Which one should I pick?

Answer one question: are you sending on behalf of other people, or only for yourself? If other people are involved — clients, tenants, customers paying you for access — MailWizz was built for that and Mautic was not. If it is only your own marketing, Mautic does more and costs nothing.

Is Mautic really free, or is that a trial?

Genuinely free. The self-hosted Community edition is GPL v3 — its LICENSE.txt says so directly — with no fee at any list size. There is a separate paid cloud product, but nobody is obliged to use it.

What does MailWizz charge?

A one-time licence rather than a subscription: $89 for the Regular licence covering your own lists, and $275 for the Extended licence required if you charge customers for access to your installation. Each includes one month of support.

You can, but it is rarely worth it. They overlap heavily in list and campaign management, so you would be maintaining two PHP applications and two databases for one job. Pick the one that matches how you send.

Neither of them sends the email?

Correct, and this surprises people. Both are campaign applications: they build and schedule mail, then hand it to an SMTP server or relay. You either run an MTA such as Postfix or Postal on the same VPS, which needs Port 25 open, or point them at Amazon SES or similar.

Which is easier to run?

MailWizz, marginally, because it is an ordinary PHP application with no unusual demands. Mautic states it should not go on shared hosting, wants a current PHP 8.x with nine extensions, and runs automation continuously in the background. Neither is as light as listmonk.

What if I only want to send a newsletter?

Then neither of these is the obvious answer. listmonk is free, AGPL v3, ships as a single Go binary with a Postgres database and will do newsletters with a fraction of the upkeep of either.

Is Port 25 guaranteed on every plan, or just open?

Both, depending on the range, and the difference is worth knowing before you buy. Outbound Port 25 is open by default on all 16 plans — no ticket, no approval step. On NVMe VPS, Cloud VPS, Classic VPS and VDS it is written into the published plan specification. On it is open because of how the network is run rather than as a documented guarantee. In practice it behaves the same on all of them, but if your business stops when you cannot send, buy the range that puts it in writing.

MailWizz vs Mautic

Not rivals. Different jobs that happen to share a category.

MailWizz is commercial software built around running sending as an operation, including for other people. Mautic is free, GPL v3 marketing automation for your own business. Almost everybody asking “which is better” can settle it with one question, which is at the bottom of this page.

MailWizz: $89 one-time
Mautic: GPL v3, free
MailWizz: multi-customer
Mautic: automation

Side by Side Decide in One Question

Licence cost difference

$89 vs $0

Which is the wrong way to choose between them

MailWizz: many lists, many senders
Mautic: journeys, scoring, forms
Neither delivers mail on its own
Running both is rarely worth it

The Short Answer

MailWizz if other people's sending is involved; Mautic if it is only your own. MailWizz is commercial, sold as a one-time licence, and built around many lists, several configurable delivery servers and multiple customers — there is a $275 Extended licence specifically for charging people to use your installation. Mautic is GPL v3 and free at any list size, and is built around automation: branching campaigns, lead scoring, forms and landing pages. Price is the least interesting difference between them, and it is the one most comparisons lead with.

MailWizz: $89 Regular, $275 Extended, one-time, one month of support.
Mautic: GPL v3, free, self-hosted Community edition.
The real split: operating a sending platform vs automating your own marketing.
Both are PHP and both need a database and cron.
Neither sends mail — both need an MTA or a relay behind them.
Mautic rules out shared hosting in its own requirements; MailWizz does not.

Side by Side

Licence and requirement figures were read in each vendor's own documentation on 17 August 2026. Plan suggestions are generated from our pricing data.

	MailWizz	Mautic
Licence	Commercial, one-time	GPL v3, free
Cost	$89 Regular, $275 Extended	$0 at any list size
Language	PHP	PHP
Database	MySQL / MariaDB	MySQL 5.7+ or MariaDB 10.2+ (InnoDB)
Built around	Running many lists and delivery servers	Behaviour-driven automation
Multiple customers	Yes — the Extended licence exists for exactly this	Not its purpose
Automation	Campaign scheduling and list management	Branching journeys, lead scoring, forms, landing pages
Shared hosting	Workable — it is an ordinary PHP app	Ruled out by Mautic itself
Sends mail itself	No — you configure delivery servers	No — hands off to SMTP or a relay
Support included	One month with each licence	Community; paid options exist separately
Suggested plan	— $	Business NVMe VPS — $12.95

One Question Settles It

Everything else is detail once you have answered this.

“Am I sending for other people?” — Yes

Clients, tenants, or customers paying for access to your system. MailWizz. It was designed for multiple customers with separate lists and separate delivery servers, and the $275 Extended licence exists precisely because people build businesses on it. Mautic can be made to do this; it will fight you.

“Am I sending for other people?” — No

It is your own marketing. Mautic, and it costs nothing. You get behaviour-triggered journeys, lead scoring, forms and landing pages that no licence fee buys you elsewhere. The price is a heavier install and a real learning curve — and if you only want a newsletter, listmonk is lighter than both.

Whichever you choose, the hosting requirement is the same: outbound Port 25 if you deliver mail yourself, a dedicated IPv4, and reverse DNS you can point at your sending hostname. All three come with every plan here.

MailWizz and Mautic Questions

Either one runs fine. The network underneath is what decides delivery.

From $4.95 a month with Port 25 open, a dedicated IPv4 and reverse DNS set free on request — plus a 7-day money-back guarantee.

See All 16 Plans Ask Before You Order