Email Marketing · head to head
Keila vs Ortto
Keila
Email Marketing
AGPL newsletter tool from Germany, self-hostable or hosted in the EU with no free plan
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
Ortto
Email Marketing
Australian marketing automation with a customer data platform and analytics included rather than sold separately
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Only Keila has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
- Each has a real cost: Keila there is no free hosted plan at all, stated as deliberate policy, so unlike almost every competitor there is no way to run a small list at zero cost without self-hosting it yourself.; Ortto contact-based pricing counts everyone stored, including unsubscribed and long-inactive records, so the bill rises with list decay unless someone owns a pruning routine.
- They diverge on capability: Keila covers Priced by emails sent, Ortto covers Customer data platform.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Keila and Ortto actually diverge.
Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Email Marketing).
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 Keila
- Priced by emails sent
- Bring your own sender
- Self-hosting
- EU hosting
- Sign-up forms
- Segmentation
- Markdown and block editor
- Multiple projects
Only in Ortto
- Customer data platform
- Journeys
- Talk
- Dashboards and reports
- Playbooks
- Capture
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Keila
- A membership organisation holding forty thousand contacts but sending only one newsletter a month, where contact-metered pricing would cost many times morenot Ortto
- A European publisher or public body that needs subscriber data held in the EU under a GDPR-friendly arrangementnot Ortto
- A technical team that wants to self-host its newsletter tool and route sending through its existing AWS SES accountnot Ortto
- An agency running several separate client lists that does not want to pay per project or per additional listnot Ortto
Ortto
- A SaaS company that wants trial and onboarding lifecycle plus product analytics without buying two toolsnot Keila
- A small team replacing a stack of email tool, chat widget and dashboard product with one subscriptionnot Keila
- Reporting on revenue by campaign and cohort without exporting events to a warehouse firstnot Keila
- Teams already on Autopilot that need a supported migration path rather than a replatform to a US vendornot Keila
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Keila
- There is no free hosted plan at all, stated as deliberate policy, so unlike almost every competitor there is no way to run a small list at zero cost without self-hosting it yourself.
- Marketing automation is minimal, with none of the behavioural triggers, journey builders or e-commerce revenue attribution that Klaviyo, Brevo and Mailchimp treat as table stakes.
- The self-hosted route puts deliverability entirely on you: reputation, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, warm-up and bounce handling are your problem, and a badly configured instance will land in spam folders.
- It is a small project from a small company, so the integration ecosystem is thin and there is no partner network, template marketplace or large body of community expertise to draw on.
- Email volume tiers step in fixed blocks, so an organisation whose sending is uneven across the year either overbuys at the annual peak or has to change plan repeatedly.
Ortto
- Contact-based pricing counts everyone stored, including unsubscribed and long-inactive records, so the bill rises with list decay unless someone owns a pruning routine.
- Each bundled component is shallower than the specialist it replaces, and the email template editor in particular is behind the ecommerce-focused competitors.
- Deliverability guidance and reputation tooling are thinner than at dedicated email providers, which matters most in the first months of a sending domain.
- The partner and agency ecosystem outside Australia and New Zealand is small, so hiring contractors with real Ortto experience is harder than for the larger platforms.
- Support hours follow Australian business time, so European and American teams often wait a working day for a substantive answer on complex issues.
Pricing, plan by plan
Keila
Free- Self-hostedFree
- AGPL-3.0-or-later licence with no fee
- Official Docker image and sample compose file
- You supply hosting and a sending backend
- Keila XS$8/month
- Two thousand emails per month
- Unlimited contacts and projects
- Send with Keila or bring your own email server
- Keila M$32/month
- Fifteen thousand emails per month
- Unlimited contacts and projects
- Sign-up forms and segmentation
- Keila XXL$256/month
- Two hundred and fifty thousand emails per month
- Unlimited contacts and projects
- Intermediate tiers at 16, 64 and 128 EUR for 5,000, 50,000 and 100,000 emails
Ortto
On request- Ortto$undefined/month
- Priced by number of contacts held, with separate email and SMS send allowances
- Talk live chat and additional seats charged separately
- Monthly and annual terms available
Which should you pick?
Choose Keila if
- You need priced by emails sent.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, Linux, Self-hosted.
- You also want bring your own sender.
Choose Ortto if
- You need customer data platform.
- You work on Web, REST API.
- You also want journeys.
Questions people ask
- Is Keila or Ortto better?
- Neither clearly leads. Keila starts at Free and Ortto at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Keila or Ortto?
- Keila has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Keila and On request for Ortto.
- Does Keila or Ortto run on more platforms?
- Keila runs on Web, Linux, Self-hosted. Ortto runs on Web, REST API.
- Can I use Keila for free?
- Yes. Keila has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Ortto starts at On request.
- What is Keila best used for?
- Keila is most often used for a membership organisation holding forty thousand contacts but sending only one newsletter a month, where contact-metered pricing would cost many times more, a european publisher or public body that needs subscriber data held in the eu under a gdpr-friendly arrangement, a technical team that wants to self-host its newsletter tool and route sending through its existing aws ses account, an agency running several separate client lists that does not want to pay per project or per additional list. Of those, a membership organisation holding forty thousand contacts but sending only one newsletter a month, where contact-metered pricing would cost many times more and a european publisher or public body that needs subscriber data held in the eu under a gdpr-friendly arrangement are not what Ortto is typically brought in for.
- What can Keila do that Ortto cannot?
- Keila covers Priced by emails sent, Bring your own sender, Self-hosting, EU hosting. Ortto covers Customer data platform, Journeys, Talk, Dashboards and reports.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Keila: Is Keila free?
The software is, under AGPL-3.0-or-later, if you self-host. The hosted service has no free plan by deliberate policy and starts at 8 EUR a month.
Ortto: Is Ortto the same product as Autopilot?
It is the successor from the same company, rebranded in 2022 and substantially rebuilt. Older Autopilot tutorials no longer match the interface.
Keila: How is the hosted service priced?
By emails sent, from 8 EUR for two thousand up to 256 EUR for two hundred and fifty thousand a month. Contacts and projects are unlimited on every tier.
Ortto: Do inactive contacts cost money?
Yes. Pricing counts contacts stored, so unsubscribed and dormant records consume allowance until they are deleted.
Keila: Can I use my own email provider?
Yes. AWS SES, Sendgrid, Mailgun, Postmark, generic SMTP or a personal inbox are all supported as sending backends.
Ortto: Can it replace a BI tool?
For campaign, funnel and cohort reporting on its own event data, usually yes. For joins against finance or support data it cannot.
Keila: Are there discounts?
Pentacent offers reduced rates to nonprofits and open source projects on request.
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