HEAD TO HEAD
Sender vs MailerLite: the cheap ladder against the polished one
vs
Both are newsletter-first and cheap, so the split is elsewhere. Sender gives a much larger free tier and includes transactional email, with paid plans that meter email credits as a multiple of your list. MailerLite costs more at the same list size but buys polish, a bigger automation ceiling and an unlimited sending option.
Pick it ifSender
The value pick, and the better free tier by a wide margin: it covers a real list with real sending volume, transactional email is included, and the paid ladder undercuts MailerLite at every rung we list.
Free plan, paid from $9/mo · Free up to 2,500 subscribers, 15,000 emails/moTry SenderOur pick for most readersMailerLite
The steadier choice once the newsletter matters: cleaner editors, a deeper automation ceiling and a Power plan that removes the sending cap entirely. You pay more per subscriber than Sender for that.
Free plan, paid from $12/mo · Free up to 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails/moTry MailerLiteTwo cheap ladders, side by side
| At a glance | Sender | MailerLite |
|---|---|---|
| Positioning | A large free tier and cheap paid plans, with transactional email included from the start. | Newsletter-first platform with clean tooling and automations, priced by active subscribers. |
| Billing unit | per contact | per contact |
| Free plan | Free up to 2,500 subscribers, 15,000 emails/mo | Free up to 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails/mo |
| Plans | Standard: $39/mo at 5,000 contacts Professional: $79/mo at 5,000 contacts | Comfort: $49/mo at 5,000 contacts Power: $69/mo at 5,000 contacts |
| Entry price | free plan, paid from $9/mo | free plan, paid from $12/mo |
| Billing notes | Priced by subscribers; paid plans include monthly email credits at 12x (Standard) or 24x (Professional) the subscriber count. Annual billing equals twelve times the listed monthly rate; discounted annual prices shown on the page are a first-year coupon for new customers, which this registry excludes. | Priced by active subscribers; annual billing saves 10%. EUR prices are also published. |
Amounts come from each provider's official pricing page and can change: the official Sender pricing page · the official MailerLite pricing page.
At the same list size Sender is the cheaper rung on both of its plans, and the gap is not marginal. What you are paying MailerLite for is the editing experience, the automation ceiling and a plan with no sending cap at all. Whether that is worth the difference depends entirely on how much of it you will use.
The free tiers are not the same thing at all
This is the clearest difference on the page. Sender's free plan runs to a few thousand subscribers with a monthly sending allowance attached, and it does not expire; MailerLite's free plan is an order of magnitude smaller on both counts. For a list that is still small and not yet earning, that difference decides the question on its own.
Both free tiers carry provider branding on the emails, and both are documented on their own pricing pages rather than tested by us.
Credits against caps: how sending is metered
Sender expresses sending as email credits, a multiple of your subscriber count: twelve times on Standard, twenty four times on Professional. MailerLite caps Comfort at ten times the subscriber tier and lifts the cap entirely on Power. Same idea, three different multiples, and one genuinely uncapped option.
For a weekly newsletter, every one of those allowances is comfortable. For daily sending, or for a heavy automation load on top of campaigns, the multiple is the number to check before the price.
What the extra spend on MailerLite buys
Seats, automations and the editing experience. MailerLite's cheaper plan already includes several seats and a large automation allowance, and its upper plan removes the limits on both. Sender's plans list seats too, and add free SMS credits on the upper plan, which is a different kind of value: useful if SMS is in your plan, irrelevant if it is not.
Neither of these is a claim about which editor feels better to use: we have not run the same build on both accounts, so the honest comparison stops at what each one publishes.
Who should pick which
- List still small, budget near zero: Sender, for a free tier that covers a real list and real sending.
- Cheapest possible paid newsletter: Sender, which undercuts MailerLite at every rung in the table above.
- The newsletter is the business: MailerLite, for the editors, the automation ceiling and an option with no sending cap.
- Transactional email in the same account: Sender includes it; on MailerLite that is a separate arrangement.
Price your own list against both, and against the other seven platforms, with the cost calculator.
The same newsletter and the same welcome sequence
| The same brief | Sender | MailerLite |
|---|---|---|
| What the bill follows | contacts stored | contacts stored |
| Cheapest plan that covers the brief | Standard at 5,000 contacts $39/mo | Comfort at 5,000 contacts $49/mo |
| Monthly sends included | 60,000 emails | 50,000 emails |
| Headroom after the brief | 37,750 sends left | 27,750 sends left |
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
Sender
- The free plan runs to 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month, with Sender branding. Source: the official Sender pricing page
- Email credits are 12x subscribers on Standard and 24x on Professional, with no daily limits. Source: cdn.sender.net/plans/context.json
- No overage policy is published on the pricing page. Source: the official Sender pricing page
- First-time customers get 30% off quarterly or annual billing for the first term; the yearly feed also carries a 20% renewal offer, so neither is a list price. Source: cdn.sender.net/plans/context.json
- Dedicated IPs are available on Professional from 20,000 subscribers; Enterprise is on quote with unlimited emails and SSO. Source: the official Sender pricing page
- Every new account gets a 14-day Professional trial on top of the Free Forever plan. Source: the official Sender pricing page
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
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 Sender really cheaper than MailerLite?
At every rung published in the table on this page, yes, on both of its plans. Whether it is better value depends on whether you need the automation depth and the uncapped sending MailerLite sells above that.
What are email credits on Sender?
A monthly sending allowance expressed as a multiple of your subscriber count, twelve times on the lower plan and twenty four times on the upper one. It is the same mechanism as MailerLite's sending cap, with a different multiple.
Which free plan should I start on?
Sender's, if the only question is how long you can run for nothing: it covers far more subscribers and far more monthly sends than MailerLite's. Move when the tooling, not the allowance, becomes the constraint.
Have you tested both platforms side by side?
No. This comparison is documentary: every capability above is read from each provider's published pages and sourced below. Our hands on protocols, and their limits, are on the tests page.