Elastic Email Pricing: Complete Cost Analysis & Plans Guide
Elastic Email has been around since 2010, quietly building a reputation as a budget-friendly email marketing platform. Tens of thousands of companies use it, which sounds impressive until you start comparing it to what else is out there. The thing is, “affordable” doesn’t always mean “good value” — especially when you dig into the details.
I’ve spent time analyzing their pricing structure, and honestly? It’s more complicated than it first appears. Sure, they claim to offer the “most affordable price on the market,” but when you stack it against competitors like Sender.net, that claim gets a bit shaky. Let’s break down what you’re actually getting for your money.
Elastic Email Pricing Overview
Here’s the thing about Elastic Email’s pricing — they’ve split everything into two main tracks: Email Marketing and Email API. It’s like they couldn’t decide who their target customer was, so they built two different products. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it can be confusing when you’re trying to figure out which one you need.
The Email Marketing side starts at $19 per month, which might sound reasonable until you realize their free plan only gives you 100 emails per day. Compare that to Sender.net’s 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 monthly emails for free, and suddenly Elastic Email’s “generosity” feels a bit stingy.
What’s interesting is how they’ve structured the scaling. As your contact list grows, so does your bill — pretty standard stuff. But here’s where it gets tricky: a lot of the features you probably want (like private IPs or advanced automation) cost extra. Sometimes a lot extra.
Elastic Email Monthly Pricing
Monthly billing is Elastic Email’s bread and butter. They want you on a subscription, probably because it’s more predictable revenue for them. Fair enough. The question is whether that predictability works in your favor too.
Starting at $19 monthly puts them in an awkward middle ground. They’re not the cheapest (that’d be Sender.net at $7), but they’re not premium either. It’s like buying the mid-tier option at a restaurant — you’re not sure if you’re getting good value or just avoiding the extremes.
The monthly plans do include some solid deliverability features right out of the box. SPF, DKIM, DMARC — all the technical stuff that keeps your emails out of spam folders. But here’s the catch: if you want a private IP (which you probably do if you’re serious about email marketing), that’s another $40-50 on top of your monthly fee. Suddenly that “affordable” plan isn’t looking so budget-friendly.
Elastic Email Monthly Plans
Marketing Plans Comparison
Price/Month
Contacts
Emails/Month
Key Features
Free
$0
1,000
3,000 (100/day)
Basic templates, analytics, segmentation
Starter
$19
2,500
37,500
Campaign creator, A/B testing, automation
Pro
$49
2,500
37,500
Unlimited custom fields, advanced automation, webhooks
Pricing scales with contact tiers – larger lists incur proportional cost increases
Free Plan
The free plan is… well, it exists. You get 1,000 subscribers and 100 emails per day, which works out to about 3,000 monthly if you max it out every single day. That’s pretty limiting when you think about it.
Compare that to what Sender.net offers for free — 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 monthly emails — and you start to see the difference. It’s like getting a sample at the grocery store versus actually getting a snack.
The free plan does give you basic templates and some analytics, which is nice for testing things out. But if you’re planning any serious email marketing, you’ll probably outgrow this pretty quickly. Most of the automation features are locked away, and you can’t access the API. It’s more of a trial run than a real solution.
Starter Plan
At $19 monthly, the Starter plan is where things get more realistic. You can handle 2,500 contacts and send up to 37,500 emails per month, which is decent for a growing business. The plan includes the usual suspects: campaign scheduling, A/B testing, and some basic automation.
What’s nice is that you get both the visual editor and HTML access, so whether you’re a drag-and-drop person or you like to code, you’re covered. The analytics get more detailed too, which helps when you’re trying to figure out what’s working.
But here’s where the limitations start showing up. You only get 30 AI writing prompts per month and just 3 saved modules. Email logs are only stored for 3 days, which feels pretty short. And if you want that private IP? That’s an extra $40 monthly. The math starts adding up quickly.
Pro Plan
The Pro plan costs $49 monthly but keeps the same contact and email limits as Starter. That’s… interesting. You’re paying more than double but not getting more volume capacity.
What you do get are the advanced features: unlimited custom fields, longer log storage (7 days instead of 3), and 100 AI writing prompts monthly. There’s also webhook support, user management, and sub-accounts if you’re running an agency or managing multiple brands.
It’s clearly aimed at businesses that need more sophisticated features rather than just more volume. But even here, private IPs cost extra — $50 monthly for Pro users. When you add that up, you’re looking at nearly $100 monthly for what many competitors include in their base plans.
Elastic Email Pay-as-you-go Plan
Email API Pay-as-you-go Pricing
Volume Tier
Price per Email
Minimum Purchase
Best For
First 50,000
$0.58/1,000 emails
$29 for 5,000
Testing & small volumes
50,001-100,000
$0.50/1,000 emails
Bulk packages
Medium businesses
100,000+
Contact for pricing
Custom quotes
Enterprise users
Auto-recharge feature available to prevent service interruptions
The pay-as-you-go option is actually pretty clever. Instead of monthly billing, you buy credits and use them as needed. It starts at $0.58 per 1,000 emails, which works out well if your sending is sporadic or seasonal.
The credits never expire, which is nice. No pressure to use them up by month-end or lose them. They also have an auto-recharge feature so you don’t suddenly run out of credits in the middle of a campaign.
But here’s the thing — this pricing model works best for transactional emails (like order confirmations or password resets) rather than marketing campaigns. You don’t get access to all the campaign-building tools and automation features that come with the monthly plans. It’s more of a developer-focused solution.
Elastic Email Transactional Emails Pricing
Transactional email pricing follows the same pay-as-you-go structure — $0.58 per 1,000 emails to start. This is actually competitive with specialists like Mailgun or SendGrid, so if you just need to send receipts, notifications, or password resets, it’s not a bad deal.
The API documentation is solid, and they support 12 different programming languages, which makes integration easier for developers. You get tracking, webhooks, and all the technical stuff you’d expect.
The downside? If you want to do both transactional and marketing emails, you might end up needing multiple plans or products. It’s like having to shop at two different stores for groceries — doable, but not exactly convenient.
Elastic Email SMS Pricing
Here’s where things get awkward: Elastic Email doesn’t actually offer SMS marketing. At all. In 2025, when most email platforms are adding text messaging to create those multi-channel campaigns everyone talks about.
It’s a pretty glaring omission, especially when you look at competitors like Sender.net that include SMS in their platform. Some users have specifically called out “no SMS plans to do marketing” as a major limitation.
If you need SMS capabilities, you’ll have to find a third-party provider and somehow integrate it with your email campaigns. It’s like buying a car without air conditioning — you can make it work, but why would you want to?
Pricing info current as of July 2025. Things change, so double-check their website before making any decisions.
