Mailchimp pricing looks straightforward on the surface — four plans, starting at zero, scaling to $350 a month. In practice, the bill that arrives is rarely the number advertised. Unsubscribed contacts count toward the plan limit, duplicates across audiences bill separately, and SMS is always a paid add-on. By the time overages and extras land, actual spend commonly runs 20–40% above the listed plan price.
This breakdown covers every plan, every scaling tier, the hidden costs most buyers miss, and a head-to-head against the most credible alternatives. No filler, no marketing speak.
Mailchimp Pricing at a Glance
Mailchimp currently offers four marketing plans: Free, Essentials, Standard, and Premium. All paid plans scale by contact count, not by emails sent. That contact-counting model — including billing for people who have already unsubscribed — is one of the platform’s most consequential design choices and the primary driver of bill shock.
| Plan | Starting Price | Base Contacts | Monthly Send Limit | Seats |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 250 | 500 | 1 |
| Essentials | $13/mo | 500 | 10× contacts | 3 |
| Standard | $20/mo | 500 | 12× contacts | 5 |
| Premium | $350/mo | 10,000 | 15× contacts | Unlimited |
Source: Mailchimp official pricing page, verified May 2026.
Plan-by-Plan Breakdown
Free Plan
The Free plan is now nearly unusable for real business activity. As of February 17, 2026, Mailchimp cut the free tier from 500 contacts and 1,000 monthly sends down to 250 contacts and 500 sends — a 96% reduction from the 2,000-contact free plan that existed in 2022.
What the free plan removes entirely:
- Email scheduling
- Automation workflows (stripped from free tier by mid-2025)
- A/B testing
- Custom-coded templates
- Dynamic content blocks
- Transactional email
- SMS marketing
- Live chat support
With 500 sends and 250 contacts, a business cannot send two emails per month to its entire list. The free plan now functions as a trial entry point, not a working tool.
Essentials Plan — Starting at $13/mo
Essentials is the entry-level paid tier. It adds email scheduling, A/B testing, Mailchimp-branded templates, and access to customer support. The monthly send ceiling is 10× the contact count on the account.
| Contacts | Essentials/mo | Send Limit |
|---|---|---|
| 500 | $13 | 5,000 |
| 1,000 | ~$27 | 10,000 |
| 2,500 | ~$45 | 25,000 |
| 5,000 | ~$75 | 50,000 |
| 10,000 | ~$110 | 100,000 |
| 50,000 | ~$270 | 500,000 |
Essentials tops out at 50,000 contacts. It does not include multi-step automation journeys, predictive segmentation, or comparative reports — those are Standard-and-above features. For any business needing behavioral triggers or multi-step drip sequences, Essentials forces an upgrade.
Standard Plan — Starting at $20/mo
Standard is where Mailchimp becomes a fuller marketing platform. It adds multi-step automation journeys, predictive segmentation, send-time optimization, and generative AI tools for subject lines and body copy. The send ceiling is 12× the contact count.
| Contacts | Standard/mo | Send Limit |
|---|---|---|
| 500 | $20 | 6,000 |
| 1,000 | ~$35 | 12,000 |
| 2,500 | $60 | 30,000 |
| 5,000 | $100 | 60,000 |
| 10,000 | ~$135 | 120,000 |
| 50,000 | ~$350 | 600,000 |
Standard supports up to 100,000 contacts. For most growing businesses, Standard is the effective minimum if any form of triggered or automated email is required.
Premium Plan — Starting at $350/mo
Premium starts at $350 per month for 10,000 contacts. It unlocks advanced segmentation, comparative reporting, multivariate testing, unlimited seats and audiences, and priority phone support with a dedicated onboarding specialist.
The Premium tier is designed for enterprise senders. At 50,000 contacts, monthly cost approaches $1,100. At 200,000 contacts — the published platform maximum — pricing requires a custom quote from Mailchimp’s sales team.
Discounts available: Mailchimp offers a verified 15% nonprofit discount across all paid plans. Annual billing saves an additional 20% on Standard and Premium. The two discounts do not stack — the larger applies.
Pay-As-You-Go Credits
For infrequent senders, Mailchimp offers prepaid email credits. The feature set mirrors Essentials. Credits are sold in blocks — roughly $20 per block of 25,000 emails. Unused credits expire monthly and do not roll over, making this option expensive if purchased speculatively rather than precisely.
The Hidden Costs Inside Mailchimp Pricing
The headline numbers understate actual spend. Several billing mechanics push real costs above the listed plan price, often by 20–40%.
