Marketing · head to head
Freshpaint vs Listmonk
Freshpaint
Marketing
Privacy layer that lets healthcare organisations run marketing analytics without sending PHI
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
Listmonk
Email Marketing
Self-hosted newsletter and mailing list manager that ships as a single Go binary
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Only Listmonk has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
- Each has a real cost: Freshpaint filtering necessarily degrades what advertising platforms receive, so campaign optimisation and lookalike modelling perform worse than an unfiltered pixel would, and the marketing team must accept measurably weaker targeting as the price of compliance.; Listmonk it is not an email service provider. It hands mail to SMTP servers you configure and does nothing about IP warm-up, domain reputation, DKIM, DMARC or inbox placement, so deliverability failures are entirely yours to diagnose and fix.
- They diverge on capability: Freshpaint covers PHI detection and redaction, Listmonk covers Single binary deployment.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Freshpaint and Listmonk actually diverge.
| Attribute | Freshpaint | Listmonk |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | On request | Free |
| Pricing model | quote | Open source, no licence fee |
| Free tier | No | Yes |
| Platforms | Web | Web, Self-hosted, Docker, Linux, macOS, Windows |
| Category | Marketing | Email Marketing |
Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).
What each one covers
Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.
Only in Freshpaint
- PHI detection and redaction
- Business associate agreement
- Event verification
- Pixel replacement
- Consent governance
- Advertising destinations
- Analytics and session tools
- Audience activation
Only in Listmonk
- Single binary deployment
- SQL segmentation
- Multi-SMTP queues
- Arbitrary subscriber attributes
- Go templating
- Transactional API
- Bounce processing
- Messenger webhooks
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Freshpaint
- A health system told by legal to remove its Meta and Google pixels that still needs to report cost per acquisition on service line campaignsnot Listmonk
- A provider running paid search for elective procedures that must send conversion signals without disclosing which condition page a visitor viewednot Listmonk
- A compliance officer who needs a field level record of exactly what patient related data leaves the website, for a privacy committeenot Listmonk
- A multi-site provider group standardising tracking governance across marketing agencies that would otherwise each add their own tagsnot Listmonk
Listmonk
- A publisher with hundreds of thousands of subscribers faces a five-figure annual bill from a hosted provider and can send the same volume through Amazon SES for a fraction of it.not Freshpaint
- A developer wants campaign audiences defined by an arbitrary SQL query against subscriber attributes, which no hosted segment builder will express.not Freshpaint
- An organisation under privacy or data residency rules needs subscriber data to stay on infrastructure it controls, which rules out every hosted newsletter platform.not Freshpaint
- An open source project or nonprofit needs a mailing list tool with no per-subscriber cost, where the list will grow faster than any budget for it.not Freshpaint
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Freshpaint
- Filtering necessarily degrades what advertising platforms receive, so campaign optimisation and lookalike modelling perform worse than an unfiltered pixel would, and the marketing team must accept measurably weaker targeting as the price of compliance.
- Pricing is not published on the vendor site despite three named tiers, and third party reports of entry around 599 US dollars a month cover only the lowest tier, with audiences and advertising activation sitting above it.
- It addresses web and marketing tracking rather than the whole protected health information estate, so it solves one exposure while patient data in the CRM, call centre and email tooling remains a separate problem.
- The commercial case rests on a specific regulatory interpretation of online tracking technologies, and litigation and future guidance could narrow or widen it, which makes the size of the problem it solves less stable than a compliance purchase usually is.
- It is built for healthcare and priced accordingly, so an organisation wanting a general customer data platform pays for a regulatory specialism it does not need and gets narrower general purpose functionality than Segment or RudderStack.
Listmonk
- It is not an email service provider. It hands mail to SMTP servers you configure and does nothing about IP warm-up, domain reputation, DKIM, DMARC or inbox placement, so deliverability failures are entirely yours to diagnose and fix.
- Running it means running PostgreSQL, backups, upgrades and a mail relay, and the true cost is the engineering time to keep that stack healthy rather than the zero licence fee.
- The campaign editor and analytics are basic next to Mailchimp or Klaviyo: reporting is limited to opens, clicks and bounces, with no revenue attribution, no ecommerce integration and no deep engagement scoring.
