Are you looking for your first (or next) email service provider?
You should be. Email marketing remains one of the most valuable parts of any author platform.
That’s why it’s worth evaluating tools like MailerLite, a platform known for its clean interface, generous free plan, and solid automation tools. In this review, we’ll break down what’s changed recently (including changes that have made that free plan a bit less generous), what features it offers, and whether it’s still one of the best email marketing options for authors.
So, let’s get into it! And just to let you know, I love MailerLite. I tested several email marketing services before writing this article, and MailerLite stuck out to me (in a good way). I’m saying that upfront because it will be obvious as you read the review (I even created a free course to show you how to use MailerLite), and I want you to know these are my honest opinions based on the extensive research I’ve done.
By the way, there are affiliate links in this article — they keep the coffee fund topped up — but my opinion is unchanged by them.
What Features Does MailerLite Offer?
To get a better idea of whether MailerLite is the right email marketing solution for you as an author, let’s take a look at the features it offers.
1. Free Account
As of this writing, MailerLite's free plan includes:
- Up to 250 active subscribers
- 2,500 monthly emails
- 2 user seats
- Email campaigns
- Visual automations
- Drag-and-drop, Custom HTML, and Simple email editors
- Campaign A/B testing
- Performance reporting
The big change is that MailerLite’s free plan is smaller than it used to be. The subscriber limit dropped from 1,000 to 250, and the monthly email limit dropped from 12,000 to 2,500.
At the same time, MailerLite opened up some features that used to be paid-only, including the Custom HTML editor, custom templates, promotional pop-ups, blogs, and campaign A/B testing.
So the free plan is a little strange now. You get more tools than before, but you’ll hit the subscriber and usage limits much faster.
2. Automation
Automation is a critical part of any author’s email marketing strategy — especially for welcome sequences, reader onboarding, and new release reminders.
So how does MailerLite stack up when it comes to building automated workflows?
MailerLite’s automation builder is clean, fast, and easy to use. You can start a new workflow with just a couple of clicks, and the visual builder makes it easy to map out the entire sequence from one screen.
You’ll begin by choosing a trigger — such as a subscriber joining a group, clicking a link, or completing a form. If you’re on the Power plan, you can also use multiple triggers for a single automation. That lets one workflow start from more than one entry point, such as someone joining a group or clicking a link.
The trigger options cover most author use cases.
MailerLite also supports A/B split testing inside automations on Comfort and Power. You can test up to 3 versions of Delay and Email steps, though you’ll need to pick the winner yourself.
One minor gripe: if you want to use a form-based trigger, you’ll need to create the form first. It would be nice to create it inline without navigating away.
Building out your sequence is simple — just click the “+” icons to add emails, delays, or conditions.
You can draft your emails directly inside the automation flow without being kicked to a new screen, which saves time.
You can also add conditions to control who progresses through each step of the automation. These conditions are based on tags, groups, behavior (like opens or clicks), and more. It’s powerful but still beginner-friendly.
For example, you could create a rule where readers who click a certain link get tagged or moved down a different path. That’s useful if you want to separate readers by genre, series interest, or how engaged they are with your emails.
Overall, MailerLite’s automation builder is intuitive, visual, and fast. It’s still one of MailerLite’s strongest features for authors.
Just pay attention to the plan limits. On the free plan, you can have up to 3 active automations and 5 automation steps. Comfort gives you up to 50 active automations and 100 steps. Power gives you unlimited active automations, with up to 100 steps per automation.
3. Forms
Sign-up forms are where your email list begins.
Let’s look at how MailerLite handles form creation — and what kind of control and customization authors can expect.
With MailerLite, you can choose three different methods for creating your email sign up forms.
Pop-Up Forms
Pop-up forms appear as overlays on your website — and setting them up with MailerLite is refreshingly simple. Some tools offer this feature as a standalone product, so having it built-in here is a plus.
You’ll name your form, choose which group or segment it connects to, and pick a template from their library. From there, it’s all drag-and-drop.
You can also preview the template before selecting which one you want to use. I love how easy navigation is in MailerLite. One click and I get where I want to go. Neat.
