MailerLite review: pricing, features, pros & cons. Here’s all you need to know.

Mailerlite appears everywhere when you search for email marketing tools, be it Google search results, YouTube videos, or conversations with fellow marketers.

The email marketing software earned its good reputation because it is affordable and user-friendly, with hundreds of good reviews and satisfied clients. So, my fellow email marketing experts at GetResponse and I were equally impressed and intrigued.

We decided to try this tool to learn about their secrets on the one hand and help you decide whether their platform would be a good fit for your needs.

TL;DR — Our MailerLite review summarized

So we’ve analyzed over 900 user reviews,and our team tested the platform and wrote their findings in a shared document to give you all the useful insights you need about MailerLite.

Overall, it is a solid platform that is loved by its users. It’s known for its affordability, ease of use, great customer support, and powerful email marketing features. However, it’s not flawless, and it’s far from being the best platform among other email marketing platforms.

Here’s a table that summarizes all the positive and negative aspects of the platform:

Pros	Cons
Multi-language support, including RTL	Limited functionality on lower-tier plans
High email deliverability	Steep learning curve due to different interfaces for various builders
Versatile features (email, landing pages,blog, SEO features, website, automation)	Limited customization options, especially for forms and templates
Good customer support (especially for paid plans)	Fewer integrations compared to some competitors
AI-powered tools (subject line generator, landing page builder)	Customer support is limited for free plan users
Robust segmentation and list management features	Generative AI is not available for email content or preheaders
A/B testing and multivariate campaign options	Domain authentication required before creating campaigns
Saved blocks feature	Limited analytics options
Campaign scheduling with timezone options	Migration issues were reported when upgrading from the classic to new version

How we reviewed this software

Whenever we review competing software, our objective is NOT to prove that our platform is better but to be well-informed about its features and capabilities. We have a separate article that compares our platform to MailerLite.

Our objective is, first and foremost, to help you with your marketing needs and not to sell you a product. This way, if the competing platform has a feature or an essential integration for you that we don’t have or vice versa, we’d be able to highlight that and help you make an informed decision.

We acknowledge that marketers have different use cases, budgets, and capabilities, and we consider all of these when reviewing software.

So, what was our methodology?

We analyzed hundreds of MailerLite’s online reviews and conducted a sentiment analysis to see how their clients feel about them, how the platform helped them, and what they liked and disliked.

We also have a paid subscription to MailerLite, so our team thoroughly and carefully tested the platform and its features and wrote down a general overview of their findings in a shared document.

The output you see here combines the analysis of over 900 reviews and evaluations from a team of experts who tested the paid version of MailerLite.

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Quick overview: What is MailerLite?

MailerLite is an affordable and simple email marketing software, especially for smaller businesses or those just starting with their email marketing efforts.

The software’s features include email marketing, a drag-and-drop email builder, automation, a landing page and website builder, sign-up forms, and pop-ups.

In other words, the tool provides the necessary marketing tools to build your email list and send out email campaigns manually or automatically.

Over time, the tool evolved to include additional features that provided marketing support to marketers and creators: automation, website builder/blog creation, paid newsletter subscriptions, and +140 integrations.

Pricing – How much does MailerLite cost?

The free trial lasts 30 days and is available to users with up to 1,000 recipients and 12,000 emails monthly. Setting up an account does not require providing payment card details. Payments are also available in different currencies, and you can pay monthly or yearly.

Users can verify to what extent the tool meets their needs and whether it is worth deciding on a paid plan.

What’s the downside?

The mix of options in this plan can be confusing. There are limits on recipients and sending during the free trial period, but the details about premium options are unclear, making it difficult to understand what is included in their free forever plan.

What if the limits are exceeded during the trial period?

If the user was using the free version, sending messages (campaigns + automation) will be stopped, and they will be asked to sign up and upgrade to a paid plan or remove active recipients to the appropriate amount to regain the ability to send.

The flexible pricing is worth noting. The price changes depending on the size of the database and can be verified using a simple slider on the page, covering a range from 500 to 500,000 recipients.

So how much will it cost me exactly?

There are four plans available:

• Free
• Growing Business
• Advanced
• Enterprise

Assuming your recipient base is 10,000, you will pay from $65 to $99 per month, depending on whether you opt-in for the Growing Business or Advanced plan. The Enterprise package, available to customers with more than 100,000 recipients, is billed differently, and its cost is determined individually.

