HEAD TO HEAD
MailerLite vs Moosend: the same newsletter, two bills
vs
Both platforms run a weekly newsletter with a welcome automation without drama. MailerLite is the better product to live in daily and has a permanent free tier; Moosend is usually the cheaper bill and never caps your sends. Frequent senders should check MailerLite's Comfort cap before deciding on price alone.
Our pick for most readersMailerLite
The safer default for a running newsletter: a real free tier to test on, cleaner editors, and a ladder that includes a genuinely unlimited option when your cadence grows.
Free plan, paid from $12/mo · Free up to 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails/moTry MailerLitePick it ifMoosend
Pick it to spend less from day one: entry pricing under MailerLite's at most sizes, unlimited sends on every plan, and the automation basics included. You give up a permanent free plan.
From $9/mo · paid plans onlyTry MoosendThe ladders, side by side
| At a glance | MailerLite | Moosend |
|---|---|---|
| Positioning | Newsletter-first platform with clean tooling and automations, priced by active subscribers. | Budget-priced email marketing with unlimited sends and the automation basics covered. |
| Billing unit | per contact | per contact |
| Free plan | Free up to 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails/mo | paid plans only |
| Plans | Comfort: $49/mo at 5,000 contacts Power: $69/mo at 5,000 contacts | Pro: $48/mo at 5,000 contacts |
| Entry price | free plan, paid from $12/mo | from $9/mo |
| Billing notes | Priced by active subscribers; annual billing saves 10%. EUR prices are also published. | Priced by contacts with unlimited email sends; annual billing saves 20%. No permanent free plan: a 30-day trial covers up to 1,000 contacts. |
Amounts come from each provider's official pricing page and can change: the official MailerLite pricing page · the official Moosend pricing page.
Two structural differences hide behind the amounts. First, Moosend does not publish a rung at every size: its ladder steps through sizes MailerLite does not use, so the same list can land on a different rung on each side. Second, MailerLite's Comfort plan caps monthly emails at ten times the tier ceiling, while every Moosend plan sends without limits. At a monthly or weekly cadence the cap is irrelevant; at daily cadence it can force you onto Power, which changes the comparison. Run your own numbers in the cost calculator.
Free plan against free trial
MailerLite keeps a permanent free tier (free plan, paid from $12/mo), which is enough to migrate a sample, rebuild a signup flow and test deliverability tooling before paying. Moosend offers a thirty-day trial with unlimited sends for a small list, then expects a decision. If you want a standing sandbox next to your production account, that is a point for MailerLite; if you already know you are moving, the trial is long enough to validate everything that matters.
Building the same newsletter and automation
For a newsletter with a welcome sequence, both cover the standard path: editor, signup form, a trigger on subscription, a delay, a branch on opens or clicks. MailerLite's editors are more polished and its template workflow is faster to ship with; Moosend's builder covers the same logic with a more utilitarian interface. Neither reaches CRM-grade automation: branching on purchase data or scoring is ActiveCampaign territory. This section reports what both products document publicly; a full build of the same scenario on both, with timings and screenshots, is on our test slate and will be published under Tests when executed.
Who should pick which
- Weekly newsletter, wants nice tooling and a safety net: MailerLite, and the free tier makes the trial risk-free.
- Cost per month is the deciding factor: Moosend, with unlimited sends at a lower listed price at most sizes.
- Daily or near-daily cadence: compare MailerLite Power against Moosend Pro specifically; Comfort's cap is the trap in this scenario.
- Leaving Mailchimp: both work; MailerLite has the smoother import path, detailed in our migration guides.
The same newsletter and the same welcome sequence
| The same brief | MailerLite | Moosend |
|---|---|---|
| What the bill follows | contacts stored | contacts stored |
| Cheapest plan that covers the brief | Comfort at 5,000 contacts $49/mo | Pro at 5,000 contacts $48/mo |
| Monthly sends included | 50,000 emails | unlimited |
| Headroom after the brief | 27,750 sends left | no ceiling published |
The brief, identical on every comparison here: a list of 5,000 contacts, one newsletter to everyone each week (21,650 sends a month) and the same three email welcome sequence for 200 new subscribers (600 sends), so 22,250 sends in all. Prices and allowances are read from each provider's published ladder. Where an allowance is not published we say so rather than estimate it.
What the two products actually look like
What we checked, and where it comes from
MailerLite
- Current plan names are Comfort and Power; the old Growing Business and Advanced names are gone. Source: the official MailerLite pricing page
- Comfort caps monthly emails at 10x the subscriber tier ceiling; Power is unlimited under fair use. Source: the official MailerLite pricing page
- Exceeding a paid tier triggers an automatic, notified upgrade to the next tier; free accounts over 250 subscribers have sending locked. Source: the official MailerLite pricing page
Moosend
- No permanent free plan: a 30-day trial with unlimited sends up to 1,000 contacts, no card required. Source: the official Moosend pricing page
- There is no 2,500-contact tier; the ladder goes 2,000 then 3,000. Source: the official Moosend pricing page
- Exceeding the contact limit requires an upgrade; no automatic overage charge is described. Source: the official Moosend pricing page
- Pro is also sold on six-month billing at 15% off; annual billing is 20% off. Source: the official Moosend pricing page
How to read this: every capability above is taken from the provider's own published pages, and each line names where it came from. We have not run a paid side by side test of these two platforms, so nothing on this page is presented as a test result. The hands on protocols we do publish, and their limits, are on the tests page. Where a provider does not publish something, we say so instead of estimating it.
Questions people also ask
Is Moosend really cheaper than MailerLite at every list size?
No. It is cheaper at most published sizes, but the ladders step at different points and MailerLite's annual discount narrows the gap. Above certain sizes the order can flip depending on billing mode, which is exactly what the calculator is for.
Does MailerLite's sending cap matter for a weekly newsletter?
Rarely. Comfort allows ten times the tier ceiling per month, and a weekly send to a full list uses roughly four to five times. It starts to matter when you add daily sends, aggressive automations or frequent resends on top.
Which one is easier to migrate to from Mailchimp?
MailerLite documents the path better and imports groups and segments with less manual mapping. Whichever you choose, follow the migration checklist: the risky part is consent records and automations, not the subscriber file.