Mailchimp Pricing in 2026: Every Plan, the Hidden Costs, and What You’d Pay Elsewhere

Updated: October 2026

Mailchimp has four plans in 2026: Free, Essentials, Standard, and Premium. Your price depends on how many contacts you store, not how many emails you send, and it moves up a band every time your list grows. Here is what each plan costs right now, what pushes the bill higher than the sticker price, what changed this year, and what the same list would cost on Benchmark.

All prices are in US dollars, billed monthly, taken from Mailchimp’s pricing page in October 2026. Mailchimp changes these often, so check the live page before you commit.

Mailchimp pricing at a glance

• Free: up to 250 contacts, no automations beyond the basics, Mailchimp branding on your emails.
• Essentials: from $13 a month for 500 contacts, 10 emails per contact per month, 3 users.
• Standard: from $20 a month for 500 contacts, 12 emails per contact per month, 5 users. This is the plan Mailchimp pushes.
• Premium: from $350 a month for up to 10,000 contacts, 15 emails per contact per month, unlimited users.

Mailchimp’s current plans, explained

Free

The free plan now covers 250 contacts and 500 sends. It was 500 contacts and 1,000 sends a month until January 2026, when Mailchimp cut both. You get the email builder, basic reporting and a single audience. Automations, A/B testing and scheduling are on paid plans, and your emails carry Mailchimp’s logo. It works for a hobby list. It stops working when your list passes 250 people.

Essentials

Essentials starts at $13 a month for up to 500 contacts and rises with your list: $26 at 1,500 contacts, $45 at 2,500, $75 at 5,000, $110 at 10,000, and $385 at 50,000. You can send 10 emails per contact per month, use basic automations, A/B testing and scheduling, and add up to 3 users and 3 audiences. Essentials is not offered above 50,000 contacts.

Standard

Standard starts at $20 a month for 500 contacts: $45 at 1,500, $60 at 2,500, $100 at 5,000, $135 at 10,000, $310 at 25,000, $450 at 50,000, and $800 at 100,000. It adds the full automation builder, send-time optimization, dynamic content, custom-coded templates, and generative AI features, with 12 emails per contact per month, 5 users, and 5 audiences. Most growing businesses end up here because the features they want sit behind this tier.

Premium

Premium is $350 a month for up to 10,000 contacts, then $465 at 15,000, $620 at 25,000, $815 at 50,000, and $1,025 at 100,000. It includes phone support, unlimited users and audiences, advanced segmentation, and 15 emails per contact per month. It is built for teams, and the price reflects that.

What Mailchimp really costs: 5 list sizes compared

Sticker prices are for the bottom of each contact band. Here is what a real list costs on each plan, and what the same list costs on Benchmark Pro, which includes every feature at every size.

Contacts	Mailchimp			Benchmark Pro
	Essentials	Standard	Premium
500	$13	$20	$350	$12
1,000	$26	$45	$350	$16
5,000	$75	$100	$350	$42
10,000	$110	$135	$350	$76
25,000	$270	$310	$620	$144
50,000	$385	$450	$815	$237

Over a year, a 10,000-contact list on Mailchimp Standard costs $1,620. The same list on Benchmark Pro costs $76 month to month, or $912 annually, with nothing held back for a higher tier.

The hidden costs worth knowing about

The plan price is rarely the bill. Four things push it up.

1. Unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts count. Anyone in your audience counts toward your contact band unless you archive them, including people who unsubscribed years ago. A 4,800-contact list with 400 unsubscribes bills as a 5,001-to-10,000 list.
2. The same person counts once per audience. If a customer is in two audiences, you pay for them twice. Standard allows 5 audiences; it is easy to double-count without noticing.
3. Overages. If you go over your contact or send limit, Mailchimp charges overage fees on paid plans rather than stopping sends. On Free, sending pauses instead.
4. Add-ons. SMS, transactional email (Mandrill), and extra users on Essentials and Standard are all separate charges.

