MailPoet alternative: when your store needs email outside WordPress
MailPoet is a good plugin, and for a small list it is often the right choice. It lives inside WordPress, it is free up to 500 subscribers, and its Business plan has no per-send cost. This page is for the WooCommerce store that has started to feel the edges: a subscriber count padded by Inactive contacts and the WooCommerce Customers list, email that runs on your web host, and a bill that climbs with every tier. It is the MailPoet alternative guide we would want to read ourselves: MailPoet's own 2026 prices next to a flat rate, what moves by CSV, what you rebuild, and when staying put is the smarter call.
How the move works
The same CSV path as our other migration guides, plus two steps MailPoet never asked of you: an Amazon SES account and a store connection.
Export from MailPoet
In WordPress open MailPoet, Subscribers, Export. Keep email, first name, last name, status and custom fields, download as CSV. The export has no Subscribed on or Confirmed on dates, so keep your MailPoet data as consent evidence.
Clean the file
Export only contacts with status Subscribed; leave out Unconfirmed and Bounced. MailPoet's own note on the WooCommerce Customers list says placing an order is not an opt-in, so skip customers who never ticked a box.
Import
Open Subscribers, choose CSV import and upload. Map the status column so unsubscribed contacts stay unsubscribed: MailPoet's subscribed, unconfirmed, unsubscribed and bounced become active, inactive, unsubscribed and bounced. No confirmation email is sent. Try ten rows first.
Authenticate your domain in Amazon SES
New work compared with MailPoet Business. Follow verify your sending domain: domain in SES, AWS credentials, tracking domain. New SES accounts start in sandbox mode, so request production access on day one.
Connect the store
Install the WooCommerce plugin and connect your account from the Marketing menu. It imports your catalog and order history, so purchase segments work from day one. Past customers are not added as subscribers. Details in connect your store.
Turn on the flows
Abandoned cart, welcome, back in stock and post purchase ship as ready-made workflows; MailPoet automations are rebuilt, not imported. Start with the abandoned cart flow and test it with a real cart.
Switch MailPoet off in the right order
Turn off MailPoet's checkout opt-in and pause its automations before you turn ours on, so nobody gets two emails. If MailPoet delivers your WooCommerce order emails, move those to an SMTP provider first: MailingPlatform does not send order emails.
Plan an afternoon for the list and the store, plus whatever time AWS takes to approve your Amazon SES account.
When to stay on MailPoet
Under 10,000 subscribers and a few sends a month? Stay on MailPoet. We would rather write that than waste your afternoon. The move pays off in specific situations, and these two lists are meant to tell you which one you are in.
MailPoet is the right call if
- Your list is small. 10,000 subscribers cost 80 on MailPoet Business (USD or EUR, same number) against €129 here. Up to 10,000, MailPoet is cheaper at every size except 2,501 to 3,000, where our €39 sits below 55 for Business and 44 for Creator.
- You are under 500 subscribers. MailPoet's free Starter plan covers 500 subscribers and 5,000 emails a month. Ours is free up to 100 active subscribers.
- You want everything in wp-admin with your list in your own database, and you do not want an AWS account. MailPoet Business bundles its own Sending Service.
- You send a lot to a small list. MailPoet Business has no per-send cost on its Sending Service.
- You rely on MailPoet's post notification emails or its WooCommerce email customizer. We do not replace those.
- You want to stay inside WordPress and pay once a year. A self-hosted plugin like FluentCRM may fit better than either of us.
Moving starts to make sense when
- Your list sits between 10,001 and 25,000 (MailPoet Business 140 to 200 against €129 here) or above 50,000 (Business 430 and up against €299 up to 100,000). Creator, without sending included, stays below €129 up to 15,000 subscribers.
- Your MailPoet count is padded. MailPoet counts Subscribed, Inactive and Unconfirmed contacts plus the WordPress Users and WooCommerce Customers lists, and by default moves contacts to Inactive after 12 months without engagement, where they still count.
- You want back in stock and product view triggers. Neither is in MailPoet's documented trigger list. Both are in ours.
- You want revenue attribution per email and every automation on every plan. On MailPoet, detailed WooCommerce purchasing statistics are a paid feature.
- You want unique per-recipient discount codes in one-off campaigns. MailPoet generates unique codes in automation emails and uses one shared code in a regular newsletter. See unique store coupons.
- You want sending, queues and reports to run on a platform instead of your web host.
