CourseEmailStack

A free mini course as a lead magnet: which tool?

Plenty of advice covers what to write in a five-day email course. Almost none of it covers whether your free plan can actually send it once people start joining. A mini course is an automated sequence, and the send allowance behind "free" varies more than the subscriber cap does.

Free-plan send and automation figures for 6 platforms that automate on their free plan, read off each vendor's own pricing page between 9 and 12 September 2026.

What a five-day course actually costs in sends

Assume a five-day course sends one email per subscriber per day for five days: five emails per person, total. If a free plan's subscriber cap fills up, that arithmetic against the plan's own stated send allowance is what decides whether the course finishes for everyone who joined, or starts silently failing partway through for whoever joined last.

  • MailerLiteFits

    1,250 emails to run the course to a full list of 250, against a 2,500-a-month allowance.

    3 automations included free

  • OmnisendBreaks first

    1,250 emails to run the course to a full list of 250, against a 500-a-month allowance.

    Automation included, but 500 sends is tight

  • SenderFits

    12,500 emails to run the course to a full list of 2,500, against a 15,000-a-month allowance.

    Email automation is listed on the free plan

  • Systeme.ioFits

    No send ceiling on the free plan.

    The free plan includes 1 automation rule and 1 workflow. Paid plans raise the cap: 10 rules/5 workflows on Startup, 100/20 on Webinar, unlimited on Unlimited.

  • EmailOctopusBreaks first

    12,500 emails to run the course to a full list of 2,500, against a 10,000-a-month allowance.

    Confirmed on the free plan, but capped: up to 3 sequences with up to 5 steps each, and only a single trigger per sequence. Pro raises this to up to 3 triggers and up to 650 steps.

  • Brevo

    A 300-a-day cap covers at most 60 people starting the course on the same day, before anything else you send that day.

    Automation is included free for up to 2,000 unique contacts entering your active automations. Once that limit is reached, no more contacts can enter

"Fits" and "breaks first" describe send volume only, at each plan's own free subscriber cap. A plan can fit on volume and still cap the sequence itself at fewer steps than five, which is a separate limit named in the note beneath it where one applies.

Start where the arithmetic actually holds

These platforms run an automated sequence on their free plan today. Check the row above for whether the send allowance holds at the size you expect to reach.

Building the list before the course exists? Read whether you need one yet, or answer a few questions to narrow the choice down.

Questions people ask

Why does a mini course need an automated sequence at all?
Because new subscribers arrive on different days, and a five-day course has to start on day one for each of them individually. That is what a sequence does: it fires from the moment someone joins, rather than sending everyone the same broadcast on the same calendar day.
What if my free plan says it includes automation but the numbers above show it breaks?
The automation feature and the send allowance are two separate limits, and a vendor can advertise the first without you noticing the second. The course still runs; it just stops delivering once the monthly or daily allowance is used up, usually mid-course for whoever joined last.
Does a bigger free subscriber cap always mean more room for a sequence?
No. A larger cap only helps if the send allowance grows with it. EmailOctopus and Omnisend both advertise larger free subscriber caps than MailerLite, but a five-day course run at their own cap uses more of their monthly send allowance than MailerLite uses of its smaller one.