Best Mailchimp Alternatives (Cheaper and Better)

Mailchimp’s free plan now covers 250 contacts and 500 sends a month, with a daily cap of 250 and no automation flows. The cheapest paid plan, Essentials, starts at $13/month for 500 contacts, and its automation tops out at four steps per flow. If you have more than a couple of hundred contacts or want a real welcome sequence, you are paying, and you are paying for every contact in the account.

That is the main reason people look elsewhere. Below are 11 alternatives, grouped by what you need most, with prices checked against each vendor’s own pricing page on October 5, 2026. No single tool wins for everyone, so each section says who the tool suits and where it falls short.

What You Get From Mailchimp Today

Here is what Mailchimp’s current plans include, from its pricing page and plan documentation:

Plan	Price (monthly, entry tier)	Contacts	Monthly sends	Automation
Free	$0	250	500 (250/day)	Not included
Essentials	$13	500	10x contact limit	Flows up to 4 steps
Standard	$20	500	12x contact limit	Up to 200 flows
Premium	From $350	Higher tiers	15x contact limit	Up to 200 flows

Three things push people out:

You pay for contacts who cannot receive your email. Mailchimp’s billing docs say subscribed, unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts all count toward your contact total. Only archived, cleaned and deleted contacts drop out. A list that has picked up a few years of unsubscribes costs more than the audience you can actually mail.

The free plan is a trial in practice. At 250 contacts, 500 sends and no automation flows, it suits someone testing the editor, not someone running a newsletter or a small shop.

Useful features sit on higher tiers. Multi-step automation needs Standard. Phone support is Premium-only, and the free plan gets email support for its first 30 days.

Mailchimp is still a decent product. It has 300+ integrations and a polished editor, and for teams that use Standard’s automation and reporting it still works. Most small senders can just get the same job done for less.

Quick Picks

If you need…	Pick	Free plan	Paid from (monthly)
The closest like-for-like switch	MailerLite	250 subscribers, 2,500 emails	$12
A big list you email rarely	Brevo	300 emails/day	$9
A newsletter or creator business	Kit	10,000 subscribers	$39
The cheapest paid plan with full automation	Moosend	None (30-day trial)	$9
Deep automation plus a CRM	ActiveCampaign	None (14-day trial)	$15 (annual billing only)
A bigger free plan with automation	Sender	2,500 subscribers, 15,000 emails	See calculator
An online store	Omnisend or Klaviyo	250 contacts/profiles, 500 emails	$16 (Omnisend)
Design-led emails	Flodesk	No sending on free	$25

MailerLite: Best Overall Replacement

MailerLite covers the same ground as Mailchimp for most small businesses: newsletters, automation, landing pages, signup forms and a website builder, with a cleaner interface.

The free plan allows 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails a month and three automations. That matches Mailchimp’s free contact limit but gives you five times the sends and working automation. Paid plans start with Comfort at $12/month for 500 subscribers, which adds unlimited monthly emails, 50 automations and removes the MailerLite logo. Power starts at $25/month.

Where it falls short: the integration library (100+ on its pricing page) is smaller than Mailchimp’s 300+, and reporting is lighter than Mailchimp Standard’s. Segmentation is fine for most lists but not as deep as ActiveCampaign’s.

See the Mailchimp vs MailerLite comparison for a side-by-side.

Brevo: Best for Large Lists You Email Rarely

Brevo prices mainly by email volume rather than contact count. The free plan stores up to 100,000 contacts and lets you send 300 emails a day. If you have a big list and send one campaign a month, that model can be far cheaper than Mailchimp’s.

The catch is the paid entry tier. Starter is $9/month for 5,000 emails and includes 500 contacts, and removing the Brevo logo is a $12/month add-on on that plan. Marketing automation runs on Free and Starter for up to 2,000 contacts, and Standard ($18/month) removes that cap. A/B testing and landing pages start on Standard. So Brevo’s free plan is generous with contacts, but the cheap paid plan is not the unlimited-contacts deal it once was. Run your real numbers in its calculator.

