Overview

Marketo and MailerLite are at opposite extremes of email marketing. MailerLite is beautifully simple and affordable. Marketo is enterprise-grade and expensive. For our take on each, see our Marketo comparison and MailerLite comparison.

The 12x Price Question

At 10,000 subscribers, MailerLite costs $73/month. Marketo costs $895/month. MailerLite has a free tier with 1,000 subscribers. Marketo requires annual contracts plus a separate CRM. The question isn't whether Marketo can do more — it can. The question is whether you need what it does. Most businesses don't.

MailerLite's Design Edge

MailerLite is known for clean, beautiful design. Modern templates, intuitive editors, elegant landing pages. The platform itself is a joy to use. Marketo prioritizes functionality and enterprise capability over design polish. For creators and design-conscious brands, this difference matters.

When Marketo's Enterprise Features Justify the Cost

Marketo earns its price for specific scenarios: enterprise B2B with Salesforce, 6+ month sales cycles, and the need to attribute revenue across complex buying journeys. If your marketing team has dedicated ops, an enterprise CRM, and a budget for consultants, Marketo delivers enterprise value.

The Sequenzy Alternative

For SaaS founders who need more than newsletters but not enterprise complexity, Sequenzy combines transactional email and marketing campaigns with native Stripe integration at $49/month — with AI-generated sequences to boot.