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Email marketing pricing at 500, 2,500, 10,000 and 50,000 contacts

By Alexandre S. Published Last checked

Of the 15 email marketing tools whose pricing pages we read on 1 November 2026, four cost nothing for a list of 500 contacts. Two still cost nothing at 10,000: Kit’s free plan, which its help centre gives up to 10,000 subscribers, and Substack’s free newsletter.

The table gives each tool’s cheapest plan that holds the list, at four sizes, on monthly billing. Each row links to the vendor’s pricing page.

MailerLite, Brevo, GetResponse, beehiiv and Smartlead open their pricing pages on yearly billing, so their plan cards quote lower figures than the monthly prices above. MailerLite’s cards at 500 subscribers read Comfort at $10.80 and Power at $22.50 a month, billed yearly.

MailerLite's pricing page at 500 subscribers with yearly billing: Power at $22.50 a month, Comfort at $10.80, Free at $0 for 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails, Enterprise custom
MailerLite’s plan cards at 500 subscribers, shown with yearly billing selected MailerLite pricing page, captured

Omnisend’s tier follows the contact count. Its cards for 251 to 500 contacts show Standard and Pro with a 30% discount for three months paid upfront.

Omnisend's pricing page at a list size of 251 to 500 contacts: Free at $0 with 500 emails and 250 contacts, Standard at $11.20 a month and Pro at $41.30 a month with the three-months-upfront discount switched on
Omnisend’s plan cards at 251 to 500 contacts, with the three-months-upfront discount on Omnisend pricing page, captured

GetResponse prices by list size from 1,000 contacts, so a 500-contact list pays the 1,000 price.

GetResponse's pricing page at 1,000 contacts with yearly billing: Starter at $15.58 a month, Marketer at $48.38, Creator at $56.58, Enterprise custom, with each plan's feature list
GetResponse’s plan cards at 1,000 contacts, yearly billing selected GetResponse pricing page, captured

beehiiv prices by subscriber bucket, and its free plan holds up to 2,500 subscribers.

beehiiv's pricing page at 1,000 subscribers with yearly billing: Free at $0, Lite at $49 a month, Pro at $95 a month, Enterprise custom
beehiiv’s plan cards at 1,000 subscribers, yearly billing selected beehiiv pricing page, captured

Cheapest plan for your list size

Type the contacts on your list and the emails you send a month. The finder sorts all 15 tools by price for that list.

Prices exist at our four steps only. A list between two steps gets the price of the step above, the smallest step that holds it. Your monthly emails decide whether a free plan fits. Paid prices here follow list size, except Brevo’s, which assume about four emails per contact a month.

The AI email marketing hub sorts the tools by job if price is not your only filter.

Where AI writing costs extra

The cheapest plan above often has no AI that writes emails. At 500 contacts, Mailchimp Essentials costs $13 a month, but generative AI starts on Standard, at $20 a month.

Cheapest plan with AI email writing, monthly price in USD, where it differs from the cheapest plan
Tool 500 contacts 2,500 contacts 10,000 contacts 50,000 contacts
beehiiv Lite; Free has no AI in the editor $59 $79 $139 $299
GetResponse Marketer; Starter allows 3 uses $59 $69 $114 $359
HubSpot Professional; Content agent (Beta) $890 $1,140 $1,390 $3,190
Mailchimp Standard; Essentials has none $20 $60 $135 $450

Scroll sideways for all 5 columns

HubSpot Professional also needs one-time onboarding of $3,000, and its Content agent draws on HubSpot Credits, 3,000 a month on Professional (HubSpot catalogue).

Brevo’s pricing page lists its Aura AI content generator from Starter. At 500 contacts that costs $9 a month against nothing on Free. From 2,500 contacts the cheapest plan in the main table already includes it (Brevo pricing).

ActiveCampaign sells AI content generation from Plus and publishes yearly billing only, so it has no monthly row. Plus costs $49 a month at 1,000 contacts and $189 at 10,000, billed yearly (archived pricing page).

HubSpot’s catalogue also lists Breeze Assistant, which can “generate content”, under Smart CRM (HubSpot catalogue).