The drag-and-drop editor lets you control layout, imagery, and form fields — all from one screen. You can position your pop-up front and center, at the bottom, or in the corner of the screen.
You can swap out the picture or text and customize the form fields as well — and it’s all on one screen.
You can control how often your pop-up appears, add scheduling rules, and set frequency caps to avoid overwhelming visitors.
MailerLite gives you both JavaScript and HTML embed codes — or, if you're using WordPress, their official plugin makes installation even easier. There’s also a MailerLite app for Shopify, which makes it easy to sync your store with your email list and automation flows.
Once you’ve created the pop-up form, you’re able to select whether to have your readers double opt-in and you can edit the emails that will be sent to them, as well as manage the automation workflow attached to that specific form. Awesome.
The whole process is quick — you can go from idea to live form in under 15 minutes.
Embedded Forms
MailerLite also allows you to create embedded forms for your website. The difference is these are forms that don’t pop-up over your content but are embedded in the pages. The process for setting them up is pretty much identical to the pop-up method above.
Embedded forms don’t use templates, and they’re simpler by design — but you still build them using the same drag-and-drop interface.
Promotion Pop-Ups
Promotion pop-ups are now available on the free plan, but free accounts are limited to 3 active forms total. Comfort gives you up to 10 signup forms and pop-ups, while Power gives you unlimited signup forms and pop-ups. You can use them to run time-sensitive offers with different triggers, visuals, and display rules.
MailerLite allows you to:
- Choose from promotion pop-up templates
- Select the type of pop-up you want to use
- Set where you want that pop-up to appear
Overall, MailerLite’s form builder is fast, intuitive, and surprisingly flexible. And yes — you can track form performance with built-in analytics to see visits, conversion rates, and more.
The main form types are available on the free plan, including embedded forms, pop-ups, and promotion pop-ups. But the free plan now limits you to 3 active forms total, so you’ll need to be more selective than before.
4. Landing Pages and Sites
MailerLite lets you build both standalone landing pages and simple websites.
The free plan includes 1 website and 1 landing page. Comfort gives you up to 10 websites and landing pages, while Power gives you unlimited websites and landing pages.
The website builder is fine for simple projects, but most authors will probably still prefer WordPress for a full author site.
Where MailerLite really shines is landing pages. You start with a template — just like with forms — and then customize it using the drag-and-drop builder.
Once you select a template, you’ll enter the drag-and-drop editor. It’s fast, responsive, and includes all the modules you’d expect: images, buttons, countdown timers, videos, and embedded forms.
It’s a strong solution for lead magnets, reader magnets, or new book promos — especially if you’re just getting started and don’t want to build a full website yet.
5. Email Campaigns
Creating an email campaign in MailerLite is straightforward. Just click the “Create campaign” button, and you’ll walk through a step-by-step process to design, personalize, and schedule your email.
You’re taken through a step-by-step setup for your email campaign.
MailerLite supports campaign A/B testing, and it’s now available on the free plan. Paid plans add more testing and optimization tools, including multivariate testing, auto-resend campaigns, dynamic emails, and smart sending.
After setting up your subject line, you can create your email using several editor types:
- Drag-and-drop editor (most popular)
- Rich text editor
- Custom HTML editor
- AI-powered writing assistant (optional tool in MailerLite)
You can start from scratch or choose from MailerLite’s growing library of email templates. Everything is fully customizable — from layout and colors to images, logos, and CTA buttons.
Once your email is ready, you can send it immediately or schedule it in advance. Paid users can also send by recipient time zone — great for reaching readers at the right moment, no matter where they are.
6. Extras/Important Details
MailerLite includes a number of smaller features that are still worth calling out — especially for authors juggling multiple tools, platforms, or audience segments. Here are a few that stand out:
- Integrations. MailerLite connects with popular platforms like WordPress, Shopify, Zapier, Prolific Works, BookFunnel, MailerCheck, ConvertBox, and more. The Zapier connection alone opens up thousands of possibilities.
- Premium features. Comfort unlocks features like unlimited templates, campaign auto-resend, multivariate testing, the unsubscribe page builder, subscriber preference center, AI writing assistant, dynamic emails, smart sending, and the ability to remove the MailerLite logo. Power adds unlimited monthly emails, unlimited user seats, unlimited automations, unlimited landing pages and websites, unlimited digital products and bookings, unlimited signup forms and pop-ups, multiple automation triggers, partner discounts, and 24/7 live chat support.
