Chapter 8 of 8
The cost of email marketing
Advertised "starting at" prices describe the smallest tier, not your list. The EmailMar Price Index tracks what 15 tools cost at five real list sizes, verified monthly.
Why the sticker price is misleading
Every ESP homepage leads with its cheapest tier — often the 500-contact or free plan. That number tells you almost nothing about what you'll pay once a list grows, because contact-based pricing jumps in steps and volume-based pricing scales with sends, not just subscribers.
The honest way to compare cost is at your actual (or projected) list size, using the same list-size checkpoints across every tool — which is exactly what the /pricing-index does.
What email marketing actually costs, by list size
The EmailMar Price Index checks all 15 tracked tools by hand against their official pricing pages, at five standard list sizes: 500, 1,000, 5,000, 10,000, and 25,000 contacts. Full current figures, including the median, minimum, and maximum at each size, live on /pricing-index and update on a monthly cycle — read that page for the current numbers rather than treating any figure here as fixed, since prices move.
As a structural pattern that holds regardless of the exact monthly numbers: free and near-free plans cluster at the smallest list sizes, the cost curve steepens noticeably between 1,000 and 10,000 contacts as tools exit their entry tiers, and the spread between the cheapest and most expensive tool widens at every larger list size rather than converging.
Free tiers aren't free forever
Several tools tracked on /pricing-index offer a genuine permanent free plan, not just a trial — but free tiers cap either contacts, monthly sends, or both, and most strip automation or add sender branding. A free tier is worth evaluating on its actual cap and feature set, not just the word "free," which is why every tool profile on /tools states the exact free-tier limit and what's excluded.
Budgeting for growth, not just today
Because pricing jumps at contact-count thresholds, the tool that's cheapest for your list today may not be cheapest at double the size. Pull up a tool's row on /pricing-index and check its price at your current size and at roughly 2–5x that size before committing, especially for fast-growing lists where switching ESPs later means rebuilding automations from scratch.
Questions about The cost of email marketing
What's the cheapest email marketing tool?
The cheapest tool depends entirely on list size — the tool with the lowest price at 500 contacts is frequently not the cheapest at 25,000. Check the current figures by list size on /pricing-index rather than relying on advertised starting prices.
How often are the prices on EmailMar updated?
The Price Index is re-verified against official pricing pages on a monthly cycle, and the verification date is shown on both /pricing-index and every individual tool profile.
Is a more expensive email tool always better?
No — price generally tracks feature depth and list-size capacity, not quality or deliverability, so the right tool is the cheapest one that covers your actual use case and list size rather than the most expensive option available.