The email free plan you signed up for two years ago probably is not the same plan anymore.
Several of the best-known ones now cap you at around 250 contacts. One has no automations on its free tier at all. Meanwhile a couple of quieter options kept plans big enough to run a real welcome sequence.
We re-checked the field for small businesses, seven picks, one job each: https://nohireneeded.com/ai-email-marketing-tools/