Brevo also does SMS (credits sold separately), and WhatsApp, popups and push notifications on its Professional plan. It is a broader suite than Mailchimp, which matters if you plan to add channels later.

Where it falls short: the editor is less polished than MailerLite’s, and the features most people switch for (automation, A/B tests) need Standard rather than Starter.

Kit: Best for Creators and Newsletters

Kit (formerly ConvertKit) uses one subscriber database with tags and segments instead of separate audiences, so you never pay twice for someone who sits in two groups.

The free Newsletter plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers, by far the largest free contact allowance on this list. It includes unlimited broadcasts, landing pages and forms, tagging and segmentation, and selling digital products and paid subscriptions. It does not include automations or email sequences. Those start on Creator at $39/month for 1,000 subscribers ($33/month billed yearly). Pro is $79/month and adds engagement scoring, deliverability reporting and a newsletter referral system.

Where it falls short: the editor is deliberately plain, which suits text-led newsletters and frustrates anyone who wants product grids and promotional banners. It is a weak fit for ecommerce. Once you need automation, Kit costs more than MailerLite or Moosend at the same list size.

Moosend: Cheapest Paid Plan With Full Automation

Moosend starts at $9/month for 500 contacts on monthly billing ($7/month on annual), with unlimited email campaigns, automation workflows, landing pages, signup forms and transactional email on its Pro plan. Mailchimp gates multi-step automation behind Standard at $20/month, so Moosend is the cheapest way here to get real workflows on a paid plan.

Where it falls short: there is no free plan, only a 30-day trial with no credit card required. The brand and integration ecosystem are smaller than Mailchimp’s, so check that the tools you rely on connect before you move.

ActiveCampaign: Best for Automation Depth

If you are leaving Mailchimp because its automation feels limited, ActiveCampaign is the step up. Its builder handles branching journeys triggered by email activity, site visits, purchases, lead scores and CRM changes.

Its pricing page publishes annual-billing prices only: Starter is $15/month for 1,000 contacts, billed annually. The CRM, landing pages, contact scoring and SMS start on Plus at $49/month, also billed annually. There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial.

Where it falls short: the learning curve is steep, and for a simple newsletter it is overkill. You pay for depth you may never use. See the ActiveCampaign vs Mailchimp comparison for the full breakdown.

Sender: Biggest Free Plan With Automation

Sender has a Free Forever plan for up to 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month, with email automation, landing pages, signup forms and popups included. That is ten times Mailchimp’s free contact limit, and the automation Mailchimp’s free plan lacks.

Paid plans remove Sender’s branding and add SMS and A/B testing. Pricing scales with list size through a calculator on its site, and new customers get a first-year discount on annual billing, so check the monthly figure at your list size.

Where it falls short: it is a smaller company with a smaller integration ecosystem than Mailchimp, and the free plan carries Sender branding.

Omnisend and Klaviyo: Best for Online Stores

If you run a Shopify, WooCommerce or BigCommerce store, a store-first platform will do more with your order data than Mailchimp does.

Omnisend has a free plan for 250 contacts and 500 emails a month, and its Standard plan starts at $16/month for 500 contacts. Pre-built automations for abandoned carts, browse abandonment and post-purchase follow-ups are the core of the product. See Mailchimp vs Omnisend.

Klaviyo goes deeper on segmentation by purchase behavior and predicted customer value. Its free plan covers 250 active profiles, 500 email sends a month and $5 of mobile messages. Paid plans are billed on active profiles and get expensive as your list grows, which only pays off if you actually use the store data.

Where they fall short: neither is a good choice for a content newsletter or a service business. You would pay for ecommerce features you never touch.

Three More Worth a Look

Zoho Campaigns has a Forever Free plan for 2,000 contacts and 6,000 emails a month with five users. Paid plans are priced through a contact calculator. It makes most sense if you already run Zoho CRM, where the integration is native. On its own the interface is functional rather than pleasant.

EmailOctopus keeps things minimal. The free plan covers 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails a month, with EmailOctopus branding, reports kept for 30 days, and one landing page and one form. If you only need to send a newsletter reliably and cheaply, the missing extras may not matter.