MailerLite Price List

• Free: You will have access to most functionalities related to implementing standard email marketing campaigns, as well as the basics of automation and analytics. This is sufficient if your business is starting out and you have 1,000 or fewer subscribers.
• Growing Business: This package has no sending limit. However, it lacks access to several useful tools such as the HTML newsletter editor, AI writing assistant, some automation options, code-protected pages, and A/B testing of promotional pop-ups. Most importantly, there is no 24/7 chat support; customer service is only available via email.
• Advanced Plan: The most advanced and expensive non-enterprise version at $77 monthly for 10,000 recipients and unlimited sending. It includes a complete set of tools for acquiring recipients, sending email campaigns, marketing & email automation, creating websites and blogs, selling products, optimizing for recipients, analyzing reports, and support.
• Enterprise plans are typically priced based on individual needs.

An analysis of MailerLite’s online reviews

We analyzed hundreds of MailerLite’s reviews on G2.com to provide an unbiased review.

Overall, MailerLite’s users have a positive sentiment toward their service, with 94% of the reviews being positive.

How does MailerLite help?

Based on recent data from customer reviews, MailerLite appears to be a helpful and cost-effective tool for building contact lists, sending emails, and automating campaigns.

One of its core strengths is simplifying complex tasks, such as A/B testing, segmentation, and domain verification, making these accessible even to beginners, not just seasoned marketers or developers.

The treemap below summarizes all the common positive aspects mentioned by the reviewers when asked how MailerLite helps.

As seen in the figure above, most reviews mentioned Email marketing, automation, Cost-effectiveness, simplifying campaigns, and support as helpful features.

There are some interesting statements from clients on how MailerLite helped them with their use cases. For example, one client pointed out that they’re using it as their CRM system:

Another client highlighted how the automation feature saved them a lot of time.

And in another use case, a client highlighted that they value having a system where they manage email, websites, and landing pages all in one place:

Overall, MailerLite proved to be an affordable email marketing tool for small—to medium-sized businesses that can also serve other marketing purposes in some cases.

What do users like about MailerLite?

Users perceive MailerLite as a user-friendly, feature-rich, and affordable email marketing solution with great customer support. Aspects like automation, email templates, the free plan, and integrations were also frequently mentioned in reviews.

The bubble chart below summarizes what users like the most about the platform.

Most users praised customer support in their reviews and pointed out how fast and effective it is, for example:

And, of course, cost-effectiveness and affordability was mentioned frequently:

The tool appears to be effective for beginners and small businesses in building email lists, sending campaigns, and automating these processes. However, the frequent mention of customer support raises a question: if the platform is truly user-friendly and intuitive, why is customer support needed so often?

What do users dislike about MailerLite?

It is pretty evident now that users love MailerLite, and the positives outweigh the negatives. However, users still mentioned some common negative aspects in their reviews.

The most common negative aspects were Limited customization, the learning curve, migration issues, and limited integrations. The bubble chart below summarizes these.

The learning curve is something that we expected when we tested the tool ourselves, given that the interfaces for the email builder, forms builder, and website builder all look different. Plus, finding and editing specific features is difficult, so the UI is far from perfect. Here’s what some users had to say regarding this

Other reviews highlight the inadequacies in documentation, videos, and helpful tips, for example

And although their email builder and page builder are praised for their ease of use, there are some complaints about customization. For example:

Other users only pointed out that the free version’s customization options are even more limited and that they wish they could customize the unsubscribe options.

Moreover, multiple reviewers complained about MailerLite’s upgrade to their system, which was accompanied by a price change and a migration process from MailerLite classic to the updated version. Here are some examples:

Some clients reported spending weeks on rebuilding their campaigns and migrating from the classic editors, for example:

Others decided to stick to the classic editor and were discontent with the price increase.

Users didn’t feel pleased with the upgrade and price change, but we should give MailerLite credit for allowing users to keep using the classic platform with the same old pricing.

Of course, the list of complaints is long. In addition to what we mentioned so far, users have also complained about the limited number of integrations, mobile app limitations, and limited analytics options.

User reviews’ summary

According to our analysis of user reviews, MailerLite is loved by its customers. Of course, it is not by any means flawless or comprehensive, but it seems to do the job in most cases for beginners and small businesses.

