//
Intuitive email marketing with a generous free tier for growing businesses
MailerLite is a Lithuanian email marketing platform known for its intuitive interface, generous free tier, and powerful automation features for creators and small businesses.
Headquarters
Vilnius, Lithuania
Founded
2010
Pricing
EU Data Hosting
Yes
Employees
201-500
Free
$10/mo
$20/mo
Contact Sales
Billing: monthly, annual
Mailchimp has long been the default recommendation for email marketing, but defaults are not always optimal. For creators, small businesses, and growing companies that need email marketing without enterprise pricing, there is a Lithuanian company that has been quietly building a better alternative since 2010.
MailerLite, headquartered in Vilnius, Lithuania, is an email marketing platform that has attracted over one million users by focusing on three things: simplicity, generosity, and value. Its free tier (1,000 subscribers, 12,000 emails per month) is among the most generous in the industry. Its paid plans start at 10 USD per month for unlimited emails. And its interface is clean enough that someone with zero email marketing experience can send their first campaign in under an hour.
What makes MailerLite interesting beyond its pricing is what it includes at every tier: a landing page builder, a website builder, pop-up forms, automation workflows, and digital product selling. These are features that competitors like Mailchimp charge significantly more for or hide behind higher tiers.
The company is bootstrapped — no venture capital, no pressure to chase aggressive growth at the expense of product quality. This shows in the product: MailerLite adds features steadily and thoughtfully rather than rushing to tick enterprise feature checklists. The team of approximately 200-400 people operates with a remote-first culture, though the company is firmly rooted in Vilnius with Lithuanian ownership and EU data processing.
MailerLite's email editor is genuinely one of the best in the category for ease of use. Content blocks — text, images, buttons, dividers, social links, product listings — snap into place with intuitive drag-and-drop. The editor is responsive-aware, so you can preview how emails look on mobile without leaving the builder. For users who need more control, a rich text editor and plain HTML editor are also available.
The template library on paid plans provides professionally designed starting points. The free tier omits templates, which is a notable limitation — you start from a blank canvas or use the basic content blocks. For many users, this is fine; for those wanting polished designs quickly, upgrading unlocks meaningful value.
MailerLite's automation builder uses a visual flow chart interface where you define triggers (subscriber joins, clicks a link, reaches a date, completes a purchase), conditions (if/else branching based on subscriber data), and actions (send email, add to group, update field, delay). The visual representation makes complex multi-step automations understandable at a glance.
Common automations include welcome sequences for new subscribers, re-engagement campaigns for inactive readers, purchase follow-ups for e-commerce, and date-based sequences (birthday emails, renewal reminders). The free tier includes basic automations with a single trigger; paid plans unlock multi-trigger, multi-step workflows.
Every MailerLite plan includes a landing page builder and, on paid plans, a full website builder. Landing pages are particularly useful for lead generation — create a page promoting a free download, connect it to a sign-up form, and trigger an automation that delivers the download and begins a nurture sequence. The website builder is simpler than dedicated platforms like Squarespace but adequate for blogs, portfolios, and basic business sites.
The ability to run email marketing, landing pages, and a basic website from a single platform at a low cost is genuinely valuable for solopreneurs and small businesses who want to avoid managing multiple tools and subscriptions.
MailerLite supports paid newsletter subscriptions via Stripe integration. Creators can offer free and premium content tiers, with subscribers paying monthly or annually. This positions MailerLite as a lightweight alternative to platforms like Substack or Ghost for newsletter monetisation, without the platform lock-in. You own your subscriber list and can export it at any time.
MailerLite consistently ranks among the top email marketing platforms for deliverability — the percentage of emails that actually reach the inbox rather than spam. This is directly tied to their strict account approval process: every new account is manually reviewed for compliance, which can take 24-72 hours. While frustrating for users wanting instant access, this gatekeeping ensures the platform's IP reputation stays clean, benefiting all users.
MailerLite's pricing is its strongest competitive advantage. The free tier (1,000 subscribers, 12,000 emails per month) is usable as a primary email marketing tool for small lists. The Growing Business plan at 10 USD per month (for up to 500 subscribers; pricing scales with list size) removes limits on emails, unlocks templates, and adds full automation. The Advanced plan at 20 USD per month adds Facebook integration, custom HTML editing, and promotion pop-ups.
