Time for another round of learning from friends within our community!

If you’re here for the first time, welcome!

Today, we’ve got some sage advice on one of the toughest questions any email sender often has ask (and something many of our readers will likely have asked too):

How the heck do you choose the right email platform for your needs?

To answer this, we’ve brought in someone who (literally) advises folks on this daily.

Robert Brandl, besides being a good friend and community member, is also the Founder and CEO of EmailTooltester, a powerhouse in the email platform selection space.

Robert and his team have helped 2,000+ businesses find the best email tools for their businesses, so when we say trusted, we mean it!

Robert has simplified the process for us all today by sharing his 5 steps to choosing what works for you.

(Make sure this one is added to the bookmarks tab.)

Let’s find out more from our Friend!

Choosing an email service provider (ESP) sounds like a simple decision.

Until you actually start comparing them.

Suddenly, you’re buried in feature lists, pricing tables, and promises of “advanced automation” that all sound the same. And for most businesses, choosing the wrong ESP usually doesn’t fail loudly.

It fails quietly.

You overpay.
You buy features you never use.
You pay for contacts who never open.
And a year later, switching feels too painful, so you stay.

I see this pattern all the time when reviewing ESPs at EmailTooltester, and it’s exactly why I built a short framework to help small businesses make this decision properly.

Let’s walk through that together.

This matters more than features!

Before you look at features, automations, or integrations, you need to understand pricing models. This is where most small businesses get caught out.

There are four common ones:

Freemium

Usually with limited features, it often shows a small “sent with…” badge. Unless you really only send basic newsletters to a relatively small audience, you’ll need to upgrade eventually.

Best examples: Kit, Sender.net, beehiiv

Pay per contact

You pay based on how many contacts you have, no matter how often you write to each contact. This is the most common model. It’s usually the best option if you send emails to all or most of your contacts at least three times per month.

Examples: MailerLite, ActiveCampaign, GetResponse, and many, many more.

Pay per email

You pay based on how many emails you send, not how many contacts you store. This model works best if you send no more than 2-3 emails to each contact each month.

Example: Brevo

Pay as you go / credits

You buy email credits and only pay for what you send. This model works well for infrequent sending or one-off campaigns, but it’s usually not ideal for newsletters or regular email schedules. Example: Moosend

Here’s a discomforting truth: many small businesses end up paying mostly for inactive subscribers.

Which brings us to the next point.

Not all pricing pages are honest.

Some platforms charge overage fees if you slightly exceed your limit. Others make you pay for unsubscribed or even bounced contacts unless you manually remove them.

If you take only one thing from this email, let it be this:

If an ESP makes money from bloated, inactive lists, it has no incentive to help you clean them. Mailchimp is the one with the most questionable billing practices in this respect. ActiveCampaign also recently changed its pricing model and charges for inactive contacts, too, unfortunately.

Always ask:

Ideally, the provider will not charge you for these inactive contacts and move you between pricing tiers automatically as your list grows without adding overage fees.

Most businesses, especially SMBs, overestimate their requirements.

Of course, it’s never easy to know what you’ll require in 3-5 years’ time.

Be realistic about what you or your team can handle when it comes to email marketing.

Ask yourself:

Buying a Formula 1 car to drive to the supermarket looks impressive, but it doesn’t make sense.

Here’s how four well-known email platforms stack up for small businesses in 2026:

Brevo

Brevo is a versatile, all-in-one platform that is very affordable. It charges based on email volume, not contact count, which can keep costs predictable for companies that send frequently. It also includes CRM features as well as SMS/WhatsApp sending. Its automations are surprisingly powerful.

Best for: Businesses that don’t send very high email volumes but need a solid campaign builder and templates, as well as basic CRM features.

MailerLite

MailerLite is among the simplest and most affordable options for small teams. Its interface is intuitive, and it includes landing pages and basic automation. However, its automations aren’t as deep as some competitors, lacking options like tracking the website actions of subscribers.

Best for: Newcomers to email marketing and small businesses on a tight budget that want straightforward email and landing page tools.

Omnisend

Omnisend blends email with SMS and push notifications in the same workflow, and it’s particularly strong for ecommerce stores because of its prebuilt ecommerce automations and deep shop integrations (e.g., Shopify).

Best for: E-commerce brands that need multi-channel messaging alongside email and want automation tailored to online stores at a reasonable price.

ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is the most powerful of the four in terms of automation and CRM depth. It offers advanced workflows, behaviour-based segmentation, and integrations that go beyond simple email sequences. The trade-off is that it gets quite pricey as your list grows.

Best for: Businesses that want deeper automation and CRM-driven campaigns, and are ready to invest in long-term growth and segmentation.

(*Quick note from the Email Advice From A Friend team: We speak about Beehiiv often, so it doesn’t feature today, for the sake of variety.)

Before you upgrade your plan, try this first:

Small optimisations here can save hundreds, sometimes thousands, per year.

If an ESP feels confusing, expensive, or stressful before you even start sending emails, that feeling won’t improve later.

The right platform should feel boring in a good way.

Email marketing already has enough moving parts. Your ESP shouldn’t be one of them.

If you want to go deeper, I’ve put together a detailed spreadsheet that lets you compare the best email marketing services for small businesses.

It also includes a complete list of possible features that help you narrow down your requirements.

Choose carefully. Your future self will thank you 🙌

Your friend, Robert.

P.S. If you’re not actively looking to switch ESPs right now, feel free to follow me on LinkedIn, where I regularly share hands-on email marketing tips and tricks.

I also love you joining the EmailTooltester newsletter here for regular updates.

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Here’s to making better platform choices!

If you have any feedback or knowledge to share, click here! Oh, and please share this email with your friends and colleagues if you think they’ll find value over here.

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Your friend in email,

Des