EmailOctopusvs
ActiveCampaign


ActiveCampaign: CRM, marketing automation, and sales platform

Affordable email marketing
As of 29 August 2026, EmailOctopus has a free plan and paid plans start at $9/month. Email marketing platform built on Amazon SES infrastructure, offering campaigns and automation at low subscriber-based pricing. Softwr lists it under Email Marketing.
Overview
Email marketing platform built on Amazon SES infrastructure, offering campaigns and automation at low subscriber-based pricing.
The honest half
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about EmailOctopus.
Cross-shopped
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.


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Pricing
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Starter
Free
Pro
$9 /mo
Answered, with sources
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Yes, EmailOctopus offers a free plan supporting up to 2,500 subscribers with 10,000 monthly emails. The free tier includes EmailOctopus branding on emails and reports are retained for only 30 days. The Pro plan starts at $9/month for unlimited subscribers.
SourceEmailOctopus offers 10% savings when you pay annually versus monthly. Nonprofits receive an additional 20% lifetime discount on all plans.
SourceNo, EmailOctopus has no long-term contracts. You can cancel your plan anytime and switch between monthly and yearly billing options.
SourceThe free Starter plan includes 1 user. The Pro plan includes unlimited user accounts at no additional cost.
SourceKeep looking
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Self-hosted newsletter app bought once for $69 that sends through your own Amazon SES account
AI-powered email assistant for intelligent inbox management
Raw transactional email infrastructure priced per thousand messages, with no campaign UI at all
Enterprise SMS and email marketing for retail brands, sold on quarterly minimum spend commitments
UK-listed email and cross-channel marketing platform with deep Adobe Commerce and Dynamics connectors
Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for EmailOctopus, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
What people switch to, and what they give up
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Put it head to head with anything we hold
Its rating, and an embed for your own site
Email marketing tool with a genuine free tier, priced by contact count once paid
Per month by contact tier once on a paid planEmail marketing platform priced by contact tier, with unlimited sends only from the mid tier up
Per month by contact tier and plan levelRaw transactional email infrastructure priced per thousand messages, with no campaign UI at all
Per 1,000 emails sent, tiered by volume, no campaign features includedSelf-hosted newsletter and mailing list manager that ships as a single Go binary
Open source, no licence feeLow-cost email marketing from 9 US dollars a month, owned by Sitecore since 2021
Per month by contact countAGPL newsletter tool from Germany, self-hostable or hosted in the EU with no free plan
Per month by emails sentSelf-hosted newsletter app bought once for $69 that sends through your own Amazon SES account
One-time purchase