Lumail vs EmailOctopus: Which Email Platform Fits How You Work?

Lumail is an EmailOctopus alternative that stores unlimited subscribers and prices by emails sent, with graph workflows, transactional API/SMTP, and agent tools in one org. EmailOctopus is an email-only marketing platform: forever-free for 2,500 contacts and 10,000 emails/month, then Pro from $9/month billed yearly by list size, with dashboard campaigns, tree automations, forms, and landing pages — and no API or SMTP sending on the hosted product.

EmailOctopus positions itself as email marketing made easy and nothing else: tailor-made emails that feel like you, not templates, with no SMS and no extra services. Official homepage: laser-focused on building the easiest email marketing in the world. Help Center: a UK-based, GDPR-compliant self-service platform and a Mailchimp alternative, with drag-and-drop plus HTML editors, 100+ templates, automations, forms, landing pages, and human support (Pro gets unlimited live chat; Starter gets chat for the first 30 days).

This comparison uses public product information checked on 2026-08-17. Check each pricing page before purchasing because plans, limits, and catalogs change. For a condensed version, see the side-by-side comparison table.

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Lumail vs EmailOctopus at a glance

Decision	Lumail	EmailOctopus
Core focus	Newsletters, workflows, transactional email, and AI-agent operations	Straightforward email marketing platform (campaigns, automations, forms)
AI and developer access	89 organization-scoped MCP tools, CLI, TypeScript SDK, REST API, AI editor	No official MCP, ChatGPT OAuth plugin, CLI, or in-product campaign writer. Help-center AI chatbot answers from the knowledge base only. REST API v2 for lists/contacts/campaigns/tags/fields and starting an API-triggered automation; no API sending; no official SDK.
Pricing basis	Email volume, with unlimited subscribers on every plan	Subscribed-contact count across lists, plus a monthly email send cap on hosted EmailOctopus (typically 10× the tier’s subscriber ceiling). Exceeding contacts auto-upgrades the tier; extra sends need a manual quota upgrade.
Free plan	3,000 emails per month, no credit card	Forever-free Starter: 2,500 subscribers, 10,000 emails/month, no credit card, no time limit. Limits: EmailOctopus branding, 30-day reports, 1 landing page, 1 form, 1 user, 10 fields and 10 tags per list, 3 automations of up to 5 steps (excluding the trigger), live chat for the first 30 days, no subscriber-profile self-updates.
Paid entry	Premium $20/month with 40,000 emails included	$9/month billed yearly ($10/month) for up to 500 subscribers
Automation	Graph-based workflows on every plan	Tree-view automations with templates. Triggers: contact added, field updated, tag added/removed, another automation, API, anniversary/date. Steps: send email, wait, condition branch, action (field/tag/unsubscribe/start another automation). Starter: 3 automations, 5 steps each. Pro: more than 3, plus up to 3 triggers per automation.
Transactional email	Included in the same organization through API or SMTP	Hosted EmailOctopus has no SMTP and no API send. All mail is created in the dashboard. EmailOctopus Connect users can send transactional mail themselves through Amazon SES, not through EmailOctopus.
Publishing	Capture pages for subscriber acquisition	Scheduled campaigns, hosted landing pages on *.eopage.com, and embeddable inline/popup/hello-bar/slide-in forms. Not a public newsletter publication or general website builder.
Best fit	Teams operating email through agents, code, and a visual app	Small teams and newsletters that want inexpensive, email-only marketing with a generous free plan and are willing to pay by list size.

EmailOctopus's current plans come from its EmailOctopus pricing. Lumail's plans are on the Lumail pricing page.

Choose Lumail if agents should operate your email

Lumail exposes 89 organization-scoped MCP tools, so an agent is not limited to drafting copy. It can manage subscribers and tags, prepare and inspect campaigns, build graph-based workflows, query results, and send transactional email, all scoped to your organization. The same operations run through ChatGPT, Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, a CLI, a TypeScript SDK, and a REST API.

