Start a Fan Email List: Newsletter Platforms Compared for Musicians
Quick answer: Start on Kit's free plan if you only send release announcements (up to 10,000 subscribers), or MailerLite's free plan if you need a welcome automation (250 subscribers, 3 active automations). beehiiv's free plan allows 2,500 subscribers with no automations; Mailchimp's stops at 250 contacts (all four pricing pages, read November 2, 2026).
Followers belong to the app. A fan list belongs to you. If a platform changes its feed or locks your account, the addresses you collected still work, and you can carry them to any newsletter tool. That is the whole case for an email list for musicians.
Still, the platforms differ in ways that bite later: free-tier caps, whether automations are included, and what the first paid plan costs once your list outgrows the free one. We read the pricing pages of beehiiv, Kit, Mailchimp and MailerLite on November 2, 2026 and compared them on those points only. Where a page was inconsistent or a price was labelled as a sale or a yearly rate, we say so.
Why does an owned fan list beat a follower count?
Because you control delivery. A follower sees your post only if the platform decides to show it. A subscriber gets your email in their inbox, and the address list exports with you if you switch tools. For a musician, that means release announcements, show dates and video premieres reach the people who asked for them, not an algorithm's sample.
We'd pair the list with the channels you already use rather than replace them. Social posts are where strangers find you; the list is where fans stay. Our guide to TikTok music promotion strategy covers the discovery side, and the best AI tools for music promotion covers the wider stack. The list is the one asset nobody can throttle, and the one that carries legal obligations, which we cover below.
If you also make the video that goes to the list, a note on how we're paid: our Seedance links go to seeddance.video, an independent site that resells Seedance. It is not ByteDance and it is not an official Seedance site. We earn a commission if you subscribe through our link. You can see the Seedance reseller's plans before you plan a premiere; the rest of this article is about the list itself.
Which newsletter platform has the best free tier for a musician?
On subscriber count alone, Kit's free plan is the largest at up to 10,000 subscribers, then beehiiv at up to 2,500, with Mailchimp and MailerLite both capped at 250 (all four pricing pages, read November 2, 2026). Only MailerLite's free plan includes automations, with 3 active automations; beehiiv, Kit and Mailchimp leave automations to paid plans.
beehiiv
The free plan costs $0 and allows up to 2,500 subscribers with unlimited email sends, 1 team seat, 1 publication, 1 custom page, a 30-day analytics lookback and 3 segments (beehiiv pricing page, read November 2, 2026). It has no automations, no referral program, no paid subscriptions and no ad network. The page is inconsistent on custom domains: the feature list mentions them, but the comparison table marks them as not included on the free plan. Assume you don't get one until you pay.
Kit
Kit's free plan is $0 a month for up to 10,000 subscribers, with unlimited landing pages and forms, unlimited broadcasts, tagging and segmentation, and digital product and subscription sales (Kit pricing page, read November 2, 2026). What it lacks is the automation layer: no visual automations, no automated email sequences, no Paid Recommendations. For a musician who only sends a broadcast when a song drops, that is generous. For anyone who wants a welcome sequence, it isn't.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp's free plan is $0 a month with a limit of 250 contacts and a maximum of 500 emails a month or 250 a day, and the page says sending is paused if either limit is exceeded (Mailchimp marketing pricing page, read November 2, 2026). Automations are marked as not included. This is the tightest free tier of the four; the monthly cap of 500 means a full 250-contact list can be mailed about twice a month.
MailerLite
MailerLite's free plan is $0 for up to 250 subscribers and 2,500 monthly emails, and it is the only free plan here that includes automations: 3 active automations, plus 1 active digital product or booking (MailerLite pricing page, read November 2, 2026). The cap is small, but it is the only free plan of the four with automations.
| Platform | Free subscribers | Free sends | Free automations | First paid plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| beehiiv | Up to 2,500 | Unlimited | None | Lite, $59/mo or $49/mo annual |
| Kit | Up to 10,000 | Unlimited broadcasts | None | Creator, $33/mo on yearly billing |
| Mailchimp | 250 contacts | 500/mo or 250/day | None | Essentials, $13.00/mo for 12 months |
| MailerLite | Up to 250 | 2,500 monthly | 3 active | Comfort, starting $12/month |
All figures from the four pricing pages, read November 2, 2026. None of the pages showed an effective date. Only Kit's page states a per-transaction commerce fee; we cover it below.
What do the paid plans cost once your list grows?
