On this page (15 sections)
By Arthur Brulard, Founder of OwnLetter. Cross-vendor analyst review across 11 newsletter platforms, aggregating user signals from Reddit, G2, Capterra, Trustpilot, and Hacker News. LinkedIn
Published June 10, 2026 · Updated June 10, 2026 · 12 min read
For first-time creators · Updated June 10, 2026
Best newsletter platforms for beginners
You want to start a newsletter, every roundup names a different winner, and the word “free” means five different things. Here are the five free starts that actually work, ranked by what free includes, not by the size of the number.
The 30-second verdict
- Substackif you are starting from zero: free at any size, and it finds you readers.visit ↗
- MailerLiteif you want the easiest tool to learn real email on (free to 500 subs).visit ↗
- Beehiivif you want room to grow to 2,500 without ever migrating.visit ↗
- Kitif you want the biggest free allowance (10,000) and accept its strings.visit ↗
- AWeberif you want a human on the phone while you learn (free to 500).visit ↗
One honest warning before any of it: account suspensions without warning are documented in the review corpus of all five platforms. Whichever you pick, export your subscriber CSV every month.
Who this is for
People starting their first newsletter with a $0 budget
This is for the creator at zero or a few hundred subscribers who wants to start free, learn the craft, and not regret the choice in a year. We rank what free actually includes, how easy each tool is to learn, and what the upgrade costs when you grow. If you already earn from paid subscriptions, our writers guide ranks the same question for your stage.
- Starting at 0 to 1,000 subscribers, paying nothing yet
- Allergic to jargon and to ten-tool comparison spreadsheets
- Want a tool you can grow into, not out of, in year one
The shortlist
Three picks for most beginners
The other two (Kit and AWeber) win narrower, specific cases covered below.
Substack
Best first platform
Free at any list size, nothing to configure, and the only platform here that actively finds you readers. You pay only if you succeed: 10% of paid-subscription revenue, and nothing before that.
Free, unlimited subscribers · 10% only on paid revenue
See SubstackEditorial pick · not an affiliate link
MailerLite
Easiest to learn
The easiest tool of the five by review volume: 672 ease-of-use mentions, and the free plan includes real automations. The trade: the free tier stops at 500 subscribers and carries no support access.
Free to 500 subs · automations included
See MailerLiteEditorial pick · not an affiliate link
Beehiiv
Best room to grow
The most generous free tier you can grow inside without migrating: 2,500 subscribers, unlimited sends, no card. When you are ready to monetize, everything is one upgrade away instead of one platform away.
Free to 2,500 subs · monetization on Scale
Start Beehiiv freePaid link — at no extra cost to you
Five free tiers at a glance
The four things that decide it for a beginner: how far free goes, what free quietly locks, how fast you will learn the tool, and who answers when you get stuck.
Platform | Free up to subscriber ceiling | What free locks the strings attached | Learning curve from the review corpus | Support reality when you get stuck |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Substack | Unlimited (10% if paid) | Automation, segmentation | Easy editor, confusing nav | AI-only, no humans |
| MailerLite | 500 subs | All support access | Easiest of the five | Great on paid, none on free |
| Beehiiv | 2,500 subs | Paid subs, automations | Modern, no live preview | Paid plans only |
| Kit | 10,000 subs | Automations + forced promos | Intuitive, praised | Mixed, AI bot closes tickets |
| AWeber | 500 subs / 3K emails | 1 list, 3 automations | Simple but dated | 24/7 phone, even on free |
Substack
- Free up to
- Unlimited (10% if paid)
- What free locks
- Automation, segmentation
- Learning curve
- Easy editor, confusing nav
- Support reality
- AI-only, no humans
MailerLite
- Free up to
- 500 subs
- What free locks
- All support access
- Learning curve
- Easiest of the five
- Support reality
- Great on paid, none on free
Beehiiv
- Free up to
- 2,500 subs
- What free locks
- Paid subs, automations
- Learning curve
- Modern, no live preview
- Support reality
- Paid plans only
Kit
- Free up to
- 10,000 subs
- What free locks
- Automations + forced promos
- Learning curve
- Intuitive, praised
- Support reality
- Mixed, AI bot closes tickets
AWeber
- Free up to
- 500 subs / 3K emails
- What free locks
- 1 list, 3 automations
- Learning curve
- Simple but dated
- Support reality
- 24/7 phone, even on free
Free-tier ceilings verified on the official pricing pages (AWeber's on its signup billing screen); learning-curve and support cells summarize 10,810 aggregated reviews.
