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Mailchimp’s free plan used to be generous. Now it’s 250 contacts and 500 emails per month — barely enough to test the platform. Paid plans start at $13/month but scale aggressively with your contact list. At 10,000 contacts, you’re paying $100-350/month depending on your plan. We mapped every tier, calculated real costs at different list sizes, and found the exact point where Mailchimp gets expensive.
All pricing verified March 2026 from mailchimp.com.
Every Mailchimp Plan at a Glance
| Plan | Starting price | Contacts | Monthly sends | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 250 | 500 | Testing only |
| Essentials | $13/mo | 500 | 5,000 | Small lists, basic email |
| Standard | $20/mo | 500 | 6,000 | Growing businesses |
| Premium | $350/mo | 10,000 | 150,000 | Large lists, advanced needs |
The Free Plan: Not What It Used to Be
Mailchimp’s Free plan was once the gold standard — 2,000 contacts, 10,000 emails per month. Those days are over.
What Free gives you in 2026:
- 250 contacts (down from 500 in 2024)
- 500 emails per month
- 1 audience (list)
- Basic email templates
- Single-step automations only
- Mailchimp branding on every email
- 30-day email support only
What Free doesn’t include: Email scheduling, multi-step automations, A/B testing, remove Mailchimp logo, phone or chat support after 30 days.
250 contacts. That’s it. If you have a mailing list of 300 people, you’re already forced to pay. The Free plan is a trial, not a business tool.
Essentials ($13/month): The Entry Point
Essentials is where Mailchimp becomes usable. You get email scheduling, A/B testing, and 24/7 support. But the starting price is misleading.
$13/month is for 500 contacts. Here’s what Essentials actually costs as your list grows:
| Contacts | Essentials price | Monthly sends |
|---|---|---|
| 500 | $13/mo | 5,000 |
| 1,500 | $30/mo | 15,000 |
| 2,500 | $45/mo | 25,000 |
| 5,000 | $75/mo | 50,000 |
| 10,000 | $110/mo | 100,000 |
| 25,000 | $230/mo | 250,000 |
| 50,000 | $385/mo | 500,000 |
At 5,000 contacts, Essentials costs $75/month. At 10,000 contacts, it’s $110/month. The $13 starting price disappears fast once your list starts growing.
$900/year (not $156 like the starting price suggests)
$13/mo × 12 = $156/year at 500 contacts
$75/mo × 12 = $900/year at 5,000 contacts
Your real cost depends entirely on list size, not the plan you choose.
Standard ($20/month): The Sweet Spot
Standard adds everything most businesses actually need: multi-step automations, send time optimization, behavioral targeting, and custom-coded templates.
Standard vs Essentials — what you gain:
- Multi-step automated email journeys (welcome series, abandoned cart, etc.)
- Send time optimization (AI picks the best time to send)
- Behavioral targeting (send based on what contacts do)
- Custom-coded email templates
- Advanced audience insights
- Predictive demographics
Standard pricing by contact count:
| Contacts | Essentials | Standard | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 500 | $13 | $20 | +$7 |
| 2,500 | $45 | $60 | +$15 |
| 5,000 | $75 | $100 | +$25 |
| 10,000 | $110 | $135 | +$25 |
| 25,000 | $230 | $260 | +$30 |
The price gap between Essentials and Standard is surprisingly small — $15-30/month at most contact levels. Multi-step automations alone are worth that difference. Most businesses should skip Essentials and go straight to Standard.
Premium ($350/month): Enterprise Features
Premium starts at $350/month for 10,000 contacts. That’s a massive jump from Standard’s $135 at the same contact count.
What Premium adds:
- Unlimited users and role-based access
- Advanced segmentation with unlimited conditions
- Comparative reporting
- Multivariate testing (test 8 variants at once)
- Phone support
- Dedicated onboarding
Who needs Premium: Companies with 50,000+ contacts, multiple team members managing campaigns, and complex segmentation needs. If you’re a solo marketer or small team, Premium is overkill.
The Hidden Cost: Unsubscribed Contacts
This is the pricing detail that surprises most Mailchimp users.
