Every plan, every breakpoint

How the bill is calculated

Mailchimp bills on the number of contacts stored in an audience, and each plan carries a monthly send allowance tied to that count. Essentials allows 10 times the contact count per month, Standard 12 times, Premium 15 times. Contacts who unsubscribed still sit in the audience and still count until they are archived, and the same person in two audiences counts twice.

Billing model tag: Per contact. Source: Mailchimp pricing page, checked 8 September 2026.

What makes Mailchimp hard to price

• •Mailchimp publishes no flat annual prepay price. Discounts arrive as promotions, most recently 15 percent off for 12 months on lists above 10,000 contacts, so the annual column stays empty rather than guessed.
• •The public table steps from 500 contacts straight to 1,500, so the 1,000 contact row is the 1,500 tier price and reads as an upper bound.
• •Essentials stops at 50,000 contacts and Standard stops at 100,000, so the top of the table is a plan change and not just a tier change.

How the bill is calculated

MailerLite bills on active subscribers using a slider with roughly 29 stops between 500 and 200,000. Comfort allows 10 times the ceiling of the subscriber tier in monthly sends. Power removes the send cap under a fair use policy. Unsubscribed and inactive subscribers keep counting until they are deleted, so a list carrying dead weight climbs the slider on its own.

Billing model tag: Per contact. Source: MailerLite pricing page, checked 8 September 2026.

What makes MailerLite hard to price

• •The June 2026 reprice renamed Growing Business to Comfort and Advanced to Power, and raised paid tier prices by roughly 10 to 30 percent depending on subscriber count. Legacy plans stopped being sold on 13 August 2026.
• •Only the 500 subscriber entry prices are firm after the reprice. Trackers still disagree on the middle of the ladder, some reporting Comfort near 39 dollars at 5,000 subscribers and others near 49. Those rows are marked as estimates.
• •MailerLite prices with a slider rather than a table, so a contact count that sits between stops is billed at the stop above it.
• •Transactional email is a separate product, MailerSend, and is not part of these prices. Tax is added on top.

How the bill is calculated

Kit bills on active unique subscribers and includes unlimited sends on every paid plan, so send volume never changes the bill. Crossing a subscriber threshold moves the account to the next tier automatically. The free Newsletter plan runs to 10,000 subscribers, which is by far the most generous free tier in this set, and it is capped to one automation and one sequence.

Billing model tag: Per contact. Source: Kit pricing page, checked 8 September 2026.

What makes Kit hard to price

• •Kit repriced in September 2025, roughly 35 percent up, and retired the old 15 dollar Creator entry tier. Anything quoting 15 dollars predates that change.
• •Kit's published tier stops are 1,000, 3,000, 5,000, 8,000, 10,000, 15,000, 25,000, 50,000 and 100,000 subscribers. The 2,500 breakpoint here is billed at the 3,000 stop.
• •Trackers disagree most at 5,000 and 10,000 subscribers, with reported Creator prices between 99 and 139 dollars at 10,000. Those rows are marked as estimates.
• •Selling through Kit carries a transaction fee on every paid plan, including free, so the subscription price is not the full cost for anyone monetising.

How the bill is calculated

Brevo prices on monthly email volume rather than list size, which makes it the odd one out in this set. Since October 2025 the volume band you pick also caps how many contacts you may store: 5,000 sends allows 500 contacts, 10,000 allows 1,500, 15,000 allows 2,500, and 20,000 and above allows up to 500,000. Crossing the contact cap moves the account up a band automatically, so a large list that sends rarely still pays for volume it does not use.

Billing model tag: Per send, capped contacts. Source: Brevo pricing page, checked 8 September 2026.

What makes Brevo hard to price

• •Brevo has no contact breakpoints, so every row here rests on an assumption about send frequency. SideBySend assumes 4 sends per contact per month, which is a weekly newsletter and nothing else.
• •The first three bands cap stored contacts well below the volume they allow, so a 1,000 contact list has to buy the 10,000 send band even though a weekly send only needs 4,000.
• •The 15,000 send band price is not published on the pages SideBySend can read, so the 2,500 contact rows are estimates.
• •Above 150,000 sends a month the published Standard ladder thins out, and the 50,000 and 100,000 contact rows are interpolated.
• •Brevo does not publish a fixed annual monthly equivalent on the volume calculator, so the annual column stays empty.
• •Removing Brevo branding from emails is a paid add on, not part of these prices.

How the bill is calculated

beehiiv bills on active subscribers at fixed tier stops of 1,000, 2,500, 5,000, 10,000, 25,000, 50,000, 75,000 and 100,000. Sends are unlimited, so volume never moves the bill. The subscriber limit applies across every publication in a workspace, not per publication, and above 100,000 subscribers the only option is an Enterprise quote.

Billing model tag: Per contact. Source: beehiiv pricing page, checked 8 September 2026.

What makes beehiiv hard to price

• •The subscriber count that sets the bill includes inactive subscribers, so list hygiene shows up directly on the invoice.
• •Published Scale and Max figures diverge between trackers above 5,000 subscribers, with one source putting Scale at 100,000 subscribers near 249 dollars and another near 329. The higher ladder is used here.
• •Everything above 100,000 subscribers is an Enterprise quote with no public price.
• •The revenue features that make beehiiv attractive, the ad network and paid subscriptions, sit on Scale and above, so the free plan is not a like for like comparison.

How the bill is calculated

ActiveCampaign bills on contacts, with a monthly send allowance of 10 to 15 times the contact limit depending on plan. Going over the send allowance costs half a cent per extra email, and reaching three times the allowance switches sending off until the next month. Accounts opened on or after 3 November 2025 are billed for every contact in the account, including unsubscribed, bounced and unconfirmed ones. Older accounts are grandfathered onto active contacts only.

Billing model tag: Per contact. Source: ActiveCampaign pricing page, checked 8 September 2026.

What makes ActiveCampaign hard to price

• •The pricing page defaults to annual billing and shows the annual figure as a per month number, so the headline 15 dollars is not what a monthly biller pays. Both columns are recorded separately here.
• •Because the page renders prices dynamically, most stops here rest on third party trackers rather than a static vendor table, and are marked derived.
• •The November 2025 all contacts rule means the contact count that sets the bill can be much larger than the mailable list. A 9,000 contact list carrying 2,500 unsubscribes and bounces is billed as 11,500 and lands in the next tier up.
• •Starter caps at 25,000 contacts, and neither the monthly Starter price at 25,000 nor any plan at 100,000 contacts is published.
• •SMS credits, extra CRM pipelines and custom reporting are add ons with prices that are not public.