SubstackSubstack: publish your first issue today, pay only if you win
We are not affiliated with Substack, so take this at face value: for a true beginner it is the least risky start in this guide. There is no subscriber cap, no plan fee at any size, and nothing to configure. You name the publication and write. It is also the only platform here that actively finds you readers, through a recommendation network whose effect you can measure in your own stats.
The honest nuance from the people using it: the network works, and it has a shape. As one creator put it, “most of your early readers will be other writers, not general readers” (Reddit, 2026-06-01). Free readers are still readers; just do not expect the network to do all your marketing.
Across 319 Substack community posts in our full read (the Reddit share of its 480-review corpus), the free feeling is a recurring refrain: no bill ever arrives, so the platform reads as costless. The 10% only becomes visible in creators' own math once they start charging.
The real costs come later and in two forms. If you ever charge readers, Substack keeps 10% of that revenue, closer to 13-15% once Stripe (and Apple in-app purchases) are counted. And when something breaks, nobody answers. Zero human support is the top complaint in its corpus, with 58 mentions:
“there is literally ZERO human support. When I had technical problems, there is no way to submit a support ticket. The only thing that their “AI Help” does is to summarize your problem “for your records.”” · Trustpilot reviewer, 2026-05-27
Our take
Where Substack Falls Short
- No human support, at any levelThe single highest-volume complaint in Substack's review corpus (58 mentions): there is no ticket system and no human escalation. If a bug or a billing problem hits, the AI chat summarizes your problem and stops there.
- The free ride is 10% of your future revenueFree forever is real, but the moment you charge readers, Substack takes 10%, and the effective cut runs closer to 13-15% once Stripe (and Apple in-app purchases) are counted. No invoice ever arrives; the cost is deducted silently.
- Your early readers will mostly be other writersThe discovery network is real, and it is also a bubble: reviewers report that early network subscribers are largely fellow Substack writers, and breaking into a general audience still takes outside marketing.
Pick Substack if you are starting from zero, want to publish today, and value built-in discovery over features. Skip it if you want to learn list segmentation and automation, or you need to be able to reach a human when something breaks.
MailerLiteMailerLite: where non-technical people learn email
MailerLite pays us nothing either, and it earns the easiest-to-learn spot on sheer review weight. Across 1,849 MailerLite reviews in our aggregation, ease of use draws 672 mentions, strongly positive and stable across four years; the recurring story is authors, solopreneurs and retirees sending their first email without outside help. G2 rates its ease 9.2/10, the highest of the five.
The free plan is also the most functional small free tier here: up to 500 subscribers and 12,000 emails a month, with real automations included. One beginner put it this way on Capterra, in 2024 (2024-12-16): “Their free plan offers a fantastic range of features, including automations so it's very useful for creating a sales funnel and delivering free ebooks if you're just starting,”. Note the cap itself: 500, cut from 1,000 in September 2025. One of the roundups outranking us on this query still prints the old number. If you run a nonprofit, there is a bonus: MailerLite offers a 30% discount on paid plans.
The two real risks are structural. Free includes no support channel at all once the 14-day trial chat ends, which is exactly when a stuck beginner needs one. And MailerLite runs the most aggressive suspension algorithm in our corpus, with 87 mentions, some triggered before a first real campaign:
“Please note that this decision is irreversible and further replies to this email will not be reviewed.” · MailerLite's suspension reply, as quoted by a Trustpilot reviewer, 2026-05-21
Our take
Where MailerLite Falls Short
- Free means no support access at allLive chat lasts 14 trial days, then free-plan users have no channel. The paradox: support is MailerLite's most-praised theme (977 mentions) for paying users, and structurally absent exactly when a beginner is most likely to be stuck.
- An aggressive suspension algorithm with no appeal87 review mentions describe algorithmic account suspensions, some before the first real campaign, with a closing line reviewers quote verbatim: the decision is irreversible and replies will not be reviewed.
- The 500-subscriber cliff has no grace periodThe free plan was cut from 1,000 to 500 subscribers in September 2025, and crossing the cap blocks sending immediately. Plan the upgrade before subscriber 501, not after.
Pick MailerLite if you want to learn proper email marketing on the gentlest tool, and your first-year ambition fits inside 500 subscribers. Skip it if you import a list from elsewhere on day one (the suspension algorithm is harshest there) or you want someone to answer while you are free.
