Cheapest Newsletter Platform at 10,000 Subscribers (2026)

At exactly 10,000 subscribers, the cheapest option here is Kit’s free plan at $0/mo, because it covers up to 10,000 subscribers. The catch is that it has no automations, no API and a hard cliff at 10,001. The cheapest paid plan at 10,000 is systeme.io’s Webinar plan at $47/mo, followed by GetResponse Starter (EUR 69), MailerLite Comfort ($89), and beehiiv Lite and Kit Creator (both $139).

We haven’t run a 10,000-subscriber list on these tools. All prices below are monthly-billing list prices from each vendor’s pricing page, fetched on 2026-10-12. Some come from the price tables behind the pricing-page sliders, which you only see by dragging. Taxes aren’t included.

How we compared them

Pricing pages show one subscriber count at a time, and “free up to X” hides what happens at X+1. We pulled every tier for each tool and lined them up at four list sizes. Then we noted what the cheapest plan at each size leaves out, because that missing feature is what eventually forces an upgrade.

Cost at 1k, 5k, 10k and 25k subscribers

The cheapest plan that fits each list size, on monthly billing:

The cheapest plan with automations, which most growing newsletters end up needing (systeme.io’s paid plans are listed by contact cap; its pricing page didn’t show per-plan automation limits when we checked):

A few notes on the tables:

• Annual billing cuts these prices. At 10,000 subscribers: Kit Creator works out to $116/mo, beehiiv Lite $119/mo, MailerLite Comfort $80.10/mo, GetResponse Starter EUR 56.58/mo, and systeme.io advertises “2 months free”.
• GetResponse prices in euros on its pricing page. Its own FAQ quotes “$19 per month” for 1,000 subscribers, which doesn’t match the EUR 16 in the table, so check the price in your currency at checkout.
• systeme.io’s contact caps: 2,000 on Free, 5,000 on Startup, 10,000 on Webinar and unlimited on the Unlimited plan.

The cliffs nobody mentions

Kit at 10,001 subscribers. Kit’s Free plan stops at 10,000. One more subscriber and the cheapest option is Creator in the 10,001–15,000 tier, which is $169/mo on monthly billing. Your bill goes from $0 to $169 overnight. If you’re at 9,000 and growing, Kit’s real price is $169, not $0.

MailerLite’s send cap on Comfort. Comfort lets you send 10× your tier’s subscriber ceiling each month. At the 10,000 tier, that’s 100,000 emails. A weekly newsletter to 10,000 people is about 43,000 sends a month, which fits. A daily newsletter is about 300,000, which doesn’t. Power has “unlimited monthly emails, subject to our fair use policy”, and at 10,000 subscribers it’s $129/mo. For a daily newsletter, MailerLite costs $129, not $89.

systeme.io above 10,000. There’s no tier between Webinar ($47, 10,000 contacts) and Unlimited ($97). So 10,500 contacts costs the same as 100,000.

The five, ranked by what you pay at 10,000

1. Our pick

Kit

Best for creators selling digital products and paid newsletters

Pricing: Free up to 10,000 subs; paid from $33/mo (Creator)

What we like

• Free plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers
• Unlimited visual automations on Creator and Pro
• Paid newsletters and recurring subscriptions built in
• API and webhooks on paid plans

Watch out for

• No visual automations on Free
• Jumps from $0 to $169/mo (Creator) at 10,001 subscribers

$0 at 10,000 subscribers. No other tool here covers this many subscribers for free.

What you give up on Free. Kit’s pricing page lists visual automations, email sequences, RSS campaigns and app integrations as missing from Free. Kit branding stays on, and you get one user. Kit’s API docs also list “being on a free account” as a cause of 401 Unauthorized, so there’s no API on Free either. The pricing page shows a per-sale fee (3.5% + 30¢) on paid products and subscriptions on every plan.

Pick it if you send one broadcast to a list that will stay under 10,000 for a while. If you need sequences, or you’re close to 10,000, compare against Creator’s $139 to $169, and Kit drops to the middle of the pack.

2. Runner-up

systeme.io

Best for email, funnels and courses in one cheap tool

Pricing: Free up to 2,000 contacts; paid from $17/mo (Startup)

What we like

• Free plan with 2,000 contacts, 1 course and 1 custom domain
• 0% transaction fees on all plans
• Courses, funnels and email in one tool

Watch out for

• Free plan allows only 1 automation rule
• 10,000 contacts requires the $47/mo Webinar plan

$47 at 10,000 contacts on the Webinar plan, the cheapest paid plan here. The pricing page also says emails are unlimited on all plans and transaction fees are 0%.

What you give up. systeme.io is a funnels, courses and email tool, not a newsletter-first platform. Its pricing page doesn’t mention paid newsletter subscriptions, and the Free plan allows only 1 automation rule. It lists API rate limits per plan, but the values didn’t load when we checked, so confirm them before you build on the API.

Pick it if you also sell a course or run sales funnels and want email bundled in. If you only want a newsletter with a public archive, look elsewhere.