Based on the data we’ve analyzed, MailerLite’s positives far outweigh its negatives. However, if you decide to choose MailerLite as your email marketing software provider, you won’t be immune to frustration and disappointment. Despite being praised for its user-friendliness, many users have reported needing to contact support at some point.

Let’s be honest, though: these days, “affordability” is paired with “you get what you pay for.” So, while the platform is affordable and good, don’t expect it to be the ultimate marketing solution that is ultra-customizable.

Long story short, the platform is affordable, easy to use and it does the job. But it’s far from being the best marketing platform.

MailerLite: In-depth software review

In this section, we’ll share our findings after testing MailerLite’s platform. Overall, the software offers many solid and powerful features that are relatively easy to use but not comprehensive or perfect.

While it is user-friendly, there is a steep learning curve due to the different interfaces for the form builder, landing page builder, website builder, and email builder.

Creating your first email is smooth and enjoyable, but the initial domain verification process can frustrate beginners.

We tested the platform, so you don’t have to. Here’s what We found out.

The Sign-up process

The initial onboarding is pretty simple and smooth.

After signing up with your email and name and choosing your password, you must go through a few standard steps, like adding your business info, verifying your email, and agreeing to the Anti-Spam Policy.

Some follow-up questions in the confirmation form seemed excessive and unnecessary, but they’d only take a minute or two.

Overall, expect a fast and easy sign-up. However, that does not apply to the domain authentication process, which we’ll discuss later in this article.

How good are MailerLite’s forms and pop-ups?

Mailerlite doesn’t have a template library for embedded forms, and the editor for these looks too basic.

On the other hand, the pop-up editor is much more advanced than embedded forms. It comes with a templates library and a drag-and-drop editor for modifying the designs of these pop-ups.

You can use blocks like images, text, a countdown, and social links. You can also have a cool customizable Success pop-up with a custom color, background, and social links.

They also have promotion pop-ups, but just like embedded forms, you can’t alter them completely because the editing features are limited. However, they have many cool templates that fit different events and scenarios, such as Mobile app promotions, webinar promotions, feedback promotions, and event promotions.

Like other form builders, you can feature reCAPTCHA, confirmation checkboxes, and Marketing permission fields.

We liked that they have the hidden segmentation field feature and a feature that allows you to create interest groups and enables you to feature checkboxes for these in forms.

We were also able to mark button clicks within forms as conversions, which might be useful to some users who don’t want to track these elsewhere.

What is our impression of their forms feature? It does the job, more or less, but it is not super customizable. You can’t, for example, take any Figma design or idea of a form and turn it into reality with MailerLite.

The field types for forms also felt a bit limited. For example, you cannot add a country code drop-down menu for phone fields, and there is no file upload field type by default.

So our verdict is this: If you’re a business owner who just wants simple and good-looking forms to collect emails, MailerLite does the job for you. But if you have a client or a boss who demands a lot and you need a lot of customizations and field types, you’ll probably be disappointed.

What we liked	What we did not like
Advanced Pop-up feature with all the features you need	No template library for embedded forms
Ability to use blocks like images, text, countdowns, and social links	Limited editing features for embedded forms and promotion pop-ups
Customizable Success pop-up with custom colors and background	Limited field types, no country code dropdown for phone fields, no file upload field type by default
Cool templates for various promotions (mobile app, webinar, feedback, event promotions)	Can’t turn Figma or Adobe XD designs into reality
Hidden segmentation field feature and creation of interest groups
Ability to mark button clicks within forms as conversions

How good are their list management features: Segments and custom fields

Subscriber management is definitely the most interesting bit for any seasoned email marketer. Any email marketing tool without good subscriber management and segmentation features isn’t worth the trouble for sure. However, Mailerlite seems to have given this feature a lot of attention.

You can create custom fields in addition to the default ones and use them in forms and pop-ups. You can also create groups and use them in forms as checkboxes to segment contacts based on form selections.

For example, if you want to create a list of contacts who work for a specific company or department, you can either create a group or a custom field for that attribute. Based on their input, the contacts will be automatically added to a segment.

Moreover, you can segment users based on enrollment in automation workflows, inactivity, and stats like opens and clicks.