See MailerLite → Read our full MailerLite review
beehiivBeehiiv: the free tier you will not outgrow in year one
Beehiiv's Launch plan is the most generous usable free tier of the five: 2,500 subscribers, unlimited sends, no credit card. That is five times MailerLite's or AWeber's ceiling, and for most first newsletters it covers the entire first year. Ease of use is its largest review theme (around 70 mentions, positive dominant), and the product feels like what it is: the most modern dashboard in this group.
The beginner trap is not the cap, it is the gating. Paid subscriptions, the ad network, the referral program and any automation beyond a single welcome email all live on the paid Scale plan, and the boundaries are not always visible until you hit them:
“I feel baited because Beehiiv doesn't clearly mark what features are part of their Pro plan or not. So I just wasted so much time building custom email templates with automations only to find out that I cannot publish them without upgrading to Pro.” · Trustpilot reviewer, 2026-05-04
Two more things a novice should know before choosing it. Free-tier users report no human support channel (“I need to be on a paid plan to speak to customer support”), and the corpus documents suspensions before a first email, no self-serve cancellation button, and a strictly applied no-refund policy. None of these are daily problems. All of them are bad days you cannot fix alone.
Our take
Where Beehiiv Falls Short
- The features you came for are not on the free tierPaid subscriptions, the ad network, the referral program and any automation beyond one welcome email all sit on the Scale plan. Reviewers describe building templates and automations on free, then discovering they cannot publish them.
- No human support until you paySupport is beehiiv's historical strength, but it is gated: free-tier users report having no human channel, and 2025-2026 reviews describe response times slipping even on paid plans.
- Suspensions, no self-serve cancel, strict no-refundAccounts have been blocked before a first email was sent (15 mentions), reviewers report no cancellation button in account settings, and refund requests are refused even shortly after billing.
Pick Beehiiv if you are the tech-savvy creator of this group: you expect real growth in year one and want monetization to be an upgrade, not a migration. Skip it if you want automations or human support while still free, or your audience is mostly in the EU (data is hosted US-only).
Start Beehiiv free → Read our full Beehiiv review
KitKit: 10,000 subscribers free, if you accept the strings
On the headline number, nothing here touches Kit: the free Newsletter plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers as of June 2026, four times Beehiiv's cap. The product itself is genuinely liked; ease of use is its highest-volume theme at 186 mentions, with “intuitive” appearing in almost every five-star review. Kit pays us nothing, so this ranking is purely what the data says.
Why is it fourth, then? Because the free plan withholds exactly what people choose Kit for. Automations, its flagship strength, are limited to one basic automation. A/B testing is locked. And free accounts carry mandatory “Required” Recommendations slots that promote other creators to your readers; removing them requires the paid Creator plan. The big number is real, and so is what it does not include.
One risk is specific enough to be disqualifying for some readers, and it is a policy risk, not a product one: Kit's acceptable-use policy bars affiliate-type sites, and its suspension theme (35 mentions) includes accounts closed for a mention alone:
“Kit claimed it was due to concerns about affiliate marketing, even though I hadn't engaged in any affiliate promotions—just had plans for the future to include them responsibly.” · Trustpilot reviewer, 2025-03-20
Watch the billing behavior as you grow, too: reviewers document Kit auto-upgrading to the next tier when a list crosses a threshold, without notice, and not downgrading when it falls back.
Our take
Where Kit Falls Short
- The 10,000-sub free plan locks what Kit is famous forAutomations, Kit's core strength, are limited to one basic automation on the free Newsletter plan, and A/B testing is absent. The headline number is generous; the feature set behind it is not.
- Forced promo slots you cannot removeFree accounts carry mandatory "Required" Recommendations slots promoting other creators to your readers. Turning them off requires the paid Creator plan, and you earn nothing from them on free.
- Mentioning affiliate links can end your accountKit's acceptable-use policy bars affiliate-type sites, and reviewers document suspensions for a single mention, even of future plans (35 suspension mentions). If your newsletter will carry affiliate links, pick another platform.
Pick Kit if you want the longest free runway for a simple newsletter, or you are a course creator in the making who will later sell digital products. Skip it if you want automations before paying. And it is simply the wrong choice if your content will ever include affiliate links.
