Email Marketing · head to head
Listmonk vs Sailthru
Listmonk
Email Marketing
Self-hosted newsletter and mailing list manager that ships as a single Go binary
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
Sailthru
Email Marketing
Retail and publisher email personalisation, now one product inside the Marigold portfolio
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Only Listmonk has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
- Each has a real cost: 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.; 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.
- They diverge on capability: Listmonk covers Single binary deployment, Sailthru covers Interest profiles.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Listmonk and Sailthru 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 Listmonk
- Single binary deployment
- SQL segmentation
- Multi-SMTP queues
- Arbitrary subscriber attributes
- Go templating
- Transactional API
- Bounce processing
- Messenger webhooks
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.
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 Sailthru
- A developer wants campaign audiences defined by an arbitrary SQL query against subscriber attributes, which no hosted segment builder will express.not Sailthru
- 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 Sailthru
- 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 Sailthru
Sailthru
- A publisher sending a personalised daily newsletter assembled per reader from a content cataloguenot Listmonk
- A retailer that wants email and on-site recommendations driven by the same affinity modelnot Listmonk
- High-cadence sending where per-recipient content assembly matters more than journey branchingnot Listmonk
- Teams that want churn and lifetime value scores available as native campaign conditions rather than imported fieldsnot Listmonk
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
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.
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
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$undefined/month
- Several unaffiliated providers offer hosted Listmonk
- No official hosted service from the maintainer
- Prices vary by provider and are not published centrally
Sailthru
On request- Sailthru$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 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.
Choose Sailthru if
- You need interest profiles.
- You work on Web, REST API.
- You also want personalisation engine.
Questions people ask
- Is Listmonk or Sailthru better?
- Neither clearly leads. Listmonk 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, Listmonk or Sailthru?
- Listmonk has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Listmonk and On request for Sailthru.
- Does Listmonk or Sailthru run on more platforms?
- Listmonk runs on Web, Self-hosted, Docker, Linux, macOS, Windows. Sailthru runs on Web, REST API.
- Can I use Listmonk for free?
- Yes. Listmonk has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Sailthru starts at On request.
- What is Listmonk best used for?
- Listmonk is most often used for 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., a developer wants campaign audiences defined by an arbitrary sql query against subscriber attributes, which no hosted segment builder will express., an organisation under privacy or data residency rules needs subscriber data to stay on infrastructure it controls, which rules out every hosted newsletter platform., 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.. Of those, 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. and a developer wants campaign audiences defined by an arbitrary sql query against subscriber attributes, which no hosted segment builder will express. are not what Sailthru is typically brought in for.
- What can Listmonk do that Sailthru cannot?
- Listmonk covers Single binary deployment, SQL segmentation, Multi-SMTP queues, Arbitrary subscriber attributes. Sailthru covers Interest profiles, Personalisation engine, Prediction Manager, Site personalisation.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
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.
Sailthru: Who owns Sailthru now?
Marigold, formerly CM Group, which also owns Campaign Monitor, Emma, Selligent, Liveclicker and Cheetah Digital.
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.
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.
Listmonk: What licence is it under?
AGPLv3, which requires you to publish modifications if you offer it as a network service to others.
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.
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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