MailerLite, Klaviyo, Omnisend, Instantly and Apollo.io put AI writing on their cheapest paid plan, and Omnisend on its free plan too. Kit and Smartlead name no plan for their AI writing tools on their pricing pages. The plan for lemlist’s AI Copilot goes unstated on its pricing page, and Substack names no writing tool.

How each vendor counts a contact

Two tools can quote the same price for “10,000 contacts” and bill two different lists. The counting rule decides who you pay for.

Terry Bay’s video of 9 August 2026 compares ten email platforms on contact-based against send-based billing. It also covers billing for unsubscribed or inactive contacts and free plan caps.

Thumbnail of the YouTube video "Best Email Marketing Software 2026 (All 10 Ranked by What They Actually Bill You For)" by Terry Bay
A creator ranks ten email platforms on contact-based against send-based billing and whether unsubscribed contacts are billed Video: Best Email Marketing Software 2026 (All 10 Ranked by What They Actually Bill You For), Terry Bay on YouTube, .
What each email tool bills by, and which contacts count
Tool Billed by What counts
ActiveCampaign Contacts, billed yearly The pricing page does not say whether unsubscribed contacts count; sends are capped at 10 times the contact limit on Starter and Plus
Apollo.io Seats Each seat gets a monthly credit pool; one lead lookup uses 1 credit
beehiiv Subscribers Unique subscribed addresses, rounded up to the next bucket
Brevo Emails sent One email to one contact is one credit; paid tiers also cap stored contacts
GetResponse Contacts Counted per list, so one address on two lists counts twice; unsubscribed and deleted contacts count too
HubSpot Marketing contacts Only contacts you can email; others are free up to 15 million; the tier cannot drop before renewal
Instantly Plan Caps on uploaded contacts and emails a month; no overage charge
Kit Confirmed subscribers The tier moves up by itself; moving down is a request that applies next billing date
Klaviyo Active profiles Profiles you can email; unsubscribed and bounced profiles drop out
lemlist Seats and email volume Contacts are uncapped
Mailchimp Contacts Subscribed, non-subscribed and unsubscribed contacts count; archived and deleted ones do not
MailerLite Active subscribers Unsubscribed and bounced addresses do not count; an address active at any point in the cycle does
Omnisend Contacts Unsubscribed contacts are not billed; Standard caps sends at 12 times the list
Smartlead Plan Stored prospect addresses: 2,000 on Base, 30,000 on Pro, then unlimited
Substack Paid subscriptions No charge per reader; 10% of paid subscription revenue plus card fees

Scroll sideways for all 3 columns

The rule shows up on the bill. Mailchimp counts contacts who unsubscribed until you archive them (Mailchimp help). GetResponse counts a contact once per list, so duplicates across lists raise the tier.

Klaviyo bills only active profiles, and its users report a different trap. Bot or fake sign-ups inflate the active profile count and the bill. Reviewers say clearing them out is hard (7 of 19 sources: Shopify App Store, Reddit).

HubSpot works the other way round. You choose which contacts are marketing contacts, and passing your tier bills you at once (HubSpot catalogue).

How the table is built

Every price comes from the vendor’s own pricing pages or the price data those pages load. The plan under each price is the cheapest one that holds the list on monthly billing, in US dollars, before any coupon.

Where a vendor sells no step at our size, the row takes its next step up. GetResponse starts at 1,000 contacts, so a 500-contact list pays the 1,000 price. Kit bills 50,000 subscribers at its 55,000 step. HubSpot sells Starter contacts in blocks of 1,000, so 2,500 contacts are billed as 3,000.

Brevo bills by emails sent, so its row assumes about four sends per contact a month: 10,000 emails for a 2,500-contact list.

Brevo's pricing page with yearly billing: Starter at $8.08 a month, Standard at $16.17, Professional at $449.08, Enterprise custom, with the feature list under each plan
Brevo’s plan cards, yearly billing selected, priced by monthly email volume Brevo pricing page, captured

Cold email tools (Instantly, lemlist, Smartlead, Apollo.io) bill by plan or seat, and their cells read as the contacts or lead lookups each plan allows. Instantly’s Growth plan, for example, allows 1,000 uploaded contacts and 5,000 emails a month.

