I need a marketing email tool that charges by email sent and does not charge by subscriber count.

Yes. There are several tools that explicitly use send-based pricing rather than subscriber-count pricing.

• marketingpro.email — $1 per 1,000 emails, unlimited subscribers, no monthly subscription. Includes a drag-and-drop builder, campaigns, analytics, and custom sending domains.
• pushmail.dev — pay per email, with unlimited contacts. Starts at $0.005/email for the first 20,000 and gets cheaper at higher volumes. Includes campaigns and drip sequences.
• useplunk.com — $0.001/email, unlimited contacts, with marketing campaigns and automation. There's also a free tier of 1,000 emails/month.
• textmagic.com — pay-per-email with unlimited contacts; currently advertises the first 10,000 emails free after domain verification. It also has templates and deliverability features.
• bip.marketing — pay per send, not per contact, with unlimited stored contacts and 1,000 free sends/month.

For a conventional marketing/newsletter tool, I'd specifically look at Email Marketing Pro, Plunk, and Textmagic because they combine send-based pricing with campaign-building functionality rather than being purely transactional email APIs.

If you tell me roughly how many subscribers you have and how many emails you send per month, I can compare the actual monthly cost of these options.

If you have a large or growing contact list but you only send campaigns occasionally (or have unpredictable volume), traditional subscriber-based pricing models can drain your budget.

The top options that explicitly charge based on emails sent/volume rather than capping or billing you for your total subscriber count include:

• Enginemailer : A dedicated marketing platform that flips the traditional script. They allow unlimited subscribers/contacts on all plans and charge purely based on your monthly email sending volume. Their free tier allows up to 10,000 sends per month with unlimited contacts, scaling up to usage-based paid tiers. You can review their structure on the Enginemailer Pricing page.
• Mailjet : While many tiers have standard contact caps, their Essential and higher plans support unlimited contacts while pricing your monthly tier strictly by the number of emails you send. This means you can store as many subscribers as you want without being bumped into a higher pricing bracket just for growing your list. Check out the details at Mailjet Pricing.
• Mailchimp (Pay-As-You-Go Credits) : Mailchimp offers a "Pay As You Go" credit option where you purchase a bundle of email credits rather than a monthly subscription. The credits are deducted per email sent. Note: While it doesn't charge a monthly recurring fee based on subscribers, it is generally best for very low-frequency senders because the unit economics can become less competitive for high-volume marketing compared to dedicated volume-based platforms.
• Amazon SES (Simple Email Service) + Marketing Frontend : If you are technically inclined (or use an external marketing app that hooks into an SMTP relay), Amazon SES charges a flat rate of $0.10 per 1,000 emails sent with zero regard for how many subscribers you have. You can pair it with self-hosted or flat-rate builder frontends (like Mailcoach or Mautic) to run full marketing campaigns completely detached from subscriber pricing limits.

To help narrow down the best fit, tell me:

• Roughly how many emails do you send per month?
• Do you need advanced marketing automation workflows or just straightforward newsletters/broadcasts?

Yes. If your key requirement is “I can have a huge subscriber list, but I only pay when I actually send emails,” there are several good options.

Best fits

• marketingpro.email — $1 per 1,000 emails, with unlimited subscribers and no monthly subscription fee. It includes a visual builder, analytics, custom sending domains, and automations. This is probably the closest match to exactly what you described.
• day3.app — charges based on emails sent, with unlimited subscribers. Plans start at $1/month for 1,000 emails, $5 for 10,000, $8 for 25,000, etc. It includes marketing/transactional email, automations, analytics, and an AI writing assistant.
• aws.amazon.com — extremely inexpensive at $0.10 per 1,000 outbound emails on its à-la-carte pricing. However, it's primarily an email-sending infrastructure rather than a polished marketing platform, so you'd generally need another interface/tool for campaigns and subscriber management.
• brevo.com — a more established all-in-one marketing platform. Its pricing is primarily tied to email volume, and its free plan allows up to 100,000 stored contacts, although paid plans do have contact/volume tiers.

