The free tier is temporary. The number that matters is what you pay once the list works, and the spread at 1,000 contacts is smaller than the marketing suggests.
| Service | Around 1,000 contacts | Pricing model |
|---|---|---|
| Brevo | From $9/mo | By email volume, not contacts |
| EmailOctopus | $10/mo at 500 subscribers | By subscribers |
| Omnisend | $11/mo at 500; from $16/mo | By contacts |
| Mailchimp | Essentials from about $13/mo | By contacts, tiered |
| GetResponse | $13.30/mo including 1,000 contacts | By contacts, per user |
| MailerLite | $15/mo at 1,000 subscribers | By subscribers |
| Constant Contact | $19/mo at 1,000 contacts | By contacts |
| Flodesk | $38/mo flat | Flat rate, unlimited subscribers |
Sources: EmailToolTester, Brevo, EmailSoftwareInsights on GetResponse, EmailToolTester on Flodesk alternatives. Retrieved 2026-09-24. Vendors change tiers frequently, so confirm on the pricing page before you commit.
The flat-rate model deserves a note because it inverts the usual maths. Flodesk charges one price regardless of list size, which is poor value at 300 subscribers and increasingly good value past a few thousand. It suits a list that grows faster than your order value, and makes no sense for a small list of high-value wholesale accounts.
One more cost that never appears in a pricing table: contacts you are paying for and not emailing. Every platform that bills by contacts is billing you for lapsed subscribers. Clearing non-openers once a year is the cheapest saving available on any of these plans, and it improves deliverability at the same time.
Which service to pick, by situation
Rather than a ranking, here is the decision by the thing that actually varies between readers. These are starting recommendations based on the published pricing and feature limits above, not endorsements. Run a test send on any platform before you migrate a list to it.
- Under 250 subscribers, want automation free: Omnisend or Sender. Both include automation on the free tier, which most competitors do not.
- A large list you email occasionally or seasonally: Brevo. Paying for sends rather than contacts is the right shape for a business with a holiday spike and a quiet spring.
- Selling online through Shopify or WooCommerce: Omnisend, or Klaviyo if order-data segmentation is central and you will grow into the price. Both are built around store data rather than bolted onto it.
- A mixed retail and wholesale list: MailerLite or GetResponse, on the strength of segmentation and custom fields at a low tier — the standing accounts need different messages from the retail list.
- You want a phone number to call: Constant Contact. It is the most expensive entry point on the list and has no free plan, but its support is the usual reason people choose it and stay.
- Budget is the binding constraint: Zoho Campaigns at $5/month or EmailOctopus at $10, accepting that automation is limited on their free tiers and checking that it is included on the paid one you buy.
If you are leaving a platform rather than starting fresh, plan for the migration itself. Exporting the list is easy; rebuilding automations and re-warming a sending domain is what takes the time. Roundups of Mailchimp alternatives are a reasonable way to shortlist, but weigh the switching cost honestly before you move a list that is working.
Features worth paying to upgrade for, and features that are not
Worth it:
- Behaviour-triggered automation with conditions. The difference between “send a welcome email” and “send a different welcome email depending on what they first bought” is real revenue.
- Custom fields and segment logic. Route, delivery day, customer type. Cheap tiers sometimes cap the number of segments, which bites quickly.
- Order-data integration. Enables reorder timing, which is the single most valuable automation a delivery business runs.
Usually not worth it, at least not yet:
- Landing page and website builders. You already have a site.
- Bundled SMS credits. Useful for delivery windows, but buy it when you have a reason, not as part of a tier upgrade.
- AI copy assistants. They write the generic email you were trying to avoid sending.
- Advanced reporting suites. Orders within 48 hours of a send tells you what you need at this scale.
Before you pay: three checks
- Send yourself a test to Gmail, Outlook and a phone. Rendering and inbox placement differ, and the free trial is the time to find out.
- Check the list-cleaning tools. Bad addresses damage deliverability, and a list-verification tool or a built-in equivalent is worth running before your first large import.
- Confirm the export path. Make sure you can get your contacts and, ideally, your automation logic out. A platform you can leave is a platform you can commit to.
Frequently asked questions
Is a free email marketing service good enough for a small business?
For a few hundred contacts, often yes, provided automation is included. The free plans that exclude it leave out the part of email that produces most of the return.
How much should a small business expect to pay for email marketing?
At 1,000 contacts, roughly $10-$20 a month buys any mainstream platform with automation. Costs rise with list size on most plans, which is why the pricing model matters more than the entry price.
Does the platform choice affect whether my emails land in the inbox?
Among established providers, not much. Your own list quality, consent and complaint rate matter far more. The exception is very cheap or unknown senders with poor shared-IP reputation.
Can I switch email marketing services later?
Yes, and many businesses do. Exporting contacts is straightforward; rebuilding automations, forms and domain authentication is the real work, so budget a weekend rather than an hour.
