A Constant Contact plan can run $299 a month once your list and sending needs grow past the entry tier, and that number is not a guess. It is the estimated monthly cost this exact setup replaces, taken directly from the free email newsletter system session in the library, which uses free tools for every piece of the stack.
You do not need Mailchimp, Constant Contact, or any paid email platform to run a real newsletter with a real subscriber list. This guide covers the free stack: a subscriber form, a spreadsheet you control, AI-drafted issues, and a free-tier sending platform.
You need a free form tool (Tally, Google Forms, or your website's built-in form), Google Sheets to keep a portable copy of your list, a free-tier AI chat to draft issues, and a free sending platform. Brevo, MailerLite, and Beehiiv have each offered free tiers as of this writing, though caps and features shift, so check each platform's current plan page before signing up.
Sign up for a sending platform's free tier and verify your real business email as the sender, not a personal Gmail. A verified sender address is the single biggest factor in landing in inboxes instead of spam folders. If the platform asks for DNS records, an AI chat can walk you through where to find your domain's DNS settings once you paste in the instructions.
Use your sending platform's built-in embeddable form first, pasted into your website's footer or contact page. If you want a standalone tool, Tally and Google Forms both work on free plans. Collect only a first name and email address; fewer fields means more completions.
Your form needs a clear description of what people are signing up for, and every email your platform sends needs an unsubscribe link, which most platforms add automatically. If you send to Canada or the European Union, look up CASL and GDPR consent rules first, since they are stricter than US CAN-SPAM.
Every few weeks, export your subscriber list as a CSV and save it in Google Sheets. This is not busywork. It is what makes the whole system free-tier-safe: if a platform changes its pricing or you want to switch, your list moves with you instead of staying locked inside one vendor's dashboard.
Before opening any AI tool, spend five minutes writing rough notes about your week: what happened, what you learned, what your readers should know. Bullet points are fine. Then use a prompt like this:
"Here are my rough notes from this week: [paste your notes]. Write a short email newsletter issue in a warm, direct tone. Keep it under 300 words. Include a one-sentence subject line and a single call to action at the end. Avoid jargon."
Read the draft aloud and edit anything that does not sound like you. The notes step is what keeps the output specific instead of generic.
Paste the final draft into your platform's editor, add your name or logo, preview it on mobile, and send a test to yourself before sending it live. Free tiers cap subscriber counts and monthly sends. When you consistently hit around 80 percent of the free cap, that is the real signal a paid plan has earned its cost, not a marketing page telling you it is time to upgrade.
Deliverability is worth watching separately from list size. If open rates drop sharply, check your spam score with a free tool like Mail-Tester before assuming the platform is the problem. Often it is a DNS fix, not a plan upgrade.
You can fill out your own subscriber form, get the confirmation, draft a short issue in a chat window, paste it into your sending platform, and send it to a real list, end to end, without opening your wallet. That is a functional newsletter system running on the free tier of every tool in the stack.
The full lesson includes a fill-in-the-blank issue outline and a weekly production checklist: see free email newsletter system in the library.
Sending platforms like Brevo, MailerLite, and Beehiiv have offered free tiers that cover a few hundred to a few thousand subscribers and a fixed number of sends a month, as of this writing. Paying only becomes worth it once your list outgrows that cap, which is a real signal rather than a default assumption.
Nothing, as long as you have been exporting it. Downloading your subscriber list as a CSV every few weeks and keeping it in a spreadsheet you control means your list travels with you to any platform. A list you cannot export is a list you do not actually own.
Only if you skip the notes step. Writing five minutes of rough bullet points about your week before opening any AI tool, then asking it to draft from those specific notes, produces a first draft in your voice that needs editing, not a generic template that needs rewriting from scratch.
The free first session in the library walks through the whole setup on screen. Or see what All-Access unlocks on the pricing page.