For comparison: Mailchimp's Essentials plan starts at approximately 13 USD per month for 500 subscribers with a 5,000 email per month limit. ConvertKit (now Kit) starts at approximately 15 USD per month for 300 subscribers. Brevo prices differently (by emails sent, not subscribers) starting at 25 EUR per month.
At 10,000 subscribers — a common milestone for growing businesses — MailerLite charges approximately 50 USD per month on Growing Business. Mailchimp's equivalent plan costs approximately 100 USD per month. The savings become more dramatic as lists grow. At 50,000 subscribers, the gap between MailerLite and Mailchimp can exceed 200 USD per month.
Annual billing provides a roughly 15% discount, and MailerLite also offers a non-profit discount.
MailerLite is headquartered in Vilnius, Lithuania, making it natively EU-based. All data processing occurs within the EU, and GDPR compliance is built into the platform rather than retrofitted. Specific GDPR features include double opt-in forms, consent checkboxes, unsubscribe management, and the ability to honour data deletion requests.
A data processing agreement (DPA) is available for all users, including free accounts. MailerLite's privacy policy clearly outlines what data is collected and how it is used — primarily for platform operation and improvement, with no sale of user data to third parties.
For EU-based businesses sending email to EU subscribers, using an EU-based email marketing platform simplifies GDPR compliance considerably. There are no transatlantic data transfer concerns, no Standard Contractual Clauses to negotiate, and no uncertainty about adequacy decisions. The data stays in the EU from end to end.
MailerLite is the best-value email marketing platform for small to mid-sized businesses, full stop. The combination of a generous free tier, affordable paid plans, an intuitive interface, and comprehensive features (landing pages, website builder, automation, paid subscriptions) is unmatched at its price point. Being bootstrapped and EU-based adds trust and compliance benefits that venture-backed US competitors cannot match.
The trade-offs are real but manageable: the approval process delays activation, free tier users miss out on templates, and reporting depth does not match enterprise platforms like HubSpot or ActiveCampaign. Large businesses with complex marketing operations will eventually outgrow MailerLite. But for its target audience — creators, small businesses, and growing companies — it delivers extraordinary capability relative to cost. The fact that it does so from Vilnius, with EU-native GDPR compliance, makes it an even stronger proposition for European businesses.
Typically 24-72 hours, though it can occasionally take longer. The review checks your website, the source of your email list, and your intended email marketing use. Having a professional website, a clear description of your business, and an organically built email list speeds up approval. Accounts intending to send cold emails or use purchased lists are typically rejected. This strict process is the primary reason MailerLite maintains high deliverability rates.
Yes. MailerLite scales to hundreds of thousands of subscribers with pricing that remains competitive at every tier. At 50,000 subscribers, the Growing Business plan costs approximately 250 USD per month. Advanced features like dedicated IP addresses (available on Enterprise plans) help maintain deliverability at scale. However, very large enterprise operations with complex segmentation, multi-brand management, and advanced attribution may find MailerLite's reporting and administration tools insufficient.
Yes. MailerLite integrates with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and other e-commerce platforms. These integrations sync customer and purchase data, enabling targeted automations like abandoned cart emails, post-purchase follow-ups, and product recommendation campaigns. The Shopify integration is particularly mature, with automatic product block insertion in emails and revenue attribution tracking.
MailerLite's website builder is significantly simpler than Squarespace or WordPress. It covers basic needs — homepage, about page, blog, contact form — with a drag-and-drop editor and a selection of templates. It is best suited for solopreneurs and creators who need a web presence that integrates tightly with their email marketing. For businesses needing advanced features like e-commerce, SEO tools, or custom functionality, a dedicated website platform is more appropriate. The value is in the integration: one platform for email, landing pages, and a basic website.
Yes. MailerLite provides migration guides and supports importing subscriber lists via CSV. Subscriber data including custom fields, groups, and subscription status can be transferred. Email templates need to be recreated in MailerLite's editor (there is no automatic template migration), and automations must be rebuilt. The migration is straightforward but manual, typically taking a few hours for a moderately complex Mailchimp setup. Many users report the switch pays for itself within the first month through lower subscription costs.
GDPR-compliant email marketing trusted by 300,000+ European customers
Alternative to Mailchimp
Easy-to-use German email marketing with pay-as-you-go flexibility
Alternative to Mailchimp