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Part of How to Evaluate Digital Marketing Platforms
Free digital marketing platforms compared on limits and lock-in
Free digital marketing platforms differ most on contact caps, send limits and data retention, so compare those terms before you commit a workflow.
What to take away
- The free tiers below differ less on features than on capscontact counts, monthly sends, user seats, and retention windows.
- Brevo Free, MailerLite Free, Mailchimp Free and Zoho Campaigns Free all cap stored contacts, so a list that outgrows the cap forces a paid jump or a purge.
- MailerLite Free stops at 1,000 subscribers and Mailchimp Free at 500 contacts. Both are hard walls: sending stops until you upgrade or remove people.
- Google Analytics 4 free has no hard event cap but samples and expires data, which breaks year-over-year comparisons.
- HubSpot Free has no contact cap and no expiry, but removes marketing email, so the exit cost sits in the upgrade, not the tool.
- Lock-in lives in exports, API access and domain ownership, not in the price.
Free tier limits, retention and exit terms
The eight free tiers below cover email, search and behavior data. They separate on three terms: the cap, the retention window, and the export path.
Free tier limits and lock-in
HubSpot
- Free limit
- No contact cap
- Retention
- Until deleted
- Exit
- CSV contacts
MailerLite
- Free limit
- 1,000 subscribers
- Retention
- While active
- Exit
- CSV only
GA4
- Free limit
- No event cap
- Retention
- 14 months
- Exit
- BigQuery paid
Clarity
- Free limit
- Unlimited sessions
- Retention
- 30 days
- Exit
- No bulk export
The figures come from vendor pricing pages as published in August 2026. Vendors change caps without notice, so confirm each one before you build a workflow on it.
Free tier limit
- HubSpot Free
- No contact cap; 2 users; marketing email removed
- Brevo Free
- Stored-contact allowance tied to plan; free plan sends about 300 emails a day
- MailerLite Free
- 1,000 subscribers; 12,000 emails/month
- Mailchimp Free
- 500 contacts; 1,000 sends/month; one audience
- Zoho Campaigns Free
- 2,000 subscribers; 6,000 emails/month
- Google Analytics 4
- No hard event cap; standard property
- Google Search Console
- 1,000 rows per report; 16 months history
- Microsoft Clarity
- Unlimited sessions; no session cap published
Data retention
- HubSpot Free
- Contacts kept until deleted
- Brevo Free
- Contacts kept while the account is active
- MailerLite Free
- Subscribers kept while active
- Mailchimp Free
- Contacts kept while active
- Zoho Campaigns Free
- Contacts kept while active
- Google Analytics 4
- Event data expires (14 months default)
- Google Search Console
- 16 months
- Microsoft Clarity
- 30 days default, configurable
Exit terms
- HubSpot Free
- CSV export of contacts; workflows and custom objects stay behind paid tiers
- Brevo Free
- CSV export; suppression list exportable
- MailerLite Free
- CSV export; automation history not portable
- Mailchimp Free
- CSV export of audience; saved segments rebuild by hand
- Zoho Campaigns Free
- CSV export of contacts and reports
- Google Analytics 4
- BigQuery export needs paid 360 or a linked project
- Google Search Console
- API and bulk export available
- Microsoft Clarity
- No bulk export; recordings expire
Which free tier fits which job:
- HubSpot Freebest for a CRM with no contact cap, where contacts stay until you delete them.
- Brevo Freebest for the cleanest exit, because the suppression list exports with the contacts.
- MailerLite Freebest for a list that will stay under 1,000 subscribers.
- Mailchimp Freebest for one small audience you plan to test and probably leave.
- Zoho Campaigns Freebest for the largest free subscriber allowance here, at 2,000 names.
- Google Analytics 4 freebest for traffic and event analysis inside a 14-month window.
- Google Search Consolebest for query-level organic data, with API and bulk export as the exit.
- Microsoft Claritybest for short-window session replays, not for archives.
An export is a file, not a copy of the account. Download the subscriber CSV and read the column headers: email, name, group and signup date are usually there, while automation triggers, custom field logic and open history are not. Rebuild each automation by hand before you cancel.
