Mailchimp Pricing 2026: Every Plan Explained

Last updated: March 02, 2026

TL;DR: Mailchimp pricing in 2026 starts at $13/month for 500 contacts on Essentials and climbs to $350/month for Premium at 10,000 contacts. Verified nonprofits get a 15% discount — the lowest in the industry — but must apply with documentation before upgrading, and it doesn't cover add-ons. Mailchimp also bills for unsubscribed contacts and duplicates across audiences, so most organizations pay more than the listed price. For nonprofits, churches, schools, and associations sending member updates, Groupmail offers cleaner pricing, no charges for unsubscribes, and a 30% nonprofit discount from $20.30/month.

Mailchimp is one of the most recognized email tools in the world, but recognition doesn't guarantee fit — especially for organizations whose priority is simple, reliable member communication. This guide explains what Mailchimp really costs in 2026 at every contact tier, what each plan includes, which hidden costs catch organizations off guard, and when simpler tools make more sense.

Disclosure: We're the team behind Groupmail — simple email software for organizations since 1996. We'll be upfront about where we fit and honest about alternatives.

Pricing last verified March 2026. Visit mailchimp.com/pricing and groupmail.io/pricing for current rates.

What Does Mailchimp Actually Cost in 2026?

Mailchimp's "starting at" prices apply only to 500 contacts — most organizations will pay significantly more, with a typical nonprofit list of 4,000+ contacts landing at $75–$135/month depending on the plan.

Mailchimp structures pricing by contact count and plan tier. The starting prices look accessible, but they represent the floor, not the norm. According to Nonprofit Tech for Good's email statistics, the average nonprofit email list sits just over 4,000 contacts — which places most organizations well above the entry-level price point. Here's what Mailchimp's four plans actually cost at common list sizes, based on publicly available 2026 pricing:

Source: Mailchimp public pricing page and independent pricing analyses, March 2026.

💡 Tip: Mailchimp prices are based on your total contact count — including unsubscribed contacts still sitting in your account. Check your actual audience size, not just active members, before comparing plans.

What's Included in Each Mailchimp Plan?

Each tier adds features on top of the previous one, but the jump from Free to Essentials is where most organizations hit a paywall — and the jump to Standard is where automation unlocks.

Free Plan ($0/month — up to 250 contacts)

Mailchimp's free plan was cut significantly in January 2026. It now covers just 250 contacts and 500 monthly emails with a daily sending cap of 250. According to EmailToolTester's January 2026 pricing update, this is a reduction from the previous limits of 500 contacts and 1,000 sends. There is no email scheduling, no multi-step automation, Mailchimp branding appears on every email, and support is available only for the first 30 days after signup. For context, the plan once covered 2,000 contacts — it has shrunk dramatically since the Intuit acquisition in 2021.

For most nonprofits, churches, and schools, 250 contacts isn't a workable list size. Even a small PTA or volunteer group will outgrow it quickly.

Essentials Plan ($13–$385/month)

The entry-level paid plan removes Mailchimp branding, unlocks email scheduling, A/B testing, all templates, and 24/7 email and chat support. Monthly sends are capped at 10 times your contact count — so 5,000 contacts gives you 50,000 sends per month. The plan caps at 50,000 total contacts and allows 3 audiences (lists) and 3 user seats.

The key limitation: no multi-step email automation. You're limited to single-step triggers, which means no welcome sequences, no multi-email event reminders, and no conditional logic in your messaging. Organizations that want even basic automated sequences need to upgrade.

Standard Plan ($20–$450/month)

Standard is where multi-step automation, dynamic content, send-time optimization, and predictive segmentation unlock. Monthly sends increase to 12 times your contact count. You get 5 audiences, 5 user seats, retargeting ads, custom HTML templates, and comparative reporting. The contact ceiling is 100,000.

This is the plan most nonprofit and organization guides recommend for anything beyond basic sending — but it's also where cost escalates fastest. A nonprofit with 5,000 contacts pays $100/month on Standard, or $1,200/year. According to the M+R Benchmarks 2025 study, email accounts for 11% of all online nonprofit revenue — but that doesn't mean every organization needs a full automation stack to get there.

Premium Plan ($350–$1,025+/month)

Premium starts at $350/month for up to 10,000 contacts and is built for large teams with extensive requirements: unlimited audiences, unlimited users, multivariate testing, comparative reports, and phone support. At 50,000 contacts it runs $815/month. Organizations with more than 200,000 contacts receive custom pricing.

Most nonprofits, churches, schools, and associations will never need Premium. It's designed for marketing teams running multi-channel operations at scale — not for organizations sending monthly newsletters to their members.

What Are the Hidden Costs Most Organizations Miss?

