Mailchimp pricing in 2026: the contact-tier math

The sticker price is the smallest number you will ever pay. Here is how the contact tiers, send caps, and unsubscribed-contact billing set the real one.

Mailchimp's cheapest paid plan costs $13 a month at 500 contacts, $75 at 5,000, and $110 at 10,000, on monthly billing, and the bill includes people who unsubscribed years ago. Those two facts together are most of what you need to know about Mailchimp pricing; the rest of this page shows the working. As of August 2026 Mailchimp publishes no per-tier annual prices (its page says annual plans exist "for qualified customers"), so unlike most of the providers in our email pricing guide, the monthly sticker is the effective price.

The verdict

What you will actually pay, verified August 2026: Essentials is $13/month at 500 contacts, about $26.50 at 1,000, $75 at 5,000, and $110 at 10,000; Standard runs $20, $45, $100, and $135 at the same sizes, all monthly billing. Your billable count includes unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts until you archive them by hand, and your send allowance is capped at 10x contacts on Essentials, so frequent senders pay Standard prices with small lists. Mailchimp still earns its bill for automation-heavy marketers who will use 200-step journeys and the 300+ integrations. If you mainly write a newsletter and answer email, a flat rate covers the same job without the curve, which is the case LetterDuck makes at $50/domain; if your revenue runs on abandoned-cart flows, LetterDuck is not your tool.

The plans

Mailchimp plan	Monthly billing	Annual billing	What you get
Free	$0 per month flat (max 250 contacts)	n/a	250 contacts, 500 sends/mo (250/day), 1 seat, 1 audience, Mailchimp branding; sending pauses at limit
Essentials	$13 per month at 500 contacts (scales with contact tier)	n/a	Send limit 10x contacts/mo, 3 seats, 3 audiences, A/B testing, 4-step automation flows; 50% off first 12 months for new customers
Standard	$20 per month at 500 contacts (scales with contact tier)	n/a	Send limit 12x contacts/mo, 5 seats, 5 audiences, up to 200-step flows, custom-coded templates, generative AI; 14-day free trial; 50% off first 12 months
Premium	$350 per month at up to 10,000 contacts	n/a	Send limit 15x contacts up to 150,000/mo, unlimited seats and audiences, multivariate testing, predictive segmentation, phone/priority support; $620/mo at 25k contacts

Prices checked August 2026 against the Mailchimp pricing page.

Note the Free row before you plan around it. In January 2026 Mailchimp cut the free plan from 500 contacts and 1,000 sends a month to 250 contacts and 500 sends (with a 250/day cap), effective February 17, 2026. It remains a demo, no longer a home.

The math nobody shows

You pay for people you cannot email

Mailchimp bills on your audience total: subscribed, unsubscribed, and non-subscribed contacts all count, and Mailchimp never archives anyone automatically. This is confirmed across multiple 2026 pricing analyses and it is the single most expensive default in the product. Worked example from the verified tier prices: a 2,900-contact audience with 500 unsubscribes bills in the 2,501-5,000 tier at $75/month on Essentials. Archive those 500 dead contacts and you drop to the 1,501-2,500 tier at $45/month. That is $360 a year recovered by pressing a button Mailchimp will never press for you. Put a monthly archive chore on your calendar; it is the highest-paid ten minutes in email marketing.

The cliffs, side by side

Both paid plans step by contact tier. Verified August 2026, monthly billing:

Contacts	Essentials	Standard
500	$13	$20
1,500	$26.50	$45
2,500	$45	$60
5,000	$75	$100
10,000	$110	$135

Contact number 501 doubles your Essentials bill. Crossing a tier boundary mid-month triggers overage charges (billed as add-on contact blocks) or paused sending, so growth lands as either a surprise invoice or a stopped campaign. Premium sits above all this at $350/month up to 10,000 contacts and $620 at 25,000.

The send cap is chained to your list size

Essentials lets you send 10x your contact count per month; Standard, 12x. That multiplier quietly reprices frequent senders. A 1,000-contact list mailed three times a week is roughly 13,000 sends a month, past the 10,000-send Essentials cap, so that sender needs Standard at $45/month even though their list is small. The lever that raises your Mailchimp bill is not only list growth; it is also enthusiasm.

The half-off mirage

The August 2026 pricing page leads with 50% off for new customers: Essentials at $6.50, Standard at $10. The promo lasts twelve months, then the sticker returns. Budget on the full price from day one, because month thirteen arrives with a bill exactly twice the one you got used to.

Is it worth it?

If you will genuinely use the marketing machinery, yes. Two-hundred-step customer journeys, multivariate testing, predictive segmentation, send-time optimization, and 300+ integrations are real capabilities that flat-rate newsletter tools do not attempt, and agencies running campaigns for clients can amortize the cost across accounts. The limitation to accept: you will pay a list-size tax on every one of those features forever, including for contacts who left.

If you run an ecommerce store, the honest comparison is not Mailchimp versus a flat rate but Mailchimp versus Klaviyo, where Klaviyo's storefront depth usually wins at similar money.

If you write a newsletter and answer replies, you are renting a marketing suite to do a postage job. A 5,000-contact newsletter is $75/month on Essentials before the first automation runs. LetterDuck's case is that the same $50 covers unlimited subscribers and every address on your domain, with warm-up throttling and SPF, DKIM, and DMARC managed for you, though it is in waitlist mode and it will not build you a customer journey; senders who need behavioral automation should not pick it.

The flat-rate comparison

One caveat before the table: the Mailchimp column uses monthly-billing prices because Mailchimp publishes no per-tier annual rates, while flat-rate tools have no tiers to discount. Costs at common list sizes:

Monthly cost at	Mailchimp	LetterDuck
500 subscribers	$13	$50 flat
1,000 subscribers	$26.50	$50 flat
5,000 subscribers	$75	$50 flat
10,000 subscribers	$110	$50 flat

Public list prices, August 2026, annual billing where offered. Mailchimp: Essentials on monthly billing, the cheapest paid tier. Standard runs $20 to $135 across the same contact counts. First-year promotional discounts are excluded. LetterDuck is $50 per domain, flat, unlimited addresses and subscribers.

Does Mailchimp really charge for unsubscribed contacts?

Yes. Subscribed, unsubscribed, and non-subscribed contacts all count toward your billable total until you archive them manually. Archived contacts keep their history and can be unarchived, so archiving is safe as well as cheaper.

Is there any annual discount?

Not a published one. The pricing page mentions annual plans "for qualified customers" with no per-tier rate card, so plan your budget on the monthly numbers. The visible discount is the 50%-off first year for new customers, which ends after month twelve.

What happens if I go over my contact or send limit?

Mailchimp either bills overage as add-on contact blocks or pauses your sending until you upgrade. Neither failure mode is fun mid-campaign, so track your count before you import a new list.

What did the January 2026 free-plan change actually cut?

The free tier went from 500 contacts and 1,000 monthly sends to 250 contacts and 500 sends with a 250/day cap, one seat, and Mailchimp branding, effective February 17, 2026. It works as a trial of the editor, not as a plan to operate on.

Are there any discounts besides the intro promo?

Nonprofits can request 15% off. That stacks against a pricing model where archiving dead contacts often saves more than the discount does, so do the hygiene first.

What is the real cost of Mailchimp at 5,000 contacts?

$75 a month on Essentials and $100 on Standard, both monthly billing, because Mailchimp publishes no per-tier annual rate. The cost of Mailchimp is driven by your billable contact count rather than how many emails you send, and that count includes people who unsubscribed until you archive them.