ChatGPT answers, unedited

Yes. For a tiny early-stage SaaS list, I’d shortlist these:

• mailerlite.com — my pick. Free up to 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails/month, and includes 3 visual automations. No credit card required. That’s enough for a straightforward SaaS onboarding sequence like signup → welcome → day 2 → day 5 → activation nudge. MailerLite MailerLite
• brevo.com — best if your list may grow quickly. Its free plan is free forever, requires no card, and allows unlimited contacts, with 300 emails/day. It supports marketing automation, though the more advanced/unlimited workflow capabilities are on paid tiers. Brevo Help Brevo
• kit.com — worth considering if you're more creator/newsletter-oriented. Its free subscriber allowance is generous, but I'd favor MailerLite for a SaaS onboarding flow because automation flexibility is the more important constraint.

What I'd choose

MailerLite, assuming you're under 250 users right now. It's unusually well matched to your situation: cheap-to-free, simple UI, forms, segmentation, and enough automation to build a proper onboarding sequence without immediately getting pushed into a paid plan. MailerLite

One caveat: MailerLite's free tier is currently 250 subscribers, not 1,000+ as some older comparison articles claim. MailerLite

For a SaaS, I'd set up something as simple as:

• Signup → Welcome / getting started
• Day 1 → Your first key action
• Day 3 → Quick tip / use case
• Day 7 → “Need help?” / activation nudge
• Activated → stop onboarding sequence

If you tell me roughly how many users you have (e.g. 50, 200, 500) and whether you need events from your app to trigger emails (e.g. “signed up but hasn't created a project”), I can tell you which free option fits best.

Yes. For an early-stage SaaS with a tiny list, I’d shortlist these:

• mailerlite.com — best fit for basic onboarding. Its free plan currently supports up to 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails/month, and 3 visual automations. It explicitly says no credit card required. You can trigger a workflow when someone joins a group, then add delays and follow-up emails—enough for a typical 3–5 email onboarding sequence. MailerLite MailerLite
• brevo.com — better if your list will grow quickly. The free plan has unlimited stored contacts, up to 300 emails/day, and marketing automation for up to 2,000 contacts, with no credit card required. Brevo Help Brevo
• kit.com — worth considering if you're more content/newsletter-led. It has a generous free subscriber allowance, but I'd favor MailerLite/Brevo for SaaS-style onboarding because their automation setup is a more natural fit.

What I'd pick

MailerLite, assuming you're comfortably below 250 users. It's unusually well matched to “tiny SaaS + simple onboarding”: signup → welcome email → wait 2 days → tips/use case → wait → activation nudge → exit when they convert.

One caveat: MailerLite's free subscriber limit is 250, not 500 or 1,000—the free tier has changed recently, so I'd use the current vendor pricing rather than older comparison articles. MailerLite

If you tell me roughly how many subscribers you have and what your onboarding sequence needs to do (e.g. “signup → Day 1 → Day 3 → if they haven't activated → nudge”), I can tell you which one I'd use and how I'd structure it.

For an early-stage SaaS with a tiny list, MailerLite would be my first pick.

Why I'd choose MailerLite

Its current free plan gives you 3 visual automations, signup forms, segmentation, and 2,500 emails/month, with no credit card required. The catch is the 250-active-subscriber limit. www.mailerlite.com

That's plenty for something like:

Signup → Welcome → Day 2 "getting started" → Day 5 tip → Day 10 check-in

You can also branch based on behavior, e.g. "Did they click the setup link?" and send different follow-ups.

Brevo is the other one I'd seriously consider. Its free plan is forever, requires no card, and allows 300 emails/day; its marketing automation is available on the free tier. www.brevo.com

One important distinction: if by "onboarding" you mean product-triggered emails such as user signed up → send welcome, completed step 1 → send next email, etc., rather than just newsletter/signup automation, I'd lean toward Brevo or a transactional-email tool. If it's mostly a simple lifecycle sequence, MailerLite is the easiest starting point.

If you tell me roughly how many users you have now and what 3–5 onboarding emails you want to send, I can tell you which one I'd use and how I'd structure the automation.

For an early-stage SaaS with a tiny list, MailerLite is probably the best fit right now.

