For most operators starting a newsletter in 2026, the question isn’t which email platform to pick — it’s which platform won’t bankrupt me before I have any readers. MailerLite‘s answer is the most generous free tier in the industry: 1,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month, free, no time limit, no credit card needed. That changes the math for anyone in the first year of a newsletter where revenue is zero and you don’t yet know if the project will work.
This post is the operator’s guide to MailerLite: what it actually is, the cost math past the free tier, the step-by-step setup with the One Two Three Send plugin, and the honest comparison vs Mailchimp, Beehiiv, ConvertKit, and Substack.
What MailerLite is, in one paragraph
MailerLite is a Lithuanian-founded (now GoDaddy-owned) email marketing platform that’s been building toward “the simplest professional email tool” since 2010. It’s the closest thing the industry has to “Mailchimp without the Mailchimp pricing surprises” — a clean drag-and-drop editor, automations, landing pages, signup forms, A/B testing, and an API/SMTP interface that integrates with anything. About 1.5 million businesses use it. The deliverability reputation is solid (not as obsessive as Postmark but materially better than Mailchimp on the same lists in our testing). The killer feature for new operators is a free tier that actually lets you run a newsletter at scale, not a 14-day trial that converts you to $30/month before your first subscriber arrives.
The case for MailerLite
Three reasons it shows up in operator stacks more than most people realize:
1. The free tier is real. Most “free” email platforms are time-limited (14 days), volume-limited (300 emails total), or feature-crippled to push you to upgrade. MailerLite’s free tier gives you 1,000 subscribers and 12,000 sends per month with the full editor, automation, and landing-page tools. The only feature gate is removal of the MailerLite footer — which costs $9/month if you care, $0 if you don’t.
2. The editor doesn’t fight you. Mailchimp’s editor was the industry standard until about 2018, when they started progressively breaking it for power users. MailerLite kept the editor simple. Drag a block in, type in it, save. Operators coming from Substack (“just give me a textbox”) tolerate it. Operators coming from Mailchimp (“why does this require six clicks?”) love it.
3. Automations and landing pages are bundled. Welcome sequences, abandoned-form recovery, paid-tier upgrade flows — all built in, no Zapier glue, no third-party email-automation tool layered on top. Same with landing pages: you can build a signup form + thank-you page + welcome email in 20 minutes without leaving the platform.
The cost reality, with real numbers
The pricing is structured by subscriber count (not email volume), which is the right unit for newsletter operators.
| Subscribers | MailerLite | Mailchimp Standard | ConvertKit Creator | Substack |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0–1,000 | $0 (free) | $20 | $15 | 10% of revenue |
| 2,500 | $25 | $45 | $29 | 10% of revenue |
| 5,000 | $39 | $75 | $49 | 10% of revenue |
| 15,000 | $99 | $200 | $149 | 10% of revenue |
| 50,000 | $289 | $385+ | $379 | 10% of revenue |
For a paid newsletter at $5/month with 5,000 subscribers (50% paid = $12,500/month revenue), Substack takes $1,250/month. MailerLite plus a $20/month Postmark or SES bill takes $59 total. The break-even on switching off Substack to a self-hosted MailerLite + One Two Three Send stack is roughly 250 paid subscribers — at that point the platform fees you’re saving cover the entire stack with money to spare.
Setup with the One Two Three Send plugin
The pro plugin has a built-in MailerLite provider — pick it from the dropdown and you’re 90% there. About 10 minutes if you already have a domain.
Step 1 — Sign up and verify your domain
Sign up at mailerlite.com. You’ll be asked some onboarding questions about your business; pick “Newsletter” or “Content creator” — answers don’t affect anything functional. Once in, go to Account → Domains and add the domain you want to send from. MailerLite gives you four DNS records to add: SPF, DKIM (two records), and a Return-Path CNAME. Add them all at your DNS provider, click Verify. Done within 10 minutes.
Skipping any of these — especially the DKIM pair — costs you 5–10% deliverability at Gmail. Don’t skip them.
Step 2 — Get your API key
From the MailerLite console, go to Integrations → MailerLite API. Click “Generate new token.” Name it “OTTS plugin.” Copy the token — you’ll only see it once.
Step 3 — Configure the plugin
In your WordPress admin, go to Newsletter → Settings → Provider. Pick MailerLite from the dropdown. Paste the API key. Click Save.
If the pro plugin isn’t installed (you’re on the free One Two Three Send only), the MailerLite option won’t appear — install the pro companion plugin first (it’s free if you’re on the One Two Three Send newsletter list).
Step 4 — Map your subscriber list
One Two Three Send keeps subscribers in WordPress (in the otts_subscribers table). MailerLite keeps them in their own subscriber database. The plugin’s MailerLite provider syncs WP subscribers into a MailerLite group of your choice when they sign up. In Settings, pick the MailerLite group ID you want new signups to join (create one in MailerLite first — usually just “Newsletter Subscribers”). Existing subscribers get one-way-synced on the next save.
Step 5 — Send your first test
From Newsletter → New Newsletter, write a quick test or generate a draft, hit Send Test to your admin address. The plugin pushes it to MailerLite’s API; MailerLite delivers. Activity shows up in MailerLite’s Reports tab within 30 seconds. Click into the campaign to see the open rate, click rate, and unsubscribe count — all the things MailerLite does well that you’d otherwise need a separate analytics tool for.