Entry prices run from MailerLite's Comfort at starting $12/month and Mailchimp's Essentials from $13.00/mo for 12 months, through Kit's Creator at $33/mo on yearly billing, to beehiiv's Lite at $59/mo monthly or $49/mo on annual billing (all four pricing pages, read November 2, 2026). Several are sale or yearly prices, so read the labels before you budget.
These are entry prices. Kit's page defaults to 1,000 subscribers, beehiiv's view is for up to 1,000 subscribers and its Lite and Pro prices rise by list-size bucket, and none of the pages gave a price for a larger list in what we read.
beehiiv: Lite and Pro
Lite is $59/mo monthly or $49/mo on annual billing ($588/yr), covers up to 100,000 subscribers, and adds 10 live automations, a custom domain, the referral program, paid subscriptions and ad network access (beehiiv pricing page, read November 2, 2026). Pro is $109/mo monthly or $95/mo on annual billing ($1,140/yr), covers up to 250,000 subscribers, with unlimited automations plus click-triggered automations and unlimited paid subscription tiers. Enterprise is custom.
Two cautions: the default view is annual billing for up to 1,000 subscribers, and Lite and Pro prices rise by list-size bucket, so the first number you see is the lowest. Ad network access is not available during trials and not in all regions.
Kit: Creator and Pro
Creator is shown at $33/mo on yearly billing ($390 billed yearly), which the page labels "Pay yearly-save 17%" (Kit pricing page, read November 2, 2026). Monthly billing is higher, and the page does not state the monthly-billing price. Creator adds unlimited Visual Automations, email sequences, Kit MCP, RSS campaigns, SMS marketing and 24/7 email and chat support, and Paid Recommendations come in with a 23.5% fee.
Pro is listed at $66/mo but shown struck through to $50/mo as a limited time Pro offer, with "$593 billed first year" and a stated first-year saving of $355. The page says the reduced rate applies only to your first year and the plan renews at the standard rate after that. Treat $66/mo as the yearly-billing standard rate the page shows; it does not state a monthly-billing price. Pro adds Subscriber Signals, a Growth Concierge team, engagement analytics, unlimited users and an insights dashboard.
Commerce fees apply on every Kit plan at "3.5% + 30c" per transaction. The page says that fee on digital products and subscriptions is inclusive of credit card processing fees, so Kit "only takes 0.6% of the total fees". It does not state a fee for merch.
Mailchimp: Essentials, Standard and Premium
Essentials shows $13.00/mo for 12 months with up to 4 flow steps in Marketing Automation Flows and a 14-day free trial; Standard shows $20.00/mo for 12 months with up to 200 flows and a 14-day free trial; Premium shows $350.00/mo for 12 months, also up to 200 flows, with a one-month free trial for qualified new customers (Mailchimp marketing pricing page, read November 2, 2026).
Honesty notes: each price is labelled per month for 12 months and the later price did not render when we read the page; the prices sit next to a "Save 15%" banner for 10,000+ contacts; the page does not state the contact count those prices cover; and the 0 to 500 tier price did not render, so the prices may not be what a small list pays.
Customer Journey Builder was renamed Marketing Automation Flows effective as of June 2025, so older guides use the old name. The page does not mention custom domains.
MailerLite: Comfort and Power
Comfort is "starting $12/month" with 50 active automations and 5 active digital products or bookings; Power is "starting $25/month" with unlimited automations and unlimited digital products; Enterprise is custom; yearly billing is labelled "Save 10%" (MailerLite pricing page, read November 2, 2026). The comparison table has a custom domains row, but which plans include it did not survive our page capture. No effective dates were shown.
If you expect to earn from the list directly, our piece on how to make money with AI music covers the revenue side; of the four pages, only Kit's states what it charges per transaction.
What does the law require in every fan email?
In the United States, the CAN-SPAM Act sets the floor. The FTC's compliance guide says every commercial email must carry a valid physical postal address, a working opt-out, honest headers and subject lines, and a clear identification as an ad, and opt-outs must be honored within 10 business days (FTC CAN-SPAM compliance guide, August 2023, edited January 2024).
The guide, which is dated August 2023 and marked "Edited January 2024" for inflation-adjusted penalties, lists the requirements in plain language (FTC: CAN-SPAM Act, a compliance guide for business). In its own words:
- "Don't use false or misleading header information"
- "Don't use deceptive subject lines"
- "Identify the message as an ad"
- "Tell recipients where you're located" with "a valid physical postal address"
- "Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future marketing email from you"
- "Honor opt-out requests promptly", "within 10 business days"
- "Monitor what others are doing on your behalf"
The penalty is the part worth pinning above your desk. The guide states: "Each separate email in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act is subject to penalties of up to $53,088."