Search evidence: Search Console and GA4
Search Console is the only free source of query-level impressions, clicks and average position for a verified property. Its 1,000-row report limit means busy sites see sampled or truncated data, so treat it as directional. The API and bulk export are the exit path, and both are free.
GA4 free has no event cap, but standard properties apply sampling and a 14-month default retention window. That window is the lock-in term that matters: three years of cohort data will not fit in a free property.
BigQuery is the usual export route, and it sits outside the free tier. Google's free allowance covers the first 1 TB of queries and 10 GB of storage each month, so a small site often pays nothing. Larger volumes typically run a few dollars a month, a range that scales with query size.
Search Console data feeds the organic-search decisions covered in digital marketing platforms use cases.
Messaging: Brevo, MailerLite and Mailchimp
Brevo's published sending scale reaches 100,000 emails a day; the free plan itself sends about 300 a day. Stored contacts, not volume, are what constrain a growing list. Brevo separates transactional and marketing sending, and its suppression list exports, which makes it the easier of the two to leave.
MailerLite Free allows 1,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails a month. Automation history and subscriber tags do not travel in the CSV, so a migration rebuilds them by hand. Mailchimp Free holds 500 contacts and 1,000 sends a month, so a 2,000-name list leaves it quickly.
Both vendors apply their own branding to free-tier sends. That affects deliverability and how the message looks to recipients, so weigh a paid tier if the branding matters.
HubSpot Free and the upgrade trap
HubSpot Free has no contact cap and no data expiry, which makes it the strongest free CRM on this list.
The catch: marketing email, workflows and custom objects sit behind paid tiers.
A team that imports 40,000 contacts into the free CRM and then needs a nurture sequence faces a jump to a paid seat and contact tier, not a small step.
HubSpot lists Marketing Hub Starter from about USD 15 a month, per 1,000 marketing contacts, and that is US pricing. The rate climbs as the contact tier grows.
That is the pricing trap worth mapping before you commit. Compare the paid jump against the free ceiling in digital marketing platforms pricing before you import a list you cannot easily move.
Behavior analysis: Microsoft Clarity
Clarity records sessions, builds heatmaps and flags rage clicks at no cost, with no published session cap.
Retention is the trade. Recordings default to 30 days and there is no bulk export, so a session you want next quarter is gone unless you capture it as a screenshot or a note inside that window.
Mask sensitive fields and test consent behavior before you record real traffic.
Set an upgrade or exit trigger
- Capacitycontacts, sends, users or data volume crosses a published cap.
- Controlrequired roles, approvals, deletion or audit logs are unavailable on the free tier.
- Evidencethe free product cannot export the data a business decision needs.
- Economicsmanual work and errors cost more than the paid tier.
- Retentionthe data window is shorter than your reporting cycle.
Keep organizational accounts, administrator recovery and domain ownership. Store exports and removal steps with the workflow they belong to, and write the trigger beside the exit path so the decision does not wait on memory.
Upgrade or exit triggers
- Capacitya published cap is crossed
- Controlroles, approvals, audit logs missing
- Evidenceneeded data cannot be exported
- Economicsmanual work costs more than paid
- Retentionwindow shorter than reporting cycle
Privacy and acquisition terms to check
The W3C Privacy Principles statement gives designers shared privacy concepts and warns against shifting privacy work onto individuals. Apply that test to free digital marketing platforms, then check the governing state law and your own configuration.
The CISA software acquisition fact sheet covers development practice, supply-chain exposure and vulnerability management.
Ask each vendor for a data processing agreement and a subprocessor list before the first import.
Common questions
Are free marketing platforms really free?
No subscription charge, but setup, data review, training, integrations and migration still consume money and time. The caps in the table above are where the real cost hides.
When should a free tool be upgraded?
Upgrade when a measured cap blocks a workflow you have decided to keep, and the paid tier passes your cost, recovery and exit tests. Not before.
When should a free tool be removed?
Remove it when the question it answered is closed, ownership is unclear, retention is shorter than your reporting cycle, or the export path is missing.
