Single list size

What Mailchimp costs at 2,500 contacts

Two thousand five hundred contacts is a published stop on the Mailchimp slider, so Essentials and Standard here are verified reads rather than interpolations. Premium stays on its flat floor through 10,000 contacts, so that cell is derived from the verified entry sticker.

Snapshot 3, checked 14 September 2026. Child of Mailchimp pricing. Sibling of Mailchimp cost at 5,000 contacts. Vendor pricing page.

The three answers

Essentials: $45; 25,000 monthly sends. Verified published stop.
Standard: $60; 30,000 monthly sends. Verified published stop.
Premium: $350; Same flat floor through 10,000 contacts, with that base's 150,000 monthly sends. Derived from the verified entry sticker.

All three plans at exactly 2,500 contacts

Monthly billing. Mailchimp publishes no standing annual rate, so there is no yearly figure to compare against.

Prices are compiled from public vendor pages and can lag behind a change. Cells marked Der are calculated from published rules and cells marked Est are rough figures. Neither is an invoice or a quote, so confirm with the vendor before you spend.

Plan	Monthly	Confidence	Note
Essentials	$45	Verified	25,000 monthly sends included. Entry paid plan. Scheduling, basic testing, 3 audiences, 10 times contacts in monthly sends. Confidence on this stop is verified.
Standard	$60	Verified	30,000 monthly sends included. The plan most Mailchimp buyers land on. Multi step journeys, send time optimisation, 5 audiences, 12 times contacts in monthly sends. Confidence on this stop is verified.
Premium	$350	Derived	150,000 monthly sends included, the limit of Premium's 350 dollar base, which covers up to 10,000 contacts, so derived. Flat and expensive at the bottom, tiered above 10,000 contacts. Unlimited audiences and users, 15 times contacts in monthly sends. Confidence on this stop is derived.

Mailchimp at 2,500 contacts, month to month billing, checked 14 September 2026. Essentials and Standard are verified. Premium is derived flat.

Why this stop is honest on the published band

Essentials at $45 and Standard at $60 are published slider stops. The 1,000 contact Essentials cell is derived from the 1,500 tier a 1,000 contact list pays ($26.50), so this 2,500 stop is the first verified Essentials figure after the 500 entry. Standard at 1,000 is also derived ($45); the verified Standard band resumes here.

The next sibling at 5,000 moves Essentials to $75 and Standard to $100. Premium stays $350 until the verified 10,000 floor.

$45 a month is $540 a year on Essentials, and Mailchimp has no flat annual prepay price to reduce it. Discounts arrive as promotions instead, and the most recent one recorded here, 15 percent off for 12 months, only opens up above 10,000 contacts. So a 2,500 contact list pays the sticker price.

What the number does and does not include

The contact count that sets the tier is not the number of people who can receive a campaign. Unsubscribed and non subscribed contacts count until they are archived. A list showing 2,500 contacts in the dashboard can hold well under 2,500 mailable addresses. What each vendor counts is recorded here.

Going over 2,500 contacts does not stop the account. Mailchimp adds a charge for the overage to the bill for that month, so an invoice can sit above the tier price in the table while the pricing page still reads the same.

What everyone else charges at 2,500

Cheapest paid plan each tracked vendor sells at the same list size. Plan names differ, so features differ.

Vendor	Plan	Monthly	Confidence	Note
Mailchimp	Essentials	$45	Verified	Essentials. Published stop on the contact slider.
MailerLite	Comfort	$33	Verified	Comfort. Published stop on the MailerLite pricing slider, read on 4 October 2026. The yearly price per month is printed on the slider.
Kit	Creator	$59	Derived	Creator. Billed at the 3,000 subscriber stop on the Kit pricing slider. Yearly is 590 dollars.
Brevo	Standard	$49	Derived	Standard. Derived from the 15,000 send band, the only band with a 2,500 contact cap. The calculator prints 49 dollars for the band, or 44.08 a month paid yearly.
beehiiv	Scale	$69	Verified	Scale. Published stop. The free plan also reaches this size.
ActiveCampaign	Starter	$49	Verified	Starter. Read off ActiveCampaign's pricing calculator on 25 September 2026: the annual figure from the pricing page, the monthly figure from the pricing data that page loads for buyers.

Cheapest paid plan per vendor at 2,500 contacts, month to month billing, snapshot 3. Brevo is priced on 4 sends per contact per month rather than list size.

The lowest published price at this size is MailerLite. That is a price comparison and not a recommendation: the plans in this table are not feature matched, Kit and beehiiv still cover 2,500 subscribers on free tiers, and the Brevo row rests on a send assumption rather than a list size.

Mailchimp Essentials at $45 sits among the paid options here, and it is the Mailchimp plan with the smallest send allowance. The reason to pay it is the rest of the product, not the price of the tier.