A MailPoet alternative, side by side
The six differences that decide the move. Larger stores often weigh the Klaviyo alternative page as well.
| Topic | MailPoet | MailingPlatform |
|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | A plugin inside WordPress. Lists and campaigns live in your own site database. | A hosted platform in EU data centres. A WooCommerce plugin connects the store. |
| Free plan | Starter: 500 subscribers and 5,000 emails a month, with MailPoet branding. | 100 active subscribers, every feature, no time limit. See free tier and trial. |
| Who counts | Subscribed, Inactive and Unconfirmed contacts, plus the WordPress Users and WooCommerce Customers lists. | Active, emailable subscribers. Unsubscribed, bounced and suppressed contacts are free. |
| Sending | MailPoet Sending Service on Starter, Business and Agency. Creator sends through your host or an SMTP service. | Your own Amazon SES account, billed by AWS at $0.10 to $0.16 per 1,000 emails. No platform send cap. |
| Abandoned cart and store triggers | Abandoned cart for logged-in or cookied visitors, first purchase, purchased product, order status, review posted. | Cart abandoned with cart contents, order created, fulfilled, cancelled, customer created, back in stock, product viewed. Full trigger list. |
| Order emails | Customizes and delivers WooCommerce transactional emails. | Not offered. Marketing email only. |
Swipe to see all columns
MailPoet figures: mailpoet.com and kb.mailpoet.com, read 30 September 2026.
What you give up
- You give up the all-in-WordPress setup. Your list, campaigns and reports move to a hosted platform.
- You take on an Amazon SES account. MailPoet Business handles sending for you.
- You give up MailPoet's post notification emails and the WooCommerce email customizer. MailingPlatform does marketing email only.
The pricing difference
MailPoet bills by subscriber tier and, on Business, includes sending. We bill by audience band with flat rate email marketing pricing and you pay AWS for delivery. Neither is cheaper everywhere, so here is where each one wins.
MailPoet counts every contact with status Subscribed, Unconfirmed or Inactive, including the WordPress Users and WooCommerce Customers lists (plans and limits). Unsubscribed and bounced addresses are excluded. Over the limit, the Sending Service and the Premium plugin are blocked while the subscription stays billed, so MailPoet suggests deleting old Unconfirmed and Inactive contacts.
Only active, emailable subscribers count toward your plan. Unsubscribed, bounced and suppressed contacts are free. That is the whole rule, and it is why a padded MailPoet count often lands one band lower here.
MailPoet's published prices for monthly billing, read on mailpoet.com on 30 September 2026. MailPoet shows the same figures in US dollars and euros, so no conversion is applied, and its selector does not spell out the band rule, so a list of 2,600 is read as the 5,000 tier. MailingPlatform in euros excluding VAT. The AWS column is US dollars, an illustration and not a quote.
| Subscribers | MailPoet Business, monthly | MailPoet Creator, monthly | MailPoet Business, yearly (per month) | MailingPlatform, monthly | Amazon SES, paid to AWS, at 4 emails per subscriber a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 500 | 10 Free (Starter) | 8 | 9 | €39 | $0.20 to $0.32 |
| 1,500 | 20 | 16 | 17 | €39 | $0.60 to $0.96 |
| 2,500 | 30 | 24 | 26 | €39 | $1.00 to $1.60 |
| 5,000 | 55 | 44 | 47 | €129 | $2.00 to $3.20 |
| 10,000 | 80 | 64 | 68 | €129 | $4.00 to $6.40 |
| 15,000 | 140 | 110 | 120 | €129 | $6.00 to $9.60 |
| 25,000 | 200 | 160 | 170 | €129 | $10 to $16 |
| 50,000 | 290 | 230 | 245 | €299 | $20 to $32 |
| 100,000 | 550 | 440 | 470 | €299 | $40 to $64 |
Swipe to see all columns
Sticker prices, monthly billing, before AWS:
- Up to 2,500 subscribers: MailPoet is cheaper (Business 10 to 30 against 39).
- 2,501 to 3,000: we are cheaper (39 against 55 for Business and 44 for Creator).
- 3,001 to 10,000: MailPoet is cheaper (Business 55 to 80 against 129).
- 10,001 to 25,000: we are cheaper (Business 140 to 200 against 129). Against Creator we are cheaper only from 15,001 (135 and 160 against 129).
- 25,001 to 50,000: MailPoet is cheaper (Business 230 to 290 against 299).
- 50,001 to 100,000: we are cheaper (Business 430 and 550 against 299).
Over a year at 25,000 subscribers, that is 200 x 12 = 2,400 on MailPoet Business against 129 x 12 = €1,548 here; at 100,000 it is 550 x 12 = 6,600 against 299 x 12 = €3,588, before the AWS bill in both cases.
That is not a clean win for us, and we would rather you see it before you sign up.
