Short version: Mailchimp's free plan ends at 250 contacts and 500 sends a
month. The moment your list passes that - or you need real automation - one of these five will serve you
better. Each pick below has a verified price anchor, who it fits, who should avoid it, and one explicit
tradeoff. No tool is best at everything; pick by your scenario.
Prices verified Oct 4, 2026Official vendor pages onlyOne explicit tradeoff per pick
Affiliate disclosure: product links on this page are affiliate links (rel="sponsored"). We may earn a commission if you sign up, at no extra cost to you. Commissions never change a price we publish - every figure below was verified on the vendor's own site on Oct 4, 2026. How we verify.
Quick picks
Five Mailchimp alternatives at a glance (prices verified Oct 4, 2026)
Alternative
Best for
Verified price anchor
Free plan
The tradeoff
Kit (ConvertKit)
Creators, newsletters, digital products
Creator from $33/mo
Up to 10,000 subscribers
Shallow ecommerce vs dedicated store tools
MailerLite
Budget-sensitive small teams
Power: $69 @5k · $129 @10k · $239 @25k
250 subscribers
Fewer native integrations than the big suites
Brevo
Big list, infrequent sends
From $9/mo (sends-based)
100,000 contacts stored, 300 sends/day
You pay per send - daily senders pay more
ActiveCampaign
Automation + CRM depth
Starter $15 @1k · $149 @10k
None - 14-day trial
No free plan; depth you may not need yet
AWeber
Anyone who hates pricing surprises
Lite: $25 @1k · $60 @5k · $100 @10k · $210 @25k
Not confirmed
Less creator-focused tooling than Kit
Sender deserves an honorable mention on price alone: Standard is verified at
$39/$69/$149 per month at 5k/10k/25k contacts with a free plan for 2,500 subscribers - the cheapest
verified floor in the calculator. It is covered in depth there rather than here.
Pick 1 · creators
Kit (ConvertKit) - best for creators
Fits: newsletter writers, course sellers, anyone whose email list is the
business. Avoid if: your revenue comes from a physical-product store (see the ecommerce
note in the FAQ).
Kit's free plan holds 10,000 subscribers - 40× Mailchimp's free ceiling of 250 -
with unlimited landing pages and forms. Paid Creator starts at $33/mo ($390/yr) and adds
unlimited visual automations; Kit also sells digital products natively (3.5% + 30¢ per transaction,
of which Kit keeps 0.6%). Billing is per active subscriber and deduplicated, so your billable
count is usually smaller than Mailchimp's per-contact count on the same list.
The tradeoff: Kit does not publish a per-contact price table, so beyond the
$33/mo starting price we cannot verify exactly what a 7,300-subscriber list costs without its slider -
and ecommerce depth is thinner than Omnisend or Klaviyo.
Try Kit freeFree up to 10,000 subscribers. Kit pays this site a commission (50% of first-year payments, then 10-20% lifetime at volume tiers) - disclosed in full on the methodology page.
Pick 2 · budget
MailerLite - best on a budget
Fits: small teams with standard needs and a hard budget. Avoid if:
you need a deep native integration catalog or creator monetization features.
MailerLite's Power tier is fully published pricing: $69/mo at 5,000 subscribers, $129 at
10,000, $239 at 25,000 (verified Oct 4, 2026), with Comfort starting at $12/mo ($49 at 5,000) and
annual billing 10% off. That undercuts Constant Contact's Standard tier ($110/$160/$310 at the same
sizes) by roughly a third at every step - and unlike Kit, every tier can be checked in advance.
The tradeoff: fewer native integrations and less hand-holding than the big
US suites. If you live inside Shopify plus six other tools, check the integration list before switching.
Fits: large lists emailed a few times a month - event businesses, associations,
seasonal senders. Avoid if: you email daily; per-send pricing will pass contact-based
tools quickly.
Brevo charges per monthly email send, not per contact. Free plan stores up to 100,000 contacts (300 sends/day cap) at $0; paid plans start at $9/mo (Starter) and $18/mo (Standard). Storing 5,000-25,000 contacts on a paid plan requires a 20,000+ sends/month tier whose exact price is not published. For a 20,000-contact list emailed twice a month, nothing else on this page comes close
on storage cost alone.
The tradeoff: the model punishes frequent senders, and Brevo does not
publish its 20,000+ sends tier price in a table - we say so rather than guess, which also means we
cannot quote your exact paid-tier cost in advance.
Fits: teams where automation and CRM are the point - lead scoring, pipelines,
behavioral flows. Avoid if: you want a free tier to grow into, or your automation
needs fit on one hand.
