Campaign Monitor alternatives

Reachkit, my company, makes cold email software, which writes to people who never signed up. Campaign Monitor and the nine tools below mail people who did, so Reachkit isn’t on this list. Every price here was read on the vendor’s own pages in October 2026, with review sites named where they read bigger tiers.

Campaign Monitor still gets a lot right. Every plan has unlimited users, Essentials and Premier have no send cap, reviewers single out its templates, and agencies get client sub-accounts and an admin dashboard. So pick by what’s missing:

• The same kind of tool for less: MailerLite, with twice Lite’s monthly send allowance.
• A lower bill at 10,000 subscribers: EmailOctopus, $44.50 a month against $117 on Lite.
• A big list mailed a few times a month: Brevo, billed by emails sent.
• Paying only when you send, at a price you can see: Sender’s pay as you go.
• Client accounts on a small budget: Zoho Campaigns’ Agency Edition.
• A team editing together, plus app email: Mailjet.
• A phone number on the cheapest plan: Constant Contact.
• Automations with more branches: ActiveCampaign.
• Store data and integrations: Mailchimp.

For comparison, Campaign Monitor Lite is $11.70 a month billed yearly for 500 contacts, with a 30-day trial and no free plan (October 2026).

Entries 1 to 4 cut the bill. Campaign Monitor’s own page shows bigger tiers only in a slider I couldn’t read, so its 10,000-subscriber figures here ($117 Lite, $182 Essentials, monthly) are SendX’s and Sequenzy’s readings of its slider.

MailerLite has run since 2010 and has belonged to the Polish company Vercom since 2022. It covers the same core jobs as Campaign Monitor: a drag-and-drop editor, automations, signup forms, landing pages and websites.

What it costs (October 2026): at 500 subscribers you pay $12 a month on Comfort or $25 on Power, 10% less on yearly billing, and nothing on Free up to 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails. Review sites reading the slider between August and October 2026 have 10,000 subscribers at $89 and $129.

Strengths:

• Comfort sends up to 10 times your tier each month, where Campaign Monitor Lite allows 5. Power has no send cap, under a fair use policy.
• Every plan includes an official MCP server, so Claude or ChatGPT can build segments and schedule campaigns in your account (Free can’t send through it). Campaign Monitor had no official one in October 2026.

Drawbacks:

• Comfort comes with 3 seats; Power lifts the cap.
• New pricing took effect on June 16, 2026 (up from $10 for Comfort, per EmailOctopus), and most recent one-star Trustpilot reviews describe suspended or closed accounts.

Versus Campaign Monitor: at 10,000 subscribers, Comfort’s $89 against Lite’s $117, with twice the sends, or Power’s $129 against Essentials’ $182. More in the MailerLite profile and MailerLite alternatives.

EmailOctopus launched in 2014 and is run by Three Hearts Digital Ltd, a UK company. It does less than Campaign Monitor, for much less money.

What it costs (October 2026): nothing up to 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails a month, for a single user. Pro starts at $10 a month for 500 subscribers ($9 if you pay yearly), and there’s no trial. For 10,000 subscribers, EmailOctopus’s own blog quotes $40 a month on yearly billing and Tooltester $44.50 paid monthly; that tier sends 100,000 emails.

Strengths:

• Pro has no limit on users, so a whole team fits, as it does on Campaign Monitor.
• Its Connect version sends from your own Amazon SES account, which Amazon bills separately, and lists emails as unlimited.

Drawbacks:

• Tooltester lists no A/B tests and “limited automation”, and there’s no AI writing assistant as of October 2026.
• It also counts a person once per list, the rule behind many Campaign Monitor bills, and each new account is reviewed before it can send.

Versus Campaign Monitor: $44.50 against Lite’s $117 at 10,000 subscribers, with twice the monthly sends. See the EmailOctopus profile.

Entries 3 and 4 suit occasional senders, the readers Campaign Monitor steers to its pay per campaign option.

Brevo, the Paris company called Sendinblue until 2023, bills by emails sent each month rather than subscribers stored. Email, SMS, WhatsApp, live chat and a light sales CRM share one account.

What it costs (October 2026): the free tier allows 300 sends a day with room for 100,000 contacts. Paid plans begin at 5,000 emails a month, $9 on Starter or $18 on Standard. Below 20,000 emails, each tier also limits how many contacts you keep (500, 1,500 or 2,500); at 20,000 emails, $32 Starter or $69 Standard, the limit jumps to 500,000. Pay yearly and you save 10%. Starter shows Brevo’s logo unless you pay to drop it: $12 a month in the price catalog, $10.80 billed yearly on the pricing page, $9 in an add-ons article.

Strengths:

• Every plan can send receipts and other app email through the API or SMTP relay.
• Paid plans list an MCP server, and a Claude connector and ChatGPT plugin had launched by September 2026.