Flodesk is for people who care most about how emails look. Its free plan covers forms, landing pages and templates but not email sending. Lite costs $25/month at up to 1,000 subscribers and caps at 25,000. The old flat-rate unlimited plan is closed to new members, and automation is thin compared with ActiveCampaign or Moosend.

Free Plan Comparison

If cost decides it, here is what each platform gives you at $0:

Platform	Free contacts	Free sends	Automation on free
Kit	10,000 subscribers	Unlimited broadcasts	No
Brevo	100,000 contacts stored	300/day	Listed from the Standard plan
Sender	2,500 subscribers	15,000/month	Yes
EmailOctopus	2,500 subscribers	10,000/month	Not listed on free
Zoho Campaigns	2,000 contacts	6,000/month	Not listed on free
MailerLite	250 subscribers	2,500/month	Yes (3 automations)
Omnisend	250 contacts	500/month	Check the plan table
Klaviyo	250 active profiles	500/month	Yes
Mailchimp	250 contacts	500/month	No
Moosend	None (30-day trial)	None	None

For a newsletter that has outgrown 250 contacts, Kit and Sender give you the most room before you pay anything. If you need automation on a free plan, Sender and MailerLite are the strongest options we confirmed.

For more on free tiers, see our best free email marketing tools guide.

How to Migrate Away From Mailchimp

Switching platforms takes an afternoon of setup and a couple of weeks of care.

1. Export everything first. In Mailchimp, export your audience as a CSV with all fields, tags and groups. Download any campaign reports you want to keep, and screenshot your automations so you can rebuild them.

2. Clean the list before importing. Leave out hard bounces and contacts who have not engaged in a year. Importing them costs money on any contact-priced plan and drags down your sending reputation on the new platform. Our guide to building an email list covers list hygiene in more detail.

3. Rebuild the automations that earn money. Skip the full rebuild. Recreate the two or three that drive results, usually a welcome sequence and maybe an abandoned cart or re-engagement series.

4. Ramp up sending gradually. With a large list, send to your most engaged subscribers first on the new platform, then widen the audience over a week or two. A sudden blast from a new sending setup to every address you have is how good lists end up in spam.

5. Cancel Mailchimp after your first successful send. Most alternatives have a free plan or trial, so run both for a week.

Which Alternative Should You Choose?

• Small business that wants the easiest switch: MailerLite. Closest feature match, lower price, and a free plan with automation.
• Large list, infrequent sends: Brevo. Volume-based pricing and 100,000 free contacts, as long as 300 emails a day or the Starter tier covers you.
• Creator, blogger or newsletter writer: Kit. Free up to 10,000 subscribers, with automation from $39/month.
• Cheapest paid plan with full automation: Moosend at $9/month.
• Advanced automation and a CRM: ActiveCampaign. You pay more, and you get more.
• Online store: Omnisend for a lower entry price, Klaviyo if you will use deep purchase data.
• Biggest free plan with automation: Sender.

You can also browse the best email marketing for small business rankings or take the tool finder quiz for a recommendation based on your list and budget.

Sources

1. Mailchimp — Marketing plans and pricing — accessed 2026-10-05
2. Mailchimp Help — About Mailchimp pricing plans — accessed 2026-10-05
3. Mailchimp Help — About your contacts — accessed 2026-10-05
4. MailerLite — Pricing — accessed 2026-10-05
5. Brevo — Pricing — accessed 2026-10-05
6. Kit — Pricing — accessed 2026-10-05
7. Moosend — Pricing — accessed 2026-10-05
8. ActiveCampaign — Pricing — accessed 2026-10-03
9. Sender — Pricing — accessed 2026-10-05
10. Omnisend — Pricing — accessed 2026-10-05
11. Klaviyo — Pricing — accessed 2026-10-05
12. Zoho Campaigns — Pricing — accessed 2026-10-05
13. EmailOctopus — Pricing — accessed 2026-10-05
14. Flodesk — Pricing — accessed 2026-10-05