MailerLite

MailerLite's strength is scope-per-dollar at the small end. The Free tier is usable rather than a demo: up to 250 subscribers, 2 user seats, 2,500 monthly emails, campaigns, automations, a website, a landing page and signup forms, plus all three editors (drag & drop, Custom HTML, Simple). Comfort, starting at $12/month, is the real workhorse tier — it adds unlimited templates, dynamic emails, campaign auto-resend, multivariate testing, the unsubscribe page builder, preference center, AI writing assistant and smart sending. Power, starting at $25/month, targets marketers running several revenue streams and funnels, layering on unlimited use of the paid extras. Both figures are starting prices tied to a subscriber band, and the pricing page presents an annual option alongside monthly, so check your own list size and billing period before you commit. The revenue tools are the second differentiator. Digital product sales, paid newsletter subscriptions with recurring payments, and appointment booking for free or paid 1:1 and group calls mean a creator can monetize a list without adding Stripe plumbing, a booking tool and a download-delivery service. The iPad Subscribe App is a genuinely practical touch for anyone collecting signups at a market stall, conference or store, because it works offline. The email verifier protects deliverability before a big send — something smaller senders routinely skip and later regret. The HeyLite intelligence features (AI writing assistant, AI landing page builder, AI-powered A/B testing, smart sending) are convenience layers, not analytical engines. They speed up drafting and testing; they do not tell you which segment of your list will buy next. Treat them as editorial assistance. Same with the MCP Server: letting Claude or ChatGPT manage your email marketing is useful if you already work inside those tools, but it is a control surface, not an extra brain. Where MailerLite runs out: segmentation depth and CRM. Behavioral segmentation, conditional/dynamic content at a granular level, and predictive analytics are the things bigger teams ask for, and that is ActiveCampaign territory. E-commerce stores running intricate product-level flows (browse abandonment, category-level triggers, product recommendation blocks tied to catalog) are better served by Klaviyo, which is priced accordingly. MailerLite's own Shopify, WooCommerce and Stripe integrations handle standard flows like abandoned cart fine, but they are not a merchandising engine. One structural note: the platform spans email marketing, websites and revenue tools, so some functionality requires setup across multiple modules. Budget an afternoon, not five minutes, if you plan to use the website builder and paid subscriptions together. And because the vendor's copy does not name the underlying AI models behind HeyLite, do not choose MailerLite on the basis of a specific model — choose it on the price floor, the bundled revenue tools and the editor.