Eight Mailchimp alternatives, priced before you pack

The best Mailchimp alternatives for most senders are MailerLite for a straight swap, Sender or EmailOctopus when the bill is the whole problem, and ActiveCampaign or GetResponse when you left because you outgrew the automation. Which one is right for you comes down to three numbers Mailchimp's own pricing made you think about: what a month costs at your contact count, how many emails that buys, and what the platform actually counts when it bills you.

This page owns one job: pricing the exits. If you want to see what staying costs first, the Mailchimp pricing breakdown walks the whole ladder band by band. And a scope note before the table — this site covers marketing email. If your list lives in a Shopify or WooCommerce store, the ecommerce-first platforms (Klaviyo, Omnisend) answer a different question and we don't rank them here; and if you write a paid newsletter, the creator platforms are a different aisle again.

The comparison at a glance

Prices are monthly billing unless marked, at 500 and at 5,000 contacts, as displayed on September 23, 2026. Mailchimp Standard — the plan most switchers are actually on — costs $20 a month at 0–500 contacts and $100 a month at 2,501–5,000 once its half-price first year ends. That pair of numbers is the baseline every row below is beating or failing to beat.

Two rows need their asterisks read. Brevo's $9 is not "cheap at 5,000 contacts" — it is Brevo's entry step of 5,000 emails a month, because Brevo bills sending volume and largely ignores how many contacts sit in the account. And ActiveCampaign's pricing page displays annually-billed figures only, so its numbers are not directly comparable with the monthly-billing rows around them.

How we compared

Three rules produced this ranking of eight destinations, and you can re-run them yourself. First, price at declared sizes: we set each vendor's own slider or selector to 500 and to 5,000 and recorded what it showed, on the same day, in USD. Second, the counting unit outranks the sticker: a platform that counts subscribers treats your unsubscribed and inactive addresses differently from one that counts "contacts", and one that counts emails sent is a different species altogether — a cheap-looking row can quietly re-inflate at your real numbers. Third, no measurements we didn't make: nothing here claims one platform lands in inboxes better than another, because we have not tested that and neither vendor pages nor anyone else publishes it in a checkable form.

What this ranking is not: a features encyclopedia. Where a feature difference is the actual reason to pick a row — automation depth, seats, send caps — it is in that platform's section below, sourced from its pricing page.

MailerLite — the straight swap

If Mailchimp's price was your only complaint, MailerLite is the move that changes the least. The editor, forms, landing pages and automation cover what Mailchimp's Essentials and Standard tiers cover for most small senders, and the bill drops sharply: $12 against $45 at 1,000 contacts, $49 against $100 at 5,000 — our MailerLite vs Mailchimp head-to-head walks the full ladder both ways and covers where Mailchimp still wins.

Know two limits before you commit. The free plan is small now — 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, with 2 seats — so treat it as a trial, not a destination. And the Comfort plan's send allowance is listed as 5,000 monthly emails at its smallest size; if you send daily, look at Power (unlimited emails, unlimited seats — $25 a month at 500 contacts) rather than assuming Comfort stretches.

Sender — the biggest free plan in the table

Sender's free plan holds 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month, which is bigger than some rivals' paid entry tiers — the catch is Sender branding on your emails and a single seat. Paid Standard runs $9 at 500 subscribers and $39 at 5,000, monthly billing, with sends capped at 12× your subscriber count. Annual billing is listed at twelve times the monthly price, and a 30% first-year discount for first-time users was displayed when we checked — a first-term price, so budget on the undiscounted figure.

The honest caveat: Sender is the least-known name in this table, and its template and integration catalogue is thinner than MailerLite's or Mailchimp's. For a small business sending campaigns and simple automations, that may cost you nothing.

EmailOctopus — the lowest bill that still does the job

EmailOctopus Pro at 5,000 subscribers is $31.50 a month on monthly billing ($28 billed yearly) — the cheapest contact-counted paid row here. It gets there by staying deliberately plain: campaigns, a solid editor, landing pages and forms, basic automation, without the CRM ambitions of the platforms further down this page. The free plan (2,500 subscribers, 10,000 emails a month) is generous enough to move a small list onto and decide later. Our EmailOctopus review prices the whole ladder and lists what "plain" leaves out.