Importing contacts is straightforward and easy. You can import contacts in bulk or individually. But if you’re importing a contact list, the format has to be .csv or .txt, and you’ll have to map the data to fields later on. So, ensure you’ve created all the necessary custom fields before proceeding with your import.

Overall, MailerLite’s subscription management meets the standards. It is pretty easy and straightforward to use for seasoned marketers as well as beginners. The feature makes subscriber management, segmentation, and clean-up relatively easy.

Is their customer support good?

The short answer is yes. Naturally, after discussing building lists and list management features, we should talk about sending out email campaigns, not customer support. However, while attempting to test the “Campaigns” feature, we couldn’t create any campaign before authenticating our sender domain.

That has become the standard nowadays after Yahoo and Gmail updates. Unfortunately, our hosting provider wasn’t listed among the DNS providers, so we had to manually add the DNS records by following screen prompts and copying and pasting some codes. The result? Our domain was still not authenticated.

So, we did what a client would do and reached out to customer support through the chat bubble on the screen. At first, we got a response from an AI chatbot that sent some useful links and generated some instructions that didn’t help and would be incomprehensible for the average marketer or business owner.

Eventually, we were contacted by a support agent who responded quickly and helped us resolve our issue in no time through a chat. We got a response in less than 5 minutes, and we could exchange screenshots with the agent, who told us exactly what to do and which records to modify.

Overall, their support was quick and straight to the point, and it helped resolve our issue in under 10 minutes. We liked how easy it was to attach images and screenshots and how fast the responses were. The support agent answered all the questions we had in mind quickly, and we created our first email. How did that turn out? You’ll find out in the section below.

What do we think of their email marketing and campaign features

The only annoying bit we had to deal with was that we couldn’t create an email campaign or test the email features until we authenticated our sender domain. That involved adding DNS records, which might sometimes take up to 24 hours. And, of course, users cannot create or send emails during this period.

We get the part about blocking users from sending emails before authenticating their domains for compliance and deliverability. But if you’re on a free trial, you cannot even test the email builder or see what it looks like.

So, if you’re a beginner who doesn’t know what DNS means or you work with an agency or a company and are trying to test multiple tools, this will make your job harder, especially if you have no access to a domain’s DNS records.

However, as discussed earlier, we took it upon ourselves to be patient, authenticate our sender domain, contact support, and finally test the tool and tell you all about it.

Here’s what we found out. MailerLite enables its users to send five types of email campaigns, including:

1. Regular campaigns
2. A/B split campaign
3. RSS campaigns
4. Auto resend campaigns
5. Multivariate campaign

The coolest among these was the Multivariate campaign, where you can test out a maximum of eight combinations of subject lines, “From names”, email content, and sending times. For example, you can test two subject lines, “From” names, and two sending times to give you eight combinations.

One thing we did not like about campaign creation is that you can’t save the first step, where you create the subject lines and preheaders, and get back to it later. During this step, you also select the recipients, and you can add UTM tags to emails if you want to track the campaign’s performance in Google Analytics.

In the second step of the process, you can choose one of four different ways to start building your email: drag-and-drop, rich text, HTML editor, or templates.

Their drag-and-drop email editor is user-friendly and has all the features you need to send a professional email. The coolest feature is the saved blocks feature, where you can save specific content in a library to reuse in other emails and preview and test email features.

Also, their email campaign builder supports multiple languages, including RTL.

The HTML editor also isn’t complicated to use. It has a preview window on the left side that lets users preview the code changes while editing the email.

The rich text editor also does its job, although it feels a bit like an unnecessary feature that could be merged into the drag-and-drop builder.

One of the cool features is the campaign scheduling feature. You can send the email at a specific time based on the user’s timezone or resort to their “Smart sending” feature, which analyzes contact data and sends emails based on the time the contacts are most likely to engage.

Regarding AI features, Mailerlite has an AI Subject Line generator with limited credits; however, generative AI isn’t available for preheaders or email content.

