Cost calculator

What six email platforms cost at your list size

Pick a list size and the table below reads the answer out of the SideBySend dataset rather than out of a pricing widget. Every figure is a published list price with the date it was last checked against the vendor page, and the choices you make live in the address bar, so a result can be sent to somebody else as a link.

Snapshot 3, recorded 14 September 2026. Prices in USD, tax excluded. Oldest check behind the table below: 14 September 2026.

Set the inputs

List size is the only input the table needs. The other three narrow it down, and each one is a link, so the back button walks back through them.

Contacts

The eight sizes every vendor in the dataset is recorded at, every week.

Monthly sends

This link asks for 20,000 sends a month, which is not one of the presets. It is being used as given.

Billing model

Brevo is the one vendor here that bills on sends rather than on stored contacts.

Billing term

2 of the 5 vendors shown publish no standing annual price, so those rows read n/a on the yearly view.

Reset to 5,000 contacts

Cost at 100,000 contacts

Cheapest paid plan each vendor sells at this size. Plan names differ, so features differ, and the lowest figure here is a price floor rather than a pick.

Lowest paid plan: $329; beehiiv Scale
Free at this size: 0; No plan in the dataset covers a list this size for nothing
Confidence: 2 of 5; rows read straight off a vendor page. 1 derived, 0 estimate, 2 with nothing published

This is not a quote. Every figure is a published list price read off a vendor page and recorded on the date shown in the row, so it can lag behind a change made since. It excludes tax, add ons, promotions, regional pricing and any rate an existing account is grandfathered onto, and it assumes the vendor counts your contacts the same way you do, which several of them do not. Cells marked Der are calculated from a published rule and cells marked Est are rough. Confirm with the vendor before you spend.

Vendor and plan	Month to month	Sends	Last checked	What the number covers
MailchimpEssentialsPer contact	n/aNot	Inside the 1,000,000 sends included at this size.	14 September 2026source	Not sold. Essentials caps at 50,000 contacts, so a list this size has to move to Standard or Premium.
MailerLiteComfortPer contact	$439$395.10 paid yearlyVer	Inside the 1,000,000 sends included at this size.	4 October 2026source	Published stop on the MailerLite pricing slider, read on 4 October 2026. The yearly price per month is printed on the slider.
KitCreatorPer contact	$679$565.83 paid yearlyDer	Unlimited sends on this plan, so volume never reaches the bill.	26 September 2026source	Billed at the 105,000 subscriber stop, because the Kit pricing slider has no 100,000 stop. Yearly is 6,790 dollars.
beehiivScalePer contact	$329$290 paid yearlyVer	Unlimited sends on this plan, so volume never reaches the bill.	14 September 2026source	Top of the plan. Above 100,000 subscribers beehiiv only quotes Enterprise.
ActiveCampaignStarterPer contact	n/aNot	ActiveCampaign publishes no send allowance for this plan, so nothing here tests a send volume against it.	25 September 2026source	Not sold. Starter caps at 25,000 contacts.

Cheapest paid plan each of the 5 vendors sells at 100,000 contacts and 20,000 sends a month, month to month billing. Green marks the lowest published figure. Snapshot 3, and each row carries the date its own cell was last checked.

The lowest published paid figure at this size is $329 on beehiiv Scale. That is a comparison of prices and not a recommendation. The plans in this table are not feature matched, so the cheapest row may not include automation, extra seats or the send volume the list actually needs.

No plan in the dataset carries a list of 100,000 contacts for nothing, so every row here is a paid plan.

A price also assumes a contact count, and the vendors disagree about which contacts count. Unsubscribed, bounced and unconfirmed addresses reach the bill on some of these platforms and not on others, so the same list can produce different invoices at the same headline price. That rule is recorded per vendor.

Every plan at 100,000 contacts

The same inputs against every plan the shown vendors publish, not just the cheapest one, because the cheapest plan is often not the one that fits.

Vendor and plan	Month to month	Sends	Last checked	What the number covers
MailchimpEssentialsPer contact	n/aNot	Inside the 1,000,000 sends included at this size.	14 September 2026source	Not sold. Essentials caps at 50,000 contacts, so a list this size has to move to Standard or Premium.
MailchimpStandardPer contact	$800Ver	Inside the 1,200,000 sends included at this size.	14 September 2026source	Top of the plan. Standard caps at 100,000 contacts.
MailchimpPremiumPer contact	$1,025Ver	Inside the 1,500,000 sends included at this size.	14 September 2026source	Published stop. Premium is the only Mailchimp plan sold above 100,000 contacts.
MailerLiteComfortPer contact	$439$395.10 paid yearlyVer	Inside the 1,000,000 sends included at this size.	4 October 2026source	Published stop on the MailerLite pricing slider, read on 4 October 2026. The yearly price per month is printed on the slider.
MailerLitePowerPer contact	$489$440.10 paid yearlyVer	Unlimited sends on this plan, so volume never reaches the bill.	4 October 2026source	Published stop on the MailerLite pricing slider, read on 4 October 2026. The yearly price per month is printed on the slider. The published 200,000 stop is 1,119 dollars.
KitNewsletterPer contact	n/aNot	Unlimited sends on this plan, so volume never reaches the bill.	26 September 2026source	Not sold. The free plan stops at 10,000 subscribers.
KitCreatorPer contact	$679$565.83 paid yearlyDer	Unlimited sends on this plan, so volume never reaches the bill.	26 September 2026source	Billed at the 105,000 subscriber stop, because the Kit pricing slider has no 100,000 stop. Yearly is 6,790 dollars.
KitCreator ProPer contact	$879$732.50 paid yearlyDer	Unlimited sends on this plan, so volume never reaches the bill.	26 September 2026source	Billed at the 105,000 subscriber stop, because the Kit pricing slider has no 100,000 stop. Yearly is 8,790 dollars.
beehiivLaunchPer contact	n/aNot	Unlimited sends on this plan, so volume never reaches the bill.	14 September 2026source	Not sold. Launch stops at 2,500 subscribers.
beehiivScalePer contact	$329$290 paid yearlyVer	Unlimited sends on this plan, so volume never reaches the bill.	14 September 2026source	Top of the plan. Above 100,000 subscribers beehiiv only quotes Enterprise.
beehiivMaxPer contact	$459$404 paid yearlyVer	Unlimited sends on this plan, so volume never reaches the bill.	14 September 2026source	Top of the plan. Above 100,000 subscribers beehiiv only quotes Enterprise.
ActiveCampaignStarterPer contact	n/aNot	ActiveCampaign publishes no send allowance for this plan, so nothing here tests a send volume against it.	25 September 2026source	Not sold. Starter caps at 25,000 contacts.
ActiveCampaignPlusPer contact	n/aNot	ActiveCampaign publishes no send allowance for this plan, so nothing here tests a send volume against it.	25 September 2026source	Not published. Above 50,000 contacts ActiveCampaign asks for a call.
ActiveCampaignProfessionalPer contact	n/aNot	ActiveCampaign publishes no send allowance for this plan, so nothing here tests a send volume against it.	25 September 2026source	Not published. Above 50,000 contacts ActiveCampaign asks for a call.

