Email tool for an association — what is enough for free, and how far it goes

An association’s email tool is almost always chosen by the same criterion: which one handles the members’ newsletter for free. The question is a good one, but it is phrased wrongly. Five of seven have a free plan, and they differ tenfold — not in price but in where they run out.

The short answer

• Stays free the longest

  EmailOctopus

  2,500 members and 10,000 emails a month without paying anything — the whole list gets the newsletter in one go.

  Start free — 2,500 subscribers (ad)

• When newsletters go out often

  Systeme.io

  2,000 contacts and unlimited sending on the free plan: a weekly bulletin uses up no quota.

  Start free — 2,000 contacts (ad)

• When there are many members but few newsletters

  Brevo

  The free plan does not limit list size at all, but you may send 300 emails a day.

  Start free — 300 emails/day

Is the free plan enough — calculated by membership size

A free plan limits from two directions: how many addresses the list may hold and how many emails may go out from it. For an association the latter is often the more decisive, because the members’ newsletter goes to the whole list at once. Below are four common membership sizes and one monthly newsletter.

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Free plan limits and prices read from the services’ own price lists (EmailOctopus, Systeme.io, Brevo, MailerLite) on 3 September 2026, excluding VAT. Assumes one newsletter a month to the whole list. “Not in one go” means that Brevo’s free plan limit of 300 emails a day spreads the campaign over several days. Systeme.io bills in dollars, so its figure cannot be put in the same column as the euro figures. Mailchimp and GetResponse are not in the table: Mailchimp’s free plan is 250 contacts and 500 emails a month, and GetResponse has no free plan at all.

Three conclusions follow from the table. An association with under 2,500 members needs no paid plan at all if the tool is EmailOctopus. MailerLite’s and Mailchimp’s 250-contact limits are only enough for the board’s internal communication, not for a members’ newsletter. And Brevo’s free plan is built the other way round: it does not limit list size at all, but a campaign to the whole list does not fit within the daily limit.

All seven side by side

Prices are the cheapest paid plans at three list sizes, read from the price lists on 3 September 2026 excluding VAT.

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Prices exclude VAT, billed monthly unless stated otherwise.(ad) = ad link

• The price is the monthly price of the cheapest paid plan at that list size. The Free plan column shows when you do not have to pay.
• EmailOctopus and ActiveCampaign: the price list only shows the monthly price on annual billing. Monthly billing costs more.
• GetResponse and ActiveCampaign: the smallest list sold is 1,000 contacts, so the 500-contact column shows that price.

Sending pace decides if you send bulletins often

A monthly newsletter is an association’s most common rhythm, but not the only one. If a bulletin goes out weekly or there are many events, sending volume rises fast — and then the order of the free plans changes.

EmailOctopus’s free plan quota is 10,000 emails a month, enough for 2,500 members four times a month or 800 members twelve times. On Systeme.io’s free plan sending is not capped at all, so for a small membership it is practically unlimited — in return the list holds 2,000 contacts and the features are narrow: three sales funnels, one automation rule and one online course.

The real limits of the five free plans and where they run out: free email marketing.

Who each one suits

• Under 2,500 members, newsletter once a month → EmailOctopus: the free plan covers both the list and the sending volume. Try it free (ad)
• Small membership, bulletin every week → Systeme.io: the free plan has no sending limit at all. Try it free (ad)
• Large member register, newsletter a couple of times a year → Brevo: list size is not limited on the free plan, and the paid plan is among the cheapest. Try it free
• Over 2,500 members and the zero budget ran out → EmailOctopus: the cheapest paid plan: 5,000 subscribers for €26 a month. Try it free (ad)
• The member register must not leave the EU → MailerLite: the contracting party for EEA customers is Irish MailerLite Limited and the data centre is in the EU. Try it free

The member register is a register of personal data

An association’s membership list is personal data, and when it is moved into an email tool, the tool becomes a processor of personal data. In practice that means two things: the processor is named in your own privacy policy, and if the data moves outside the EU, the transfer basis is recorded too.

Here the comparison is easy for an association. Five of seven store the data in the EU: Brevo (France), GetResponse (Poland), Systeme.io (Irish ITACWT Limited), MailerLite (for EEA customers Irish MailerLite Limited) and EmailOctopus (British company, lists in AWS’s Irish data centre). The exceptions are Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign. Read from the services’ own privacy policies on 3 September 2026.

The line between member communication and direct marketing is drawn by the association itself, by the content of the message. If the newsletter contains marketing, the same rules apply as to everything else: consent has to be demonstrable and an unsubscribe link has to be in every message. The rules with sources: email marketing and GDPR.

One list and tags, not many lists

An association typically has several groups: members, the board, volunteers, event registrants. The temptation is to make separate lists of them, and that is almost always an expensive solution.

The reason is the counting rule. According to EmailOctopus’s own help page, the same address is counted separately for every list: a member on six lists is six contacts, so the 2,500-subscriber free plan fills up at about 420 people. The same trap exists at GetResponse. The solution is one list and grouping with tags, so the free plan carries many times longer.

A second rule is worth knowing for cleaning: at EmailOctopus and MailerLite the unsubscribed do not count toward the limit at all, so the list cleans itself off the counter. The rules for all seven: how contacts are counted. Help pages read 5 September 2026.

An association’s own requirement: the tool changes hands

In an association the person in charge of communications changes, often at the pace of the annual meeting. That is a requirement business use does not have, and it shapes the choice in three ways.

• The account on the association’s address, not a person’s. Otherwise the tool leaves with the person when the role changes.
• Your own domain as the sender. It is needed in any case: sender authentication requires access to the domain’s DNS records, and a free email service’s address cannot be authenticated. What Gmail and Yahoo require of senders.
• The simplest tool that is enough. The next communications officer learns what is there, and every unused feature is an obstacle for them, not a benefit.

What we have not checked

This page rests on what can be read in the services’ own price lists, help pages and privacy policies. We have not used the tools ourselves and therefore do not assess the clarity of the interfaces, how well the editors work or support response times — those would be measurement results, and there is no measurement. How we compare.

For an association this is in practice good news: because both options that fit this need are free, the choice can be made by trying both with one real newsletter, with nothing at stake.