If you're an affiliate marketer, your email list is arguably your most valuable asset. Social media platforms throttle your reach. Search engines update their algorithms. Ad costs fluctuate. But a well-built email list? That's yours. You control it. You can reach your audience directly — at any time, with any offer — without asking a third party for permission.
That said, picking the wrong platform can end your email marketing before it really begins. Not because you did anything wrong, but because some of the most popular email marketing platforms actively prohibit affiliate marketing content. Sign up with one of them, start sending your campaigns, and you could find your account suspended without warning.
This guide is going to solve both problems: identifying which platforms will actually support your affiliate marketing business, then finding the best email marketing software for affiliate marketing among the ones that will.
Email Marketing Is Non-Negotiable for Affiliate Marketers
Before getting into the question of which is the best email marketing platform for affiliate marketing, it's worth stating clearly why email marketing matters so much for affiliate marketing specifically.
The average return on email marketing investment is $36–$42 for every $1 spent — consistently the highest ROI of any digital marketing channel. For affiliate marketers, that number can be even higher, because email lets you do what no other channel does as efficiently: build a relationship with your audience over time, then present targeted offers to people who already trust you.
Think about what that means in practice. A blog post promoting an affiliate offer depends entirely on search traffic or social shares. A social media post reaches a fraction of your followers and disappears from feeds within hours. An email lands directly in your subscriber's inbox — someone who opted in to hear from you — and stays there until they open it.
The best email autoresponder for affiliate marketing doesn't just let you send emails. It lets you build automated sequences that nurture your subscribers over weeks and months, segment your list based on what people have clicked or bought, and deliver the right offer to the right person at the right time. That's the difference between occasional commissions and a consistently profitable affiliate marketing operation.
But to do any of this, you need to start with a platform that actually lets you.
Many Popular Platforms Ban Affiliate Marketing
Here's what most "best email platform for affiliate marketing" guides don't tell you upfront: a significant number of the most advertised, most-used email marketing platforms explicitly prohibit affiliate marketing content. They allow you to sign up, take your money, and then suspend your account when they determine your emails are too affiliate marketing focused.
Platforms that prohibit affiliate marketing content include:
- Mailchimp — Does not allow affiliate marketing as a primary business model. Accounts whose main purpose is promoting third-party products through affiliate links violate their Acceptable Use Policy.
- MailerLite — Restricts pure affiliate-only campaigns. Affiliate links are permitted within original content, but accounts whose entire purpose is affiliate sending are prohibited. This is a significant restriction for dedicated affiliate marketers.
- Kit (formerly ConvertKit) — Similar position to MailerLite. Affiliate links within original creator content are tolerated, but accounts running purely affiliate-focused campaigns face suspension risk.
- HubSpot — The Acceptable Use Policy restricts affiliate marketing content, and the platform's pricing makes it a poor fit for affiliate marketers anyway.
- Constant Contact — Prohibits affiliate marketing content in email campaigns despite running its own affiliate referral program, a contradiction that has frustrated many users.
- Flodesk - Flodesk's own help documentation explicitly states that "emails that contain 100% affiliate marketing content" are prohibited on its platform. So, if affiliate marketing is your primary email content, Flodesk is not a safe platform.
If you're a content creator or blogger who occasionally includes affiliate links inside genuinely original content, you might get away with using some of these platforms. But if affiliate marketing is your primary business model — meaning your emails exist specifically to promote affiliate offers — these platforms are not safe bets. Getting your account suspended mid-campaign can cost you serious revenue.
The Platforms That Do Allow Affiliate Marketing
To their credit, a number of well-established email platforms do allow affiliate marketing in some capacity. These include:
- GetResponse
- ActiveCampaign
- Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)
- EmailOctopus
- Moosend
- AWeber
- Mailjet
That's seven platforms that won't shut you down for running affiliate campaigns. But affiliate-friendly alone doesn't make a platform worth using. Now we need to find the best one.
Filtering for Pricing Fairness: Eliminating Platforms With Hidden Costs
Not all email marketing platforms are created equal when it comes to billing practices. Many of the most well-known platforms engage in unfair and tricky pricing practices that seem harmless at first but become costly as your list grows.