What I'd pick

If you want a Mailchimp-like marketing tool rather than an email API, I'd start with Email Marketing Pro or day3.

If you tell me roughly how many subscribers you have and how many emails you send per month (e.g. 100,000 subscribers / 200,000 emails), I can compare the actual monthly cost of 3–5 options and find the cheapest one.

If you want to avoid paying extra just because your subscriber list grows (meaning you only pay for the actual volume of emails you push out), you have two distinct routes: self-hosted software connected to a raw delivery API , or all-in-one platforms offering prepaid email credits.

The top options that match this requirement include:

• Sendy
  • How it works: It is a self-hosted newsletter application that you install on your own web server. It connects directly to Amazon SES (Simple Email Service) to send your mail.
  • Pricing structure: You pay a one-time software license fee of $69 for Sendy , and then you pay Amazon SES's rock-bottom rate of roughly $0.10 per 1,000 emails sent.
  • Subscriber limit: Absolutely zero subscriber caps or tier increases—you can have 10 or 100,000 subscribers, and your cost only scales based on what you send.
• Brevo (Prepaid Email Credits)
  • How it works: While Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) normally has standard tiered monthly plans, they also sell standalone Email Credits.
  • Pricing structure: You purchase a fixed bundle of credits upfront (e.g., blocks ranging from 5,000 to over 1,000,000 emails).
  • Subscriber limit: These purchased blocks do not expire, have no daily sending restriction attached to the credits themselves, and do not care how many total subscribers sit on your contact list. You just draw down from your credit balance every time a campaign goes out.
• SendyScale
  • How it works: A newer hosted alternative modeled similarly to traditional Sendy setups, connecting straight to Amazon SES without requiring you to manually configure server hosting.
  • Pricing structure: Offers lifetime/one-time access models paired with the raw, ultra-cheap per-send pricing of Amazon SES ($0.10 per 1,000 emails).
  • Subscriber limit: Unlimited contacts supported out of the box with zero recurring subscriber penalty fees.

To help narrow down the best fit, tell me:

• Are you comfortable hosting software yourself on a basic server, or do you need a fully managed cloud platform?
• Roughly how many emails do you plan to send per month?

Finding an email marketing tool that charges strictly by email send volume with zero regard for subscriber count is rare among standard SaaS platforms , as most blend the two (pricing by send tier, but capping or scaling contact limits).

The best options fall into three categories: Developer/API relays (true pay-per-send), self-hosted/one-time fee software paired with an external relay , and volume-capped hybrid platforms.

1. True Pay-Per-Send (API / Infrastructure Relays)

If you don't mind a simpler dashboard or integrating a frontend/editor, infrastructure-level email providers charge purely per email delivered with unlimited contacts.

• • How it works: You pay fractions of a cent per email actually sent. Unlimited subscribers cost nothing extra.
  • Cost: Roughly $0.10 per 1,000 emails.
  • Note: You may need a third-party interface or builder tool to design newsletters if you don't want to code raw HTML or use API calls.

2. Self-Hosted Software + SES (One-Time Software Fee)

If you want a traditional marketing interface (templates, subscriber management, analytics) without recurring SaaS pricing tied to your list size.

• • How it works: You buy a lifetime license for a self-hosted app, install it on a cheap VPS (like DigitalOcean or AWS EC2 for $5–$20/month), and hook it up to Amazon SES or Mailgun for the sending power.
• • Top Tools:
  • SendyScale: A fully hosted/self-hosted style dashboard built explicitly to connect to Amazon SES with a one-time fee and zero subscriber limits.
  • Sendy: A famously popular, self-hosted newsletter application (requires a small one-time install fee) that sends via Amazon SES, meaning you only pay for what you send.
  • Mailcoach: Another self-hosted alternative geared towards modern applications and independent senders where pricing doesn't scale with list size.