AWeberAWeber: the hidden free plan with a human on the line
Here is something none of the roundups ranking above us mention: AWeber has a permanent free plan, 500 subscribers and 3,000 emails a month at $0.00 (as of June 2026), and its own public pricing page does not show it. The page sells a 14-day trial; the free plan appears only once you sign up. We confirmed it on our own account's billing screen in June 2026, and both screens are below.
What makes that free plan interesting for a beginner is the support attached to it. Across 833 AWeber reviews in our aggregation, phone and live-chat support is the single most-praised theme (195 mentions), and it is available on every plan, free included. No other platform in this guide offers a phone line at all. If “I will get stuck and need a person” describes you, this is the safety net.
The trade-offs are visible the moment you log in. The interface is dated; reviewers have called the editor “wonky” and the templates aged. One Capterra reviewer summarized the position back in 2021, and the 2026 reviews in the same theme still echo it: “I call AWeber a “beginner” email marketing tool because that's what it feels like. Yes, it'll get you up and running. But it doesn't “feel” powerful”. The free plan also caps you at one list and three automations, and the paid Lite plan keeps those same caps; real scale waits on Plus.
Our take
Where AWeber Falls Short
- A dated editor and templates that show their ageReviewers call the WYSIWYG builder "wonky" and the templates dated; the design gap versus Beehiiv and MailerLite is real and widening. Beginners tend to find it sufficient; anyone design-conscious will not.
- One list and three automations, even if you pay for LiteThe free plan caps at 1 list, 3 automations and 1 segment. The surprise: the paid Lite plan keeps those same caps. Only the Plus plan unlocks real segmentation, so the first upgrade is bigger than it looks.
- Suspension and billing have real teethDocumented account closures within 24 hours at a 0.01% complaint rate (46 mentions), reviewers reporting charges continuing after confirmed cancellation, and a price hike back in 2024 (December) that users report as 50-150%.
Pick AWeber if having 24/7 human support while you learn matters more to you than a modern interface. Skip it if design polish matters, or you want one platform to scale into; the jump past Lite is bigger than it looks.
Visit AWeber → Read our full AWeber review
When free runs out: the part the roundups skip
Every free tier here ends differently, and the ending matters more than the cap. Substack never sends a bill; it takes 10% of revenue only if you charge readers. MailerLite blocks sending the moment you pass 500, with no grace period. Kit upgrades your billing automatically when you cross a tier, without notice. Beehiiv lets you build features on free that you discover you cannot publish. AWeber's paid Lite plan keeps the free plan's caps, so the first meaningful upgrade is Plus.
What each platform costs at the size you expect
Set the subscribers you expect by the end of year one: which platforms are still free at that size, and what the others would cost per month. Plan prices come straight from our weekly pricing tracker.
Billing (if a paid plan is needed)
- 1Substackfree at any size; 10% of revenue only if you charge readersstill freeVisit →
- 2Kitautomations locked, recommendation slots you can't removestill freeVisit →
- 3Beehiivpaid subs, ad network and automations wait on Scalestill freeVisit →
- 4MailerLitefree ran out at 500 subscribers$15/moGrowing Business planVisit →
- 5AWeberfree ran out at 500 subscribers$25/moLite planVisit →
Methodology: a platform shows “still free” while your count fits its free tier. Caps come from the official pricing pages (AWeber's from its signup billing screen) and are re-checked quarterly. Past the cap we show the cheapest plan that keeps you sending, priced from our weekly tracker. Substack never charges a plan fee; its 10% applies to paid-subscription revenue only.
Who can lock you out of your own list?
The least-discussed beginner risk is the most consequential one. Suspensions without warning are documented in the review corpus of all five platforms (87 mentions for MailerLite, 46 for AWeber, 35 for Kit, 20 for Substack, 15 for Beehiiv). The table sorts the five from the safest ownership model to the harshest termination clause; open any row for the verbatim terms.
- MailerLiteMixed
Dashboard access preserved during review (§16.4), a rare positive.
Read the clause
Can terminate "with or without cause" (§16.2), but §16.4 guarantees you keep dashboard access during a review. Abrupt terminations are documented (BBB complaints, late 2024 to early 2025).source
- beehiivMixed
Clear AUP, but post-ban list portability is not documented.
Read the clause
Can "temporarily or permanently suspend" access (§3). CSV export works in active accounts; behaviour after a ban is not spelled out in the terms.source
- SubstackUnfavorable
Export blocked the moment your account is locked.