Every plan the 5 vendors publish, priced at 100,000 contacts and 20,000 sends a month, month to month billing. A row reading n/a is a size or a term the vendor publishes no price for, and nothing is interpolated to fill it.

What the send figure does

Five of the 6 vendors in the dataset bill on the number of contacts stored, so send volume does not move the subscription price. What it can do is run past the send allowance attached to the tier, and the Sends column above says when the figure you gave does that. An allowance overage is billed on top of the price in the table.

Brevo is the exception. It bills on emails sent per month, with a stored contact cap attached to each volume band, so a send figure changes which band it has to buy and therefore the price. Leave the send field alone and the Brevo row falls back to the site wide assumption of 4 sends per contact per month, which at 100,000 contacts is 400,000 emails. That assumption is the single largest one in the dataset, which is why it has a page of its own.

Send volumes above 500,000 a month are past every band recorded here. Standard stops at that volume, and higher volumes sit on Brevo Professional bands that are not recorded as cells, so the row reads n/a rather than carrying a guess.

Sharing a result, and building a link by hand

The four inputs are query values on this one address, so a result is a URL and nothing has to be re clicked to hand it over.

contacts a number, required in practice: Snapped to one of the eight recorded sizes. It rounds up, because a vendor bills the stop above a list size rather than the one below. 5,000, 5000 and 5k all read the same. A size past 100,000 is priced at 100,000, and the page says so. With no contacts value at all the page shows 5,000.
sends a number, optional: Monthly emails, not sends per contact. It sets the volume band on a vendor that bills by send, and it is tested against the included allowance on a vendor that bills by contact. Leave it out and the site wide send assumption applies.
billing any, per_contact or per_send: Filters the vendor rows by how the bill is calculated. per_send also covers Brevo, which is recorded as per send with a contact cap.
term monthly or annual: monthly shows month to month prices, which is the default. annual shows the per month cost of paying for a year up front, and n/a wherever the vendor publishes no standing annual price.

A value the page cannot use is never quietly swapped for something else. It is replaced, and the swap is written out on the page above the table, so a link that was built wrong says so rather than returning a number that answers a different question.

Two worked examples: 10,000 contacts with 40,000 sends a month is a weekly newsletter, and 25,000 contacts on annual billing, contact billed vendors only drops the one vendor whose price depends on how often you send.

The canonical address of this page is /calculator whatever the query says, so the query values change what you read without splitting the page into copies of itself. /cost-calculator redirects here permanently.

What these numbers are not

The table answers a question you asked, which makes it read like a quote. It is not one.

Every figure is a list price published on a vendor page and recorded by hand at the date shown in the row. It can lag behind a change made since that date. It excludes tax, add ons such as SMS credits, dedicated IPs and branding removal, promotional discounts, regional pricing, and any rate an older account has been grandfathered onto. Mailchimp raised legacy account pricing in 2026 without touching its published table, which is exactly the case a published number cannot show.

The confidence rating on each row is the honest part. A row marked Verified was read off the vendor's own pricing page or calculator on a recorded date. Derived follows from a rule the vendor publishes, such as a stated annual discount or a size billed at the next published stop up. Estimate means sources disagree, only third party trackers report the figure, or the size sits between published stops, and it should be read as a range. Not published means the vendor sells nothing at that point, so the row is empty rather than filled in.

SideBySend runs no affiliate links and takes no paid placements, so nothing in this table earns a commission whichever row you pick. Full disclosure.

Verified: Read off the vendor's own pricing page, pricing calculator, or the pricing data that page shows buyers, with the source and date recorded. An archived copy of the vendor's own page counts as verified for the date of that capture, and we link the archive. Trackers agreeing is not enough.
Derived: Calculated from a rule the vendor publishes, such as a stated annual discount, or a list size billed at the next published stop up.
Estimate: Sources disagree, only third party trackers report it, or the breakpoint is interpolated between published stops. Rough figure, use it as a range.
Not published: The vendor publishes nothing at this point, so no number is shown.