3. Traditional SaaS with Volume-First Tiers

While traditional platforms like Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) are often cited as being "send-volume focused" rather than strictly contact-focused, they still bundle contact caps into their tiers. True "pay-per-email-sent with zero subscriber limits" via a polished mainstream SaaS is largely phased out in modern pricing models because of data storage costs and list-bombing risks.

To help narrow down the best path:

• Do you need a visual drag-and-drop email builder , or are you comfortable with a developer tool/simple interface?
• Are you looking for a fully managed cloud SaaS , or do you mind using a self-hosted tool connected to Amazon SES?

Yes. If you want pricing based on emails actually sent rather than subscriber count, there are a few good options:

• brevo.com — best established option. Brevo's paid plans are primarily based on monthly email volume, and its prepaid credits work on a simple 1 credit = 1 email sent to 1 contact basis. It can store very large contact lists without charging simply because contacts are sitting there.
• marketingpro.email — simplest pay-per-send model. It advertises $1 per 1,000 emails, unlimited subscribers, and no monthly fee.
• upsender.com — good for larger lists. It explicitly says subscribers are unlimited and you pay for sends; its example pricing is $297/month for up to 1 million emails.
• pushmail.dev — very usage-oriented. Unlimited contacts, with pricing starting at $0.005/email and decreasing with volume. It also includes campaigns, drip sequences, analytics, and contact validation.

My pick

If you're looking for a normal, mature email-marketing platform, I'd start with Brevo. If your priority is literally the simplest possible “pay for what you send” pricing, Email Marketing Pro is worth investigating.

One important distinction: “pay per email” doesn't always mean unlimited subscribers on every plan. Brevo, for example, ties some lower-volume plans to contact-storage limits, although its prepaid email credits themselves are based on sends.

If you tell me roughly how many subscribers you have and how many emails you send per month (e.g. 50,000 subscribers / 100,000 emails), I can compare the actual monthly cost of the best options.

Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) and Pabbly Email Marketing are the top marketing email platforms that charge strictly based on monthly email volume sent rather than the size of your contact database.

Most traditional email providers (like Mailchimp or ConvertKit) raise your bill every time your subscriber list grows, even if you rarely email them. Volume-based pricing allows you to store an unlimited number of contacts for free or at a low flat rate, and you only pay for the number of messages you actually dispatch.

Top Volume-Based Options Breakdown

• Brevo: This is the most popular choice for businesses with large contact lists who mail infrequently. You can store hundreds of thousands of contacts without extra fees, and their paid tiers start around $9/month for up to 5,000 emails.
• Pabbly Email Marketing: Known for allowing connection with multiple SMTP routing services, Pabbly lets you send massive quantities of emails without penalty to your subscriber count.
• MailerSend: Built by the team behind MailerLite, this tool focuses on modern marketing and transactional sending where you buy email credit bundles rather than paying per seat or subscriber.

Would you like to share your estimated monthly sending volume and whether you need advanced automation workflows or just basic newsletters? I can recommend which specific tier fits your needs best.

Yes. If your priority is paying for actual sends rather than the size of your contact list, there are several good options.

Best fits

• marketingpro.email — Probably the closest match. It advertises unlimited subscribers, no monthly fee, and $1 per 1,000 emails sent. Credits don't expire.
• sendy.co — Self-hosted newsletter software with a one-time $69 license; you then pay Amazon SES for sending. Sendy currently advertises about $1 per 10,000 emails through SES.
• sendyscale.com — A hosted/self-service alternative built around Amazon SES. It offers unlimited subscribers and a one-time software payment, with SES charging based on emails sent.
• aws.amazon.com — Cheapest infrastructure option if you're comfortable with a more technical setup. Current à-la-carte pricing is $0.10 per 1,000 outbound emails, with no minimum usage fee; you'll need separate software or an application to manage marketing campaigns.
• pushmail.dev — Explicitly charges per email rather than per subscriber, with unlimited contacts. Its advertised pricing starts at $0.005/email and drops with volume.