ActiveCampaign Starter is $15/mo at 1,000 contacts - the cheapest verified paid entry
on this page - and $149/mo at 10,000 contacts (official cost guide, verified Oct 4, 2026). Its automation
builder and built-in CRM are a generation ahead of Mailchimp's 4-step Essentials flows.
The tradeoff: there is no free plan, only a 14-day trial, and per-tier
prices above 10,000 contacts are not published in a table we could verify. You pay for depth you might
not use in year one.
Fits: anyone who wants to budget a year ahead to the dollar. Avoid if:
you want creator monetization (paid newsletters, product checkout) built in.
AWeber publishes a complete price matrix anyone can read: Lite is $25 / $60 / $100 / $210 per
month at 1k / 5k / 10k / 25k subscribers, Plus is $45 / $90 / $135 / $250 (re-verified
Oct 4, 2026). No slider, no surprises - which is also why it anchors the
calculator as the broadest published matrix.
The tradeoff: creator-specific features are weaker than Kit's, and a free
plan could not be confirmed from its official pages - only a trial is stated.
Export before you touch anything. Download your full audience CSV, plus separate exports of unsubscribes and suppression lists, and any engagement reports you may want later. Historical open/click data does not migrate.
Inventory what will not move. Signup forms, landing pages, automation flows, and templates must be rebuilt in the new tool. Count them now; that count is your real switching cost.
Import and map tags. Mailchimp tags map to tags in Kit, MailerLite, and AWeber. Keep the mapping boring - rename later, not during migration.
Re-authenticate your domain. Add the new tool's SPF/DKIM records before your first send from it. Skipping this is the number one cause of post-migration spam-folder problems.
Run both accounts for one send cycle. Send once from the new tool to a segment, confirm deliverability and links, then switch fully. Only then cancel Mailchimp.
What this guide cannot tell you
Exact Kit or Mailchimp bills above the free tiers. Neither publishes a per-contact table. Anyone quoting you an exact 8,000-contact Mailchimp price from a blog is estimating; we will not.
Deliverability at your volume. It depends on your list hygiene and sending history, not the logo. No honest guide can promise inbox placement.
Which automation builder you will enjoy. Prices we can verify; taste we cannot. ActiveCampaign's depth and Kit's simplicity are both real - trial the one that matches your scenario.
Next quarter's prices. Vendors reprice without notice. Every figure here is stamped Oct 4, 2026; re-check the vendor page before you commit annually.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best free alternative to Mailchimp?
Kit (formerly ConvertKit). Its free plan allows up to 10,000 subscribers, versus 250 contacts on Mailchimp's free plan - forty times the headroom. Sender is the runner-up with a free plan for 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month.
What is the cheapest Mailchimp alternative?
On verified prices at 5,000 contacts, Sender Standard is $39/mo, then AWeber Lite at $60/mo and MailerLite Power at $69/mo. At 1,000 contacts, ActiveCampaign Starter ($15/mo) and GetResponse Starter ($19/mo) are the cheapest verified paid options. All figures were verified on official pages on Oct 4, 2026.
Which Mailchimp alternative is best for ecommerce?
Of the five in depth here, Brevo and ActiveCampaign handle store workflows best, but the honest answer is that dedicated ecommerce tools (Omnisend, Klaviyo) exist for a reason. Omnisend Standard is verified at $20/mo for 1,000 contacts, $81 at 5,000, and $132 at 10,000. Run your size through the calculator before deciding.
Can I migrate my Mailchimp list without losing subscribers?
Yes - every tool here imports CSV lists and most offer free migration help. What does not transfer cleanly is your automation flows, signup forms, and historical engagement data; plan to rebuild those. Budget an afternoon, not a weekend, and run both accounts in parallel for one send cycle.
Does Mailchimp offer an affiliate program like the alternatives?
No open one. Mailchimp's only commission route is the agency-style Mailchimp & Co program, which requires two or more connected paid client accounts - unusable for a content site, and this site earns nothing from Mailchimp links. The alternatives on this page (Kit, MailerLite, ActiveCampaign, GetResponse, AWeber) run open affiliate programs, which is disclosed because some of our links are affiliate links.
Why do some alternatives show a starting price instead of a full price table?
Because their vendors do not publish one. Kit and Mailchimp show per-contact prices only behind sliders; we publish the official starting price and label the rest 'not published' rather than copying numbers from other sites. Tools with complete published matrices (AWeber, MailerLite, Sender, Constant Contact) get full tables in the calculator.