Unsubscribed Contacts Count Against the Limit
Mailchimp bills for subscribed, unsubscribed, and non-subscribed contacts equally. A contact who opted out two years ago still occupies a paid slot unless manually deleted. For any list active for more than 18 months, the gap between “contactable” and “billable” can push an account into the next price tier entirely.
Duplicate Contacts Across Audiences
If the same email address exists in two Mailchimp audiences, it counts twice toward the billable total. Businesses that segment their master list into separate audiences — a common list management practice — routinely discover their billable count is 30–50% higher than their unique subscriber count.
SMS Is Always an Add-On
SMS marketing is not included in any Mailchimp plan. Credits are purchased separately, in blocks, and expire monthly. There is no SMS access on the Free plan at all.
Transactional Email Requires Mandrill
Transactional emails — order confirmations, password resets, shipping notifications — require Mailchimp’s separate Mandrill add-on. Mandrill is billed in blocks of 25,000 emails per month, adding meaningful incremental cost for e-commerce businesses that depend on triggered sends.
Dedicated IP: $29.95/Month Extra
High-volume senders who want a dedicated IP address for deliverability control pay an additional $29.95 per month on top of their plan fee.
Automatic Overage Billing
If a list grows past the current tier mid-cycle, Mailchimp automatically charges overages. The per-contact overage rate exceeds the per-contact rate of the next tier up — meaning it costs more to exceed a tier than to proactively upgrade before the threshold is crossed.
The real-world number: Multiple independent audits of Mailchimp accounts find actual monthly spend runs 20–40% above the advertised plan price once all hidden costs are counted. A business budgeting $75/month for Essentials at 5,000 contacts should realistically budget $90–105.
Mailchimp Pricing History: A Steady Climb Since 2021
Since Intuit acquired Mailchimp for $12 billion in 2021, the platform has raised prices or reduced plan value in nearly every subsequent year.
- 2022: Free plan reduced from 2,000 to 500 contacts
- 2023: Significant price increases across all paid tiers
- Mid-2025: All automation workflows removed from the free tier
- February 2026: Free plan cut to 250 contacts and 500 sends/month
- April 2026: Legacy accounts (created before May 2019) hit with 11–13% price increases
The pattern is clear and consistent: the same money buys less each year. Businesses that signed up for Mailchimp in 2019 or 2020 and never audited their contract are now paying for plans with fundamentally different terms than what they agreed to.
Mailchimp vs. Cheaper Alternatives
The email marketing market has mature competitors priced well below Mailchimp for comparable or superior functionality. The two most direct substitutes — Brevo and MailerLite — are worth examining in detail. For a broader field review, see the complete email marketing software roundup and the dedicated Mailchimp alternatives comparison.
| Tool | Free Plan | Starting Paid Price | Pricing Model | Automation on Free | SMS Included |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mailchimp | 250 contacts, 500 sends/mo | $13/mo | Per contact (incl. unsubscribes) | No | No — add-on |
| Brevo | Unlimited contacts, ~9,000 emails/mo | $9/mo | Per email sent | Yes | Yes |
| MailerLite | 1,000 contacts, 12,000 emails/mo | $10/mo | Per subscriber | Yes | No |
Brevo charges by emails sent, not contacts stored. For businesses with large lists that send infrequently — a monthly newsletter to 20,000 people, for example — Brevo costs 60–75% less than Mailchimp for the same volume. The free plan holds unlimited contacts with about 9,000 monthly sends. The entry paid plan is $9/month. Brevo also includes SMS, WhatsApp campaigns, and a built-in CRM at no additional charge. For a full platform review, see the Brevo email marketing analysis.
MailerLite is simpler and less expensive, starting at $10/month for 500 subscribers. Its free plan covers 1,000 contacts and 12,000 monthly sends — four times the contacts Mailchimp offers for free, with full automation included. The trade-off is depth: MailerLite has limited advanced segmentation and narrower reporting. No SMS is available natively.
Cost Comparison at 5,000 Contacts
| Tool and Plan | Monthly Cost | Send Limit | Automation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mailchimp Essentials | ~$75 | 50,000 | Basic only |
| Mailchimp Standard | ~$100 | 60,000 | Full multi-step |
| Brevo Starter (40K sends) | ~$39 | 40,000 | Full |
| MailerLite Growing Business | ~$39 | Unlimited | Full |
At 5,000 contacts, the alternatives save $36–$61 per month versus Mailchimp’s comparable tiers. Over 12 months, that is $432–$732 in savings for equivalent or superior functionality.
