2 Great Email Services for Authors in 2025 (& One It’s Best to Avoid)

One of the smartest strategies an author can employ is building an email list as soon as possible.

(Especially if you intend on writing more than one book.)

But that begs the question…

What's the best email service for authors?

And the answer is complicated. Like most things, it depends.

How many subscribers do you have? How many do you hope to have? How many emails will you send each month? What's your budget?

Even when you have the answers to these questions, picking the right provider can be tricky.

See, email service platforms are smart…

They know it's a pain in the neck to switch from one service to another, so by grabbing you with a free or inexpensive account when you're small, they know the odds are great that they'll keep you as customers for life (even though it's no longer cost effective).

Trust me, I've switched services four times in my career. It's a pain.

That's why choosing the best email service from the get-go — one that'll serve your needs now but also down the road — is extremely important. It'll save you loads of time and money (and headache).

So, to help you choose the right email service, I've gone through and tested three well-known services for authors and stacked them side-by-side.

I'm happy to report that there is one specific email service that is the best fit for most authors.

Also, I created a free course to help you set up your account and get going with that particular email service (but more on that in a moment).

Let's jump right in.

Full Disclosure: I did use affiliate links in this article. Please know that if you end up using one of these and paying those companies, I will get a referral commission (which will go straight to my coffee fund and keep me writing and testing things like this). However, that doesn’t change my opinion of these products. I tried each of them personally, so be prepared for my unfettered opinion…

Why Only These 3 Email Services?

In my years of working online, I've personally used AWeber, Mailchimp, GetResponse, Kit, ActiveCampaign, Send Fox, and more.

There are probably hundreds of email services out there and more added every month.

So, it's simply implausible to test them all.

Therefore, in order to showcase the best grouping of author email services, I turned to author groups and the surveys completed by Kindlepreneur readers.

These three were the ones that came up again and again…

Side-By-Side Comparison of MailerLite, Kit, and Mailchimp

Important Things to Note From the Email Service Comparison:

• MailerLite and Kit have the best free accounts
• Kit has the most functionality and advanced capabilities
• Mailchimp is terribly overpriced compared to Kit and MailerLite

Choosing an email service is like choosing a spouse. Check out this Kindlepreneur review to find out which service is best for authors.Click To Tweet

Price Comparison of the Best Email Services for Authors

Pricing is important.

Although free accounts will probably suffice for many of you, knowing how much you'd need to pay when you go beyond the free account is extremely important.

As you can see in the table below, it's easy to get “hooked” with a great free account, but then pay for it down the road as the size of your email list grows.

So, beware.

Important Things to Note From the Email Service Pricing Comparison:

• Kit has the most generous free plan, but as soon as you surpass 10k subscribers (or require features only their paid plans can provide), they become more expensive than MailerLite
• MailerLite's free plan isn't as good as Kit's, but as soon as you reach 10k subscribers (or upgrade to premium features), it costs less than Kit
• Compared to Kit and MailerLite, Mailchimp's pricing model sucks

Free MailerLite Video Course

Learn how to setup and use your MailerLite account effectively to help sell more books.

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Best Email Service for Authors (Ranked Worst to First)

• 3rd: Mailchimp
• 2nd: Kit (formerly ConvertKit)
• 1st: MailerLite

3rd Place: Mailchimp Review

I'll be honest…

Mailchimp has fallen behind the competition.

Don't get me wrong — it was and is one of the most well-known email service providers out there. It's been around since 2001 and its feature set has gotten better and better over the years.

The problem is its pricing model doesn't measure up to the “upstarts” that've popped over the years; namely, MailerLite and Kit (but also Beehiiv, GetResponse, and others).

Their “free” plan isn't nearly as generous as Kit or MailerLite. This wouldn't be a problem if Mailchimp was more affordable once the contact numbers (and feature sets) went up, but that's not the case. Mailchimp is more expensive than MailerLite and Kit once you get beyond the “free account” numbers.

So, who's it for then?

Probably big businesses who have loads of subscribers to email and/or who need enterprise level features.

Does that mean it'll work for indie authors?

It can, but bear in mind that most indie authors needs are pretty simple: the ability to automate a welcome sequence, deliver emails, manage their subscribers, occasionally tag them, have accurate reporting and remove inactive subscribers who don’t click or open.

In other words, Mailchimp might be overkill for authors.

But with that all said, let's check out what Mailchimp brings to the table:

• A free account with up to 500 contacts (though you can only send a max of 1,000 emails a month or 500 a day)
• Automation in the form of customer journeys and linear automation (kind of like a Kit-MailerLite brainchild)
• Landing pages with templates
• Forms that you can set up (not very easily though)
• Email campaign sending with a drag and drop email content builder
• Email scheduling
• Segmenting and tagging
• Social media posts
• Ad management
• Surveys
• Loads of integrations with other services

Mailchimp Summary

Overall, I found that Mailchimp offers some good services for authors but that it’s overpriced for what you get and it has some issues with contacts.

For example, you might have duplicate contacts. And when someone unsubscribes, you have to manually archive them or remove so you don’t pay for them being a part of your list.