How MailerLite compares to the alternatives
vs Mailchimp — Mailchimp is what people pick when they don’t know what else to pick. Pricing is roughly 2× MailerLite at every tier above the free plan. Deliverability has slipped over the last 5 years (independent benchmarks consistently put Mailchimp behind both MailerLite and ConvertKit at Gmail). The editor is bigger and more complicated; the automations are slightly more powerful. If you’re already on Mailchimp and don’t have time to migrate, fine. If you’re starting fresh, MailerLite is the better default.
vs Beehiiv — Beehiiv is the modern Substack competitor, built specifically for paid newsletters with built-in monetization, referral programs, and a publisher network. The free tier (up to 2,500 subscribers) is generous. Beehiiv is the right pick if you want the publishing platform AND the email engine in one product. MailerLite is the right pick if you want a sending engine and you’re publishing on WordPress.
vs ConvertKit (now Kit) — Kit is the creator-economy platform of choice — built for course creators, membership site operators, and people who sell digital products through their list. The tagging and segmentation are best-in-class. Pricing is comparable to MailerLite at the low end, slightly more expensive past 5K subscribers. If your business is “newsletter that sells courses,” Kit. If your business is “newsletter,” MailerLite.
vs Substack — Substack is the easiest path to a paid newsletter at zero technical cost. They take 10% of revenue forever. The math for switching off Substack to MailerLite + WordPress + One Two Three Send: at 250 paid subscribers ($5/month each = $1,250/month revenue), you’re paying Substack $125/month and MailerLite + Postmark + hosting would cost $40 total. The catch is the migration friction — getting your subscribers off Substack onto your own list is the part most operators put off until they’ve already overpaid by years.
vs Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) — Brevo’s free tier is volume-based (300 emails/day) instead of subscriber-based, which makes it good for transactional but bad for newsletter sends to a 1,000-subscriber list. Stay on MailerLite for newsletters.
Pitfalls operators hit (in the order they hit them)
1. Importing a “stale” list. MailerLite’s compliance team reviews your first import. If you upload a list that’s been sitting in a spreadsheet for two years, hasn’t been emailed in months, or includes addresses you got from a giveaway, expect MailerLite to suspend the account pending review. Send to the freshest, most-engaged segment first to establish reputation, then add the older addresses gradually. This isn’t unique to MailerLite — every legitimate provider does this — but they’re stricter than most.
2. The 5,000-character limit on automation emails. Newsletter content rarely runs into this, but operators who paste long-form essays into welcome-email automations sometimes hit it. Split into multiple emails or reduce the length.
3. Forgetting to set up DKIM properly. The DKIM records are TWO records (most providers use one). If you only added one, your DKIM signing is broken and Gmail will mark you as Unauthenticated. Check both are showing green in MailerLite’s Domains section before sending real campaigns.
4. The “engaged subscribers only” reflex. MailerLite has a feature called “send only to engaged subscribers” (people who opened in the last 90 days). Toggle that on to protect deliverability, but don’t ALSO be aggressively pruning your list — you’ll lose subscribers who just don’t open every send but would resubscribe given a re-engagement nudge. Engagement send + occasional re-engagement campaign is the right combo, not “only ever email the openers.”
5. Form duplicate-handling. If a subscriber fills out your One Two Three Send form AND ALSO a MailerLite-hosted form (e.g. on a landing page), you can end up with the same address counted twice. The plugin de-dupes on the WordPress side; MailerLite de-dupes on theirs. Keep signups going through one path (your WP form, synced via the plugin) and skip MailerLite’s standalone forms unless you have a specific reason.
6. The ‘paid plan starts immediately’ surprise. If you upgrade from Free to a paid tier, you’re billed for that month in full immediately, prorated only on subsequent months. Time the upgrade for the first day of a calendar month if you can.
Long-term maintenance
Less than running your own SES, more than pure Substack.
Weekly: glance at the Reports tab. Open rates trending down means a deliverability problem; click rates trending down means a content problem. Both are fixable, but only if you notice.
Monthly: prune subscribers who haven’t opened in 180 days. MailerLite has a built-in “Inactive subscribers” segment — review it, send a re-engagement campaign, then suppress the people who still don’t engage. Inbox providers downgrade your reputation when you keep mailing to inactive addresses.
Quarterly: review your DNS records. Once a year, a domain registrar will quietly drop a record during a settings reshuffle and nobody will notice for two months. The MailerLite Domains tab shows live verification status; check it.
Annually: rotate your API token. Generate a new one in MailerLite, paste it into One Two Three Send, deactivate the old one a week later. Ten minutes of maintenance for a meaningful security win.
When MailerLite is the wrong choice
If you’re sending more than 100,000 emails a day from a single account, MailerLite’s per-subscriber pricing stops being competitive. At that volume, an SES + custom dashboard setup costs roughly half. Consider migrating only when you’re consistently above that threshold for 3+ months.
If your business depends on advanced segmentation across dozens of tags, custom fields, and complex automation flows (think course-creator operations selling 10+ products into the same list), Kit or HubSpot is a better fit. MailerLite handles 80% of segmentation needs cleanly; the last 20% is where you outgrow it.
If your audience is concentrated in compliance-heavy industries (financial services, healthcare, legal) where you need detailed audit trails for every send, MailerLite’s audit logging is adequate but not specialized. Higher-end ESPs aimed at enterprise compliance (Iterable, Klaviyo’s Enterprise tier) are worth the extra cost.
For everyone else: MailerLite paired with One Two Three Send is the most cost-effective newsletter stack available to operators in 2026 — free until you cross 1,000 subscribers, predictably-priced after that, and meaningfully better at deliverability than the platform most operators default to. The only reason not to start here is inertia.