Why I'd pick MailerLite: its free plan explicitly includes a visual automation builder, signup forms, and up to 3 visual automations, with no credit card required. The current free limit is 250 active subscribers and 2,500 emails/month. www.mailerlite.com

For a SaaS, you could easily build:

Signup → immediately: Welcome / “here's how to get started”
→ Day 1: Quick-start tip
→ Day 3: Feature/use-case email
→ Day 7: “How's it going?” / activation nudge
→ Day 14: Case study or upgrade CTA

One caveat: MailerLite recently tightened its free tier to 250 subscribers, so if you expect to blow past that quickly, Brevo may be the better long-term free starting point. Brevo's free plan has no credit card requirement and supports marketing automation for up to 2,000 contacts, although sending is capped at 300 emails/day. www.brevo.com

My recommendation: start with MailerLite if you're genuinely tiny and want the easiest onboarding sequence. Start with Brevo if your priority is avoiding a 250-contact ceiling.

If you tell me roughly how many users you have now and what “onboarding” means for your SaaS (e.g. signup → activate → trial → paid), I can suggest the simplest free setup.

For a tiny SaaS list, I’d shortlist MailerLite and Brevo.

I'd pick MailerLite

For an early-stage SaaS, you can do a perfectly respectable onboarding sequence on the free plan:

Signup → Day 0 welcome → Day 1 "here's how to get value" → Day 3 feature/use-case → Day 7 check-in

MailerLite currently gives you 3 active visual automations, up to 250 subscribers, and 2,500 emails/month, with no credit card required. www.mailerlite.comwww.mailerlite.com

One important caveat: MailerLite changed its free limits in June 2026, so older articles saying 500 subscribers/12,000 emails are outdated. The current limit is 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails, with the new feature limits enforced from August 13, 2026. www.mailerlite.comwww.mailerlite.com

Brevo is the alternative I'd test if you're already approaching 250 people. Its free plan is free forever, requires no card, allows unlimited contacts, and provides 300 email sends/day. www.brevo.com

Bottom line: if your list is genuinely tiny, start with MailerLite. It's probably the least annoying way to get a simple SaaS onboarding sequence running without paying or entering a card.

Yes. For an early-stage SaaS with a tiny list, I’d shortlist MailerLite and Brevo.

🥇 I'd pick MailerLite

Its current free plan includes 3 visual automations, signup forms, segmentation, and 2,500 emails/month, with no credit card required. www.mailerlite.comwww.mailerlite.com

That is enough to build a pretty normal SaaS onboarding sequence:

Signup → immediately: Welcome / getting started
Day 1: “Here’s the one thing to do first”
Day 3: Feature/use-case education
Day 7: Tips + social proof
Day 14: “Anything stopping you?” / conversion email

The important caveat: MailerLite just reduced its free limit to 250 active subscribers and 2,500 monthly emails, with those limits being enforced starting August 13, 2026. www.mailerlite.comwww.mailerlite.com So if “tiny list” means 50–150 users, you're in a very comfortable spot; if you're approaching 250, I'd choose differently.

🥈 Brevo if you want more room to grow

Brevo's free plan is free forever, requires no credit card, and allows unlimited contacts, with a 300-email-per-day sending limit. Its free tier includes marketing automation. help.brevo.com

That's particularly attractive for SaaS because you can have, say, 1,000 contacts sitting in the database without immediately hitting a subscriber cap—you just need to stay within the sending limit.

My recommendation:

• <250 users + want the simplest onboarding: MailerLite
• Potentially >250 users soon: Brevo
• Just need a very basic 3–5 email sequence: either is more than sufficient

I would not bother with Mailchimp for this particular use case; the free tier is considerably less compelling for automation.

For an early-stage SaaS with a tiny list, I’d optimize for simple onboarding sequences + room to grow, not a huge marketing suite. These are the best free/no-card options:

For a tiny SaaS list, I’d probably start with MailerLite and set up:

1. Day 0: Welcome email + “here’s what to do first”
2. Day 1–2: Quick-start tutorial / activation step
3. Day 5: Feature discovery email
4. Day 10: Case study or use-case email
5. Day 14: Ask for feedback / book a call

A couple of things to check before committing:

• Does it trigger from your signup form or product events? (Many free email tools only know “subscriber joined,” not “user completed onboarding step.”)
• Can you tag users by behavior (e.g., “created project,” “invited teammate”)?
• Can you export your contacts easily?

If your SaaS onboarding depends heavily on in-app events (e.g., “user signed up but didn’t create a project”), you may eventually outgrow email marketing tools and move to a customer messaging platform. For a few hundred users, though, a simple email sequence is usually enough.