What this means in practice
The postal address requirement surprises musicians most. If you don't want fans to know where you live, the guide says the valid physical postal address can be your current street address, a post office box registered with the U.S. Postal Service, or a private mailbox registered with a commercial mail receiving agency under Postal Service rules. The "monitor what others are doing on your behalf" line matters if a manager or label sends for you: the law still points at you.
Double opt-in is not in the FTC guide, and we're not stating it as a legal requirement. We recommend it anyway. A confirmation email shows the person asked to join and keeps mistyped addresses off the list. Turn it on before you share your first sign-up form, because retrofitting it later means re-confirming people who already trust you.
What should you send your fan list?
Send on the release cycle, not on a calendar. A fan list earns its keep when a song is coming: the first listen, the artwork, the video premiere, the show dates. Between releases, send less, say something real, and let the platform's segments separate the people who open everything from the people who only want the big news.
A release-cycle sequence that fits any platform
- Announcement: the song exists, here is the date. One link, no extras.
- Behind the song: a short note on how it came to be.
- Premiere: the video, sent to the list before it goes public anywhere else, because the list is the one channel you own.
- Release day: the streaming links, one line, and a request to share.
- Afterwards: shows, merch, and the next song. Leave a gap long enough that people miss you.
Automations make the sequence repeatable, which is why we flagged which free plans include them. Without them you send each email by hand, which is fine for one release and tedious by the third.
The video premiere
If you're deciding whether to make a video at all, our piece on whether you need a music video is the honest version, and one song, twenty videos shows how one clip becomes a month of content across the list and your socials.
If the premiere also goes to Spotify for Creators as a video, the platform's video specs page recommends an MP4 container with H.264 or H.265 (HEVC), a resolution of 1080p or higher, 16:9 widescreen, and a frame rate of 24, 25, 30, 50, or 60 FPS, with audio at 128 Kbps or higher (Spotify for Creators: video specs). The page says MOV is also compatible and discourages FLV and AVI, so export MP4 and keep it 16:9 at 1080p or higher for Spotify.
One more decision before the first send: who is writing. If your act is a persona rather than a person, our virtual artist branding guide covers keeping the voice consistent across the list and everywhere else. The postal address rule still applies to a persona.
Primary sources
- beehiiv: pricing page, read November 2, 2026.
- Kit: pricing page, read November 2, 2026.
- Mailchimp: marketing pricing page, read November 2, 2026.
- MailerLite: pricing page, read November 2, 2026.
- FTC: CAN-SPAM Act, a compliance guide for business, August 2023, edited January 2024.
- Spotify for Creators: video specs, read November 2, 2026.
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Frequently asked questions
How many subscribers can a musician have on a free newsletter plan?+
It depends on the platform. Of the four we compared, the largest free plan allows up to 10,000 subscribers, the next allows up to 2,500 with unlimited sends, and two platforms cap free accounts at 250 contacts (pricing pages, read November 2, 2026). The smaller caps come with send limits too, so check both numbers before you pick.
Do free newsletter plans include automations?+
Mostly no. Of the four platforms we compared, only one free plan includes automations, with 3 active automations allowed; the other three reserve automations and email sequences for paid plans (pricing pages, read November 2, 2026). If you want a welcome sequence without paying, that one platform is the only free option among these four.
Do I really have to put a postal address in fan emails?+
Yes, in the United States. The FTC's CAN-SPAM guide says commercial email must carry a valid physical postal address, and each separate email in violation can draw a penalty of up to $53,088 (FTC guide, August 2023, edited January 2024). That address can be your street address, a post office box registered with the U.S. Postal Service, or a private mailbox registered with a commercial mail receiving agency.
How fast do I have to honor an unsubscribe?+
Within 10 business days, according to the FTC's CAN-SPAM compliance guide (August 2023, edited January 2024). The guide also says to honor opt-out requests promptly and to monitor what others do on your behalf, so if a manager or a label sends for you, the deadline is still yours to meet.
Which paid plan prices on these platforms are sale prices?+
One platform's top published paid tier was shown struck through from $66/mo to $50/mo as a limited time offer that applies only to the first year and renews at the standard rate. Another labels its paid prices as per month for 12 months, with the later price not shown, next to a Save 15% banner for 10,000+ contacts (pricing pages, read November 2, 2026). Budget on the standard rates.
Should I use double opt-in for a fan list?+
We recommend it, though the FTC guide doesn't require it. A confirmation email shows the person asked to join and keeps mistyped addresses off the list. Turn it on before you publish your first sign-up form so you never have to re-confirm fans who already joined.