Read the clause
Verbatim: "Substack is free to terminate (or suspend access to) your use of Substack, or your account, for any reason at our discretion." Confirmed case (March 2025): a locked account's subscriber list became "not available to view and export."source
- KitUnfavorable
Post-ban export "at Kit's discretion"; bans affiliate sites.
Read the clause
Can terminate "in our sole determination" (§12b). AUP: an account can be "closed immediately and without prior notice", export is "at Kit's discretion", and no new account is allowed afterwards.source
- AWeberUnfavorable
"Right to delete all data" on termination.
Read the clause
Can suspend "at any time, and for any reason, without notice." The terms reserve the "right to delete all data, files or other information" if the account is terminated, with no stated grace period.source
✓ favorable to the creator · ◐ mixed · ✗ unfavorable. Open a row for the verbatim clause and source. Compiled June 2026 from public terms, status pages and the pricing data layer. Re-verified quarterly.
The practical defense costs five minutes a month: export your subscriber CSV, every month, whatever platform you pick. See the full eleven-platform breakdown on who controls your audience.
Not sure which fits you?
Our 2-minute quiz scores every platform on what you actually need, then names your best fit. It is blind to commission.
Take the platform quiz →Feature matrix
The full data layer for all five, where they differ. We show coverage per platform, not a winner-by-count: more features is the opposite of better when you are learning.
Pick a plan from the ▾ menu under a platform to see what that plan unlocks and its price at your subs count.
| Feature | Substack | MailerLite | Beehiiv | Kit (ex-ConvertKit) | AWeber |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly priceat 2.5K subs · monthly | 10% of revenue | $25/mo · Growing Business · 2.5K subs | $0/mo · Free ≤2.5K subs | $0/mo · Free ≤10K subs | $35/mo · Lite · 2.5K subs |
| 5/6 | 3/6 | 6/6 | 6/6 | 4/6 | |
| 2/5 | 4/5 | 4/5 | 4/5 | 4/5 | |
| 6/9 | 8/9 | 9/9 | 9/9 | 9/9 | |
| 7/9 | 8/9 | 9/9 | 9/9 | 8/9 | |
| 2/4 | 4/4 | 2/4 | 2/4 | 3/4 | |
| 3/5 | 5/5 | 4/5 | 5/5 | 5/5 | |
| 8/10 | 8/10 | 10/10 | 7/10 | 8/10 | |
| 5/5 | 2/5 | 5/5 | 4/5 | 2/5 | |
| Get started | Try free → | Try free → | Try free → | Try free → | Try free → |
✓ Yes · Partial · — No · dotted = unverified · a plan tag (e.g. Scale) = the cheapest plan that unlocks it; pick a plan above each column and ↑ marks features above it. Verified against vendor sources, June 2026. Some links are paid — OwnLetter may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It never affects the data.
What users actually say
Average ratings from real reviews across G2, Capterra, Trustpilot and Reddit, then the themes users raise most, compared side by side. Verbatims are exact quotes, never invented.
Straight from the reviews
What real users say
Each site’s average below comes from its own user reviews across Reddit, Trustpilot, Capterra and G2 — the count per site is on each bar. We never invent a quote.
Average score on each review site
SubstackMailerLitebeehiivKitAWeberPraised · Complaint · Split opinion
Average scores pulled from each site on May 31, 2026. Trustpilot scores are a recent sample, not the lifetime average; Reddit has no star ratings. Substack isn't listed on Capterra, and on Substack Trustpilot skews toward readers and Reddit toward creators. See our methodology.
Theme by theme, where users agree and differ.
| What users say about… | Substack480 reviews read | MailerLite1849 reviews read | beehiiv669 reviews read | Kit885 reviews read | AWeber833 reviews read |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ▼ | ▲ | ▼ | ▲ | ▲ | |
| ▼ | ▲ | ▼ | ▼ | ▲ | |
| ▼ | ▲ | ▼ | ▼ | ▼ | |
| ◆ | ◆ | ◆ | ▲ | ▲ | |
| ◆ | ◆ | ◆ | ▲ | ▲ | |
| ◆ | ◆ | ▲ | ▲ | ◆ | |
| See for yourself | Try free → | Try free → | Try free → | Try free → | Try free → |
▲ Praised · ▼ Complaint · ◆ Mixed · top theme / common / minor = how often readers bring it up · ❝ hover any cell for the exact count and a real, sourced quote · · = too few reviews to score. Read in full from Reddit, Trustpilot, G2 and Capterra, June 2026. We never invent a quote. Some links are paid — OwnLetter may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It never affects the data.