Instantly's pricing page with monthly billing: Growth at $47 a month with 1,000 uploaded contacts and 5,000 emails, Hypergrowth at $97 with 25,000 contacts and 125,000 emails, Light Speed at $358, Enterprise custom
Instantly’s plan cards, monthly billing: priced by contacts uploaded and emails sent Instantly pricing page, captured

Smartlead prices by emails sent and prospect addresses stored: its Base plan stores 2,000.

Smartlead's pricing page: Base at $32 a month with 2,000 contacts and 6,000 sends, Pro at $78, Unlimited Smart at $144, Unlimited Prime at $315 a month
Smartlead’s plan table: priced by emails sent and contacts stored Smartlead pricing page, captured

A missing monthly price reads “Not published”. ActiveCampaign shows yearly billing only. Apollo.io’s seat credits fall short of 10,000 lookups, and its page gives no combined price for the extra credits.

Each row carries the date it was read. A row older than 30 days shows “Last checked” beside its date. How we check prices sets out the method, and corrections show on updates and corrections.

How to cite this data

adtestbench, "Email marketing pricing at 500, 2,500, 10,000 and 50,000 contacts", https://adtestbench.com/data/email-marketing-prices/, updated .
  • CSV file /data/email-marketing-prices.csv
  • JSON file /data/email-marketing-prices.json

Email marketing pricing questions, answered in a line

How much does email marketing cost?

On each tool’s cheapest plan at 10,000 contacts, from nothing to $410 a month on HubSpot Starter. That spans the 13 tools that publish a monthly price at that size (HubSpot catalogue).

What is the cheapest email marketing platform?

Kit and Substack cost nothing up to 10,000 contacts. Kit’s free plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers, by its help centre, without automations or sequences.

Substack’s free newsletter takes only 10% of paid subscriptions plus card fees, at any size. At 50,000 contacts, the lowest monthly fee for a marketing email plan is Brevo Standard at $249, at four emails per contact (Brevo pricing).

Smartlead’s cold email plan costs $174 at that size.

Is there a Mailchimp pricing calculator?

Mailchimp’s pricing page has a contact slider for its own plans. The finder above sets Mailchimp beside 14 other tools; at 2,500 contacts its Essentials plan costs $45 a month (Mailchimp pricing).

Do free plans cap how many emails you send?

Most do. Mailchimp, Klaviyo and Omnisend stop at 500 emails a month, HubSpot at 2,000 and MailerLite at 2,500.

Brevo caps sends at 300 a day. Kit lists unlimited broadcasts and beehiiv unlimited sends.

Every AI email marketing page, sorted by job, is in the AI email marketing hub

Sources

  1. Kit: Kit pricing, subscriber slider, monthly billing. Checked
  2. Kit: Kit help centre, billing at Kit, confirmed subscribers only; tier moves up automatically. Checked
  3. beehiiv: beehiiv pricing, subscriber buckets; Free up to 2,500. Checked
  4. GetResponse: GetResponse pricing. Checked
  5. GetResponse: GetResponse terms of service, the Contacts section, what counts toward the list size. Checked
  6. MailerLite: MailerLite pricing, active subscribers per billing cycle. Checked
  7. ActiveCampaign: ActiveCampaign pricing (archived 26 October 2026), yearly billing only. Checked
  8. Omnisend: Omnisend pricing. Checked
  9. HubSpot: HubSpot Marketing Hub pricing. Checked
  10. HubSpot: HubSpot product and services catalog, marketing contacts, blocks and tier rules. Checked
  11. Brevo: Brevo pricing, billed by emails sent a month. Checked
  12. Instantly: Instantly pricing. Checked
  13. lemlist: lemlist pricing. Checked
  14. Mailchimp: Mailchimp pricing. Checked
  15. Mailchimp: Mailchimp help, about Mailchimp pricing plans, which contacts count toward the limit. Checked
  16. Klaviyo: Klaviyo pricing, billed by active profiles. Checked
  17. Substack: Substack, going paid, 10% of paid subscription revenue plus card fees. Checked
  18. Smartlead: Smartlead pricing. Checked
  19. Apollo.io: Apollo.io pricing, per seat, with a monthly credit pool. Checked
  20. Shopify App Store and Reddit: Klaviyo user reports, 19 public sources synthesised. Checked
Portrait of Alexandre S.

Alexandre S.

Alexandre S. is a creative ad strategist and copywriter with ten years' experience in digital marketing across multiple channels.

About the authorHow we review tools

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