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StackEvidence | Independent buyer worksheet | No universal vendor winner or current rate claimed
Short answer: The cheapest advertised email plan may not support the automation, subscriber volume, sending capacity or sender identities a business needs. Compare the lowest plan that can actually run your workflow, then account for the conditions that force the next upgrade.
A plan advertised at $9/month sounds better than one costing $19. But if the first plan cannot start a multi-step welcome journey, limits daily broadcasts, or charges separately for automation volume, it is not a like-for-like comparison. Treat the headline as an invitation to inspect details, not as the final cost.
Begin with a real job specification
Write down what the email system must do before opening pricing pages. Here is an illustrative two-brand business:
- Brand A publishes independent software research.
- Brand B teaches affiliate tracking basics.
- Both need a distinct sender address and consent language.
- New subscribers receive a three-message educational sequence.
- Brand A sends a monthly research newsletter; Brand B sends a weekly tutorial.
- Purchasers of a separate course receive transactional access messages, but a purchase must not silently create marketing consent.
Now you can evaluate plans against identifiable requirements. Without that list, comparisons tend to favor whichever page displays the most attractive number.
The capacity math
Use three separate counts: unique billable contacts, monthly email sends, and people who enter automations. Providers do not always count these the same way; verify their current terms and your selected tier.
Suppose Brand A has 600 subscribed people and sends once per month. Brand B has 400 subscribed people and sends four times per month. At full list delivery, that's:
600 × 1 + 400 × 4 = 2,200 broadcast sends/month.
If 60 new subscribers each receive three welcome messages that month, add approximately 60 × 3 = 180, for 2,380 planned messages before confirmation emails, retries or other system mail. This example assumes all 60 actually enter and complete the sequence. It is not a forecast.
A provider with 10,000 monthly sends may fit this monthly estimate but still have a strict daily cap that prevents a 600-person broadcast in one day. Another provider might allow unlimited broadcasts but offer no free welcome automation. Neither fact is visible from contact allowance alone.
Build your actual price comparison
| Requirement | Provider A | Provider B |
|---|---|---|
| Maximum distinct contacts on proposed tier | Verify | Verify |
| Counting one address on two lists | Verify | Verify |
| Total sends/month and sends/day | Verify | Verify |
| Welcome automation allowed on this tier | Verify | Verify |
| Number of workflows, steps and triggers | Verify | Verify |
| Separate brand identity and unsubscribe behavior | Verify | Verify |
| SPF/DKIM, verified domains and paid dependencies | Verify | Verify |
| Contact exports and unsubscribed exports | Verify | Verify |
| Affiliate educational content allowed, restricted or banned | Verify | Verify |
| Monthly price at the first usable tier | Verify | Verify |
Don't fill in absent vendor answers from blogs with old screenshots. Mark “unverified” and follow the live official help or checkout where necessary.
Four costs that are easy to overlook
Automation availability. A service can advertise sophisticated branching and conditions while excluding them from the tier you're considering. Check how many distinct workflows can be active and whether contacts stop entering after a monthly or lifetime quota.
Multi-brand management. A tool might technically hold several lists while allowing only one account-level business identity. That may be adequate for related campaigns under one publication, but wrong for unrelated brands with separate privacy notices and sender names.
Sender and compliance infrastructure. Owning a marketing-app lifetime license doesn't necessarily include delivery credits. A tool requiring an external sender can incur another cost and maintenance responsibility. Include that price before declaring the system “free.”
Migration and cancellation. Can the business export subscribed contacts, consent evidence and suppressions without losing critical fields? Can it preserve per-brand preference choices? Future switching cost should influence an otherwise close comparison.
When to upgrade
Write a trigger in advance: “Upgrade when this specific free limit prevents a workflow we require,” rather than “Upgrade at exactly 1,000 subscribers.” Also consider complaint handling, export availability, acceptable-use restrictions and owner time. A monthly fee that saves repeated manual batching might be justified after revenue exists, but don't pay before identifying the bottleneck.
Reader exercise: the truthful budget sentence
Complete this sentence: “For ___ contacts, ___ planned monthly sends, ___ active automations, ___ brands and ___ authenticated domains, the lowest verified workable tier is ___ at ___ per month, with ___ unresolved external costs.” If any blanks are unknown, the cost model isn't finished.
Where to go next: Compare the current provider's official pricing and acceptable-use terms against this worksheet; then read StackEvidence's independent reviews for limitations and not-fit cases. A compensated referral should never substitute for a correct operating-cost calculation.
Sources and scope: EmailOctopus contact exports; Brevo contact exports and statuses; Google's independent helpful content principles. The sample values are illustrative. No current pricing, affiliate rate or provider approval is asserted here.
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