Add in its price and underwhelming free tier compared to MailerLite and Kit, and Mailerchimp comes in a distant third.

(In fact, I may replace Mailchimp altogether in a future update to this article. I've heard some interesting things about Author Email and Beehiiv.)

Pros:

• Most authors and businesses are familiar with Mailchimp
• Easy to use email creation
• Multiple lists allowed
• Tagging is available
• Cool reports

Cons:

• Free plan doesn't compare to competitors
• Removing a subscriber from your list does not remove them from your contacts–you still pay for them!
• VERY EXPENSIVE in comparison to the author options.
• Their pricing structure is tricky. The plans are (mainly) based on monthly email sends and included features, not the number of contacts

Pricing: Free Account (500 contacts) // Essentials Plan — Starts at $13 a month // Standard Plan — Starts at $20 a month // Premium Plan — Starts at $350 a month

Check Out Mailchimp

2nd Place: Kit (Formerly ConvertKit) Review

Kit (formerly known as ConvertKit) is a super powerful email marketing service that’s geared toward businesses with multiple different revenue streams.

There are authors who use this service (I use it for Kindlepreneur and Publisher Rocket), but it’s not necessarily geared toward the indie author who's just starting out.

That said, their free plan (“Newsletters”) lets you have up to 10,000 contacts with unlimited email sends. That's best in class (for free tiers go), so it's easy for you to check it out and see if it’s a fit.

Here are some of the features you can expect to get with Kit:

• Amazing visual automations
• Sign up forms and landing pages that are super simple to create
• Email campaigns that are not drag and drop
• A new email builder that is drag and drop surprisingly
• Landing page templates
• Sign up form templates
• Integrations with almost every service imaginable including Teachable, WordPress, and Wix
• Reporting
• Amazing customer service

Kit Summary

As you can see from the automation image above, Kit is fun to work with and really powerful.

That makes it a potential fit for large companies with many subscribers (like us at Kindlepreneur), a well new ones just starting out.

Let's look at some of the pros and cons of using the service for independent authors:

Pros

• By far the most powerful for authors with multiple products who want to segment their subscribers
• Multiple opt-in incentives
• The free account has a whopping 10,000 contacts
• You can build landing pages and opt-in forms
• There’s a 14 day trial account with premium features
• Simple, powerful email
• Fantastic support
• Overall a great product that can grow with you

Cons

• It can get really expensive once you outgrow the free plan
• No drag and drop email templates to speak of
• No lists. It’s subscriber based so you’ll have to rely on segmenting, tagging and triggers which can be overwhelming for new authors.

Pricing: Free Account (10,000 contacts) // Creator Plan — Starts at $29 a month // Creator Pro Plan — Starts at $59 a month

Check Out Kit

1st Place: MailerLite Review

MailerLite is my number one choice for independent authors who are starting their mailing list.

The reason?

All the features and value you get with a free account.

Seriously, you cannot go wrong with MailerLite, and the fact that it’s significantly cheaper than other options like Mailchimp and Kit (once you outgrow the free tiers), yet offers many of the same features, is amazing.

Here are some of the features you can expect when using MailerLite:

• Awesome free account
• Automations
• Form creation
• Embedded and promotional forms
• Landing pages and even website creation
• Drag and drop email campaigns
• Email scheduling
• Templates for emails, forms and landing pages
• Integrations galore
• Segmentation and tagging for groups
• A simple, sleek dashboard
• Easily remove inactive subscribers

You can check out my full MailerLite review here.

MailerLite Summary

I personally use Kit and even I am super excited about MailerLite’s offerings for authors.

I particularly enjoyed using the dashboard, which was super easy to navigate.

As you can see from the image, it’s simple to set up your automation sequence too. So, what are the pros and cons of our winning email service for authors?

Pros

• YOU GET SO MUCH WITH THE FREE ACCOUNT
• Much cheaper than most alternatives once you outgrow the free plan
• Unlimited emails for $9 (plus tagging, segmenting, automation, the works)
• Highest value for money
• Segmenting
• Slower pricing curve

Cons

• Not list based (segmenting instead)
• Deliverability is the lowest of them, but this has improved greatly
• Some navigation irritation…

Pricing: Free Account (1,000 contacts) // Growing Business Plan — Starts at $10 a month // Advanced Plan — Starts at $20 a month

Check Out MailerLite

Want to Dive a Bit Deeper? Free MailerLite for Authors Email Course

To help those who choose MailerLite, I created a free MailerLite email course.

While MailerLite does have an extensive list of tutorial videos, many of these go into specialized aspects and areas that don't serve most authors and can overwhelm you.

So, I created this course to help you get exactly what you need and get started in setting up your account the right way.

Check Out My FREE Course Here

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Final Thoughts

And that’s it!

Kindlepreneur’s top picks for email marketing services.

From my research, MailerLite is the best email marketing service for authors with Kit in a close second (and Mailchimp a distant, distant third).

But be sure to bookmark this article, though.

I'll likely update it again in the future (possibly replacing Mailchimp with one or many alternatives that are better). Save it so you don't miss out.

Cheers!