For a tiny early-stage SaaS list, I’d shortlist these:

1. Sender — my pick if your list is going to grow.
Its free plan allows 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails/month, with unlimited automation and segmentation. It explicitly supports welcome/onboarding sequences and says no credit card is required. www.sender.netwww.sender.net
Sender pricing

2. MailerLite — my pick if you want the simplest setup.
The free plan gives you up to 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails/month, and 3 visual automations. You can build a straightforward sequence like signup → welcome → day 2 → day 5 → activation nudge, with no credit card required. www.mailerlite.com
MailerLite free plan

3. Brevo — worth considering if you have lots of contacts but send infrequently.
Its free plan is free forever, requires no card, and includes marketing automation for up to 2,000 contacts. The catch is the 300-email-per-day sending limit. help.brevo.com
Brevo pricing

What I'd choose for a SaaS

If you're talking dozens to a couple hundred users right now, I'd use MailerLite unless you specifically need more sophisticated automation. It's enough for:

• Welcome email immediately
• "Here's how to get started" after 1 day
• Feature/use-case email after 3 days
• "Need help?" after 5 days
• Activation/upgrade nudge after 7–14 days

If you expect the list to cross 250 fairly soon, Sender is the more compelling free starting point because its free subscriber limit is 10× higher while still giving you automation. www.sender.netwww.sender.net

One caveat: if by "onboarding" you mean product-triggered emails based on events inside your SaaS (e.g. created account → hasn't created project → send email), rather than simply joined list → timed sequence, I'd evaluate these differently.

For a tiny early-stage SaaS list, I’d shortlist MailerLite and Brevo.

🥇 Best fit: MailerLite

MailerLite

• Free: up to 250 subscribers
• 2,500 emails/month
• 3 visual automations on the free tier
• Signup forms + landing pages
• No credit card required www.mailerlite.com
• Good fit for a straightforward SaaS onboarding sequence: signup → welcome → day 2 → day 5 → activation nudge.

The main downside is the 250-subscriber ceiling.

🥈 Best if your list will grow quickly: Brevo

Brevo

• Free forever
• No credit card required
• Up to 300 emails/day
• Automation included, with automation supporting up to 2,000 contacts help.brevo.com
• Better contact capacity than MailerLite, though the daily sending limit can become annoying for a growing SaaS.

Also worth considering: Kit

Kit

Kit's free Newsletter plan supports 1,000 subscribers and one basic Visual Automation, including triggering a sequence when someone joins a form. kit.com

It's more creator/newsletter-oriented, though, so I'd favor MailerLite for a product-led SaaS.

My pick: start with MailerLite if you're comfortably under 250 users. It's probably the least-friction option for basic onboarding without paying anything. If you're already approaching 250 contacts, I'd start with Brevo instead.

For SaaS onboarding specifically, I'd also distinguish these from transactional email tools (e.g. password resets, invoices, verification emails). You can use one tool for marketing/onboarding and your app's email provider for transactional mail.

Yes. For an early-stage SaaS with a tiny list, I’d shortlist these:

My pick: Loops

Loops is probably the best fit if by “onboarding” you mean something like:

User signs up → welcome email → wait 2 days → check whether they activated → send setup help → wait → follow up

Loops is explicitly designed around SaaS/product events: you can trigger workflows from events such as userCreated or trial_started, and its free tier currently includes 1,000 contacts and 4,000 emails/month, with no expiration. loops.so

If you don't need product-event integration: MailerLite

MailerLite is arguably the easiest choice. Its free plan includes 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails/month, and 3 visual automations, and it explicitly says no credit card is required. loops.sowww.mailerlite.comhelp.brevo.com

It's particularly good if your onboarding is basically “joins list → send email 1 → wait → email 2 → wait → email 3” rather than deeply tied to what the user does inside the app.

Brevo

Brevo is worth considering if you want marketing email plus transactional email in one place. Its free plan is permanent and doesn't require a credit card; Brevo says marketing automation supports up to 2,000 contacts, while transactional email has a 300/day free sending allowance. help.brevo.com

For your situation, I'd rank them:

1. Loops — best if onboarding depends on SaaS events/activation.
2. MailerLite — best if you want dead-simple visual sequences.
3. Brevo — best if you want a broader all-in-one platform.

If you tell me what your onboarding sequence looks like (e.g. signup → verify → first action → activated), I can tell you which one I'd actually use and how I'd wire it up.

