How to Automate Email Marketing for Free in 2026

Mailchimp charges $13/month for 500 contacts. ConvertKit starts at $9. What if you could send automated emails to 2,000 subscribers for $0?

Here is the stack: n8n + a transactional email provider + a simple subscriber database. Total cost: under $1/month for 10,000 emails.

The Setup

• Email delivery: Mailgun (5,000 emails/month free) or AWS SES ($0.10 per 1,000 emails)
• Automation engine: n8n (self-hosted, free)
• Subscriber storage: SQLite or Airtable (free tier)
• Unsubscribe handling: Built into n8n workflow

Architecture

Subscriber form (static site)
    ↓
Airtable / SQLite (stores emails + tags)
    ↓
n8n scheduled trigger (daily at 9 AM)
    ↓
Filter: subscribers tagged "weekly" + active = true
    ↓
AI node generates newsletter content
    ↓
Mailgun sends personalized email
    ↓
Log delivery status back to database

Step 1: Capture Subscribers

Add a simple HTML form to your site:

<form action="/api/subscribe" method="POST">
  <input type="email" name="email" required>
  <input type="hidden" name="tag" value="weekly">
  <button type="submit">Subscribe</button>
</form>

Handle the POST with a lightweight server or n8n webhook.

Step 2: Store in Airtable

Create columns: Email, Tag, Status (active/unsubscribed), Join Date, Last Sent.

Step 3: Build the Newsletter Workflow

In n8n:

1. Schedule Trigger — Every Monday 9 AM
2. Airtable node — Get records WHERE Status = "active" AND Tag = "weekly"
3. AI node — Generate newsletter body from your latest blog posts
4. Code node — Build personalized HTML email with name + unsubscribe link
5. Mailgun node — Send to each subscriber
6. Airtable Update — Mark Last Sent = today

Step 4: Drip Sequences

Add a "Sequence Day" column. New subscribers get Day 1 immediately, Day 2 after 24 hours, etc.

n8n trigger: new subscriber
    ↓ IF Sequence Day = 1 → Send welcome email
    ↓ IF Sequence Day = 2 → Send value email
    ↓ IF Sequence Day = 7 → Send offer email

Bootstrap Tier: 100% Free

Use Mailgun's 5,000 free emails/month. At one email/week, that is 1,250 subscribers for free. When you outgrow it, switching to paid Mailgun or AWS SES is one config change in n8n.