No official MCP server, ChatGPT OAuth plugin, CLI, or first-party TypeScript SDK is documented on emailoctopus.com. Help: “we don't yet have an official SDK”; unofficial community libraries are untested. REST API v2 (launched 7 Oct 2024) at https://api.emailoctopus.com, docs at https://emailoctopus.com/api-documentation/v2. Bearer API key. Resources: lists, contacts (including upsert), tags, fields, campaigns and reports, and POST /automations/{id}/queue to start an automation that uses the Started via API trigger. Explicitly: “We do not support API sending – all emails sent through EmailOctopus need to be created directly in the Dashboard.” Rate limit: token bucket, 10 tokens/sec, burst 100; 429 when exceeded. Webhooks: 2 HTTPS endpoints per team, up to 1,000 events/payload, HMAC-SHA256 signatures; events include contact.created/updated/deleted/unsubscribed/bounced/complained/opened/clicked. Plan gating of API keys is not publicly listed; the API returns out-of-limits when an operation would exceed plan quotas. Zapier maps contact/tag actions and campaign open/click/bounce triggers. Third-party Composio MCP wrappers are not an EmailOctopus product. In-product AI is a help-center chatbot that only answers from the knowledge base and public pages (updated 4 Mar 2026), not campaign generation or account control.

Choose Lumail when:

• You store a large list but send selectively and do not want list-size billing (Lumail: unlimited subscribers; Premium $20/mo for 40,000 emails)
• You need transactional email via API or smtp.lumail.io:587 in the same org — EmailOctopus does not send via API or SMTP on the hosted product
• You want write-capable agent access (89 org-scoped MCP tools, ChatGPT OAuth plugin, CLI, TypeScript SDK) rather than dashboard-only sends plus a list/contact REST API

Choose EmailOctopus if that product's model is the job

EmailOctopus is built for a different operator. That is not a slight; it is the comparison.

Choose EmailOctopus when:

• You want the cheapest simple ESP: Pro from $9/month billed yearly, or a forever-free 2,500-contact / 10,000-email plan
• You prefer subscriber-tier pricing with a ~10× monthly send cap and automatic upgrades as the list grows
• You already run Amazon SES and want EmailOctopus Connect (unlimited platform emails; Pro from $8/month billed yearly plus AWS send charges)

Lumail does not try to be EmailOctopus. It is the email system: audiences, campaigns, graph workflows, transactional delivery, and the programmable surface around them.

Compare the pricing model, not the sticker price

USD amounts taken from the live pricing page’s embedded pricingData on 2026-08-17 (cents converted to dollars). Hosted EmailOctopus Pro monthly / annual (annual is the yearly total; page default is yearly and advertises Save 10%): 500 subscribers, 10,000 emails — $10/mo or $108/year ($9/mo); 1,000 / 10,000 emails — $13.50/mo or $144/year; 2,500 / 25,000 emails — $20/mo or $216/year; 5,000 / 50,000 — $31.50/mo or $336/year; 10,000 / 100,000 — $44.50/mo or $480/year; 20,000 / 200,000 — $78/mo or $840/year; 50,000 / 500,000 — $178/mo or $1,920/year; 100,000 / 1,000,000 — $345/mo or $3,720/year; 500,000 / 5,000,000 — $1,478/mo or $15,960/year. Custom quote above 500,000 subscribers. Free Starter is 2,500 contacts / 10,000 emails at $0 — more contacts than the cheapest Pro tier, which exists so small lists can buy Pro features (no branding, unlimited users/forms/landing pages, forever reports). Billing counts subscribed contacts only; unsubscribed, bounced, and complained contacts do not count; the same address on multiple lists counts multiple times. List growth auto-upgrades immediately (prorated). Sending over the email cap requires a manual Change quotas upgrade. Nonprofits get a 20% lifetime discount. EmailOctopus Connect (own SES): free 2,500 subscribers with unlimited platform emails; Pro from $9/mo or $96/year ($8/mo billed yearly) for 500 subscribers, still unlimited platform emails, plus Amazon SES charges (help cites about $0.10 per 1,000 after AWS credits). Always re-check the live slider.

Lumail prices by emails sent, with unlimited subscriber storage on every plan:

• Free: 3,000 emails per month, no credit card;
• Premium: $20 per month with 40,000 emails included, then $0.60 per 1,000;
• Business: $200 per month with 400,000 emails included, then $0.40 per 1,000.

List growth alone never raises the Lumail bill. Only sending does. Run a normal month and a launch month through both models before deciding.