As an affiliate marketer building your list over time, choosing a platform with unfair billing means you'll pay more and more while your platform keeps collecting its fee either way.
The filtering methodology below comes from a detailed analysis by WMappdigital.com of 21 email platforms to find the best email marketing platform for small businesses. The cost-conscious approach filters email marketing platforms through 3 important criteria. Here's how our seven affiliate-friendly platforms hold up.
Elimination Round 1: Platforms That Charge for Unsubscribed Contacts
Some platforms bill you for every contact in your database — including people who have already unsubscribed and can never receive your emails again. This practice penalizes you for list growth and for natural unsubscribe churn over time.
- AWeber is guilty of this as it charges for unsubscribed contacts, counting them toward your total even after they've opted out. Over time, this inflates your bill with contacts who will never convert.
So, AWeber is eliminated after this first round.
Elimination Round 2: Platforms With Automatic Overage Charges
Some platforms quietly add charges to your bill — or automatically upgrade your plan — when you exceed your contact or email-sending limits, without first letting you know.
- GetResponse implements automatic overage billing when subscribers exceed plan limits, charging in blocks without prior confirmation.
- Mailjet applies automatic upgrade charges when you exceed your monthly email send limit.
So, GetResponse and Mailjet are eliminated.
Elimination Round 3: Platforms With Poor Downgrade Policies
Fair billing should work both ways. If a platform automatically increases your price when your list grows, it should reduce your price when your list shrinks. Many platforms don't. They lock you into higher tiers even after you remove contacts or see natural list attrition.
- ActiveCampaign automatically upgrades your plan when you add subscribers but requires you to contact support to downgrade when subscribers are removed. This is a one-way ratchet — your costs only go up.
- EmailOctopus has similar downgrade restrictions, requiring manual intervention to reduce your plan tier after contact removal.
ActiveCampaign and EmailOctopus are eliminated.
What's Left Standing?
After three elimination rounds based on billing fairness, only 2 affiliate-friendly platforms remain - Brevo and Moosend.
Both passed the fairness tests. Both platforms have intuitive, ease-to-use interfaces, automation capabilities and pre-designed email templates and forms, as well as support via email, live chat and documentation.
Now let's find out which one is actually the best email marketing software for affiliate marketing by looking at deliverability and costs.
Brevo vs. Moosend: The Final Comparison
Deliverability
Email deliverability refers to the ability of an email message to successfully reach a recipient's inbox, avoiding spam filters and other obstacles. Deliverability is important because if your emails aren’t getting delivered, then no amount of good copywriting, building relationships or anything else will help you generate sales.
Deliverability is one of the most critical metrics for any email marketer, but it's especially important for affiliate marketers. Email platforms monitor their sender reputation closely, and affiliate marketing content — with its frequent links to third-party domains — can trigger stricter filtering. You need a platform with a strong, proven deliverability infrastructure.
According to independent testing by EmailToolTester, here are the deliverabilty scores (the higher the better) for our 2 contenders:
- Moosend: 90.1% deliverability rate
- Brevo: 88.3% deliverability rate
Both scores exceed the 89% threshold that EmailToolTester classifies as "good." But Moosend edges ahead.
Moosend also holds a CSA (Certified Sender Alliance) certification, placing its infrastructure on the allowlist for Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, and Office 365. For an affiliate marketer who depends on emails reaching the inbox this certification is a meaningful advantage. Moosend also includes a built-in spam testing tool so you can check your content against common filters before sending.
So, Moosend wins on deliverability.
Pricing and Cost as Your List Grows
Brevo's pricing is based on the number of emails you send per month rather than the number of contacts you store. This model is excellent for businesses with large lists who email infrequently. But for affiliate marketers, the send-volume model creates unpredictability.
Affiliate campaigns often involve time-sensitive promotions — a product launch, a limited-time bonus, a flash sale. During those windows, you might send three, four, or five emails in a week to your entire list. Brevo's send-volume model can make those burst-sending periods expensive, or require you to be on a higher plan than you'd otherwise need.