Review sources:RedditTrustpilotG2Capterra
Frequently asked
Beginner questions, answered
What is actually the best free newsletter platform?
It depends on what you mean by free. Substack is free at any size but takes 10% of revenue if you ever charge readers. Kit allows the most subscribers free (10,000) but locks automations and forces promo slots. Beehiiv gives you 2,500 with monetization gated. MailerLite and AWeber stop at 500 but include more working features. There is no best free plan, only the best fit for your first year, which is what this guide ranks.
Is Substack really 100% free?
Yes, until you charge readers. There is no plan fee at any subscriber count, which no other platform here matches. The catch appears with paid subscriptions: Substack keeps 10% of that revenue, and the effective cut runs closer to 13-15% once Stripe and Apple in-app fees are counted. As a beginner with a free newsletter, you genuinely pay nothing.
What happens when I hit a 500-subscriber free cap?
On MailerLite, sending blocks immediately at the cap with no grace period, so upgrade before subscriber 501. On AWeber the free plan also stops at 500 subscribers or 3,000 emails a month. Use the calculator on this page to see what each platform costs at the list size you expect; the cheapest paid step up from a 500-cap free plan is usually MailerLite's Growing Business plan.
Which platform is easiest if I have never sent a newsletter?
MailerLite, by the weight of the review corpus: 672 ease-of-use mentions, stable across four years, with non-technical users saying they sent their first email without outside help. Substack is even simpler for pure publishing (write, hit send), but its navigation confuses some users and there is no one to call. If you want a human walking you through, AWeber is the only free plan with 24/7 phone support.
Can a platform really delete my account and my list?
Yes, and it is documented on every platform in this guide: 87 suspension mentions in MailerLite's review corpus, 46 for AWeber, 35 for Kit, 20 for Substack and 15 for Beehiiv, often without warning and sometimes before a first email was sent. The defense is simple: export your subscriber CSV every month, whatever platform you choose. Your list is the asset; the platform is just the tool.
Should I just pick Kit since it allows 10,000 subscribers free?
Only if you understand the strings. The free Newsletter plan locks automations (Kit's main strength), forces non-removable promo slots for other creators, and Kit's policy can suspend accounts for merely mentioning affiliate links. If you want a big free runway for a simple newsletter and none of those bite you, it is a fair deal. If you plan affiliate content, pick literally any other platform here.
Our verdict
How we ranked them
Start where failure is free: Substack first, MailerLite to learn
We ranked these five the way a beginner actually decides: how far free really goes, how fast you can learn the tool, who answers when you are stuck, and what the upgrade costs when you grow.
Substack takes the top spot because for a true beginner the risks that matter are cost and complexity, and it eliminates both while finding you readers. MailerLite is second as the easiest place to learn real email. Neither pays us a cent; the two platforms that do (Beehiiv and AWeber) sit third and fifth, exactly where their data puts them. That is the test: the ranking tracks what beginners need, never what earns us a commission.
- Built from 10,810 real reviews plus each platform's live pricing and terms
- Free-tier ceilings verified on the official pages, AWeber's on our own billing screen
- Our two affiliate partners rank 3rd and 5th; the top two picks pay us nothing
The bottom line
Substack makes starting free; MailerLite makes learning easy.
Start from zero on Substack and let the network find your first readers. If you would rather learn list-building properly from day one, MailerLite is the gentlest teacher. Either way: export your CSV monthly.
Editorial pick · not an affiliate link
How we testedVerified June 2026 · 10810 reviews aggregated · Substack + MailerLite + Beehiiv + Kit + AWeber tested · Five platforms crossed on free-tier reality, ease of learning, support and growth path · pricing tracked weekly · rankings blind to commission
What we did: We cross-read full review-theme maps for each platform, verified every free-tier ceiling on the official pricing pages (AWeber's on our own account's billing screen), and ranked by beginner-decisive criteria using a commission-blind model.
What we did NOT do: We did not run live deliverability tests, and Ghost and Buttondown are absent by design: Ghost has no free tier and Buttondown's free plan caps at 100 subscribers. Both are covered in our writers guide.
Refresh cadence: Pricing verified weekly via our tracker; free-tier ceilings and rankings reviewed quarterly or on any material vendor change. (pricing verified June 9, 2026). Full methodology →