- The dashboard. The user interface is clean, modern, and easy to navigate — even if you’re not particularly “techie.” You can preview performance at a glance or dive deeper into individual campaigns and automations.
- Inactive subscribers. MailerLite makes it easy to identify and remove inactive subscribers with a built-in cleanup tool — no need to contact support or mess with exports.
- Segmenting and groups. You can organize your audience into groups (manual) or segments (rule-based). Segments can be dynamic — updating automatically based on reader actions like opens, clicks, or tags.
What Does it Cost?
MailerLite offers a flexible pricing structure based on your number of subscribers. Here’s a quick overview:
- Free Plan: $0/month for up to 250 active subscribers and 2,500 monthly emails. Includes 2 user seats, campaigns, automations, a website, a landing page, signup forms, performance reports, campaign A/B testing, and all 3 email editors.
- Comfort Plan: Starts at $12/month. Includes everything in Free, plus unlimited templates, dynamic emails, campaign auto-resend, multivariate testing, the unsubscribe page builder, subscriber preference center, AI writing assistant, smart sending, and more. Comfort gives you 3 user seats, up to 50 active automations, up to 100 automation steps, 10 websites and landing pages, 10 signup forms and pop-ups, and monthly email sends equal to 10x the ceiling of your subscriber tier.
- Power Plan: Starts at $25/month. Includes everything in Comfort, plus unlimited monthly emails, unlimited user seats, unlimited automations, unlimited landing pages and websites, unlimited digital products and bookings, unlimited signup forms and pop-ups, multiple automation triggers, partner discounts, and 24/7 live chat support.
- Enterprise Plan: Custom pricing for businesses with over 200,000 subscribers. Includes a dedicated success manager, custom sending volume, onboarding consultation and training, priority support, account audits, performance improvements, and deliverability support.
MailerLite also gives new accounts a 14-day trial of premium features, with no credit card required.
MailerLite remains one of the more cost-effective paid tools on the market, especially for authors who want something simple and affordable as they grow.
What I Don’t Like About MailerLite
I still like MailerLite a lot, but the free-plan changes make it less of a slam dunk for me.
- The free plan is much tighter than it used to be. The free plan is much tighter than it used to be. You now get 250 active subscribers and 2,500 monthly emails, plus 3 active automations, 5 automation steps, 3 active forms, 1 landing page, and 1 website. That’s enough to test the platform, but authors who are serious about growing their list may hit the ceiling pretty quickly.
- Form-based automations. If you want to trigger an automation from a form but haven’t created the form yet, you’ll need to leave the workflow and create it separately. Not a dealbreaker — but inline form creation would be smoother.
- Initial approval process. Some users may need to request account approval or verify their website before sending. It’s a light hurdle, but one to be aware of.
- No traditional “lists.” MailerLite uses groups and segments instead of traditional list-based structures. It works well once you adjust — but can be confusing if you’re coming from Mailchimp or Kit.
- Limited templates on the free plan. Free users now get access to templates, but the selection is limited. If you want unlimited templates, you’ll need to upgrade to Comfort or Power.
None of these drawbacks are dealbreakers — just areas where there’s room for polish.
FREE Course for Getting Started with MailerLite
If this review has made you want to give MailerLite a try, I've created a free course to make the process super simple for you. MailerLite does have tutorial videos, but many of these go into specialized points that don't serve most authors and can overwhelm you. In my free video course, I'll show you how to start using the tool right away.
Is MailerLite the Right Email Marketing Solution For You?
After testing and comparing several email marketing tools, I still think MailerLite is a strong option for authors, especially if you want something easy to use and affordable.
The free plan is not as generous as it used to be, at least when it comes to subscribers and monthly sends. But MailerLite still gives you a clean interface, solid automations, useful forms and landing pages, and paid plans that are reasonably priced compared with many other email tools.
If you’re just getting started — or you’re ready to switch to something simpler and more cost-effective — MailerLite is absolutely worth trying.
It gets my stamp of approval.