MailPoet Business: Sending Service included, no send cap. MailPoet Creator: you pay whoever sends, your host, SMTP or Amazon SES. MailingPlatform: your own Amazon SES account, billed by AWS at $0.10 to $0.16 per 1,000 emails. We add no send cap and no overage; the AWS bill is the only volume cost.
- MailPoet prices: mailpoet.com/pricing, monthly billing, read 30 September 2026. Yearly billing is up to 15 percent cheaper (fourth column). MailPoet does not state VAT treatment on its pricing page.
- MailingPlatform prices are in euros, excluding VAT, monthly billing. Yearly billing is about 20 percent less and is not in the table.
- Sending on MailingPlatform runs through your own Amazon SES account, billed separately by AWS. AWS lists $0.10 to $0.16 per 1,000 emails depending on the SES plan, so 100,000 emails a month is $10 to $16.
- MailPoet Business includes the MailPoet Sending Service. Creator does not, and the free Starter plan is capped at 5,000 emails a month.
Worked examples
Per month, MailPoet on monthly billing, AWS in US dollars. None of these is typical; they are examples, and two of them go MailPoet's way.
MailPoet Starter: free, and 3,000 is under the 5,000 emails a month cap. MailingPlatform: €39 plus AWS $0.30 to $0.48 (3 x $0.10; 3 x $0.16).
At this size, stay on MailPoet.
MailPoet Business €30 (MailPoet publishes euro prices too), Creator 24 plus your own sending. MailingPlatform €39 plus AWS $1.00 to $1.60. Gap against Business: 39 - 30 = 9 a month, 108 a year in MailPoet's favour, before AWS.
At 2,500 subscribers MailPoet is the cheaper option.
Say 20,000 Subscribed contacts, plus 1,800 Inactive or Unconfirmed, plus 400 WordPress users and WooCommerce customers. MailPoet counts 22,200, which lands in the 25,000 tier at Business 200. MailingPlatform is €129 up to 25,000 active subscribers. Gap 200 - 129 = 71 a month, 852 a year.
Clean the list first, as MailPoet suggests, and the tier is 20,000 at Business 170: gap 41 a month, 492 a year. AWS for 80,000 emails: $8.00 to $12.80 a month.
Heavy sending. MailPoet Business 80 with the Sending Service included and no per-send meter. MailingPlatform €129 plus Amazon SES $30 to $48 (300 x $0.10; 300 x $0.16). MailPoet is cheaper by 129 - 80 = 49 a month, 588 a year before AWS, and by more after it.
Having no send cap on our side does not beat a flat Business plan on a list under 10,000.
Amazon SES is billed separately by AWS. All prices read 30 September 2026.
Fair questions about leaving
Yes, by CSV. In MailPoet open Subscribers, then Export, pick your lists and download email, first name, last name and status. Import the file into a list here and map the status column so unsubscribed contacts stay unsubscribed. Try ten rows first. Imported subscribers get no confirmation email.
Subscribers, custom fields and status move by CSV. Your automations and email templates do not, so you rebuild them. Our ready-made abandoned cart, welcome, back in stock and post purchase flows cover the usual ones. Plan an afternoon, plus the time AWS takes to approve your Amazon SES account.
Yes. Delivery runs through your own Amazon SES account and AWS bills the volume, currently $0.10 to $0.16 per 1,000 emails. Setup means verifying your domain, creating AWS credentials and asking AWS to lift the sandbox on a new account. MailPoet Business asks none of this, because it sends through its own service.
It depends on your list. On monthly billing, MailPoet Business is cheaper up to 2,500 subscribers, from 3,001 to 10,000 and from 25,001 to 50,000. We are cheaper from 2,501 to 3,000, from 10,001 to 25,000 and from 50,001 to 100,000. Add the AWS bill on our side.
They are not imported as subscribers. Our WooCommerce plugin brings in your product catalog and order history so segments work, but past customers stay out of your list. MailPoet's own guide says placing an order is not an opt-in, so import only people who agreed to hear from you.
No. MailingPlatform sends marketing email only, on purpose. If MailPoet's Sending Service also delivers your order confirmations, move those to an SMTP provider before you switch MailPoet off. Order emails are the one WooCommerce job that stays outside MailingPlatform.
MailPoet's Starter plan is free for up to 500 subscribers and 5,000 emails a month, with MailPoet branding. Ours is free for up to 100 active subscribers, with every feature and no time limit. Paid plans start with a 14-day trial, no card. Sending here needs your own Amazon SES account.
Looking at other platforms too?
We keep an honest migration guide for every major platform, including what does not carry over and when staying put is the better call.
Keep your site. Move the email.
Start the free trial, import your MailPoet export, connect your store, and see what the numbers look like on your own list. Sending runs through your own Amazon SES account, billed separately by AWS.
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