3. Also great

GetResponse

Best for all-in-one email, webinars and courses

Pricing: 14-day free trial; paid from EUR 16/mo (Starter)

What we like

• Premium (paid) newsletters on the Creator plan
• API on every plan
• Custom domain free on yearly billing

Watch out for

• Starter limited to 1 custom automation workflow
• Paid newsletters require the Creator plan (EUR 114/mo at 10k contacts)

EUR 69 at 10,000 contacts on Starter, and EUR 149 at 25,000.

What you give up on Starter. You get 1 custom automation workflow. Unlimited workflows start on Marketer (EUR 99 at 10,000). Paid (“premium”) newsletters need the Creator plan, which is EUR 114/mo at 10,000 contacts. That’s more than MailerLite.

Pick it if you send a free newsletter with simple automation and want the cheapest mainstream email tool at 10,000.

4. Also great

MailerLite

Best for budget email marketing with automations

Pricing: Free up to 250 subs; paid from $12/mo (Comfort)

What we like

• Cheap entry tier from $12/mo
• Automations on every plan (3 on Free, 50 on Comfort, unlimited on Power)
• Paid newsletter subscriptions supported

Watch out for

• Free plan capped at 250 subscribers
• API email sending only on paid plans

$89 at 10,000 subscribers on Comfort, or $129 on Power.

What you give up. The Free plan stops at 250 subscribers, so you start paying almost immediately. Comfort has the 100,000 emails/month cap at the 10,000 tier and 50 automations. Power removes both limits. In return, MailerLite has the gentlest price curve here at small sizes: $19 at 1,000 and $49 at 5,000, with automations and no MailerLite logo on Comfort.

Pick it if you send weekly or less and want automations from your first paid month.

5. Also great

beehiiv

Best for growing a paid or ad-supported newsletter

Pricing: Free up to 2,500 subs; paid from $59/mo (Lite)

What we like

• Free plan up to 2,500 subscribers
• Paid subscriptions on Lite and up, with 0% cut of subscription revenue
• API on every plan, Send API on Pro

Watch out for

• No live custom automations on Free; Lite caps at 10
• $139/mo at 10,000 subscribers on Lite (monthly billing)

$139 at 10,000 subscribers on Lite, the most expensive here at that size. It ties Kit Creator.

What you give up on Free. beehiiv Free covers 2,500 subscribers. It has no paid subscriptions, ad network, recommendations, email automations or webhooks.

What the money buys. Lite takes a 0% cut of paid-subscription revenue (Stripe’s 2.9% + $0.30 still applies) and gets you into beehiiv’s ad network and recommendations. If those bring in more than the roughly $50/mo gap over MailerLite, beehiiv is the cheaper choice in practice. That depends on your audience, and no pricing page can tell you.

Pick it if the newsletter is the business and you plan to monetize with paid tiers or ads.

Cheaper still, and we don’t earn from these

To rank honestly: two non-affiliate options undercut most of the list above.

• Buttondown lists its Professional plan at $79/mo for up to 10,000 subscribers. That’s cheaper than MailerLite Comfort and well under beehiiv. Free covers the first 100 subscribers.
• listmonk is free, open-source (AGPLv3) and self-hosted. Pair it with Amazon SES at $0.10 per 1,000 emails, and a weekly send to 10,000 subscribers is about 43,000 emails, or roughly $4.30/mo in sending fees. Add your server cost and your own time for setup, deliverability and upgrades. For a developer comfortable running a small service, nothing hosted comes close on price.

Which one is cheapest for you?

• Under 10,000 and staying there, broadcasts only: Kit Free, $0.
• Need automations, sending weekly: systeme.io ($47) if you also sell courses or funnels, but confirm its per-plan automation limits first. Otherwise GetResponse Starter (EUR 69) for one workflow, or MailerLite Comfort ($89) for 50.
• Sending daily at 10,000: MailerLite Power ($129) or systeme.io (unlimited emails). Comfort’s cap won’t hold.
• Charging for the newsletter: beehiiv Lite ($139, 0% cut) or Kit Creator ($139). Skip GetResponse Starter, because premium newsletters need its Creator plan.
• Willing to self-host: listmonk + SES, at a few dollars a month.

FAQ

Is there a free newsletter platform for 10,000 subscribers? Yes. Kit’s Free plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers. beehiiv Free stops at 2,500, systeme.io Free at 2,000 contacts and MailerLite Free at 250.

How much does beehiiv cost for 10,000 subscribers? $139/mo on Lite with monthly billing, or $119/mo billed yearly ($1,428/year). Pro is $239/mo.

How much does MailerLite cost for 10,000 subscribers? $89/mo on Comfort and $129/mo on Power with monthly billing. Yearly billing takes 10% off.

What’s the cheapest newsletter platform at 25,000 subscribers? Of these five, systeme.io’s Unlimited plan at $97/mo. Among newsletter-first tools, GetResponse Starter (EUR 149) and MailerLite Comfort ($179) come next.