Moosend uses contact-based pricing with unlimited email sends on every plan. You pay based on how many subscribers you have, and you can email them as many times as the campaign demands — without counting sends or worrying about overage fees. For affiliate marketing, which often involves higher-frequency sending during promotions, this is a structurally better fit.
From this comparison Moosend offers the better monthly pricing as your list grows, plus it offers a 20% discount if you choose to be billed annually compared to just 10% discount from Brevo.
Winner: Moosend
Why Moosend Is the Best Email Platform for Affiliate Marketing
Beyond winning on deliverability and pricing, Moosend has several features that make it specifically well-suited for affiliate marketing workflows.
Unlimited Email Sends From Day One
This can't be overstated. Affiliate marketing campaigns don't always follow a predictable schedule. When a product you promote runs a limited-time offer or a new tool launches that your audience needs to know about, you may need to email your list several times in a short window. Moosend's unlimited sends mean you can execute that campaign without checking a counter or calculating overage costs.
Powerful Automation at the Entry Price
Moosend's visual workflow builder is available on all paid plans — not reserved for higher tiers. For affiliate marketers, this means you can build sophisticated email sequences from the moment you sign up:
- Welcome sequences that introduce new subscribers to your niche and warm them up for affiliate recommendations
- Behavioral triggers that send follow-up emails when someone clicks a specific affiliate link
- Re-engagement campaigns that bring inactive subscribers back into your funnel
- Segmented promotions that only send an affiliate offer to subscribers who have shown interest in that category
The 18 pre-built automation recipes that come with every Pro account give you a significant head start on building these sequences.
Segmentation That Improves Conversion
The most profitable affiliate email campaigns are targeted. Moosend's segmentation tools let you group subscribers based on behavior, engagement level, past clicks, and custom fields. That means you can promote a product exclusively to the segment of your list that clicked a previous product-related email — a much higher-converting approach than blasting every offer to your entire list.
24/7 Live Chat Support (Including During the Trial)
Most email platforms restrict live chat support to paid plans. Moosend offers 24/7 live chat even during the 30-day free trial. If you run into a deliverability question or need help setting up an automation before your first campaign goes out, support is available immediately.
Fair Contact Billing
Moosend only charges for active subscribers. Unsubscribed contacts, bounced addresses, and inactive contacts that you remove from your list don't count toward your plan. As your affiliate marketing list matures and you regularly clean it to maintain engagement rates, your Moosend bill accurately reflects who you can actually email — not a running total of everyone who ever subscribed.
How to Get Started
Start with the 30-day free trial — no credit card required, full Pro feature access, up to 1,000 contacts. Use that time to:
- Import your current email list
- Set up your first welcome sequence using one of the pre-built automation recipes
- Test the deliverability of your affiliate content using the built-in spam testing tool
- Send your first campaign and review the analytics
If Moosend performs well on your list within the trial window, the paid plan starts at $9/month — a fraction of what most full-featured platforms charge for comparable capabilities.
For a more detailed breakdown of Moosend's features, deliverability data, and full pricing tiers, read the complete Moosend review.
Summary
Finding the best email marketing software for affiliate marketing comes down to one question answered in two steps.
Step 1: Which platforms actually allow affiliate marketing? After eliminating Mailchimp, MailerLite, Kit, HubSpot, Constant Contact, and Flodesk (whose restrictions effectively disqualify them for dedicated affiliate marketers), you're left with GetResponse, ActiveCampaign, Brevo, EmailOctopus, Moosend, AWeber, and Mailjet.
Step 2: Which of those platforms treats you fairly and performs reliably? After applying a fair pricing filter, AWeber, GetResponse, Mailjet, ActiveCampaign, and EmailOctopus are all eliminated for billing practices that can inflate your costs as your list grows. That leaves Brevo and Moosend.
Moosend wins the final comparison on deliverability (90.1% vs 88.3%), pricing predictability (unlimited sends vs send-volume billing), and overall value for affiliate marketing campaigns.
The decision isn't just about finding a platform that won't ban you. It's about finding one that actively supports the way affiliate marketing works — with unlimited sends for time-sensitive promotions, powerful automation for building relationships at scale, and billing that stays fair as your list and your business grow.
Moosend checks all of those boxes.
