Mailchimp
Sends newsletters and automated campaigns, with AI that writes subject lines, builds segments, and picks send times.
What it costs
| Tier | Price | For | Includes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/month | Fewer than 500 contacts, finding out whether email marketing is worth doing at all. | Core email features, 1 audience, 1 user seat, a limited set of templates. |
| Essentials | $13/month (promotional rate for the first 12 months; the regular price is higher and was not shown on this check) | Wanting to send the right content at the right time with testing and scheduling. | Email scheduling, A/B testing, 3 audiences, 3 user seats, a limited set of branded templates. |
| Standard | $20/month (promotional rate for the first 12 months; the regular price is higher and was not shown on this check) | Businesses ready to sell more with automation and personalisation. | Marketing automation flows, generative AI features, custom-coded templates, 5 audiences, 5 user seats. |
| Premium | $350/month (promotional rate for the first 12 months; the regular price is higher and was not shown on this check) | Teams wanting an expert-assisted platform for growth at scale. | Unlimited contacts, phone and priority support, a dedicated onboarding specialist, predictive segmentation, up to 150,000 monthly emails. |
Read from Mailchimp's own pricing page on 25 Sep 2026. Vendors change prices without notice.
Where it breaks
Essentials, Standard and Premium prices shown are all discounted roughly 50% for a new account's first 12 months; the page did not display the un-discounted steady-state price anywhere we could read it, so budget for these figures to roughly double at renewal.
Browser-based, with mobile apps for campaign management on the go.
First entry in this reference. There is no previous check to compare it against.
Mailchimp is the email tool most small businesses meet first, mostly because it was free for longer than its competitors and never quite lost that reputation even as the free tier shrank. It still starts at $0 for a list under 500 contacts, which is enough to find out whether the business has anything worth emailing people about before spending money on the question.
The AI in the name shows up as assistance rather than autonomy: it drafts subject lines, suggests segments, and picks a send time based on when your list actually opens email — you are still approving every campaign before it goes.
What paying for actually buys
Essentials and Standard are mostly about turning on automation — flows that fire on a signup, a purchase, or a date, running without you present. Once a welcome sequence is built, it sends itself.
The number to actually budget for
Every paid tier’s listed price is a first-year introductory rate, discounted by roughly half. A business modelling its second year of email marketing spend should plan around a figure closer to double what shows on the pricing page today.
Where it sits next to the alternatives
Against Klaviyo, the honest split is audience: Klaviyo is built for ecommerce stores predicting who buys next, Mailchimp for anyone sending a general newsletter or campaign. A Shopify store outgrows Mailchimp’s automation depth quickly; a service business rarely needs Klaviyo’s ecommerce-specific prediction in the first place.
Get Mailchimp
Buying the tool is not the hard part.
The ebook is about what to hand over, in what order, and how you find out when it goes wrong. One payment, no subscription.