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Email Marketing · head to head

MailerLite vs Sailthru

MailerLite logo

MailerLite

Email Marketing

Email marketing tools priced by subscriber count

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Sailthru logo

Sailthru

Email Marketing

Retail and publisher email personalisation, now one product inside the Marigold portfolio

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only MailerLite has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: MailerLite free plan caps at 250 subscribers, 2,500 monthly emails and 2 user seats; Sailthru the product sits in a portfolio with several overlapping platforms under one owner, so roadmap investment is a portfolio decision rather than a product decision and is worth asking about in writing.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which MailerLite and Sailthru actually diverge.

Attributes where MailerLite and Sailthru differ
AttributeMailerLiteSailthru
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelsubscriptionquote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWebWeb, REST API

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 MailerLite

Nothing recorded that Sailthru does not also cover.

Only in Sailthru

  • Interest profiles
  • Personalisation engine
  • Prediction Manager
  • Site personalisation
  • Zephyr templating
  • Lifecycle optimiser

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

MailerLite

  • Email marketing automation for small to mid-sized businessesnot Sailthru
  • Newsletter campaigns with subscriber managementnot Sailthru

Sailthru

  • A publisher sending a personalised daily newsletter assembled per reader from a content cataloguenot MailerLite
  • A retailer that wants email and on-site recommendations driven by the same affinity modelnot MailerLite
  • High-cadence sending where per-recipient content assembly matters more than journey branchingnot MailerLite
  • Teams that want churn and lifetime value scores available as native campaign conditions rather than imported fieldsnot MailerLite

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

MailerLite

  • Free plan caps at 250 subscribers, 2,500 monthly emails and 2 user seats
  • Comfort plan is limited to 3 user seats; unlimited seats require the Power plan
  • Pricing scales with subscriber count and email volume rather than a flat seat rate, and resets to the plan's subscriber ceiling each billing anniversary
  • Annual billing earns only a 10% discount versus monthly, smaller than many competitors' annual discounts

Sailthru

  • The product sits in a portfolio with several overlapping platforms under one owner, so roadmap investment is a portfolio decision rather than a product decision and is worth asking about in writing.
  • Pricing counts stored profiles, so retained inactive readers keep costing money long after they stopped opening anything.
  • On-site personalisation requires a developer to implement the JavaScript and maintain the content feed, which puts the highest-value feature behind engineering time.
  • Zephyr is a proprietary templating language, so template maintenance skills are scarce compared with the Liquid syntax used by most competitors.
  • It is built for high-cadence content and retail sending, and B2B lifecycle programmes with long sales cycles sit poorly on the model.

Pricing, plan by plan

MailerLite

Free
  • FreeFree
    • Up to 250 subscribers
    • 2,500 monthly emails
    • Email campaigns
  • Comfort$12/monthly
    • Monthly emails equal to 10x subscriber tier ceiling
    • Subscriber-dependent pricing tiers
    • Full feature set
  • Power$25/monthly
    • Unlimited monthly emails
    • Unlimited seats
    • Unlimited automations
  • Enterprise$null/custom
    • Custom pricing for 200K+ subscribers
    • Dedicated success manager
    • Priority support

Sailthru

On request
  • Sailthru$undefined/year
    • Priced on stored profiles and send volume
    • Site personalisation and prediction features licensed by module
    • Annual contract through Marigold

Which should you pick?

Choose MailerLite if

  • You want to start without paying.
MailerLite review

Choose Sailthru if

  • You need interest profiles.
  • You work on Web, REST API.
  • You also want personalisation engine.
Sailthru review

Questions people ask

Is MailerLite or Sailthru better?
Neither clearly leads. MailerLite starts at Free and Sailthru at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, MailerLite or Sailthru?
MailerLite has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for MailerLite and On request for Sailthru.
Does MailerLite or Sailthru run on more platforms?
MailerLite runs on Web. Sailthru runs on Web, REST API.
Can I use MailerLite for free?
Yes. MailerLite has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Sailthru starts at On request.
What is MailerLite best used for?
MailerLite is most often used for email marketing automation for small to mid-sized businesses, newsletter campaigns with subscriber management. Of those, email marketing automation for small to mid-sized businesses and newsletter campaigns with subscriber management are not what Sailthru is typically brought in for.
What can MailerLite do that Sailthru cannot?
Sailthru covers Interest profiles, Personalisation engine, Prediction Manager, Site personalisation.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

MailerLite: Can I switch between annual and monthly billing?

MailerLite offers both monthly and annual billing options. Annual billing provides a 10% discount compared to monthly billing. Both USD and EUR currency options are available for payment.

Source
Sailthru: Who owns Sailthru now?

Marigold, formerly CM Group, which also owns Campaign Monitor, Emma, Selligent, Liveclicker and Cheetah Digital.

MailerLite: What happens when I exceed the monthly email limit on my plan?

On the Comfort plan, monthly emails are determined by your subscriber tier ceiling. The Power plan includes unlimited monthly emails. For precise overage details, contact MailerLite support.

Source
Sailthru: Does that affect the roadmap?

It can. Overlapping products in one portfolio compete for investment, so ask which platform is the strategic one for your segment before signing multi-year.

MailerLite: Is there a free plan and what are its limitations?

The Free plan supports up to 250 subscribers and 2,500 monthly emails, with access to email campaigns, 3 automations, website and landing page builder, and signup forms. No payment required to use the free plan.

Source
Sailthru: Is it worth it just for newsletters?

For personalised daily newsletters at publisher scale it remains one of the strongest options. For simple broadcast sending it is heavily over-specified.

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