Drawbacks:

• Starter has one seat and Standard up to 3, and phone support waits for Professional at $499 a month.
• 8 of the first 20 low-star Trustpilot reviews (October 2026) describe suspended or restricted accounts, and unused email credits expire each month.

Versus Campaign Monitor: mail 10,000 people twice a month (20,000 emails) and Starter costs $32, or $44 without the logo, against Lite’s $117. Weekly sends climb Brevo’s tiers and narrow the gap. See the Brevo profile and Brevo alternatives.

UAB Sender.lt in Vilnius has run Sender since 2012: email and SMS marketing with native store integrations, Shopify and WooCommerce among them.

What it costs (October 2026): a $29 pack buys 5,000 emails on pay as you go, for any number of subscribers and without Sender’s logo. SMS and advanced automation aren’t part of it, and the credits stay valid while the account is active. The free plan covers up to 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 sends a month for one user. Monthly plans start at $9 (Standard) and $15 (Professional) for 500 subscribers, and at 10,000 subscribers Sender’s own pages disagree: $57 in a blog post that names no plan, $69 for Standard in its calculator.

Strengths:

• Round-the-clock live chat, even on the free plan, and a 4.9 Trustpilot rating from over 1,500 reviews (October 2026).
• App email, like order confirmations, can go out by API or SMTP on any plan.

Drawbacks:

• Sender’s quality team reviews every account, and sending can be restricted until it’s done; suspensions are the usual story in its small share of one-star reviews.
• Refunds are limited to cases where Sender itself ends the service without cause, and Standard has 3 seats.

Versus Campaign Monitor: its pay per campaign charges 500 credits per campaign plus 1 per recipient, with no published dollar price per credit. Sender puts a number on it: four campaigns to 1,250 people fit in one $29 pack. See the Sender profile.

Entries 5 and 6 are for agencies and teams, the customers Campaign Monitor serves with client sub-accounts and an admin dashboard.

Zoho Campaigns comes from Zoho Corporation, maker of Zoho CRM, and has been sold since 2012.

What it costs (October 2026): up to 2,000 contacts, the free plan sends 6,000 emails a month. At 500 contacts, Standard is $4 and Professional $6 a month, 25% less billed yearly; at 10,000 they’re $49 and $81. Both paid plans include unlimited emails. The Agency Edition is yearly only, listed from US$583 a year for 10,000 contacts, and manages up to 10 clients from an agency console, with Professional’s features.

Strengths:

• Unlimited emails, so a daily send costs the same as a monthly one.
• Zoho CRM, Salesforce and HubSpot connect on every plan, and the API works even on Free.

Drawbacks:

• On G2, support gets its lowest score (8.3 of 10), and a Reddit complaint about support was the top Google result for “zoho campaigns review” in October 2026.
• Zoho halts a campaign once hard bounces pass 5% or spam complaints 0.1%, and reviewers call the templates dated, the area where Style Factory says Campaign Monitor’s key strength lies.

Versus Campaign Monitor: at 10,000 contacts, $49 for unlimited sends against Lite’s $117 for 50,000. Campaign Monitor’s agency side lists more, including markup options and private labeling. See the Zoho Campaigns profile.

Mailjet started in France in 2010 and has belonged to Sinch since 2021. It bills by emails sent and pairs a marketing editor with a developer API in one account.

What it costs (October 2026): the free plan allows 200 emails a day, 6,000 a month, to at most 1,000 contacts; Starter gives 8,000 emails for $9. Contacts become unlimited on Essential, $19 for 15,000 emails or $40 for 50,000, and on Premium, which runs from $29 (15,000 emails) to $499 (500,000). A September 9, 2026 update raised Essential and Premium.

Strengths:

• Several people can work on one email at once, and Premium brings user management with as many as 20 subaccounts.
• Developers get the Send API, SMTP relay and webhooks on every plan.

Drawbacks:

• On paid plans, going past the plan is never blocked, only billed ($2.58 per extra 1,000 on the 15,000-email plans), and Mailjet’s help says that overage “cannot be deactivated”.
• Automations and landing pages need Premium, phone and chat support start at the 50,000-email plans, and blocked accounts lead the Trustpilot complaints.

Versus Campaign Monitor: a 10,000-person list mailed twice a month is 20,000 emails: Premium 15K plus 5,000 extra comes to $41.90 (my math), automations included, against Lite’s $117. Mailjet publishes no seat count, where Campaign Monitor promises unlimited users. See the Mailjet profile.

Entries 7 to 9 each beat Campaign Monitor on one thing: support, automation or store data.

From Waltham, Massachusetts, Constant Contact serves small businesses, nonprofits and franchises, with texting, social posting and event signups next to email.

