CourseEmailStack

EmailOctopus

Cheapest way to run a plain list

2,500 free subscribers and 10,000 free emails a month, then a flat low price. Deliberately simple rather than full featured.

4.2G246 reviews4.8Trustpilot267 reviews

Is EmailOctopus right for you?

Where you sellNo direct connection to any of the four. Teachable is listed, but their own page says it runs through Zapier, which is a separate subscription. Weighing it against the others that connect? Best email marketing for Teachable sorts every platform here into direct, Zapier only, and no connection found.

Use EmailOctopus if

  • You are starting out and want new subscribers to get a welcome email automatically, without paying for it yet.
  • You already have a list of up to 2,500 people and do not want to pay to email them.
  • You write to your people regularly, not just when you have something to sell.

Don't use EmailOctopus if

  • You want to be certain you can take your list and leave. Their terms cut off access to your contacts when you cancel.
  • You sell through Teachable, Kajabi, Podia or Thinkific and want the two joined up without paying for Zapier as well. None of those four connect directly: Teachable is listed, but through Zapier rather than a direct integration. Kit lists all four directly.

Start free on EmailOctopusHow we test. Figures checked 9 September 2026.

The details that decide it

The things that bite six months in, read off EmailOctopus's own pages. Where we could not read a page reliably, the row is left out rather than guessed at.

Works with where you sellintegrations
No direct integration with any of the major course platforms. Teachable connects only through Zapier; Kajabi, Podia and Thinkific do not appear in their integrations directory at all. Source
Getting your people inmigration
Self-serve only. Their own switching guide walks through exporting contacts from your old platform yourself, then importing the file and manually rebuilding automations, forms and domain verification. There is no done-for-you migration team. Source
Do the emails actually arrive?deliverability
EmailOctopus does not publish an inbox-placement figure of its own. Their deliverability blog post cites EmailToolTester's industry-wide finding that roughly one in six emails never reaches the inbox, used to make a general case for good sending habits rather than as a claim about EmailOctopus's own performance. Source
What else it costs
No transaction fee on sales. The free plan caps out at 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails a month with EmailOctopus branding forced on. Their pricing page says that if your subscriber count exceeds your current plan's limit, "we'll move you up to the plan that fits your new contact size", an automatic billing change rather than a hard block, though they say they email you first. Source
Getting your list back outHard to leave
Cancelling the paid plan on its own just drops you to the free tier: contacts and lists are retained, though automations pause. Their Terms of Use go further than that, though: "Once terminated, we may permanently delete your account and all the data associated with it, including your Content from our Website." A full, deliberate account deletion is described in their own help article as removing everything, including lists, campaigns and reports, and is irreversible. Export your list before deleting anything, not just before cancelling. Source

What other people scored EmailOctopus

Not our scores. These are the public ratings on two review sites that have no connection to us, read on 6 September 2026. Each one links to the page it came from, so you can check it and read the reviews there.

  • The G2 score rests on 46 reviews, which is a small enough number that a handful of unhappy or delighted people can move it.

Both sites land within 0.6 of a point of each other, so the two sets of reviewers broadly agree.

We do not average these into one number. A blend would be our figure wearing someone else's authority, and it would hide it when two sets of customers disagree. Scores move, so treat the date above as the age of the reading, not a promise about today.

EmailOctopus, answered

Does EmailOctopus have a free plan?
Yes. EmailOctopus's free plan covers 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails/mo. We read this off their pricing page on 9 September 2026.
Can EmailOctopus send an automated welcome sequence on the free plan?
Yes. 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.. That matters more than it sounds: most free plans let you broadcast but will not automate, so a new subscriber gets nothing until you sit down and write to them.
What does EmailOctopus cost once the free plan runs out?
The entry paid plan is Pro at $9/mo, billed yearly; subscriber tier not stated. Prices on every platform here move with list size, so treat that as the floor rather than the bill.
What is the catch with EmailOctopus?
Fewer features than the others by design. Good if you only need to send, thin if you need funnels.

EmailOctopus against one other

Already down to two? These go straight to the head-to-head.

Compare it against the rest

Find your stack in 5 questions