Mailchimp bills for unsubscribed contacts, counts duplicates across audiences, and adds fees for transactional email and SMS — costs that can push your actual monthly spend 20–40% above the listed plan price.

You pay for contacts who can't receive your emails

This is the most common complaint from organizations reviewing their Mailchimp bills. According to Mailchimp's own pricing documentation, subscribed, unsubscribed, and non-subscribed contacts all count toward your plan limit. If 500 people have unsubscribed from your list over the years, you're still paying for them unless you manually archive each one. According to the M+R Benchmarks 2025 study, nonprofits saw an average unsubscribe rate of 9.7% in 2024 in the UK and Ireland — meaning a list of 5,000 contacts loses roughly 485 people per year who remain in your account and on your bill unless actively managed.

The fix is to regularly filter by unsubscribed status and archive those contacts — but Mailchimp doesn't automate this, and many organizations don't discover the rule until months into paid billing.

Duplicates across audiences inflate your count

If a single contact appears in two different Mailchimp audiences, Mailchimp counts them twice toward your total. This is particularly common for organizations that segment by location, program type, or membership tier. EmailToolTester's 2026 Mailchimp pricing review highlights this as one of the most frequent complaints from small organizations managing multiple lists.

Add-ons sit outside plan pricing

Transactional email (for receipts, confirmations, and automated notifications) is a separate paid add-on priced at $20 per block of 25,000 sends. SMS marketing requires a separate application and credits that don't roll over month-to-month. Custom domains cost $9/month extra. Pay-as-you-go email credits expire after 12 months.

⚠️ Watch out: Mailchimp's nonprofit discount cannot be combined with other promotional offers and does not apply retroactively. Introductory promo pricing and nonprofit discounts don't stack — if you sign up during a promotion without first requesting your nonprofit discount, you lose it.

Does Mailchimp Offer a Nonprofit Discount?

Mailchimp offers a 15% discount to verified nonprofits — the lowest nonprofit discount of any major email platform — and you must request it with documentation before purchasing a paid plan.

To qualify, US-based organizations must submit a 501(c)(3) determination letter through Mailchimp's billing contact form. International nonprofits submit equivalent documentation or a link to their organization's website. The discount applies to Essentials, Standard, and Premium plans but not to add-ons, transactional email, SMS, or third-party purchases. According to Mailchimp's own help documentation, the discount cannot be applied retroactively — if you upgrade to a paid plan before requesting it, you forfeit the savings.

Here's how the 15% discount compares to alternatives:

The dollar difference compounds quickly. A nonprofit with 2,500 contacts on Mailchimp Standard pays approximately $51/month after the 15% discount — about $612/year. The same organization on Groupmail Standard, which covers up to 10,000 contacts, pays $34.30/month after the 30% discount — about $411.60/year. That's lower cost, four times the contact capacity, and no charge for unsubscribed contacts. According to Neon One's Nonprofit Email Report, the average nonprofit raises $1.11 per email contact — money saved on tools goes directly back to programs.

For a detailed nonprofit-specific breakdown with costs at every contact tier, see our Mailchimp Nonprofit Pricing: What You'll Really Pay guide.

How Does Mailchimp Pricing Compare to Alternatives?

At every common list size, simpler tools cost 40–70% less than Mailchimp Standard — with larger nonprofit discounts and no charges for unsubscribed contacts.

At 5,000 contacts, Groupmail's Starter plan costs $29/month versus $100/month for Mailchimp Standard — a saving of $852 per year. Groupmail's Starter plan covers up to 5,000 contacts and includes scheduled sending, personalization, and your own branding. Mailchimp Standard adds features like dynamic content, retargeting ads, and predictive segmentation — but most organizations sending weekly newsletters to their members will never use them. MailerLite is a solid middle option at $39/month for 5,000 contacts, with a 30% nonprofit discount matching Groupmail's. Constant Contact removed its free plan entirely and is among the most expensive options at every tier.

Pricing last verified March 2026. Visit groupmail.io/pricing for current Groupmail rates.

For a full comparison across tools built for organizations, see our Mailchimp alternatives for nonprofits guide.

Has Mailchimp's Pricing Changed Over Time?

Mailchimp has raised prices and reduced free-plan limits multiple times since its 2021 Intuit acquisition — making today's product significantly more expensive than what most long-standing users originally signed up for.

Historical pricing data shows a consistent pattern of reduction at the free tier and increases at paid tiers. The free plan once supported 2,000 contacts; that fell to 500 in 2023, then to 250 contacts and 500 monthly sends as of January 2026, according to EmailToolTester's pricing changelog. Paid-plan prices also increased after the Intuit acquisition, with some tiers rising by 20–30% between 2022 and 2024 according to aggregated pricing analyses on sites like SMTPEDIA and PriceTimeline.

