MailTimers advertises the biggest free number in the category: 100,000 views a month. It’s a real number. It’s also worth reading the plan table underneath it before you build anything on it, because the free tier is narrower than the headline and the paid tiers are where the product actually lives.
What MailTimers actually is
A countdown timer generator for email, and only that. Pick a style, set the colours, set the deadline, paste the embed. Credits roll over month to month, and the higher plans add background pictures, motion-animated timers and Adobe Photoshop timer support. There are ESP partner pages for placement in HubSpot, Klaviyo and the rest.
Their pricing page puts the free plan at 100,000 views a month, but timers on it carry MailTimers branding, run for a maximum of 30 days, and evergreen timers and custom fonts are premium-only. Startup is $9.95 a month, or $7.99 billed annually, for 150,000 views with branding removed, evergreen and custom fonts. Startup+ covers 450,000. Business is $50 a month, or $39.99 annually, for 1.2 million views and adds motion timers. Corporation and Holding go up from there, and they’re the only plans with time zone adjustment.
So the honest reading of the free plan is: a branded, fixed-date timer for a campaign shorter than a month. That’s still useful. It just isn’t 100,000 views of the paid product.
Where MailTimers is the better buy
- Cheap evergreen. Per-recipient timers arrive at $9.95 a month on Startup. On Alterable they’re a Pro feature at $49. If an evergreen countdown is the whole requirement, MailTimers wins on price and I won’t pretend otherwise.
- Cheaper per view at volume. 1.2 million views for $50 against 500,000 for $49 on Alterable Pro. Timers alone, at scale, they’re the smaller line.
- Time zone adjustment, on the top two plans. Corporation and Holding shift the countdown toward the reader’s zone, and MailTimers words it carefully: “If we can determine the recipient’s time zone”. That hedge is fair. Apple Mail Privacy Protection and Gmail’s image proxy hide where a reader is, so it lands on some opens and not others. Alterable doesn’t guess at all: you pick the zone, or pass a per-contact deadline with its own offset. If best-effort local time matters to you and you’re already buying at that tier, it’s theirs.
- Nothing to learn. One product, one generator, one embed. There’s no rules engine because there’s nothing to write rules about.
If you send a lot of fixed-date or evergreen timers and never want anything else in the email, buy Startup or Business and stop here.
Where Alterable is the better buy
Start with the free tier, since that’s what the headline invites you to compare. Which free plan is bigger depends on what you count.
- A free plan with no strings. Alterable’s is 10,000 impressions a month, far fewer than 100,000 views. But it carries no branding, has no 30-day limit, and includes every content type on the platform.
- The second thing. Teams rarely stop at urgency. The timer works, someone asks whether the product shown can reflect what’s in stock, and on a timer-only tool that’s where it ends or a second vendor appears. Alterable makes countdown timers, dynamic images, dynamic products, local maps, surveys, scratchers and slideshows, all on every plan including the free one.
- Room to grow. Pro adds A/B testing at $49 a month, and going over the allowance is billed at $1 per thousand impressions rather than cut off.
- Automation. MailTimers lists no API, Zapier app or MCP server, so a timer only exists if someone makes it in the dashboard. Alterable’s Pro plan has a published API, an MCP server so Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor can create and update timers, and a Zapier integration in private beta.
Key differences
| Feature | Alterable | MailTimers |
|---|---|---|
| What it makes | Timers, images, products, maps, surveys, scratchers, slideshows | Countdown timers |
| Free plan | 10,000 impressions, no branding, every content type | 100,000 views, branded, 30-day max, no evergreen |
| Paid entry | $49/mo, 500K impressions, includes evergreen | $9.95/mo or $7.99 annually, 150K views, evergreen included |
| Top published plan | $199/mo, 2.5M impressions | $50/mo or $39.99 annually, 1.2M views (Business); larger tiers above |
| Also included | Rules engine, A/B testing, 21 languages | Credit rollover, motion timers on Business, best-effort time zone adjustment on Corporation and Holding |
| Automation | API, MCP server and Zapier, from Pro | None listed |
When a MailTimers alternative makes sense
Read the free plan’s fine print against your actual campaign. If it runs under 30 days, counts to one date, and their branding on the timer is acceptable, the free plan does the job. If any of those three is a no, you’re on Startup at $9.95, and now you’re comparing a paid timer tool against a free tier that includes the whole platform.
Beyond that, the usual question. If the countdown is the entire plan, MailTimers is good at it and cheaper. If you can name the second thing you’d put in the email, you’re choosing between two vendors or one.
What switching looks like
Nothing to export, because both tools generate the image at open. Rebuild the timers you use (the free countdown generator is the quickest way to match one), swap the image tags using the setup guide for your ESP in your templates, and your ESP never knows anything changed. Deadlines, timezones and expiry behaviour all map across.
Two checks first. Motion-animated timers have no Alterable equivalent, so if a template depends on one, decide that before you cancel. And if you were using the free plan’s 30-day timers for short campaigns, an Alterable standard timer has no duration cap, so that constraint simply goes away.
Competitor figures come from each tool’s own published pricing, and prices change. Check theirs before you decide.