Quick answer
MailerLite - MailerLite wins for most builders who want an easy marketing site and newsletter tool on a free tier, while Mailjet wins if your free-tier needs center on API sending, SMTP, and transactional email.
How the free tiers compare
These two free tiers solve different problems. MailerLite is the better fit when you want to build and grow an audience with newsletters, landing pages, a website, pop-ups, and a simple automation flow in one place. Its free plan is more productized for marketers and small businesses, but the caps are tight at 500 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month. Mailjet is narrower on marketing site features, but stronger for teams that need email infrastructure: API access, SMTP Relay, webhooks, and a form builder are all free, along with 1,000 contacts and 6,000 emails per month. The tradeoff is that Mailjet’s higher-end marketing features, like automation and advanced stats, sit behind paid plans, while MailerLite keeps more of the audience-building workflow available at the free level.
MailerLite vs Mailjet free tier, side by side
| MailerLite FTV 49 | Mailjet FTV 53 | |
|---|---|---|
| Free monthly emails Mailjet also has a 200 emails/day cap on the free plan. | 12,000 | 6,000 |
| Free contacts / subscribers MailerLite tracks subscribers; Mailjet tracks contacts. | 500 subscribers | 1,000 contacts |
| Free user seats Mailjet free plan details provided here do not list user seats. | 1 | Not specified |
| Free landing pages Mailjet adds landing pages only on paid Premium plans. | 10 | Not included |
| Free website MailerLite includes a website on free; Mailjet does not list website building in the provided free tier. | 1 website | Not included |
| Free email sending tools MailerLite is more marketing-workflow oriented; Mailjet is more send-infrastructure oriented. | Email automation builder, comparative reporting | API, SMTP Relay, Webhooks, Advanced Email Editor, Basic Statistics, Form Builder |
After you outgrow the free tier
MailerLite’s first paid tier is flat-priced at $10/month for Growing Business, then $20/month for Advanced, with Enterprise on custom pricing. Mailjet is also flat-priced at first, starting at $9/month for Starter, then $17/month for Essential and $27/month for Premium, with Custom plans for larger senders. For small-team usage, Mailjet is slightly cheaper at the entry paid tier, but MailerLite gives you more website and landing-page capacity. The bigger divergence is feature packaging: Mailjet gates segmentation and automation behind paid plans, while MailerLite’s free tier already includes more of the audience-building workflow.
When to pick each one
Pick MailerLite when…
- You want a free newsletter tool with a website, landing pages, pop-ups, and forms in one account.
- You are a solo creator or small business and only need one seat to publish campaigns.
- You plan to sell a digital product or take bookings without paying upfront.
- You want basic automation and reporting in the free tier, not just sending infrastructure.
Pick Mailjet when…
- You need API access, SMTP Relay, or webhooks for app-generated email.
- You send transactional and marketing email from the same platform.
- You want a larger free contact list, with 1,000 contacts instead of 500.
- You are okay with a more technical setup and do not need a free website builder or multiple landing pages.
- You expect to move into paid email infrastructure features like segmentation or automation later.
Bottom line
For the most common builder use case, MailerLite is the better free-tier choice because it bundles newsletter sending with the stuff that helps you publish and capture leads, like a website, landing pages, forms, pop-ups, and basic automation. Mailjet is the better pick if your real need is developer-friendly email infrastructure and you care more about API, SMTP, and webhooks than page building. If you are choosing strictly on free-tier usefulness for a solo marketer or small business, MailerLite is the more complete starting point.
Read the full listings: MailerLite and Mailjet. Scores use the FTV methodology at /ftv. Browse more head-to-heads on /compare, or see the top-ranked free tiers on /top.