Mailchimp alternatives: what you save at your list size, and where the AI sits

Why people leave Mailchimp

Mailchimp’s bill rises in steps as your list grows. Essentials costs $13 a month at 500 contacts and $45 at 2,500 (Mailchimp pricing).

At 10,000 contacts it reaches $110. A 50% offer cuts the base price for the first 12 months, then the list price applies (offer terms).

Who gets billed matters too. Mailchimp counts subscribed, non-subscribed and unsubscribed contacts towards your limit (help centre). A list that has shed readers still pays for them.

Types of contacts

Subscribed Counts toward monthly contact limit?: Yes

Unsubscribed An unsubscribed contact is someone who previously received your marketing content but has opted out. Counts toward monthly contact limit?: Yes

Non-subscribed A non-subscribed contact is someone who’s interacted with you but hasn’t opted in to receive marketing content. Counts toward monthly contact limit?: Yes

Cleaned Hard bounces and repeated soft bounces become cleaned contacts. Counts toward monthly contact limit?: No

Archived An archived contact is someone who’s been removed from your audience. Counts toward monthly contact limit?: No

Generative AI is “Not included” on Free and Essentials. It starts on Standard, at $60 for 2,500 contacts and $135 for 10,000.

The free plan has shrunk as well. It now covers 250 contacts and 500 sends a month. The pricing page’s own plan data set the Free limit at 500 contacts in a 31 May 2025 capture. In public reviews, one Reddit post written to promote a rival tool calls list-size pricing Mailchimp’s “subscriber tax” (1 of 5 sources: r/Emailmarketing).

What each alternative costs at your list size

At 2,500 contacts, Kit and beehiiv both cover you on their free plans, and Brevo Starter is the cheapest paid plan. Just under 10,000, Kit Free still covers you, and Brevo Starter again costs least among paid plans.

Headline prices hide how each tool counts your list. Mailchimp bills unsubscribed contacts; three of these alternatives say they do not.

MailerLite: cheaper than Essentials at every tier, with AI on Comfort

MailerLite is a newsletter and automation tool aimed at small businesses. Comfort saves you $12 a month against Essentials at 2,500 contacts and $21 at 10,000 (MailerLite pricing).

The AI writing assistant and smart sending come with Comfort. Against Mailchimp Standard, the plan with AI, the saving grows to $27 and $46. Unsubscribed and bounced addresses do not count. Mailchimp vs MailerLite goes feature by feature.

Best for

Small lists that want automations, landing pages and AI drafting at a low entry price: Comfort starts at $12 a month for 500 subscribers.

Skip it if

you want your list kept out of AI training: MailerLite’s terms 17.3 license your AI inputs and outputs to improve AI models.

Brevo: priced by emails sent, so a big quiet list stays cheap

Brevo charges for emails sent each month, and each paid tier caps how many contacts you can store. Free keeps up to 100,000 contacts and sends 300 emails a day (Brevo pricing).

Our list-size figures assume about four sends per contact a month. On that basis Starter costs $25 at 2,500 contacts, $20 less than Essentials. At 10,000 contacts it costs $46, a saving of $64.

The Aura content generator starts on Starter. Marketing automation and send-time optimisation need Standard. Brevo’s terms 6.7 let it use your content to train its AI features. Brevo vs MailerLite sets the two cheapest paid plans side by side.

Best for

Lists that send rarely: Free stores up to 100,000 contacts and sends 300 emails a day; Starter costs $9 a month for 5,000 emails.

Skip it if

you email the whole list weekly or more: Brevo’s price follows sends, so the saving shrinks as frequency rises.

Kit: free up to 10,000 subscribers for creators

Kit, formerly ConvertKit, is built for creators who sell newsletters and courses. Its Free plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited broadcasts (Kit help centre). The help centre words the cap both “up to 10,000” and “under 10,000”, so a list of exactly 10,000 sits on the line. That saves the whole Essentials bill at 2,500 and 10,000 contacts.

Free leaves out visual automations and sequences. Creator, which adds them, costs $59 at the 3,000 step and $139 at 10,000. Kit’s help centre says “Kit itself does not train any AI/LLM on Kit data” (AI Connectors article). Kit vs Mailchimp covers migration.

The Kit Free plan

Past the cap You’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan to keep sending.

Switching back If you’re on a paid plan, you keep your paid features until the end of your current billing period. If you’re on a trial, access to paid features ends as soon as you switch.

Automations Visual automations and sequences stop running while you’re on the Free plan.

Best for

Solo creators and small newsletter or course businesses under 10,000 subscribers, free without automations or paid with visual automations priced by list size.

Skip it if

you need automated sequences at 10,000 subscribers: Creator costs more than Mailchimp Essentials at that size.

Omnisend: AI copy on the free plan for online stores

Omnisend is email and SMS for online shops, with Shopify among its integrations. Its free plan includes AI subject lines, AI writing and the AI segment builder (Omnisend AI). Mailchimp keeps those behind Standard.

Standard costs $44 at 2,500 contacts, $1 under Essentials. At 10,000 it costs $22 more. The pricing page says “Unsubscribed contacts aren’t billed”. Price jumps by contact count recur in its Shopify App Store reviews (4 of 22 sources: Shopify App Store, Shopify App Store).

