Best free email countdown timers in 2026

We put seven email countdown timer tools through the same seven criteria, using data read from their pricing pages on October 1, 2026. One of the seven is Kauntodaun, the generator on this site. We measure it by the same rules as the others and say where they beat us.

Kauntodaun is our tool

The Kauntodaun team (kauntodaun.com) wrote this comparison, and we'd like you to pick ours. That's why there's no ranking and no scores. You get figures with a source and a date, and a section for each tool covering what it does better than we do.

If a number has changed since the verification date, the source for every figure is listed at the end of the page.

The seven criteria

• Free views per month. How many times the GIF can load before you pay. Watch the unit: almost every tool counts per account, while Kauntodaun counts per timer.
• Watermark on the free plan. Whether the GIF carries the tool's name, and from when.
• Signup. Whether you can copy the code without creating an account or handing over your email address.
• Evergreen. Whether the free plan offers a countdown that starts with each recipient instead of a fixed date.
• Analytics. Whether the free plan tells you how many times the timer has loaded.
• Site languages. How many languages the tool's website comes in, going by the versions its homepage declares. On every tool you can type the timer labels ("DAYS", "HOURS") in your own language.
• First paid plan. Monthly price and views of the cheapest plan, as each tool publishes it.

Comparison table

Verified October 1, 2026. Prices billed monthly, in the currency each tool publishes.

Kauntodaun's figures are for the free plan with no account. Mailtimers and PromoFeatures say their prices include taxes.

What to pick for what you need

• Fixed date, free and unbranded, for a small list. Sendtric up to 10,000 views a month, or Kauntodaun up to 25,000 per timer with no signup.
• Per-recipient evergreen without paying. CountdownMail or PromoFeatures, if you're fine with their branding on the GIF.
• High volume, branding doesn't matter. CountdownMail puts no view limit on its free plan. Mailtimers gives 100,000 a month.
• An API or your own fonts for free. CountdownMail includes them in its free plan. Kauntodaun has no public API.
• Other dynamic images, like polls or weather. Sendtric or NiftyImages.

Tool by tool

Sendtric

Along with Kauntodaun, it's the only tool in the table with no watermark on the free plan as long as you stay under the limit, which for Sendtric is 10,000 views a month. Go over and a watermark appears until the count resets; paid plans never show one.

To get the code you have to enter an email address and confirm it. The free plan uses a single font and doesn't let you customize the labels, only pick their language. Nor does it include analytics, transparent backgrounds or timers that start on open. Those timers ("Start on open" and "unique user") come with Micro, at $9 a month for 150,000 views ($8.25 a month billed annually). Transparent backgrounds and expired-timer options are on Standard, at $39.

Where it beats us: its site comes in 16 languages, it sells other dynamic images (polls, weather forecasts), and it has an API plan with a Beefree plugin and white labeling for $149 a month. According to its site, more than 200,000 companies use it, and its homepage shows a 4.6 out of 5 rating on G2.

Mailtimers

It gives 100,000 free views a month, the highest figure in the table after CountdownMail's unlimited views. In exchange, the GIF carries its branding, a timer can't run longer than 30 days, and evergreen timers and transparent backgrounds are paid features. Uploading your own font (TTF) starts at Startup and background images at Startup+.

Its Startup plan costs $9.95 a month for 150,000 views, taxes included, or $8 a month billed annually. The FAQ on its site still says "starting at just $7.99." The $9.95 figure comes from the price API of Paddle, the payment platform it bills through, queried with the product IDs on its own pricing page.

Where it beats us: Klaviyo's help center uses it as the example in its article on countdown timers, and its site comes in 11 languages.

CountdownMail

It has the most complete free plan in the table, with one catch: the timer carries a "Powered by CountdownMail" badge. Without paying you get unlimited views, evergreen timers, transparent backgrounds, your own fonts, analytics with two years of history, an API at 60 requests a minute, and team collaboration with permissions.

You can design a timer on its site without an account, but you have to sign up to copy the code. Starter removes the branding for $7 a month with 100,000 views, or $70 a year. Its feature table includes an option to hide the timer from Apple Mail users on iOS 15 or later, because of cached images.

Where it beats us: almost everywhere except the watermark. If the badge doesn't bother you, its free plan does more than ours.

