Fazlur Rahman
Quick Answer
Mailchimp pricing in 2026: 4 plans — Free for ≤500 contacts with 2,500 emails per month. Essentials $13 per month for 500 contacts. Standard $20 per month for 500 contacts with multi-step automations + A/B testing + 6X send volume. Premium $350 per month for 500 contacts with multivariate testing + comparative reporting + dedicated IP. Pricing scales by contact count: 5,000 contacts $100/mo Standard; 10,000 contacts $200/mo; 50,000 contacts $480/mo Standard / $1,000/mo Premium; 100,000 contacts $1,000/mo Standard / $1,800/mo Premium; 250,000 contacts $2,000/mo Standard / $3,500/mo Premium. Overages $0.30 per 100 contacts, $0.002 per send beyond cap (Mailchimp official pricing, 2026).
Last verified: Sep 16, 2026.
At a glance
- Free: ≤500 contacts, 2,500 emails/mo
- Essentials: $13/mo (500 contacts)
- Standard: $20/mo (500 contacts)
- Premium: $350/mo (500 contacts)
- 5K contacts: $100/mo Standard
- 10K contacts: $200/mo Standard
- 50K contacts: $480/mo Standard / $1,000/mo Premium
- 100K contacts: $1,000/mo Std / $1,800/mo Premium
The four Mailchimp tiers
Mailchimp is organized into four tiers, each stepping up through features and contact limits. Free provides basic email marketing for up to 500 contacts with 2,500 emails per month — with Mailchimp branding. Essentials at $13 per month removes Mailchimp branding, adds email templates, basic automations, and 24/7 email support. Standard at $20 per month for 500 contacts adds multi-step automations, A/B testing, 6X send volume, custom-coded templates, and advanced analytics (Mailchimp official pricing, 2026).
Premium at $350 per month for 500 contacts adds multivariate testing, comparative reporting, priority support, dedicated IP, social ads (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram), and advanced audience insights. The pricing scales steeply by contact count — 250,000 contacts on Standard is $2,000 per month versus $350 per month for 500 contacts (Mailchimp official pricing, 2026).
Contact scaling and monthly costs
Mailchimp's pricing scales predictably by contact count. Standard tier: 500 contacts $20/mo; 5,000 contacts $100/mo; 10,000 contacts $200/mo; 50,000 contacts $480/mo; 100,000 contacts $1,000/mo; 250,000 contacts $2,000/mo. Premium tier is approximately 1.7-1.8x Standard pricing across contact counts: 50,000 contacts Premium $1,000/mo versus Standard $480/mo; 100,000 contacts Premium $1,800/mo versus Standard $1,000/mo (Mailchimp official pricing, 2026).
Essentials tier is positioned as the basic email marketing tier for small businesses. The pricing jump from Standard at 500 contacts ($20/mo) to 5,000 contacts ($100/mo) is 5x — reflecting the per-contact scaling. Active ecommerce brands running Standard at 50,000 contacts commonly reach $480-$580 per month ($5,760-$6,960 per year) (Mailchimp official pricing, 2026).
Side-by-side: Mailchimp Standard pricing by contacts
| Contacts | Standard | Premium | Use case |
|---|---|---|---|
| 500 | $20/mo | $350/mo | Very small lists |
| 5,000 | $100/mo | ~$550/mo | Growing businesses |
| 10,000 | $200/mo | ~$700/mo | Mid-market SMB |
| 50,000 | $480/mo | $1,000/mo | Established ecommerce |
| 100,000 | $1,000/mo | $1,800/mo | Large ecommerce |
| 250,000 | $2,000/mo | $3,500/mo | Enterprise ecommerce |
Overage rates and contact pricing details
Mailchimp overage rates: $0.30 per 100 contacts over the contact cap, and $0.002 per send beyond the monthly send cap. For example, on Standard 5,000 contacts with a 25,000 send cap, sending 30,000 emails in a month would trigger $10 in send overages (5,000 sends × $0.002). Contacts are prorated daily if added mid-cycle (Mailchimp official pricing, 2026).
Overages can add significant costs for teams that consistently exceed their tier limits. For teams expecting contact list growth, forecasting 12-24 months ahead and selecting a higher tier is often cheaper than paying overage fees. The contact-based pricing rewards accurate list management — clean inactive contacts before they trigger overages.
Mandrill Transactional Email add-on
Mandrill is Mailchimp's Transactional Email add-on (formerly separate, now bundled for Premium and charged for others). Pricing: $20 per 10,000 transactional emails for Essential and Standard users. Premium includes bundled Mandrill. Mandrill is built on the Amazon SES infrastructure with high deliverability. Use cases include order confirmations, password resets, shipping notifications, and account alerts (Mailchimp official pricing, 2026).
For ecommerce brands with significant transactional volume, Mandrill is a meaningful add-on. The pricing of $20 per 10,000 transactional emails is competitive with dedicated transactional email providers like SendGrid ($19.95 per 50,000 emails) and Postmark. Bundling Mandrill with Premium simplifies vendor management for ecommerce brands (Mailchimp official pricing, 2026).
How Mailchimp compares to Klaviyo
Mailchimp vs Klaviyo in 2026: Mailchimp is the generalist with broader features and a longer track record; Klaviyo is the ecommerce specialist with deeper Shopify/BigCommerce integrations. Mailchimp Standard at 5K contacts costs $100/month; Klaviyo at 25K profiles costs $400/month Email or Email+SMS. Mailchimp is cheaper per contact at smaller scales (Mailchimp official; Klaviyo official, 2026).
For ecommerce brands doing $1M+/year revenue, Klaviyo is the standard. The platform's predictive sending, customer lifetime value modeling, and Shopify-native flows deliver measurable lift in email-attributed revenue. For generalist email marketing and B2B, Mailchimp remains strong. The decision often comes down to whether ecommerce revenue attribution is the priority (Klaviyo wins) or generalist email marketing (Mailchimp wins) (Mailchimp official pricing, 2026).
What enterprise buyers should do next
Three actions for organizations evaluating Mailchimp in 2026.
- Forecast contact list growth. Mailchimp's per-contact pricing rewards accurate list growth forecasting. Calculate expected list size 12-24 months out before selecting a tier.
- Compare with Klaviyo for ecommerce. Mailchimp is the generalist; Klaviyo is the ecommerce specialist. For ecommerce brands doing $1M+/year revenue, Klaviyo typically wins on attribution.
- Budget for Premium if doing multivariate testing. Mailchimp Premium at $350/month adds multivariate testing, comparative reporting, and dedicated IP. For high-volume senders or sophisticated testing teams, Premium delivers meaningful value.
What to watch next
Three near-term datapoints. First, Mailchimp's AI feature roadmap — Intuit's acquisition of Mailchimp is positioning the platform for deeper small business AI integration. Second, the email marketing platform consolidation — Klaviyo, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, and HubSpot are all investing in AI features and integration depth. Third, the Mailchimp Premium tier evolution — Premium pricing has been stable but the feature set (multivariate testing, dedicated IP) is becoming standard across competitors (Mailchimp official, 2026).