Best for

Online stores on Shopify or similar that want flows, forms and AI copy at a lower list-size price than Klaviyo, and that send mostly email.

Skip it if

you do not sell online: the product recommender and send-time tools sit on Pro or paid add-ons built around store data.

Klaviyo: predictive data on the first paid plan, at a higher price

Klaviyo is an email and SMS platform built around store data. Its Email plan lists predictive analytics and AI-generated segments and content (Klaviyo pricing). Mailchimp keeps predictive segments behind Standard, at $60 a month for 2,500 contacts.

Klaviyo costs more than Essentials: $15 more at 2,500 and $40 more at 10,000. It bills active profiles only, and unsubscribed or bounced profiles drop out once suppressed (billing article). Users report bot sign-ups inflating the active-profile count, and the bill with it (7 of 19 sources: Shopify App Store, Shopify App Store).

Best for

Online stores with thousands of contacts wanting flows, segments and predictive data, and willing to clean the list to cut the profile count.

Skip it if

you want the lowest price per contact: Klaviyo Email costs more than Mailchimp Essentials at all four list sizes priced here.

GetResponse: unlimited sends, but every list counts separately

GetResponse sells email with landing pages and webinars. Starter saves $16 against Essentials at 2,500 contacts and $31 at 10,000, with unlimited sends (GetResponse pricing).

Starter caps the AI email generator at “Up to 3 uses”. Marketer removes the cap at $69 for 2,500 contacts and $114 for 10,000. The terms count unsubscribed and deleted contacts, and an address on two lists twice (terms). Section 10 says its chosen AI “does not learn from the content provided by the Customer”.

Best for

Small lists wanting unlimited sends and landing pages: Starter is USD 19 a month for 1,000 contacts, USD 79 for 10,000 (monthly, 1 November 2026).

Skip it if

you keep several lists with overlapping subscribers: each copy of an address is billed, which can erase the saving.

ActiveCampaign: deeper automation, billed yearly

ActiveCampaign is an automation-first platform for sales and marketing teams. It publishes yearly billing only, and Mailchimp publishes monthly prices only, so the comparison below sets a yearly-billed price against a monthly one (ActiveCampaign pricing).

Starter costs $39 a month billed yearly at 2,500 contacts, below the Essentials monthly price. At 10,000 contacts the yearly Starter price, $149, sits above Essentials. AI content generation starts on Plus, $95 at 2,500. Its terms (section 4) let it use your marketing content “to help us train and improve the Services”.

Best for

Teams that need multi-step automation on the entry plan: Starter has it, with 10,000 sends a month and 1 seat (archived page, 26 October 2026).

Skip it if

you want to pay month to month: the pricing page shows yearly billing only.

beehiiv: a free newsletter to 2,500 subscribers

beehiiv is a newsletter platform with a website, paid subscriptions and an ad network. Free covers up to 2,500 subscribers with unlimited sends (beehiiv pricing), the whole Essentials bill saved at that size.

At 10,000 subscribers you need Lite, $139 a month: $29 more than Essentials. The in-editor beehiiv AI starts on Lite. A no-training option appears only in the Enterprise column. beehiiv vs Mailchimp compares the two for publishers.

Best for

Newsletter publishers who want a site, paid subscriptions and the ad network in one tool, with under 2,500 subscribers or ready to pay Lite prices.

Skip it if

you run store or sales automation: beehiiv is built for publishing, and automations need a paid plan.

Does switching keep your list out of AI training?

Only with Kit, whose help centre says Kit trains no AI on your data, or GetResponse, whose terms say its chosen AI “does not learn from the content provided by the Customer”.

Mailchimp, MailerLite and Brevo have clauses that allow training; ActiveCampaign’s lets it use your content to “train and improve the Services”, without naming AI models. The terms of Omnisend, Klaviyo and beehiiv say nothing either way about their own models. Does your email tool train AI? quotes each clause in full.

Left out, and why

HubSpot sells email as part of a CRM, so its price follows the CRM plan. Substack takes a share of paid subscriptions and suits writers more than marketers; newsletter platforms covers it. The full field sits on AI email marketing tools and the AI email marketing hub.

When Mailchimp is still the cheaper choice

At 500 contacts, Essentials costs less than Omnisend Standard, Klaviyo Email and GetResponse Starter. The 50% offer halves the base price for a year on top. The Mailchimp profile and Mailchimp pricing read each tier.

Questions buyers ask about Mailchimp alternatives

Which Mailchimp alternative is free?

Kit Free covers up to 10,000 subscribers, without automations. beehiiv Free covers 2,500 subscribers, and Brevo Free stores 100,000 contacts at 300 emails a day. MailerLite, Omnisend and Klaviyo give 250 contacts free, like Mailchimp.

Who are Mailchimp’s main competitors?

MailerLite and Brevo compete on price, Kit and beehiiv on creator newsletters. Omnisend and Klaviyo compete for online stores; GetResponse and ActiveCampaign for automation.

Does any alternative bill unsubscribed contacts?

GetResponse does, and it counts an address on two lists twice. MailerLite, Omnisend and Klaviyo say unsubscribed contacts are not billed.

More email tool comparisons sit together in the AI email marketing hub →