SideBySend
Snapshot 3, recorded 14 September 2026. All prices in USD.

Single list size

What Mailchimp costs at 5,000 contacts

Five thousand contacts is a published stop on the Mailchimp slider, so the numbers here are read off the pricing page rather than interpolated. All three plans are shown with the send allowance each one carries, because at this size the allowance is what separates them.

Snapshot 3, checked 14 September 2026. Vendor pricing page.

The three answers

Essentials
$75
50,000 monthly sends, 3 audiences, single step automations
Standard
$100
60,000 monthly sends, multi step journeys, 5 audiences
Premium
$350
150,000 monthly sends, derived: the same flat base it charges at 500 contacts covers up to 10,000 contacts

All three plans at exactly 5,000 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.

PlanMonthlyConfidenceNote
Essentials$75Verified50,000 monthly sends included. Entry paid plan. Scheduling, basic testing, 3 audiences, 10 times contacts in monthly sends.
Standard$100Verified60,000 monthly sends included. The plan most Mailchimp buyers land on. Multi step journeys, send time optimisation, 5 audiences, 12 times contacts in monthly sends.
Premium$350Derived150,000 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.
Mailchimp at 5,000 contacts, month to month billing, checked 14 September 2026. Send allowances are calculated from the multiple each plan publishes.

What the number does and does not include

$75 a month is $900 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 5,000 contact list pays the sticker price.

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 5,000 contacts in the dashboard can hold well under 5,000 mailable addresses. What each vendor counts is recorded here.

Going over 5,000 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 5,000

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

VendorPlanMonthlyConfidenceNote
MailchimpEssentials$75VerifiedEssentials. Published stop on the contact slider.
MailerLiteComfort$49VerifiedComfort. Published stop on the MailerLite pricing slider, read on 4 October 2026. The yearly price per month is printed on the slider.
KitCreator$89VerifiedCreator. Read off the Kit pricing slider at 5,000 subscribers. Yearly is 890 dollars.
BrevoStandard$69DerivedStandard. Derived from the 20,000 send band. A weekly send to 5,000 contacts is 20,000 emails. The calculator prints 69 dollars for the band, or 62.08 a month paid yearly.
beehiivScale$89VerifiedScale. Published stop.
ActiveCampaignStarter$99VerifiedStarter. 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 5,000 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 covers 5,000 subscribers on its free tier, and the Brevo row rests on a send assumption rather than a list size.

Mailchimp Essentials at $75 sits in the middle of this table, 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.

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