Mailchimp counts unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts toward your plan limit. Someone unsubscribes from your emails? They still count as a contact. You still pay for them. The only way to stop paying: manually archive them.
A list of 5,000 contacts with 1,500 unsubscribes? You’re paying for 5,000, not 3,500. At Standard pricing, that’s the difference between $75/month (3,500 contacts) and $100/month (5,000 contacts) — $300/year wasted on people who will never read your emails.
Fix: Set a monthly reminder to archive unsubscribed contacts. Mailchimp doesn’t do this automatically because they profit from your inaction.
Mailchimp vs Alternatives: Price at 5,000 Contacts
| Tool | Monthly cost (5K contacts) | Key difference |
|---|---|---|
| Mailchimp Standard | $100/mo | Most integrations, brand recognition |
| Kit (ConvertKit) | $79/mo | Best for creators, tag-based |
| Brevo (Sendinblue) | $25/mo | Unlimited contacts, pay per send |
| MailerLite | $39/mo | Best value, clean UI |
| ActiveCampaign | $79/mo | Best automations |
| Sender | $33/mo | Budget option, generous free tier |
Mailchimp is the most expensive option at 5,000 contacts. Brevo charges $25/month for unlimited contacts — you only pay based on email volume. MailerLite offers similar features at $39/month. The question is whether Mailchimp’s brand, integrations, and familiarity justify the 2-4x premium.
Annual Cost: What You’ll Really Pay
| List size | Essentials/year | Standard/year |
|---|---|---|
| 500 | $156 | $240 |
| 2,500 | $540 | $720 |
| 5,000 | $900 | $1,200 |
| 10,000 | $1,320 | $1,620 |
| 25,000 | $2,760 | $3,120 |
| 50,000 | $4,620 | $5,400 |
At 10,000 contacts on Standard, you’re spending $1,620/year on email marketing. That’s serious money for a small business. At 50,000 contacts, it’s $5,400/year — at that point, you should be evaluating whether Mailchimp’s ROI justifies the cost or if a cheaper alternative delivers the same results.
Who Should Pick What
Just starting out (under 500 contacts): Mailchimp Free to test the platform, then Standard ($20/mo) when you’re ready to send real campaigns. Skip Essentials — the $7 difference isn’t worth losing automations.
Growing business (1,000-10,000 contacts): Mailchimp Standard if you value the integrations and ecosystem. MailerLite or Brevo if cost matters more than brand.
E-commerce store: Mailchimp Standard. The Shopify, WooCommerce, and product recommendation integrations are strong. Abandoned cart automations work out of the box.
Content creator or blogger: Kit (ConvertKit) instead. Better tag-based organization, creator-focused features, and cheaper at most list sizes.
Budget-first, any list size: Brevo ($25/mo for unlimited contacts). Pay per email sent, not per contact stored. Dramatically cheaper for large lists with infrequent sends.
Large team (50,000+ contacts): Mailchimp Premium or ActiveCampaign. At this scale, evaluate both — ActiveCampaign’s automations are more powerful, Mailchimp’s UI is easier.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did Mailchimp’s free plan get worse?
Mailchimp (now owned by Intuit) has been steadily reducing free plan limits since 2019. The strategy is clear: attract users with “free,” then force upgrades quickly. In 2020, Free included 2,000 contacts. In 2024, 500. In 2026, 250. Expect further reductions.
Does Mailchimp charge for unsubscribed contacts?
Yes. Unsubscribed, non-subscribed, and cleaned contacts all count toward your plan limit. Archive them manually to stop paying. This is Mailchimp’s most criticized pricing practice.
Is Mailchimp worth the price?
At under 2,500 contacts, yes — the ecosystem, templates, and integrations are unmatched. Above 10,000 contacts, compare costs with alternatives like MailerLite, Brevo, or ActiveCampaign. Mailchimp becomes expensive fast, and cheaper tools have closed the feature gap.
Can I get a Mailchimp discount?
Pay annually and save roughly 15-20% depending on the plan. Non-profits get a 15% discount. No student pricing. No startup discounts.
All pricing verified March 2026 from mailchimp.com. Prices scale with contact count — use Mailchimp’s pricing calculator for exact quotes.