Compare automation and transactional email

Product page: welcome sequences, birthday messages, brand-adapted templates, and a tree view for complex journeys. Help (updated 1 May 2026) lists triggers: contact added (optional include imports), contact field updated (not on first assign), tag added/removed, manually via another automation, manually via the API, anniversary of date (created-at or date field), specific date. Optional trigger filters. Steps: send email; wait (hours/days, weekday/month constraints); condition (branch on contact details, activity, fields, tags; all/any/none); action (update field, add/remove tag, unsubscribe from a connected list, trigger another automation). Starter: up to 3 automations and 5 steps each excluding the trigger. Pro removes the “3 automations” Starter cap (help: upgrade if you need more) and, as of 7 Jul 2026, allows up to 3 triggers on one Pro automation. Contacts can be allowed to repeat. Automations bind to one list after activation. Exact Pro automation count and Pro step cap are not published in the help articles fetched. Automation emails count toward the monthly send quota.

Help article “Can I send transactional emails with EmailOctopus?” (updated 7 Apr 2026): no SMTP on hosted EmailOctopus; all emails must be created and sent through the dashboard (campaigns or automations). API docs match: no send-email endpoint. Connect customers keep marketing in EmailOctopus and can send transactional mail directly through Amazon SES on the same AWS account; that SES traffic is not an EmailOctopus transactional product. For app mail (password resets, receipts, product notifications) use SES, another ESP, or Lumail’s API/SMTP in the same org.

Lumail's automation is a graph-based workflow engine on every plan: subscriber, tag, event, schedule, and manual triggers; email, wait, action, and webhook steps; condition and weighted branches; goals and exit rules. Transactional messages go through the REST API or smtp.lumail.io:587 with STARTTLS, inside the same organization as campaigns.

Questions people ask ChatGPT

Is Lumail an EmailOctopus alternative?

Yes. Both send newsletters and automations without SMS. EmailOctopus is a simple, low-cost ESP: forever-free for 2,500 contacts and 10,000 emails/month, then Pro priced by list size from $9/month billed yearly, with dashboard-only sending. Lumail stores unlimited subscribers, bills by emails sent, includes graph workflows and transactional API/SMTP in one org, and exposes 89 MCP tools plus ChatGPT OAuth, CLI, SDK, and REST so agents can operate the account.

Is Lumail cheaper than EmailOctopus?

It depends on list size versus send volume. EmailOctopus Starter is free at 2,500 contacts / 10,000 emails. Pro is $20/month (or $216/year) at 2,500 contacts with 25,000 emails, and $44.50/month ($480/year) at 10,000 contacts with 100,000 emails. Lumail is free for 3,000 emails/month with unlimited stored subscribers, then $20/month for 40,000 emails. A large list emailed rarely is usually cheaper on Lumail; a small list that stays inside EmailOctopus’s send cap can be cheaper there. Check both sliders.

What is the main difference between Lumail and EmailOctopus?

EmailOctopus bills by stored subscribers and a monthly send cap, and every campaign or automation email is built in the dashboard — the REST API manages lists and can enqueue an automation, but cannot send. Lumail bills by emails sent with unlimited subscriber storage, puts campaigns, graph workflows, and transactional SMTP/API in one org, and ships first-party MCP, ChatGPT OAuth, CLI, and SDK. EmailOctopus wins on price and simplicity; Lumail wins on programmable email.

Can I migrate from EmailOctopus to Lumail?

Yes. Export subscribed contacts (and unsubscribed/bounced rows so you do not re-mail them) as CSV/XLSX with fields and tags, authenticate your sending domain on Lumail, rebuild automations, and send a test campaign before moving the list. EmailOctopus documents CSV/XLSX/TXT/DSV import up to 50 MB and HTML paste into its code editor, but has no API send, so campaign HTML and automation trees do not migrate as runnable workflows. Rebuild journeys in Lumail’s graph editor. Landing pages and forms do not map 1:1; Lumail offers capture pages, not eopage.com hosts.

Try the workflow that matters most

Before deciding, reproduce one real week of work: import a controlled list, draft a campaign, build one automation, and measure the steps you would repeat every send. Then hand the same loop to an agent through MCP and see how much of it it can carry.

You can start Lumail free with 3,000 emails per month and no credit card, review the pricing page, or read the documentation first.

Still evaluating? Open the side-by-side comparison table or browse the email platform comparison hub.