This guide narrows in on what actually matters for guest-facing businesses: automating messages across the guest lifecycle (before arrival, during the stay or visit, and after checkout for win-back), connecting with booking engines and point-of-sale systems, staying easy enough for a lean team to run while scaling as you add guests, locations, or staff, and keeping costs manageable as your guest list grows.
Whether you're searching for the best email marketing software for hotels, the best email marketing software for restaurants, or email marketing for hotels and restaurants more broadly, scroll down for a side-by-side table, then read on for a closer look at each platform.
How we compared these platforms for hospitality
Cost is only part of the equation for a hotel or restaurant. Here's what we weighed:
- Guest lifecycle automation: How well each platform handles pre-arrival, in-stay or in-visit, and post-stay or post-visit win-back messaging.
- Booking engine and PMS/POS integration depth: How closely each platform connects to booking or point-of-sale systems, not just contact lists.
- Ease of use as you grow: How much setup and technical know-how a platform assumes, and whether it stays manageable as your team and guest list expand.
- Pricing: Starting cost and how that cost scales as a guest list grows.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp's email marketing platform includes pre-built templates for seasonal promotions, local event notifications, and last-minute availability alerts, making it a practical option for email marketing for hotels, whether you're sending your first guest newsletter or running automated campaigns for a growing guest list.
Guests can also be segmented by booking date, with sends scheduled by guest time zone, and Mailchimp's SMS marketing add-on covers reservation reminders and confirmations.
Pricing
- Essentials starts at $13/mo for 500 contacts, Standard starts at $20/mo, and Premium starts at $350/mo.
Hospitality fit
- Best for: Hotels & restaurants that want guest email & SMS on one platform, with plans that scale from a single property to a growing group.
- Booking platform integrations: Mailchimp connects with hotel tools such as Hotelogix & the MotoPress Hotel Booking plugin.
- Guest segmentation by stay: Segmenting past guests by booking date works for operators of every size, from vacation rental hosts to larger hotels, and Standard & up can schedule sends by guest time zone.
- Strong delivery rate: Mailchimp reports an average 99% delivery rate.
- Combined channel lift: Mailchimp users who send both email & SMS see 97% higher click rates than email-only senders. The stat isn't specific to reservation texts.
- Guest lifecycle automation: Standard & up support multi-step journeys with branching, so pre-arrival details, post-stay thank-yous & win-back offers can run automatically based on booking date or guest behavior.
- Room to grow: Essentials covers core guest email, Standard adds multi-step automation, time-zone sending & predictive segments, and Premium adds advanced segmentation, phone support & unlimited seats for larger teams.
Limitations
- No deep native PMS integration: Mailchimp lacks the deep native PMS integration that dedicated hospitality platforms offer, which may mean some manual list management.
Brevo
Brevo’s free plan stores up to 100,000 contacts, and paid plans are priced by monthly email volume, which suits independent hotels and restaurants with a large past-guest list they only email occasionally. Email and SMS run on the same platform for reservation confirmations and reminders, with WhatsApp added on Professional.
Pricing
- Free plan: 300 emails/day, up to 100,000 stored contacts; Starter from $9/mo (5,000 emails/mo); SMS credits sold separately.
Hospitality fit
- Best for: Budget-conscious independent properties.
- Room for a large guest list: The free plan stores up to 100,000 contacts, so a past-guest list doesn't need trimming to fit. On paid plans, contact storage depends on the email volume you buy, so check the tier against your list size.
- Multichannel on one platform: Email & SMS cover reservation confirmations & reminders side by side, with SMS billed through purchased credits & WhatsApp available on Professional.
Limitations
- Automation gated: Unlimited marketing automation, including guest lifecycle flows, starts on Standard ($18/mo). Free & Starter cap active automations at 2,000 unique contacts.
Constant Contact
Constant Contact pairs guided campaign setup with built-in social marketing tools, which suits small, lean hospitality teams without dedicated marketing staff.
Pricing
- Lite from $12/mo, Standard from $35/mo, Premium from $80/mo (all at 500 contacts, price rises steeply with list size)
Hospitality fit
- Best for: A simple, guided setup.
- Guided setup and social tools: Guided campaign setup and built-in social marketing tools suit small, lean hospitality teams without dedicated marketing staff.
- AI campaign builder: A new AI Campaign Builder, which launched in July 2026, will draft a full email, social, and SMS campaign from a single prompt.
Limitations
- SMS costs extra: SMS costs extra on Lite and Standard, and is only bundled free on Premium.
- Support quality lags: Despite phone, chat, and email support at every tier, Trustpilot rates Constant Contact's support just 1.3 out of 5 across more than 900 reviews.
MailerLite
MailerLite pairs a drag-and-drop builder with an AI email generator, which suits a single restaurant or small independent hotel running without a dedicated marketing team.
Pricing
- Free up to 250 subscribers & 2,500 emails/mo; Comfort from $12/mo, Power from $25/mo (500 subscribers)
Hospitality fit
- Best for: Very small, single-location operators.
- Drag-and-drop builder with AI writing: A drag-and-drop builder and AI email generator suit a single restaurant or small independent hotel without a dedicated marketing team.
- Generous free tier: Free for up to 250 subscribers & 2,500 emails a month, enough for a single restaurant or small property to start at no cost.
Limitations
- No SMS: There's no SMS option, which is a real gap for reservation reminders and last-minute availability alerts, both common hospitality use cases.
- Limited automation depth: Automation depth doesn't match dedicated hospitality or ecommerce platforms.
HubSpot
HubSpot ties email marketing to a full CRM, so guest records, booking stages & campaigns can live in one system, which suits groups that want a CRM as the central record for guest data, not just an email tool.
Pricing
- Free tier available; Starter from $15 to $20/seat/mo (1,000 marketing contacts)
- Steep jump to Professional at roughly $890/mo plus a mandatory onboarding fee
Hospitality fit
- Best for: Hospitality groups that want email tied to a full CRM.
- Custom booking pipelines: Sales Hub subscriptions can add extra deal pipelines to track guests through booking stages, though booking-system data needs to be connected.
- CRM-first guest records: Best suited to groups that want a CRM as their system of record across locations & are prepared for the cost of Professional-tier automation.
Limitations
- SMS is a paid add-on: HubSpot's native SMS requires Professional or Enterprise plus an add-on & sends from US numbers only, a real gap for reservation reminders & last-minute alerts, especially with international guests.
- Cost and automation gate: Real automation & reporting depth sits behind Professional ($890/mo plus a $3,000 onboarding fee).
Picking the right email platform for your hotel or restaurant
A single independent property and a multi-location group need different things from an email platform today, and the right one should still fit as you add rooms, locations, or staff. Budget and how deeply email needs to connect to your booking and POS systems narrow it down further.
- Property type: Whether you're running a single independent property or a multi-location group.
- Budget: Your available budget and how each platform's pricing holds up as your guest list grows.
- Integration depth: Whether deep native PMS or POS integration matters more to you than affordability and ease of use.
- SMS requirements: Whether SMS reservation reminders are a must-have for your business.
Grow direct bookings with Mailchimp
For hotels and restaurants that want the best email marketing software for hospitality without stitching together separate tools, Mailchimp brings together email, SMS, and guest communication tools in one place. Explore Mailchimp's plans to find the right fit, whether you run one property or several.
Disclaimers
1 Up to 2x higher click rate: Based on US Mailchimp users who sent both email and SMS campaigns compared to users who sent email-only campaigns from 8/1/23 to 7/28/26. Individual results may vary.