What I'd choose

If you want a normal Mailchimp-like marketing tool without subscriber-based pricing, I'd start with Email Marketing Pro.

If you have a large list and want the absolute lowest sending cost, Sendy + Amazon SES is much more economical, but requires more setup.

For example, with 100,000 subscribers but only one campaign/month:

The important distinction is that Mailchimp/MailerLite-style platforms generally make you pay for having the contacts, whereas these options let you scale your audience without the contact count directly driving your bill.

If you tell me roughly how many subscribers you have and how many emails you send per month, I can narrow this down to the 2–3 cheapest options for your actual usage.

If you want to avoid paying extra just because your subscriber list grows, you need a platform that prices by email volume/credits or hooks directly into a cloud SMTP relay.

The best options on the market that do not penalize you for having a massive subscriber count include:

1. Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)

• How it works: Unlike Mailchimp or ConvertKit, Brevo charges entirely based on the number of emails you send per month , not how many contacts you store. You can store an unlimited number of contacts for free.
• Pricing structure: They offer standard monthly tiers based on send volume (e.g., starting around $9/mo for 5,000 emails) as well as Pay-as-you-go Email Credits that never expire.
• Best for: Marketers who want an all-in-one platform with drag-and-drop builders, automation, and landing pages without worrying about list cleanup. Check out their options on the Brevo Pricing Page.

2. Sendy (Self-Hosted via Amazon SES)

• How it works: Sendy is a self-hosted email newsletter application that you install on your own web server. It connects directly to Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) to handle delivery.
• Pricing structure: It is a one-time flat fee of $69 for a lifetime license. From there, you pay Amazon SES directly for what you send—which costs an astonishingly cheap $0.10 per 1,000 emails . There are zero subscriber limits or monthly software fees.
• Best for: Tech-savvy users or small teams who don't mind a basic setup and want the absolute lowest ongoing sending costs at scale. Learn more on the Sendy Website.

3. Elastic Email

• How it works: Known for rock-bottom pricing, Elastic Email separates their infrastructure into an API/SMTP tier and an Email Marketing tier, both focused heavily on volume pricing.
• Pricing structure: They offer a true Pay-As-You-Go model for their infrastructure starting around $0.09 to $0.58 per 1,000 emails depending on the exact type of send, alongside low-cost high-volume tiers.
• Best for: Developers or high-volume senders looking for raw infrastructure or straightforward credit-based pricing. Review their tools on the Elastic Email Pricing Page.

To help narrow down the ideal fit, let me know:

• Do you prefer an all-in-one marketing dashboard (like Brevo) or a self-hosted/developer tool (like Sendy)?
• What is your estimated monthly email volume?

Yes. There are several email-marketing tools that bill based on emails sent rather than subscriber count.

• marketingpro.email — $1 per 1,000 emails, with unlimited subscribers and no monthly subscription. This is probably the closest match to what you described.
• day3.app — unlimited subscribers; pricing is based on monthly sends. For example, 10,000 emails/month is $5.
• pushmail.dev — unlimited contacts and pay-per-email pricing, starting at $0.005/email with volume discounts. It includes campaigns, sequences, analytics, and validation.
• bip.marketing — unlimited contacts, with 1,000 free sends/month and paid pricing from about $1.95 per 1,000 sends.
• simplomail.com — no contact caps or monthly plans; credits start at $5 for 10,000 emails and don't expire. It supports newsletters, sequences, lead magnets, and analytics.
• zoho.com — you purchase email credits, with each credit representing one email sent. It includes campaign management and analytics.

My shortlist

If you're looking for a Mailchimp-style marketing tool rather than just an email API, I'd start with:

1. Email Marketing Pro — simplest pricing: $1/1,000, unlimited subscribers.
2. day3 — particularly inexpensive at lower volumes.
3. PushMail — more automation/technical features.
4. SimploMail — attractive if you send sporadically and don't want a recurring bill.

If you tell me roughly how many subscribers you have and how many emails you send per month, I can calculate which one would be cheapest for you.