What does email marketing cost at 500, 1,000, 2,500, and 5,000 contacts?

At 500 contacts you may not need to pay at all: Kit’s and AWeber’s free plans both hold a list that size. If you pay, sending about one email a week, a 500-contact list costs $9 to $39 a month. At 1,000 contacts the paid range is $17 to $39 a month, at 2,500 it’s $25 to $59 a month, and at 5,000 it’s $39 to $89 a month.

What to budget at each size

Each figure in the table is the whole monthly bill for a list that size, on the cheapest plan whose limits fit, at list price, billed monthly. Every tool here except Brevo charges by the size of your list. Brevo charges by the emails you send, so the table assumes one email a week, priced so a month with five sends fits: five emails to each contact a month, the same for every tool. Tool names link to the full plan pages.

500 contacts. Two free plans hold this list and its weekly email with room to spare: AWeber’s, which allows 500 contacts and 3,000 emails a month, and Kit’s, which allows 10,000 contacts with unlimited broadcasts. Mailchimp’s free plan ended at 250 contacts, and MailerLite’s at 250 contacts. Brevo’s holds the list, but its daily cap means one newsletter can’t reach all 500 on the same day. If you’d rather pay, the range is $9 to $39 a month and the lowest bill is Brevo (Starter) at $9 a month. When a free email marketing plan is enough shows what ends each free plan.

1,000 contacts. AWeber’s free plan has ended, at 500 contacts. Kit’s still holds your list, so a weekly newsletter with no automation can still cost nothing. Paid, the range is $17 to $39 a month and the lowest bill is Brevo (Starter) at $17 a month.

2,500 contacts. Kit’s free plan is the one free option left that sends a weekly email to the whole list. Paid, you’re looking at $25 to $59 a month; the lowest bill is Brevo (Starter) at $25 a month.

5,000 contacts. Kit’s free plan still holds the list. Paid, the range is $39 to $89 a month, and the lowest bill is Brevo (Starter) at $39 a month. At this size the tool you pick moves your bill more than anything else on this page.

Say you run a family garden center with about 4,200 people on your list from the loyalty program and the website, and you send a weekly offers email in season. That puts you in the 5,000 column. People who signed up on your website asked for your emails; before you send offers to loyalty members, check that they agreed to marketing emails too.

Kit’s free plan holds the whole list and lists unlimited broadcasts, so the weekly email can cost nothing, with Kit’s branding on it and no email sequences. The day you want a welcome series for new loyalty members, Kit’s Creator plan at your size is $89 a month. Paying from the start instead, the lowest bill is Brevo (Starter) at $39 a month, and MailerLite’s Comfort, which includes automations, is $49 a month.

Before you compare any of these, take the people who unsubscribed or haven’t opened anything in years out of the count, without losing the record of who unsubscribed (on Mailchimp, archive them rather than delete them). A list of 4,200 that’s really 3,000 people who read your emails may drop a tier on several tools, though lowering the tier is usually a change you make yourself, taking effect from your next billing date; each tool’s page in this guide says how it works there.

Calculator

Price your own list

Enter the people your emails actually go to. Every tool here is priced at one email a week to the whole list: five emails per contact a month, so a month with five sends fits.

People who get your emails

After cleaning: leave out anyone who unsubscribed, bounced, or never agreed to marketing email.

Unsubscribed contacts you keep

The record of who opted out, if it stays in the account. Some tools bill for it; see how each counts below.

Worked example

For 4,200 people getting one email a week (five a month, 21,000 emails in all): Kit’s free plan holds your list and its weekly email. The lowest paid bill is $39 a month (Brevo Starter), and paid bills run $39 to $89 a month.

Email marketing for a list of 4,200 people. Free plan: whether the vendor’s free plan holds the list and can send one email a week to all of it. Lowest paid plan: the whole monthly bill on the cheapest paid plan that fits, at list price, billed monthly. Assumption for plans priced by emails sent: 5 emails per contact each month, applied to every tool. Checked October 13, 2026.

Tool	Free plan	Lowest paid plan
MailchimpCounts 4,200 contacts. Non-subscribed contacts would add to it.	Doesn’t fit.It holds up to 250 contacts; it allows 500 emails a month, and a weekly email to your list is 21,000; it sends at most 250 emails a day, so one email can’t reach your whole list on the same day.	$75 a monthEssentials. This price covers up to 5,000 contacts, room for 800 more.
MailerLiteCounts 4,200 contacts. A cleaned list counts from the next billing cycle.	Doesn’t fit.It holds up to 250 contacts; it allows 2,500 emails a month, and a weekly email to your list is 21,000.	$49 a monthComfort. This price covers up to 5,000 contacts, room for 800 more.
BrevoPriced on 21,000 emails a month.	Doesn’t fit.It holds your list, but sends at most 300 emails a day, so one email can’t reach your whole list on the same day.	$39 a monthStarter. This price covers up to 30,000 emails a month, room for 9,000 more emails.
KitCounts 4,200 contacts.	Fits.Allows up to 10,000 contacts.	$89 a monthCreator. This price covers up to 5,000 contacts, room for 800 more.
Constant ContactCounts 4,200 contacts.	No free plan	$80 a monthLite. This price covers up to 5,000 contacts, room for 800 more.
AWeberCounts 4,200 contacts. Moving down a tier is by request.	Doesn’t fit.It holds up to 500 contacts; it allows 3,000 emails a month, and a weekly email to your list is 21,000.	$60 a monthLite. This price covers up to 5,000 contacts, room for 800 more.

