EmailOctopus vs Mailcoach Comparison 2026
Both cover email marketing & automation and newsletter & email. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
Email for lists that outgrew a free plan
Email billed per send, not per contact
At a glance
- EmailOctopus starts cheaper, at $9.
- Only EmailOctopus has a free tier.
Side by side
EmailOctopus | Mailcoach | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $9 | From $9.99 |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Free plan, paid tiers | Free trial, then paid |
| Free tier (they differ) | Yes | No |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | Not stated | 14 days |
| API | Yes |
Shaded rows are where the two answers disagree and both listings have answered. A row where one side has not stated a fact is left plain, because silence is not a difference.
EmailOctopus
Email for lists that outgrew a free plan
EmailOctopus is deliberately plain: lists, campaigns, a drag-and-drop editor and simple automations, at a price that undercuts the platforms with more features than a newsletter needs. The free tier goes to 2,500 subscribers with the company's branding on every send. Reports only go back 30 days until you pay, which is the free plan's real limit rather than the subscriber count.
Our note
Against MailerLite this comes down to the free tier: 2,500 subscribers here against 1,000 there, with fewer features in return. Start here if the list is the thing growing and the automations can wait.
Mailcoach
Email billed per send, not per contact
Mailcoach charges for emails sent rather than contacts stored, which inverts the pricing of most of this category and matters to anybody holding a large list they mail occasionally. Contacts, lists and automations are uncapped at every level. Bringing your own sending provider halves the per-email rate. A self-hosted licence exists for people who would rather run it themselves, and the hosted version is the same software with the operations included.
Our note
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.