Feature availability has also shifted unfavorably. The Classic Automation Builder was deprecated in June 2025 — pushing multi-step automations exclusively into the Standard plan at $20/month minimum. Organizations that had basic welcome sequences or event reminders running on the free or Essentials tiers found them suddenly requiring an upgrade.

According to the M+R Benchmarks 2025 report, email open rates for nonprofits average around 26% — a figure that hasn't changed dramatically regardless of how sophisticated the sending platform is. For organizations primarily measuring whether members read the update, the added complexity rarely translates into better outcomes.

If you've recently hit the new 250-contact free-plan ceiling, our Mailchimp free plan changes 2026 guide walks through your options.

What's the Best Value for Your Organization?

For nonprofits, churches, schools, and associations under 10,000 contacts sending regular member updates, Groupmail offers better value than Mailchimp at every list size — with a larger nonprofit discount, no charges for unsubscribes, and simpler setup.

Choose Mailchimp if you genuinely need multi-step automation with branching logic, retargeting ads alongside email, deep integrations with ecommerce platforms like Shopify or WooCommerce, or you have dedicated marketing staff managing a full campaign calendar. For these use cases, Mailchimp's Standard and Premium plans offer genuine depth that simpler tools don't match.

Choose Groupmail if you send newsletters, bulletins, or announcements to your members and want to get started without a learning curve. Groupmail manages email delivery on all plans — no DNS configuration, no third-party sending service to set up. The free plan covers 500 contacts with 2,500 monthly sends — ten times Mailchimp's current free limit. The Starter plan at $29/month drops to $20.30/month after the 30% nonprofit discount ($244/year), staying well under typical $500 board-approval thresholds. Human support is available on all paid plans — real people, not chatbots. Groupmail has been trusted by over 100,000 organizations across 160 countries since 1996.

For a broader look at the options, see our best email software for nonprofits guide.

FAQ

How much does Mailchimp cost per month in 2026?

Mailchimp's paid plans start at $13/month for Essentials (500 contacts) and $20/month for Standard (500 contacts). Most organizations pay more once their list grows: at 5,000 contacts, Essentials runs $75/month and Standard costs $100/month. Premium starts at $350/month for up to 10,000 contacts. All prices are based on contact count and scale upward as your list grows.

Is Mailchimp still free in 2026?

Mailchimp offers a free plan, but as of January 2026 it is limited to 250 contacts and 500 monthly emails — reduced from 500 contacts and 1,000 sends. There is no scheduling, no multi-step automation, and Mailchimp branding appears on every email. Support is available only for the first 30 days after signup.

Does Mailchimp charge for unsubscribed contacts?

Yes. According to Mailchimp's own pricing documentation, subscribed, unsubscribed, and non-subscribed contacts all count toward your plan limit. You must manually archive unsubscribed contacts to stop being billed for them. Organizations that don't know this rule often pay for hundreds of contacts who can no longer receive their emails.

Does Mailchimp offer a nonprofit discount?

Mailchimp offers a 15% discount to verified nonprofits on all paid marketing plans (Essentials, Standard, and Premium). You must submit your 501(c)(3) determination letter or equivalent documentation through Mailchimp's billing team before purchasing a paid plan. The discount cannot be combined with other promotions and cannot be applied retroactively to past purchases.

Does Groupmail offer a nonprofit discount?

Groupmail offers a 30% discount on all paid plans — double Mailchimp's nonprofit discount. It applies to the Starter plan ($29/mo → $20.30/mo), Standard ($49/mo → $34.30/mo), and Growth ($79/mo → $55.30/mo). No prepayment is required and no documentation workflow is needed. Annual billing on Starter works out to $244/year after the discount.

Is there a cheaper alternative to Mailchimp for nonprofits?

Yes. At 5,000 contacts, Groupmail's Starter plan costs $29/month ($20.30 after the 30% nonprofit discount) versus Mailchimp Standard at $100/month ($85 after the 15% discount) — a difference of $776 per year. MailerLite is another alternative with a 30% nonprofit discount, starting at $39/month for 5,000 contacts.

How does Mailchimp compare to Constant Contact on price?

Constant Contact removed its free plan entirely, with paid plans now starting around $12/month for small lists. Nonprofit discounts range from 20–30% but typically require prepaying 6–12 months. For a detailed nonprofit-specific comparison, see our Constant Contact pricing for nonprofits guide.

Can I switch from Mailchimp without losing my contacts?

Yes. You can export your full contact list from Mailchimp at any time via Audience → All contacts → Export Audience. Most tools, including Groupmail, accept CSV imports directly. The process typically takes under 30 minutes. Our how to switch from Mailchimp guide walks through every step.

Ready to send your first update? Start free with Groupmail — set up in 10 minutes, no credit card required. Built for organizations, not marketers.