Moosend — unlimited sends without drama

Moosend's Pro plan is the row for senders who keep hitting Mailchimp's send multiplier: campaigns and sends are unlimited on every tier, and the price stays low — $9 a month at 500 contacts, $48 at 5,000, with annual billing knocking 20% off. There is no free plan, only a 30-day trial (no card), which is longer than most. The Moosend review covers the tier ladder and the Moosend-vs-Mailchimp arithmetic in detail.

Brevo — when you send rarely to a big list

Brevo breaks the pattern that makes Mailchimp expensive: it prices monthly email volume, not stored contacts. Starter begins at $9 a month for 5,000 emails a month; a 10,000-contact list that gets one monthly campaign can live near the bottom of that ladder, where contact-counted platforms would bill the full 10,000 every month, emails or not. The free plan sends up to 300 emails a day once the account is approved. Prices climb with the volume you select on its page — we read the entry steps only, so run your own number at brevo.com. That is a plain link, not a partner one: Brevo's referral programme turns down sites without traffic, so it pays us nothing and we recommend it here purely because volume pricing genuinely suits some lists. The Brevo vs Mailchimp comparison works through when it wins and when it doesn't.

GetResponse — the feature step-up

GetResponse is the first row that answers "I'm leaving because Mailchimp's Standard tier feels thin" rather than "the bill is too high": every plan has unlimited sends, and the Marketer tier adds unlimited automation workflows, advanced segmentation and cart recovery. Starter costs $19 a month at its smallest size (1,000 contacts) and $54 at 5,000, with yearly billing marked −18% — but note Starter includes exactly one custom automation workflow, so automation-first switchers should price Marketer ($95 at 5,000), not Starter. The GetResponse vs Mailchimp matchup prices both tiers against the bands you'd be leaving.

ActiveCampaign — the automation ceiling

If the reason you're leaving is that Mailchimp's automations kept running out of road, ActiveCampaign is the strongest builder in this table — and usually the biggest bill. Its pricing page shows annually-billed figures only: Starter from $15 a month at 1,000 contacts and $79 at 5,000, with Starter capped at 5 actions per automation; the Plus tier ($145 at 5,000, billed annually) is where the unlimited automation actually lives. Price the tier you'd genuinely use in our ActiveCampaign vs Mailchimp comparison before deciding the upgrade is worth it.

AWeber — the familiar fallback

AWeber has sold email marketing since the dial-up era, and it shows in both directions: nothing about it will confuse a Mailchimp refugee, its pricing page lists a free migration service, and its Lite plan runs $15 a month at 0–500 subscribers and $60 at 2,501–5,000 (monthly billing; $12.50 at the smallest band billed annually). It sits last not because it fails but because every job it does, a cheaper or stronger row above also does. If a long track record is what lets you sleep, it's a defensible pick.

The move itself, step by step

The move is duller than the shopping. Export everything from Mailchimp first: your audience as CSV — including tags, signup dates and, critically, your unsubscribe list, which must come along for legal reasons, not tidiness. Sign up at the destination, import the CSV, and verify your sending domain there (fresh SPF and DKIM records — your new platform's setup screen lists them) before any campaign goes out. Rebuild automations and signup forms by hand; flows don't export cleanly between platforms, which is why this step, not the import, is the real cost of moving. Swap the forms on your website last, and keep the Mailchimp account alive until a few sends from the new home have gone out cleanly. Then close it, because a forgotten paid account is the most expensive souvenir of any migration.

When staying with Mailchimp is the right call

Honesty cuts both ways. If your list is small and stable, Essentials at $13 a month is not the emergency the switching industry implies. If your shop, CRM and reporting are wired into Mailchimp's integrations, rebuilding those connections can cost more hours than a year of the price difference. And if you're inside the 50%-off first year, the arithmetic of leaving early is genuinely worse — do the sums against the post-offer price you'll pay in month thirteen, which is the number every comparison on this page uses. We earn nothing when you stay; we'd rather you stayed than moved onto the wrong platform and blamed the move.