Single list size

What Mailchimp costs at 500 contacts

Five hundred contacts is the published Mailchimp entry stop. Essentials, Standard and Premium here are verified reads from the public table: thirteen, twenty and three hundred fifty dollars a month. The next published Essentials and Standard stops sit at 2,500 contacts; the 1,000 contact sibling is derived from the 1,500 tier, which a 1,000 contact list pays.

Snapshot 3, checked 14 September 2026. Child of Mailchimp pricing. Sibling of Mailchimp cost at 1,000 contacts. Vendor pricing page.

The three answers

Essentials: $13; 5,000 monthly sends. Verified entry stop.
Standard: $20; 6,000 monthly sends. Verified entry stop.
Premium: $350; Verified entry sticker. Flat floor through 10,000 contacts, with that base's 150,000 monthly sends, derived.

All three plans at exactly 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	$13	Verified	5,000 monthly sends included. Entry paid plan. Scheduling, basic testing, 3 audiences, 10 times contacts in monthly sends. Confidence on this stop is verified.
Standard	$20	Verified	6,000 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	Verified	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 verified.

Mailchimp at 500 contacts, month to month billing, checked 14 September 2026. Essentials, Standard and Premium are verified entry stops.

Why this stop is the published entry

The public Mailchimp table opens at 500 contacts. Essentials at $13 and Standard at $20 are verified reads of that entry band, not derived from another tier and not derived flats. Premium at $350 is the verified entry sticker that stays flat through the 10,000 contact floor.

The next Essentials stop that is a published read is $45 at 2,500. Between them, the 1,000 contact sibling records Essentials at $26.50 and Standard at $45, derived from the 1,500 tier, because the public table steps from 500 straight to 1,500 and a 1,000 contact list pays the 1,500 tier price. Standard at 2,500 is the verified $60 stop.

$13 a month is $156 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 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 500 contacts in the dashboard can hold well under 500 mailable addresses. What each vendor counts is recorded here.

Going over 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 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	$13	Verified	Essentials. Entry stop. Covers 0 to 500 contacts and 5,000 monthly sends.
MailerLite	Comfort	$12	Verified	Comfort. Entry stop, confirmed under the new plan name. Annual price printed on the slider.
Kit	Creator	$39	Derived	Creator. Billed at the 1,000 subscriber stop, the lowest the Kit pricing slider prints, so a 500 subscriber list pays the same. Yearly is 390 dollars.
Brevo	Standard	$18	Derived	Standard. Derived from the 5,000 send band, which caps stored contacts at 500. The calculator prints 18 dollars for the band, or 16.17 a month paid yearly.
beehiiv	Scale	$49	Derived	Scale. The lowest paid tier is the 1,000 subscriber stop, so a smaller list pays the same. The free plan covers this size, which is why almost nobody buys here.
ActiveCampaign	Starter	$19	Derived	Starter. The ladder starts at the 1,000 contact tier, so a smaller list pays the same. The 15 dollar headline is the annual figure.

Cheapest paid plan per vendor at 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 500 subscribers on free tiers, and the Brevo row rests on a send assumption rather than a list size.

Mailchimp Essentials at $13 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.