A good rule: take the sticker price and add 20 to 40 percent to estimate what you will pay in a normal month.

Mailchimp’s 2026 price increase (and the ones before it)

Mailchimp raised prices twice in the first half of 2026. In January, it cut the free plan from 500 contacts and 1,000 sends to 250 contacts and 500 sends. Effective April 13, 2026, legacy plans (accounts created before May 2019 that never moved to Essentials, Standard or Premium) went up an average of 11 to 13 percent.

That follows a pattern. In 2019, Mailchimp started billing for unsubscribed contacts and moved automation off the free plan. After Intuit bought the company in 2021, the free plan shrank to 500 contacts. In 2023, free sends were capped at 1,000 a month, and legacy customers, who had been told their prices were protected, saw increases. In 2024, Standard went from $17 to $20 a month, and the top tier went from $299 to $350. If you are budgeting a year ahead, assume another change.

If you are on a legacy plan, log in and archive unsubscribed and inactive contacts before your next bill. Dropping below a band boundary can offset the whole increase.

Is Mailchimp still worth it?

It depends on what you use. Mailchimp is a fair deal if you are on a current plan, keep your audiences clean, and use the Standard-tier features you pay for. It is a poor deal if you are paying for unsubscribed contacts, if the features you need sit one tier above the one you can justify, or if you are a small business that just wants to send a good newsletter every week without a line-item review.

How Benchmark compares

Benchmark Email has two plans. Free covers 500 contacts and 1,00 sends a month, twice Mailchimp’s free contact limit. Pro starts at $12 a month for 500 contacts and includes every feature at every size: contact management, landing pages, sign-up forms, deliverability, reporting, list verification, and 24/7 support from real people. No feature tier to climb. Extra users are $15/month.

How to switch from Mailchimp to Benchmark

Thinking of switching from Mailchimp to Benchmark’s simply powerful, simply priced email marketing tool? Moving from Mailchimp to Benchmark is easy.

1. In Mailchimp, export your audience as a CSV (Audience > All contacts > Export).
2. Remove unsubscribed and bounced addresses from the file, or run it through Benchmark’s list verification.
3. Import the CSV into Benchmark and map your fields and tags.
4. Rebuild your templates (or paste your HTML) and your automations.
5. Send a test campaign, then cancel Mailchimp once the first real send lands.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Mailchimp cost per month?

Free for up to 250 contacts. Paid plans start at $13 a month (Essentials), $20 a month (Standard), and $350 a month (Premium) for the smallest contact band, and rise as your list grows. A 10,000-contact list costs $110 to $350 a month depending on plan.

Is Mailchimp free?

Yes, up to 250 contacts, with Mailchimp branding and without automations, A/B testing, or scheduling. Mailchimp cut the free plan from 500 contacts in January 2026.

Why did Mailchimp raise prices in 2026?

Mailchimp cut the free plan in January 2026 and raised legacy-plan prices by 11 to 13 percent from April 13, 2026. Mailchimp cited the cost of new features; it has raised prices or reduced free limits most years since Intuit bought it in 2021.

Does Mailchimp charge for unsubscribed contacts?

Yes. Unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts count toward your contact band unless you archive them. Archiving them is the fastest way to lower a Mailchimp bill.

What is the cheapest way to stay on Mailchimp?

Archive unsubscribed and inactive contacts, keep every contact in one audience, and move off a legacy plan if you are still on one. Then check whether Essentials covers what you actually use.

What is the best Mailchimp alternative?

It depends on what you need. For a small business that wants every feature without tiers and real support, Benchmark starts at $12 a month. If you need email plus SMS in one tool, look at Brevo. If you want the cheapest possible entry price, look at MailerLite. We compare all of them in the best Mailchimp alternatives, and if you are weighing the other big name, see Constant Contact vs Mailchimp.

Can I export my contacts from Mailchimp?

Yes. Mailchimp lets you export any audience as a CSV at any time, including tags and custom fields.