Bluey · SparkSend-based
$23/mo/month
- $23/mo for 5,000 contacts emailed weekly (20,000 sends)
- Built-in CRM, behavioural targeting and AI campaign builder
- Transactional email on the same account from $4/mo
- No send cap tied to your subscriber count
Side-by-side · honest pricing
BlueyvsEmailOctopus
Genuinely cheap. Genuinely limited.
EmailOctopus is one of the few tools we will not claim to beat on price at small scale — its free tier covers 2,500 subscribers. What it does not have is a CRM, transactional sending, behavioural targeting or an AI builder, and its send limit is tied to your subscriber count.
The worked example5,000 subscribers contacts · 20,000 (weekly send)
EmailOctopus · ProPublished rate
~$24/mo/month
- Monthly send limit fixed at ~10x your subscriber count
- No built-in CRM and no transactional email
- Limited behavioural targeting and segmentation depth
- No AI campaign builder; basic template library
4% lower on Bluey · same volume
Quick answer — which should you choose?
EmailOctopus is cheap by design: a free tier covering 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails a month, with Pro from around $9 to $10 a month and about $24 a month at 5,000 contacts and 50,000 emails. Its monthly send allowance is roughly ten times your subscriber count. Bluey is $23 a month for 5,000 contacts emailed weekly — close enough that price is not the deciding factor. The difference is scope: Bluey adds a built-in CRM, transactional email, behavioural targeting, an AI campaign builder and email verification. Pick EmailOctopus if you want the cheapest competent newsletter sender; pick Bluey if you need the platform underneath it.
Starting price
Bluey$7/mo · 6K emails
EmailOctopusFree to 2,500 subscribers · Pro from ~$9/mo
Pricing scales with
BlueyEmails sent
EmailOctopusSubscribers stored, with a 10x send cap
Marketing + transactional
BlueyMarketing + transactional, one bill
EmailOctopusMarketing only
Every row
The boring details, side by side.
Feature
Bluey
EmailOctopus
Pricing — the maths
Billing basis
Emails sentSubscribers storedFree tier
7-day full trial2,500 subscribers · 10,000 emails/moEntry paid plan
$7/mo (6K sends)~$9–10/mo (Pro)5,000 subscribers, weekly send
$23/mo~$24/moMonthly send allowance
Whatever tier you buy~10x your subscriber countAnnual discount
Available10%Capability gap
Built-in CRM
Transactional email
Same accountBehavioural targeting
BasicAI campaign builder
Email verification
Landing pages
BasicWaitlists
Contact scoring & lifetime value
Grow and aboveEmail fundamentals — where the two are close
Drag-and-drop editor
Automations / drip sequences
3 (Spark) · 25 (Grow) · unlimitedYes, on ProSegmentation
AdvancedTag and field basedForms
10 (Spark) · unlimited (Grow)Analytics
Revenue and heatmapsOpens, clicks, basic reportingWhere EmailOctopus wins — the honest rows
Free tier generosity
7-day trial2,500 subscribers free, permanentlyPrice at small scale
$7/mo entryFree, then ~$9/moSimplicity
Full platformDeliberately minimal — nothing to learnAmazon SES Connect option
Bring your own SES for very low unit costWhy teams move
Three things that come up in every conversation.
The send cap is the constraint, not the price
EmailOctopus allows roughly ten times your subscriber count in monthly emails. A 5,000-person list gets 50,000 sends. Add a re-engagement sequence and a launch campaign on top of your newsletter and that ceiling arrives faster than you expect.
You will eventually need the things it does not do
No CRM, no transactional email, no behavioural targeting, no verification. Each gap is a separate subscription later. The total cost of a cheap tool plus three others is rarely cheap.
Price parity at real volume
At 5,000 subscribers emailed weekly, the two cost roughly the same. At that point you are choosing on capability, and the capability gap is not close.
Being straight with you
When EmailOctopus is the better choice.
We are not going to claim to be cheaper than EmailOctopus at small scale, because we are not.
You have under 2,500 subscribers — EmailOctopus is free and Bluey is not
You send a simple newsletter and will never need automation depth, a CRM or transactional email
You want the cheapest competent sender and are happy to add tools later if you need them
You want to use EmailOctopus Connect with your own Amazon SES account for very low unit costs
EmailOctopus is honest about what it is: a good, cheap newsletter tool. If that is what you need, buy it. Bluey is for the point where a newsletter tool stops being enough.
Switching from EmailOctopus? Here is the short version.
EmailOctopus to Bluey is a small migration — lists are simple, so exports import cleanly and there is rarely much automation to rebuild.
1Export subscribers with tags and custom fields from EmailOctopus
2Import into Bluey; the send cap tied to list size disappears
3Rebuild any drip sequences as Bluey automations
4Re-authenticate your sending domain, then add transactional sending if you need it
Free download
The EmailOctopus to Bluey migration checklist (PDF)
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Start free and get the checklistFAQ
Bluey vs EmailOctopus, answered.
Is EmailOctopus cheaper than Bluey?
Below about 2,500 subscribers, yes — EmailOctopus is free there and Bluey is not. At 5,000 subscribers emailed weekly the two land within a dollar or two of each other, and above that the comparison depends on your send frequency rather than the headline price.
What is EmailOctopus's sending limit?
Roughly ten times your subscriber count per month. A 5,000-subscriber plan allows about 50,000 emails. That is comfortable for a weekly newsletter and tight once you add automated sequences and campaign sends on the same list.
Does EmailOctopus have a CRM or transactional email?
Neither. It is a newsletter and drip tool. Receipts, password resets and anything CRM-shaped need separate providers, which is the usual reason people outgrow it.
What is EmailOctopus Connect?
An option to send through your own Amazon SES account, which pushes the unit cost down to SES rates. It is genuinely clever, and it means taking on the AWS setup and the sandbox review yourself. If you want that route, it is a real advantage EmailOctopus has.
When should I switch from EmailOctopus?
When you hit the send cap, when you need behavioural triggers rather than tag-based sequences, or when you find yourself buying a second tool for transactional email or a CRM. Until one of those happens, there is no strong argument for moving.
Pricing verified 4 September 2026 against each provider’s public pricing page. Bluey figures use the Grow plan (send-based). Competitor tiers shift at least quarterly; figures marked “~” are interpolated between published tiers.
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