Honest take: is MailCheap right for you?
MailCheap started as Marc Lou's "bye bye beehiiv" project in October 2026: he had paid beehiiv for two years, rebuilt the parts he used, and open-sourced the result. It shows. The product is a focused newsletter sender with a clean editor, a public website for each issue, signup forms, imports from eight platforms, and unusually strict deliverability guardrails. A campaign pauses past 2% hard bounces or 0.08% spam complaints, new contacts get a small test batch first, and list cleanup stops mailing readers who ignore several issues.
The pricing is the headline. MailCheap charges for emails sent, and dormant readers marked by list cleanup do not count toward your plan. A weekly issue to 10,000 readers costs $39/month on Growth, a fraction of what beehiiv or Kit charge at that list size.
What it deliberately leaves out is everything after the send button: no automations beyond one welcome email, no tags or segments, no A/B tests, no paid subscriptions, no referral program, no free plan. If you need any of those, here is where to look.
| What you need beyond MailCheap | Best alternative | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Same pay-per-email model + automations | Sequenzy | Sequences, segments, A/B tests and a free plan, billed by emails sent. |
| Ads, sponsors and referrals | beehiiv | Ad Network, Boosts, sponsorship storefront and a built-in referral program. |
| Selling courses or downloads | Kit | Creator commerce, visual automations and a 10,000-subscriber free plan. |
| Discovery and paid subs, no upfront | Substack | Reader network and app; 10% of paid revenue instead of a monthly fee. |
| A full site with memberships | Ghost | Open-source CMS with 0% fees on paid memberships. |
| Mature self-hosting on SES or SMTP | Sendy or Listmonk | Years of production use, segments and autoresponders or SQL queries. |
Best MailCheap alternative with the same pricing model: Sequenzy
Sequenzy and MailCheap are two of the few hosted tools that bill by emails sent instead of contacts. Sequenzy is a little more expensive at the same volume ($49/month for 60k emails (unlimited subscribers) against MailCheap's $39 for 75,000), and in exchange you get a visual automation builder, segments, A/B testing, transactional email and a free plan. Agents can drive it through the Sequenzy MCP server, API and CLI, much like MailCheap's MCP. It does not host a public archive of your issues or sell paid subscriptions, so pure publishers may miss those.
Best MailCheap alternative for monetization: beehiiv
If sponsors or a paid tier pay for your newsletter, MailCheap has nothing to offer there. beehiiv Lite includes the Ad Network, paid subscriptions with a 0% take rate and a referral program. Read MailCheap vs beehiiv for the cost math at different list sizes.
Best MailCheap alternative for creators selling products: Kit
Kit turns a list into a sales funnel: landing pages, tagged sequences, product checkouts and recommendations from other creators. Its free plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers. See MailCheap vs Kit.
Best MailCheap alternative for reader discovery: Substack
Substack is free until you charge, and its app and Notes can introduce you to readers who would never find your signup form. The cost is control: limited design, no sending API, and 10% of paid revenue. See MailCheap vs Substack.
Best MailCheap alternative for a publishing website: Ghost
MailCheap's issue pages give you an archive and an author page. Ghost gives you a full CMS with themes, tags, member tiers and paywalls, and it is open source too. See MailCheap vs Ghost.
Best self-hosted MailCheap alternatives: Sendy and Listmonk
Self-hosted MailCheap is young, and its README says self-hosters get no support. Sendy does the same SES-backed job for a one-time $69 and adds autoresponders and segments. Listmonk is free, runs on PostgreSQL and works with any SMTP provider. See MailCheap vs Sendy.
What a weekly newsletter costs at 10,000 subscribers
Four issues a month to 10,000 readers is about 40,000 emails. Prices are list prices checked in October 2026.
| Platform | Monthly cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| MailCheap | $39 (Growth, 75,000 emails) | $19 Starter covers 20,000 emails, enough for two issues. |
| Sequenzy | $49/month for 60k emails (unlimited subscribers) | Free plan up to 2,500 emails a month. |
| Sendy | $69 once, then about $4 on SES | Plus your own server. |
| EmailOctopus | $40 (Pro, yearly) | Priced by subscribers. |
| Buttondown | $79 + add-ons | Automations and some analytics cost extra. |
| Ghost(Pro) | $88 (Publisher, yearly) | About $105 on monthly billing. |
| MailerLite | $89 (Comfort) | Priced by subscribers. |
| beehiiv | $119 (Lite, yearly) | Includes Ad Network and paid subscriptions. |
| Kit | $139 (Creator) | Free plan covers 10,000 subscribers with limited automation. |
| Substack | $0 + 10% of paid revenue | Free if you never charge. |
The per-subscriber tools look worse the more inactive readers you carry. MailCheap and Sequenzy both stop that from inflating the bill, in different ways: MailCheap does not count dormant readers, and Sequenzy does not count contacts at all.
When MailCheap is still the right choice
| Stay with MailCheap when... | Switch when... |
|---|---|
| You send one newsletter to everyone, on a schedule. | You need welcome series, drips or emails per segment. |
| Price per issue is the deciding factor. | You want to earn from ads, sponsors or paid tiers. |
| You want strict, automatic bounce and complaint protection. | You need a free plan or a trial before paying. |
| Your agents draft and schedule issues through MCP. | You want a self-hosted tool with a long support history. |
| You are leaving beehiiv, Substack or Kit and want a cheap, simple landing spot. | Your list is a product's user base that needs lifecycle email. |
MailCheap is new, so check its pricing page and GitHub repository for changes before you decide. For a broader view, see our best newsletter platforms guide.
