Yes, for ordinary business email: replies, quotes, invoices, and a note to a few dozen regulars who know you. Once it’s a promotional newsletter to a list, use an email marketing tool, or Gmail’s mail merge for a short, occasional newsletter if your Google Workspace plan includes it. Inboxes cap how many people you can reach in a day, Microsoft tells its own business customers to use a specialist provider for customer newsletters, and promotional email comes with legal requirements that a tool helps you meet, though it can’t meet them for you. The first step costs nothing: five tools in this guide have free plans, and a list of up to 250 contacts fits all of them.
Is it ordinary business email or email marketing?
The question isn’t how many people you email. It’s what the email is for.
Ordinary business email is one conversation at a time, or a practical message tied to something a customer already bought or booked: the quote they asked for, the invoice, the confirmation of Thursday’s appointment, the note that their order is ready. Your inbox is the right place for it, and nothing on this page asks you to change that.
Email marketing is the same message going to a list to promote something: the spring sale, a new service, the monthly newsletter with an offer in it. That’s the kind of email inbox providers watch for, and the kind the law treats differently. The FTC’s CAN-SPAM compliance guide for business says the law covers all commercial messages, meaning email whose primary purpose is to advertise or promote a product or service, and that it doesn’t apply only to bulk email. The guide separates those from transactional or relationship messages, such as one that confirms a purchase a customer already agreed to, says the law reads that second group narrowly, and lists what a commercial message must include, among them your physical postal address and a clear way to opt out. That’s the US rule; other countries set their own, so if your list includes people abroad, look up theirs too. We don’t interpret the law here; read the FTC’s guide before you send your first promotion, whatever you send it from.
Many small businesses send both kinds. Keep the first in your inbox and give the second its own home.
What do Gmail and Outlook actually allow?
Each provider limits how many people you can reach, and none of them is built for a list. These are the limits each provider publishes for itself.
| Account | What the provider says |
|---|---|
| Personal Gmail | You may hit a sending limit past 500 recipients in one email, or 500 emails in a day. |
| Google Workspace (Gmail for business) | 2,000 messages a day per user, 10,000 total recipients a day, at most 500 external recipients on one message. Mail merge: 1,500 recipients a day. |
| Outlook.com with a Microsoft 365 subscription | 5,000 recipients a day, 500 on one message, 1,000 a day who you’ve never emailed before. Lower for accounts without a subscription. |
| Microsoft 365 business email (Exchange Online) | 10,000 recipients a day. Microsoft says customers sending customer newsletters should use a provider that specializes in it. |
The caps are the least of it. Hit one and you can’t send anything for up to a day, including the quote a customer is waiting for. Google also asks every sender to make unsubscribing easy and to email only people who want to hear from you, and its sender guidelines add technical requirements once you send thousands of messages a day to Gmail addresses. An email tool handles much of that technical side for you.
Gmail’s mail merge: the step in between
If your business already pays for an eligible Google Workspace plan (Workspace Individual, Business Standard or Plus, or the Enterprise and Education Standard and Plus editions), Gmail’s mail merge sends each person their own copy of a newsletter, fills in their name from your contacts or a spreadsheet, and adds a unique unsubscribe link at the bottom of every email. It allows up to 1,500 recipients a day.
That covers a short, occasional newsletter well. What it doesn’t give you is a sign-up form for your website, a list that removes bounced addresses on its own, scheduled sends, automated welcome emails, or a report of who opened and clicked. And someone who unsubscribes from a mail merge can still get your ordinary emails, so the unsubscribe list lives in Gmail, not in your hands. When you want any of those things, it’s time for a tool.
On Microsoft 365 business email, Microsoft’s own guidance points the other way: send customer newsletters through a specialist provider.
When does your inbox stop being enough?
Our view is that you’ve crossed the line when any one of these is true:
- The email promotes something and goes to more than a few dozen people at once. Past that point you’re managing opt-outs by memory and testing your inbox’s patience.
- Some people on the list didn’t just do business with you. Sign-ups from your website, a giveaway, or an event list expect a proper newsletter with a proper way out.
- You want to know what happened. Who opened, who clicked, who left. Your inbox can’t tell you.
- You want it to happen on schedule or on its own. A newsletter every first Monday, a welcome email to each new sign-up.
- You’ve hit a sending limit, or come close. Once is enough to move.