What it costs (October 2026): monthly, the smallest list costs $12 on Lite, $35 on Standard and $80 on Premium; prepaying a year takes up to 15% off. At 10,000 contacts, outside checks in September 2026 found $120, $160 and $275. No free plan, but a trial without a card.

Strengths:

• Phone, chat and live 1:1 onboarding come with every plan, Lite too.
• Sending past your allowance costs $2 per 1,000 rather than pausing anything. The Teams option (October 2026, priced through sales) adds approvals and locked templates for multi-location groups.

Drawbacks:

• Lite has a single user and automation template, and scheduling starts on Standard.
• Lowering your contact tier means phoning Billing, which grants it once and calls it “a one-time courtesy”. Billing, refunds, cancelling and support lead the Trustpilot complaints.

Versus Campaign Monitor: about the same money at 10,000 contacts, $120 on Lite against $117, so the reason to move is a person on the phone without paying for Premier. More in the Constant Contact profile and Constant Contact alternatives.

ActiveCampaign (Chicago, since 2003) puts automation at the center of its email marketing. Flows fire on a signup, a click or a purchase and branch on each contact’s next step; sales pipelines, SMS and WhatsApp are paid add-ons from Plus up.

What it costs (October 2026): at 1,000 contacts on yearly billing, the four plans run $15 (Starter), $49 (Plus), $79 (Pro) and $145 (Enterprise) a month; paying monthly, Starter is $19 according to review sites. No free plan, and the trial lasts 14 days without a card.

Strengths:

• Even Starter builds multi-step flows triggered by behavior (up to 5 actions each), and Enterprise adds a Salesforce integration.
• Through its MCP server, an assistant like Claude can create contacts, read results and even send a campaign.

Drawbacks:

• Newer accounts, opened from November 3, 2025, pay for unsubscribed and bounced contacts too; Campaign Monitor doesn’t.
• Starter and Plus include one user each, and Trustpilot shows 2.8, with recent reviewers struggling to reach support.

Versus Campaign Monitor: at 10,000 contacts, Venture Harbour puts Plus at about $189 a month, against about $163.80 for Essentials billed yearly. You pay more for automation depth. See the ActiveCampaign profile and ActiveCampaign alternatives.

Intuit has owned Mailchimp since November 2021. “Is Campaign Monitor better than Mailchimp?” is one of Google’s questions on Campaign Monitor reviews.

What it costs (October 2026): the free plan stops at 250 contacts and 500 sends a month. For 500 contacts, Essentials costs $13 and Standard $20; Premium begins at $350, for 10,000. At 10,000 contacts, outside price tables land near $110 for Essentials and $135 for Standard.

Strengths:

• One-click site tracking for Shopify, WooCommerce and Wix stores, segments that predict who’s likely to buy from Standard up, and over 300 integrations.
• Support by email and chat around the clock on paid plans, and an app for drafting campaigns inside ChatGPT or Claude for US, Canadian, British and Australian users.

Drawbacks:

• Contacts who unsubscribed stay billable until archived; Campaign Monitor doesn’t bill them.
• Essentials has 3 seats and Standard 5, and the Trustpilot score is 2.5.

Versus Campaign Monitor: at 10,000 contacts, about $135 for Standard against $182 for Essentials, and Mailchimp Essentials sends 10 times your tier to Lite’s 5. More in the Mailchimp profile and Mailchimp alternatives.

Name the reason you’re leaving first, then price each tool at your actual list size:

• Overlapping lists inflate the bill. First merge them into one list with segments, which Campaign Monitor’s own billing help suggests. Then compare MailerLite and EmailOctopus at the true count.
• You mail a few times a year. Sender’s pay as you go, or Brevo’s free plan if 300 emails a day is enough. Zoho Campaigns also sells email credits that don’t expire.
• You run client accounts. Zoho Campaigns’ Agency Edition, or Mailjet Premium’s subaccounts.
• You want a person on the phone without Premier. Constant Contact.
• Your Journeys need more branches. ActiveCampaign.
• You sell online. Mailchimp, or Klaviyo if you want texting tied to Shopify orders; its Email plan starts at $20 a month for 500 active profiles.

Either way, keep a copy of your lists while you decide; several reviewers lost idle accounts without warning.

Campaign Monitor still earns its place with agencies and design-minded teams, and unlimited users on every plan is rare on this list. I’d move when overlapping or growing lists push the bill past what MailerLite Power costs ($129 against $182 at 10,000), when you want someone on the phone without paying for Premier (Constant Contact), or when you send a few times a year and want a price you can see in advance (Sender).

None of these tools will mail people who never signed up; all nine forbid it, as Campaign Monitor does. Prospecting is cold email, which needs its own domains and inboxes, and that’s the job I built Reachkit for (how that setup works).

Related: the Campaign Monitor profile, Brevo alternatives and AWeber alternatives.