MailerLite's 2026 Pricing Changes: New Plans and a Smaller Free Tier

MailerLite spent years winning recommendations as the cheap, friendly tool that gave away a generous free plan. In 2026 that story changed. The free plan now caps at 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month — half the subscriber room it offered in late 2025 and a quarter of what it offered two years ago. The paid plans got new names too: Growing Business became Comfort, and Advanced became Power. If you bookmarked an old MailerLite comparison, the numbers in it are now wrong.

None of this makes MailerLite a bad tool. It still rates among the easiest platforms to learn and one of the better values once you pay. But the gap between “MailerLite is free and generous” and what you actually get on the free plan has widened, and anyone choosing a tool this year should price the new reality, not the old reputation.

What MailerLite Actually Changed

Three things moved at once. Taken together they amount to the biggest reshaping of MailerLite’s pricing in years.

The free plan shrank again. MailerLite’s free tier now covers 250 active subscribers, 2,500 emails per month, and 2 user seats. You still get the core platform — campaigns, the visual automation builder, one website, one landing page, three signup forms, and all three email editors. But the headroom is gone. For comparison, the free plan held 1,000 subscribers in early 2025, dropped to 500 in September 2025, and now sits at 250.

The paid plans were renamed. The plan formerly called Growing Business is now Comfort. The one called Advanced is now Power. Enterprise stays Enterprise. Legacy customers keep their old plan names on their bills, which means support threads and review articles referencing “Growing Business” still describe a real plan — just under a different label.

Pricing stayed usage-based. You pay for the number of active subscribers you have and the volume you send, not for feature access. According to MailerLite’s own pricing FAQ, Comfort starts at around $12/month and Power starts at around $25/month, both at the lowest subscriber tier with annual billing. Paying yearly saves 10%.

There is one more detail worth flagging because it affects how you read the free plan. On free accounts, when you cross 250 active subscribers, MailerLite locks sending — both campaigns and automations — until you upgrade or remove contacts. Your data stays put, but your account effectively stops working until you act.

Who Gets Hurt by the Smaller Free Plan

The 250-subscriber ceiling lands hardest on the exact users MailerLite spent a decade courting.

Solo creators and early-stage newsletters feel it first. A list of 250 is roughly a few months of steady growth for an active writer. The old 500 limit gave beginners a real runway; 250 turns the free plan into a short trial dressed up as a permanent tier.

Small nonprofits and community groups are the other obvious casualty. A local club, a school group, or a volunteer organization often sits between 300 and 1,000 contacts with no marketing budget. They are now over the free limit on day one. The upside for this group is that MailerLite offers a 30% nonprofit discount on paid plans, which softens the move to Comfort considerably. Check MailerLite’s nonprofit page for eligibility.

If you are already paying, the renames and usage-based model do not change much for you day to day. The sting is concentrated on people relying on free.

Is MailerLite Still Worth It Once You Pay?

Mostly, yes. The free plan got worse, but the paid product is the same one that earns high marks for ease of use and clean design. The drag-and-drop editor is genuinely quick to learn, the automation builder is visual and readable, and deliverability has tested well in independent inbox-placement studies. At around $12/month to start, Comfort undercuts Mailchimp’s entry pricing while including an AI writing assistant, multivariate testing, and an unsubscribe-page builder.

The honest weaknesses are real, though. MailerLite’s reporting is lighter than what ActiveCampaign or Klaviyo give you, so revenue attribution and deep funnel analysis are not its strength. Phone support does not exist — you get email and, on higher tiers, live chat. And the company’s track record of cutting the free plan three times in roughly 18 months is a fair reason to be cautious about long-term promises on any tier.

If MailerLite still fits, the move is straightforward: skip the free plan unless your list is genuinely tiny, and price Comfort at your real subscriber count using the live pricing slider. You can see the full plan-by-plan breakdown on our MailerLite pricing page and the editorial assessment in the MailerLite review.

Free Alternatives Worth Comparing

If the new free cap is the dealbreaker, three tools still offer more free room than MailerLite does. Each has a catch.

Brevo

Brevo charges by emails sent rather than contacts stored, so its free plan allows unlimited subscribers and 300 emails per day — roughly 9,000 a month. For a large list you email occasionally, like a monthly newsletter to a few thousand people, that math beats MailerLite easily. The trade-offs: the free plan stamps Brevo branding on your emails, the interface is busier than MailerLite’s, and the daily send cap is awkward if you ever want to blast your whole list at once. See the MailerLite vs Brevo comparison for the feature-level detail, or the Brevo review for the full picture.

EmailOctopus

EmailOctopus is the most generous free tier of this group on paper, covering a large subscriber count and monthly send volume that most small senders will not outgrow for a long time. Confirm the current numbers on EmailOctopus’s pricing page, since free-tier limits across the industry have been moving. The catch is scope: EmailOctopus is deliberately minimal. Segmentation is basic, there is no CRM or SMS, and the automation handles simple sequences but little branching logic. It is a clean newsletter tool, not a marketing suite.

Sender

Sender’s free plan leans on email and basic automation with a higher subscriber allowance than MailerLite’s new cap, and it includes SMS credits that most free tiers omit. The weakness is maturity: the template library and integrations are thinner than MailerLite’s, and the brand carries less of a deliverability track record in independent testing. For a price-sensitive sender who wants automation included for free, it still deserves a look.

How to Decide

Match the tool to how your list behaves, not to which free plan looks biggest in a headline.

Choose MailerLite if you value a clean interface and plan to pay within a few months anyway. The free plan is now a trial; the paid product is where it competes, and it competes well at the entry tier. Just go in expecting to upgrade once you pass 250 contacts.

Choose Brevo if you hold a large list but send infrequently. Contact-based pricing punishes you for every address you store; Brevo’s send-based model rewards a big, lightly-emailed list.

Choose EmailOctopus or Sender if you want to stay free as long as possible and your needs are simple. Neither will match MailerLite’s polish, but both give you more runway before the paywall.

For a wider field of options at every list size, our best free email marketing tools guide ranks them with current limits.

The Bottom Line

MailerLite’s 2026 changes do not break the product, but they retire its old pitch. The free plan is no longer a place to grow a list for free — at 250 subscribers it is a sample, and sending locks the moment you cross it. The paid plans, renamed Comfort and Power, remain a strong value for anyone who was always going to pay, with entry pricing around $12/month and a 30% nonprofit discount that makes the upgrade easier to swallow.

The practical takeaway is simple. If you are choosing a tool in 2026, judge MailerLite on its paid tiers, because that is where you will end up quickly. If a long free runway is what you need, Brevo, EmailOctopus, and Sender each give you more room than MailerLite now does — each with a trade-off you should weigh before you commit.

Sources

1. MailerLite Pricing — accessed 2026-06-26
2. MailerLite for Nonprofits — accessed 2026-06-26
3. Brevo Pricing — accessed 2026-06-26
4. EmailOctopus Pricing — accessed 2026-06-26