- SQL-based segmentation puts audience definition beyond a non-technical marketer, so a marketing team without engineering support will be blocked on routine tasks.
- The AGPLv3 licence obliges you to release source modifications if you offer the software as a network service, which is a real constraint for anyone considering embedding it in a commercial product.
Pricing, plan by plan
Freshpaint
On request- Comply$undefined/month
- Governance and consent foundation
- PHI detection and redaction
- Web analytics, funnels and surveys
- Perform$undefined/month
- Everything in Comply
- Audiences and demand side platform activation
- Attribution, journeys and recommendations
- Scale$undefined/month
- Everything in Perform
- Ad performance reporting
- Full AI feature access
Listmonk
Free- Self-hostedFree
- Full AGPLv3 source
- Unlimited subscribers and campaigns
- No feature gating and no send limits in the software
- Third-party managed hosting$undefined/month
- Several unaffiliated providers offer hosted Listmonk
- No official hosted service from the maintainer
- Prices vary by provider and are not published centrally
Which should you pick?
Choose Freshpaint if
- You need phi detection and redaction.
- You also want business associate agreement.
Choose Listmonk if
- You need single binary deployment.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, Self-hosted, Docker, Linux, macOS, Windows.
- You also want sql segmentation.
Questions people ask
- Is Freshpaint or Listmonk better?
- Neither clearly leads. Freshpaint starts at On request and Listmonk at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Freshpaint or Listmonk?
- Listmonk has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Freshpaint and Free for Listmonk.
- Does Freshpaint or Listmonk run on more platforms?
- Freshpaint runs on Web. Listmonk runs on Web, Self-hosted, Docker, Linux, macOS, Windows.
- Can I use Listmonk for free?
- Yes. Listmonk has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Freshpaint starts at On request.
- What is Freshpaint best used for?
- Freshpaint is most often used for a health system told by legal to remove its meta and google pixels that still needs to report cost per acquisition on service line campaigns, a provider running paid search for elective procedures that must send conversion signals without disclosing which condition page a visitor viewed, a compliance officer who needs a field level record of exactly what patient related data leaves the website, for a privacy committee, a multi-site provider group standardising tracking governance across marketing agencies that would otherwise each add their own tags. Of those, a health system told by legal to remove its meta and google pixels that still needs to report cost per acquisition on service line campaigns and a provider running paid search for elective procedures that must send conversion signals without disclosing which condition page a visitor viewed are not what Listmonk is typically brought in for.
- What can Freshpaint do that Listmonk cannot?
- Freshpaint covers PHI detection and redaction, Business associate agreement, Event verification, Pixel replacement. Listmonk covers Single binary deployment, SQL segmentation, Multi-SMTP queues, Arbitrary subscriber attributes.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Freshpaint: Why can a hospital not just use Google Analytics?
US Department of Health and Human Services guidance treats IP addresses and health related page URLs as protected health information in this context, and advertising and analytics platforms will not sign a business associate agreement, so the disclosure is unlawful without an intermediary that filters.
Listmonk: Does Listmonk send my emails?
No. It composes, queues and tracks campaigns, then hands the messages to SMTP servers you provide, such as Amazon SES, Postmark or your own relay.
Freshpaint: Does Freshpaint sign a BAA?
Yes, and it holds SOC 2 Type II. That is the central reason it exists, because the destination platforms will not.
Listmonk: What does it cost to run?
The software is free. The real cost is a small server, a PostgreSQL database and per-email SMTP charges, which through SES are a fraction of hosted newsletter pricing at large list sizes.
Freshpaint: What does it cost?
Freshpaint does not publish prices. Three tiers, Comply, Perform and Scale, are all sales led, and third party sources report entry around 599 US dollars a month for the lowest.
Listmonk: What licence is it under?
AGPLv3, which requires you to publish modifications if you offer it as a network service to others.
Freshpaint: Will my ad performance suffer?
Somewhat. Stripping identifiers reduces what platforms can optimise against. The trade is weaker targeting in exchange for measurement that a compliance committee will approve.
Listmonk: Is there an official hosted version?
No. Some unaffiliated providers offer managed Listmonk, but the maintainer does not run a hosted service.
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