How each tool counts your list

• Mailchimp counts subscribed, unsubscribed, and non-subscribed contacts. The tool asks only for the first two, so if your audience also holds non-subscribed contacts, Mailchimp bills on more than the figure shown. Archived contacts don’t count, and archiving keeps their data, including who unsubscribed.
• MailerLite bills on active subscribers: unsubscribed and bounced addresses don’t count. An address that was active at any point in a billing cycle counts for that cycle, even if you delete it later, and the count resets each month on your billing date. So a list you clean today is billed at the lower count from the next cycle.
• Brevo bills on the emails you send, and each of its smaller tiers also caps the contacts you store. This guide hasn’t confirmed whether unsubscribed contacts count toward that cap. The tool counts them, but that’s an estimate: check the contact count Brevo shows in your account.
• This guide hasn’t confirmed how Kit counts unsubscribed contacts kept in the account. The tool counts them, but that’s an estimate, not a guarantee: the subscriber count Kit shows in your account is the one you’re billed on.
• This guide hasn’t confirmed how Constant Contact counts unsubscribed contacts kept in the account. The tool counts them, but that’s an estimate, not a guarantee: the contact count Constant Contact shows in your account is the one you’re billed on.
• AWeber says unsubscribes don’t count toward billing. It moves you up a tier automatically, but not down: deleting subscribers doesn’t lower your tier, and you ask AWeber’s support to move down. If you already pay for a larger tier, the figure shown applies once AWeber has moved you.

Paid plans that cap monthly sending set the cap at ten or more times the contact tier wherever they state one, so five emails a month stays inside it. Every free plan here puts the vendor’s branding on your emails. When a free email marketing plan is enough shows every free plan’s caps.

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What changes the bill?

Three things, in this order.

• Your list size. Five of the six tools charge by the number of contacts you store, in tiers, and the bill jumps at each tier’s top: Mailchimp Essentials is $13 a month at 500 contacts and $26.50 a month at 501. Mailchimp counts unsubscribed contacts too.
• How much you send. Brevo charges by emails sent, so sending twice a week instead of once roughly doubles the volume you’re billed for, while the contact-priced tools charge the same as long as you stay inside their monthly send allowance. The contact-priced plans that cap sending tie the cap to your tier, and at one email a week none of them is close to it. Per-contact or per-email pricing shows the bill at other sending rhythms.
• Automation. The cheapest plan that fits your list isn’t always the one with automated emails. That’s the next section.

What does automation cost?

Most small businesses move up a plan for one feature: emails that go out on their own, like a welcome series for new subscribers. Here’s where each tool puts it.

• Mailchimp: Essentials allows up to 4 steps per flow; Standard allows up to 200 steps per flow and up to 3 triggers per flow. At 1,000 contacts that’s $26.50 a month against $45 a month.
• MailerLite: Comfort, its first paid plan, includes 50 automations, so the lowest bill already has them: $19 a month at 1,000 subscribers.
• Brevo: the free plan and Starter include automation for up to 2,000 contacts entering your workflows, and Standard removes that cap. At 1,000 contacts and one email a week, Starter’s tier is $17 a month and Standard’s $35 a month.
• Kit: visual automations and email sequences start on Creator, its first paid plan: $39 a month at 1,000 subscribers.
• Constant Contact: Lite includes 1 automation template, Standard 3 automation templates, and custom automations start on Premium. At 1,000 contacts that’s $30 a month for Lite, $55 a month for Standard, and $110 a month for Premium.
• AWeber: Lite includes 3 email automations and Plus unlimited. At 1,000 subscribers Lite is $25 a month.

Our view: don’t pay for automation until you’ve written the welcome series it would send. The newsletter is the part that earns its keep first.

Monthly or yearly billing?

Pay monthly until you’ve sent from the tool for a few months and know how fast your list grows. Five of the six vendors publish a lower yearly rate: MailerLite and Brevo show 10% off, Constant Contact 15%, AWeber shows its annual Lite plan at 16.7% off, and Kit 17%. Mailchimp publishes monthly prices only. A yearly plan is priced for your tier, so if your list grows past it during the year, you move up anyway.

Our view

Budget on the paid figure at your list size, and treat a free plan as a bonus that lasts until your sending or your list outgrows it. At 1,000 contacts the lowest paid bill for a weekly email is Brevo (Starter) at $17 a month. Brevo’s Starter shows Brevo’s branding on your emails unless you pay for the add-on, and its automation takes up to 2,000 contacts until you move to Standard; MailerLite’s Comfort, at $19 a month, includes automations. If you send weekly and have a large list you don’t need to automate, Kit’s free plan carries you a long way. What you give up by choosing on price alone is the feature you’ll want next, so price that plan too before you commit.

Your next step

Clean your list first: count the people who agreed to get your emails and still read them, keep a record of everyone who unsubscribed rather than deleting it, and read your size off the table. If your list is within a free plan’s caps, start there this week. Kit’s free plan holds up to 10,000 contacts and lists unlimited broadcasts: start Kit’s free plan. AWeber’s holds up to 500 contacts and includes 1 workflow automation: start AWeber’s free plan. If you’re paying, start a trial on the cheapest plan at your size, pay monthly, and price the plan with automation before you need it. Mailchimp’s pricing page shows every Mailchimp band, and can you send a newsletter from Gmail or Outlook? answers whether you need a tool at all.