MotionMail

The free plan gives 20,000 views a month with its branding. Bootstrap costs $10 a month for 100,000 views, 20 percent less billed annually, which makes it the most expensive entry plan per view in the table.

You can edit a timer after it's sent and, on paid plans, switch the label language per recipient. Its pricing page doesn't mention evergreen timers, but its help center (articles from June 2024) limits them to Startup, at $60 a month, Enterprise and VIP. According to the same help center, every plan lets you pass the deadline in the URL with the endDateTime parameter and repeat the timer every set number of hours, and there's a token-based API. Its site is English only.

Where it beats us: per-recipient dynamic language, a deadline in the URL from the free plan, and a listing in Mailchimp's integrations directory.

Tickvio

Of its 20,000 free views a month, only the first 1,000 are unbranded. The free plan has 3 active timers, one seat and basic analytics. On evergreen, its page contradicts itself: the free plan card says it includes evergreen and recurring timers, while the comparison table on the same page marks them as not included.

Entry costs $9 a month for 150,000 views, 25 active timers, two seats and evergreen. Overage is billed at $10 per 100,000 views.

Where it beats us: two seats from the entry plan (our Starter has one) and a site in 5 languages.

PromoFeatures

It gives 30,000 free email views a month, plus another 30,000 for timers on web pages, with its branding. Like CountdownMail, it lets you use evergreen timers, transparent backgrounds and an expired message without paying. Start Kit costs $6.99 a month for 150,000 views, VAT included, which is a cent less than our Starter.

Where it beats us: free evergreen, timers for your website as well as email, and a site in 5 languages.

Kauntodaun (ours)

The free plan asks for no account and no email address. Each timer is served without branding up to 25,000 impressions in the month. Above that, a small line of text appears under the countdown, and paid plans never get it.

The free evergreen timer counts from each open, so anyone who reopens the email sees the full window again. The version that locks the start at each person's first open needs the Starter plan. The evergreen countdown timer page explains how it works.

There are no analytics without an account; a free account gives you 30 days. Timers can be edited after the email goes out, and when they expire they show a message or disappear. The site is in English and Spanish. Starter costs $7 a month ($70 a year) for 200,000 impressions, and Pro costs $22 a month for 1,000,000. Every plan is on the pricing page.

Where the others beat us:

• API. We don't have a public one; CountdownMail's is free.
• Custom fonts. You can't upload a font file. The free plan has a curated list and Starter gives you any Google Fonts family (1,500+). CountdownMail lets you upload yours for free.
• Deadline in the URL. CountdownMail and MotionMail have timers that take each recipient's end date from the link. We only store a start time per recipient.
• Apple Mail. We have no special option to hide the timer or swap it for another image.
• On expiry. A message or nothing; we don't support an image yet.
• Teams. Starter has one seat and Pro has three.
• Integrations. We're not in Klaviyo's help center or Mailchimp's directory.
• Track record. Our generator has been running since March 2026. Sendtric and CountdownMail publish far larger usage figures.

Other options that aren't in the table

NiftyImages sells image personalization to large teams, and the countdown is one feature among many. Its Starter plan begins at $59 a month for 25,000 opens. It offers a free trial but doesn't publish the limits.

PicTimer has no permanent free plan. The trial includes 5,000 views, and after that Entry costs $9 a month for 150,000.

Your ESP's own block. Some platforms now have a built-in countdown. Omnisend includes one on its Standard and Pro plans, with a single fixed end date for every recipient. Klaviyo doesn't have one; its help center points to outside tools, as our Klaviyo guide explains.

How we built this comparison

• Date. All figures were read on October 1, 2026.
• Sources. Each tool's official pricing page and homepage. We didn't use reviews or third-party comparisons.
• Prices rendered with JavaScript. For Mailtimers, CountdownMail and PromoFeatures, we queried Paddle's public price API with the product IDs in the HTML of their pricing pages, for a US customer.
• Free plan features. Taken from the included and not-included marks in each pricing table, read from the HTML.
• Languages. We counted the versions each homepage declares with hreflang tags.
• What we didn't do. We didn't create accounts on these tools or test their timers from the inside. Each row reflects what the tool publishes.
• Kauntodaun. Our figures come from our plan and engine documentation, in the same format as everyone else's.
• Updates. Every three months. The verification date on the table changes with each review.

If you plan to use a countdown with a transparent background, read how GIF transparency works first: not every tool or style handles it the same way.