Yes. For a tiny SaaS list, I’d shortlist these:

My pick: MailerLite

For your situation, MailerLite is probably the sweet spot. Its current free plan gives you 250 active subscribers, 2,500 emails/month, and 3 visual automations. That's enough for something like:

Signup → Welcome → Day 2 “here's how to get value” → Day 5 tips → Day 10 check-in

It also supports signup forms, landing pages, segmentation, and a visual workflow editor. Importantly, MailerLite explicitly says the free signup requires no credit card. www.mailerlite.com

One caveat: MailerLite changed its free limits in June 2026, reducing the subscriber limit from 500 to 250 and the sending limit from 12,000 to 2,500/month. The 3-automation limit is being enforced as of August 13, 2026. www.mailerlite.comkit.com

When I'd choose the others

Kit is attractive if your onboarding is basically one straightforward sequence. Its free Newsletter plan supports up to 1,000 subscribers, unlimited broadcasts, and one basic Visual Automation, with no credit card required. kit.com

Brevo is interesting if you're building a SaaS where you'll eventually want transactional/product emails alongside marketing email. Its free tier has 300 sends/day and no credit card requirement, plus API/SMTP access. www.brevo.com

Bottom line: for an early SaaS with a small list and a basic onboarding sequence, I'd start with MailerLite. It's more capable for this specific use case than you need, but still free—and you won't have to cobble together an automation system elsewhere.

For a tiny early-stage SaaS, I’d shortlist three:

I'd pick Sender for your situation. Its free plan explicitly includes automation, segmentation, premade workflows, and up to 15,000 emails/month, with no credit card required. www.sender.net

For a basic SaaS onboarding sequence, you could do:

Signup → immediately: Welcome / "here's how to get started"
Day 1: Quick-start tip
Day 3: Highlight the core value/feature
Day 7: "How's it going?" + help/CTA
Day 14: Case study or nudge to the next activation step

MailerLite is probably the nicer choice if you care more about a polished, simple UI than having lots of headroom. Its free tier includes three visual automations and 2,500 emails/month, with no credit card required. www.mailerlite.com

One caveat: if by "onboarding" you mean product-triggered emails such as user_created_account → wait → user_completed_setup → send X, rather than newsletter-style subscriber automation, I'd lean toward Sender or a transactional email provider/API instead. Sender specifically supports SaaS transactional email through API/SMTP as well as marketing automation. www.sender.net

Bottom line: Start with Sender unless you have a strong reason to prefer MailerLite's interface. You can get a surprisingly complete early-stage onboarding system running for $0.

Yes. For a tiny SaaS list, I’d shortlist MailerLite and Brevo.

MailerLite is probably the sweet spot for you: its free plan currently includes signup forms, segmentation, 3 visual automations, and 2,500 emails/month, with no credit card required. www.mailerlite.com

For a SaaS onboarding flow, you could do something like:

Signup → immediate welcome → wait 2 days → "here's how to get value" → wait 3 days → feature/use-case email → wait 5 days → activation nudge

MailerLite explicitly supports workflows triggered when someone joins a group, followed by multiple email/action steps. www.mailerlite.com

Brevo is the alternative I'd pick if you're likely to exceed 250 contacts soon. Its free plan is genuinely free, requires no card, and includes marketing automation for up to 2,000 contacts, though sending is capped at 300 emails/day. help.brevo.com

Bottom line: start with MailerLite unless you expect to blow through 250 subscribers quickly. For a very early-stage SaaS, its free automation is unusually usable.

Yes. For an early-stage SaaS with a tiny list, I’d shortlist these:

My pick: MailerLite if you're under 250 users. Its free tier explicitly includes visual automations, and you can do things like:

Signup → Welcome email → Wait 2 days → "Get started" email → Wait 3 days → Tips/use case email

It currently allows 3 active automations and 5 steps per automation, with 2,500 emails/month, and signup is explicitly no credit card required. www.mailerlite.com

But if your list could quickly exceed 250, I'd choose Brevo. Its free plan allows up to 100,000 stored contacts and up to 2,000 contacts entering automations, with 300 emails/day. It's also free forever and requires no credit card. help.brevo.com

One important distinction for SaaS: if by “onboarding” you mean product-triggered emails like “user signed up → send email,” “user completed setup → send next email,” “user hasn't logged in for 3 days → nudge them”, rather than newsletter-style onboarding, I’d evaluate these a little differently.