Here is the two-column table summarizing what we liked and didn’t like:

What we liked	What we didn’t like
Ability to send five types of email campaigns (Regular, A/B split, RSS, Auto resend, Multivariate)	Can’t create or draft emails until the sender domain is authenticated
Multivariate campaigns with up to 8 combinations	Hard for beginners or those without DNS access to test tools
Saved blocks feature	Generative AI not available for preheaders or email content
Multiple languages, and RTL support	Can’t save the first step of campaign creation and return to it later
Easy-to-use HTML editor with a preview window
Campaign scheduling feature based on user’s timezone or “Smart sending”
AI Subject Line generator feature
Support for UTM tags to track campaign performance in Google Analytics

Landing pages and website builder

Mailerlite has multiple website templates that you can use instead of building yours from scratch.

The Website builder allows you to have multiple pages, which you can add or hide from the Navigation bar. It also has a blog feature, which is uncommon in other email marketing platforms and CRM software.

You can add password protection to pages. However, the password for these pages is shared, so it’s not the type of feature that can help you build a community with exclusive content.

The available blocks, templates and designs can help you build a nice looking website quickly, but the builders don’t give you too much freedom and you’ll still be restricted in terms of what you can build with it.

The SEO features are pretty adequate. MailerLite has a feature to auto-update your sitemap and enable you to add a custom robot.txt.

The website builder is great if you want to build a lead generation website quickly and easily without the help of a developer, but like the pop-up builder, it doesn’t enable many customizations.

The biggest downside is that the drag-and-drop builder doesn’t enable you to save specific blocks to reuse them like the Email builder does. Also you cannot use a custom domain with the free plan, even if you already own one.

The AI landing page builder is a cool feature. It provides three different versions that you can choose from, and you can add your brand styles to improve the output. But, of course, the outcome depends on how good your prompt is.

If you want to use something other than the AI builder, you can either choose one of their Landing page templates or start from scratch. The templates are nice, and they fit multiple use cases.

Surprisingly, the landing page builder’s interface looks quite different from that of the site builder. Technically, both are drag-and-drop editors and don’t require coding. However, they’re both limited in terms of features and customization.

You can totally build nice landing pages with Mailerlite to collect emails and build your lists, but again, it’s not the perfect tool to turn a Figma or Adobe XD design into Landing pages, and it won’t be the perfect tool if you have a client or a boss who has great expectations and asks for a lot of customizations.

What We Like	What We Did Not Like
Nice templates fitting multiple use cases	Password protection is shared, not suitable for exclusive content communities
	Website builder and Landing page builder have different interfaces
Blog feature	Limited freedom in builders, restricted in terms of what can be built
Adequate SEO features (auto-update sitemap, custom robot.txt)	Drag-and-drop builder doesn’t allow saving specific blocks for reuse
AI landing page builder	Not suitable for turning Figma or Adobe XD designs into landing pages
	Outcome of AI landing page builder highly depends on prompt quality
	You cannot use a custom domain with the free plan

Automation

Who doesn’t love automation? It means less work and mundane tasks for us. And, of course, Mailerlite did not miss out on this feature. MailerLite offers a bunch of Automation templates that include:

1. Simple welcome email
2. Retarget subscribers
3. Win back inactive subscribers
4. Abandoned cart

If you build your automation workflow from scratch, you can choose between Email and ecommerce automation. Email automation is triggered by subscriber actions like form completion, link clicks, and field updates. ecommerce automation, on the other hand, is triggered by actions in an online store, such as product purchases and cart abandonment.

Actions can be set up to automatically send an email, move the subscriber to a group or segment, or mark a user as unsubscribed. Moreover, you can add delays, webhooks, A/B tests and conditions before actions or steps.

The automation workflow feature is pretty simple to use and straightforward. It is definitely not basic but not as advanced as the HubSpot workflow feature for example. As long as the trigger is something related to your email campaign or an integrated ecommerce website, and the final action is sending an email or managing a specific contact, Mailerlite will do the job for you.

Do we recommend MailerLite?

We hope that, at this point, after reading the whole article, we helped you make an informed decision on whether MailerLite would be the perfect solution for you or not.

In short, if you’re only beginning with email marketing, your business isn’t huge, and you don’t have many expectations regarding customization and integrations. Well, go for it! MailerLite might be the solution for you.

If you are looking for something scalable, with a ton of features and integrations to turn your omnichannel marketing dream into reality, you might have to look elsewhere. Because you might spend all that money, you’re saving with MailerLite, if not more, on third-party integrations and solutions. Make sure to check our list of the best newsletter software to find the ideal platform for your business.