If none of these is true, keep emailing from your inbox. “Not yet” is a full answer.
Not sure whether you need this software yet? Our Do I Need This Yet? check asks a few practical questions and helps you evaluate your next step.
How to email a small list well from your inbox
If you’re staying in your inbox for now, set it up properly. It takes an evening.
- Keep one sheet of the people you email. Columns: name, email, how they joined (customer, asked in the shop, signed up), date they joined, and a column marked “stop” for anyone who asks to be taken off. Nobody gets emailed without a row.
- Send personally, not in a pile. Put the list in BCC so nobody sees anyone else’s address, or use mail merge if your Workspace plan has it. Never paste the list into To or Cc. BCC only hides the addresses; a promotional email sent that way still needs everything in the next step.
- End every promotional email the same way. Your business name, plus what the FTC’s guide lists for commercial email, among them your physical postal address and a clear way to opt out.
- Act on every “please take me off” the same day. Mark the row, and don’t email them again.
- Keep promotions out of your transactional emails. The invoice is the invoice. The sale goes in the newsletter.
What’s the first step, and what does it cost?
Nothing, for most owners reading this. Five of the six tools in this guide have a free plan, and how big a list each one holds varies a lot, so count yours first: Mailchimp’s stops at 250 contacts, MailerLite’s at 250 contacts, AWeber’s at 500 contacts, Kit’s at 10,000 contacts, and Brevo’s at 100,000 contacts. Constant Contact has no free plan; it offers a trial and then a paid plan.
| Tool | Free plan | Lowest paid plan, billed monthly | Free trial |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mailchimp | Yes | From $13 a month (Essentials) | 14 days, card required: yes |
| MailerLite | Yes | From $12 a month (Comfort) | 14 days, card required: no |
| Brevo | Yes | From $9 a month (Starter) | No trial listed |
| Kit | Yes | From $39 a month (Creator) | 14 days, card required: no |
| Constant Contact | No free plan | From $12 a month (Lite) | 30 days, card required: no |
| AWeber | Yes | From $15 a month (Lite) | 14 days, card required: yes |
Pick by situation:
- A short list and a monthly newsletter: any of the five free plans fits. Mailchimp’s allows 500 emails a month, which is two sends to a full list. Is email marketing worth paying for with a list under 500? goes further into the small list.
- A weekly email: MailerLite’s free plan allows 2,500 emails a month and AWeber’s 3,000 emails a month, so both cover a weekly send to a full list; Kit’s lists unlimited broadcasts.
- A list in the thousands: Kit’s and Brevo’s free plans hold it. Brevo’s sends at most 300 emails a day, so one newsletter to a bigger list goes out over several days.
- You’d rather pay from day one: at 500 contacts the lowest paid bill in this guide is Brevo (Starter) at $9 a month, assuming about one email a week. What email marketing costs at 500, 1,000, 2,500, and 5,000 contacts shows every tool.
When a free email marketing plan is enough compares the free plans cap by cap, including the sending limits and the automations each one allows, and which email tool fits a 1 to 5 person business picks one for each situation. If your contacts already live in a CRM, check whether your CRM can send it instead.
Say you run a two-person picture-framing shop with about 150 past customers’ emails, collected at the counter over the years. You want to announce a seasonal sale four times a year.
That’s a promotional email to a list, so it belongs in a tool, not in your inbox. Every free plan here holds 150 people, and four emails a year is nowhere near any of their sending allowances, so the honest budget is nothing. Import only the customers who gave you their address to hear from you, add a sign-up sheet at the counter, and send the first sale email from the free plan with your postal address in the footer.
What not to pay for yet: a paid plan before a free one has run out, automation before you’ve written a welcome email, and a yearly commitment before you’ve sent a few newsletters.
Your next step
Look at the last emails you sent to more than one customer at once. If any of them promoted something, this week set up a free plan and move your list into it: count the people you’d import, check them against the caps on the free-plan page, start the one that fits (Mailchimp’s, MailerLite’s, Brevo’s, Kit’s, or AWeber’s), and send your next promotion from there with an unsubscribe link and your postal address. If every one of them was a quote, an invoice, or a reply, you don’t need an email tool yet; set up the sheet above so you’re ready the day you do. If you already know you’ll pick Mailchimp, Mailchimp’s pricing page shows where its free plan ends.