When Mailchimp Is Worth the Premium
Despite the cost gap, Mailchimp has genuine advantages in specific contexts that the alternatives have not fully replicated.
- Integration breadth: Mailchimp connects natively with more third-party tools than most competitors. If a business has built its workflow around Mailchimp-native integrations, switching carries real migration cost that may offset any monthly savings.
- Reporting depth: Standard and Premium plans offer comparative reporting and predictive segmentation that budget tools cannot match.
- Template library: The design tools and template catalog are mature and consistently reliable.
- Enterprise support: Premium-tier support with dedicated onboarding is genuinely high quality — relevant for larger teams.
- G2 rating: Mailchimp holds a 4.4/5 on G2 across tens of thousands of reviews, reflecting strong overall user satisfaction despite pricing friction.
For high-volume senders who depend heavily on segmentation, comparative reporting, and a deep third-party integration ecosystem, the Standard or Premium plans may justify the premium. For businesses sending under 10,000 emails per month to a list under 5,000 contacts, the cost differential is harder to defend on features alone.
When to Consider an Integrated Platform Instead
Email marketing is one component of a customer communication system. Businesses that also need a CRM, pipeline management, SMS, landing pages, booking automation, and lead nurture often find that paying separately for each layer costs more than one integrated platform — and produces worse results due to data fragmentation between tools.
Platforms like Automated Sales Machine’s email marketing suite combine email and SMS campaigns with a full built-in CRM, pipeline management, booking calendars, multi-step automation workflows, funnel builder, reputation management, and AI conversation bots — eliminating the add-on stack that Mailchimp users typically build around their account. Current all-in pricing is available on the ASM pricing page.
For businesses whose email needs are inseparable from their broader sales and marketing workflow, the relevant comparison is not Mailchimp vs. Brevo — it is the total cost of all point solutions versus one integrated system.
Frequently Asked Questions About Mailchimp Pricing
How much is a Mailchimp subscription per month?
Mailchimp’s paid plans start at $13/month for Essentials (500 contacts) and scale with list size. At 5,000 contacts, Essentials costs roughly $75/month and Standard costs roughly $100/month. Premium begins at $350/month for 10,000 contacts. Real spend typically runs 20–40% higher than the listed price due to unsubscribed contact billing, overage charges, and paid add-ons.
Why are people leaving Mailchimp?
The three most cited reasons: repeated price increases since Intuit’s 2021 acquisition, the contact-counting model that bills for unsubscribed and inactive contacts, and the steady reduction of the free plan — down 96% in contact capacity since 2022. Many users report paying significantly more today for a plan that provides less than what they originally signed up for.
What is a cheaper alternative to Mailchimp?
Brevo and MailerLite are the most capable direct substitutes at lower price points. Brevo starts at $9/month and prices by emails sent rather than contacts stored — significantly cheaper for large lists with moderate send frequency. MailerLite starts at $10/month with a more generous free plan and full automation at all tiers. Both offer substantially better value for most small-to-mid business use cases.
How much does it cost to send 10,000 emails on Mailchimp?
On Essentials, 1,000 contacts provides a 10,000-send ceiling at roughly $27/month. If the list has 2,500 contacts and 10,000 emails is a single campaign send, the applicable tier runs approximately $45/month. On Brevo, 10,000 emails falls within the $9/month Starter plan. The cost difference is material.
Does Mailchimp offer a nonprofit discount?
Yes. Mailchimp provides a verified 15% discount for qualified nonprofit organizations on all paid plans. Annual billing provides a separate 20% discount. The two discounts do not stack — the higher one applies.
Final Verdict on Mailchimp Pricing
Mailchimp pricing is transparent in structure and opaque in practice. The four plan tiers are clearly published; the mechanisms that inflate actual spend — unsubscribed contact billing, duplicate audience counting, mandatory SMS and transactional email add-ons, automatic overage charges — require active investigation to surface. Buyers who budget on the headline number consistently find their real bill is 20–40% higher.
The platform earns its price at the higher tiers for businesses that genuinely need its reporting depth, integration ecosystem, and enterprise support. For the majority of small and growing businesses, the alternatives close the feature gap at a price 40–60% lower.
The most important calculation is not the plan price in isolation — it is the total cost of the complete marketing stack. A business paying $100/month for Mailchimp, $30/month for a CRM, and $20/month for SMS automation is paying $150/month across fragmented tools. An integrated platform covering all three often costs less and operates with better data cohesion.
Compare all-in costs at the Automated Sales Machine pricing page — or book a demo to see the full platform against Mailchimp’s feature list.