MailerLite vs Mailchimp: The Honest Comparison

Both MailerLite and Mailchimp have trimmed their free plans in the past year — MailerLite cut its free subscriber limit from 1,000 to 500 in September 2025, and Mailchimp quietly reduced its free tier to just 250 contacts in early 2026. If you are shopping for an email tool and wondering which of these two deserves your money, the timing of those changes matters. So does the way each platform counts your contacts for billing purposes, which is where the real price difference hides.

This comparison covers free plan limits, paid pricing at several subscriber counts, automation depth, deliverability, and support — everything you need to make a clear decision.

MailerLite in Brief

MailerLite positions itself as the affordable, clean alternative to bloated platforms. It packs automation, landing pages, and a site builder into plans that start at $10/month. The interface is genuinely simple to learn, and the automation builder covers most use cases for creators and small businesses without requiring a paid tier upgrade just to access sequences.

The catch: MailerLite is not the richest feature set in the market. Its e-commerce integrations and CRM-level segmentation lag behind Mailchimp’s Standard plan. Support on the free plan is limited to email only, and response times can be slow during peak periods. The September 2025 free plan cut stung existing users who relied on the 1,000-subscriber limit.

Mailchimp in Brief

Mailchimp is the most recognised name in email marketing — for good reason. It has a large integration library (300+ native integrations including Shopify, WooCommerce, and Salesforce), solid analytics on paid plans, and a polished interface that most marketers already know. At the Standard and Premium levels it is a genuinely powerful marketing platform with predictive segmentation, behavioural targeting, and multi-step automation.

But Mailchimp is expensive by the time your list grows. More critically, it bills you for every contact in your account — subscribed, unsubscribed, and non-subscribed — unless you manually archive them. A list of 5,000 people where 1,500 have unsubscribed costs you as if you have 5,000 active subscribers. That billing practice has frustrated users for years and it has not changed.

Free Plans: What You Actually Get

MailerLite’s free plan allows up to 500 subscribers and 12,000 email sends per month. You get campaign creation, automations, a website builder, and up to 10 landing pages. The limit that tends to matter most: you can only create a single automation workflow on the free plan. One welcome sequence is fine. An elaborate multi-stage funnel is not.

Mailchimp’s free plan is now capped at 250 contacts and 500 emails per month. There is no scheduling, no multi-step automation, and Mailchimp branding appears on every email. At 250 contacts you can barely run a test campaign before hitting the wall.

For most people starting out, MailerLite’s free plan is the more practical choice. Mailchimp’s free tier has become more of a trial than a usable plan.

Paid Pricing Compared

Here is how the two platforms compare at common subscriber counts, using monthly billing. Annual billing typically saves 10–15% on either platform.

At 500 subscribers:

• MailerLite Growing Business: around $10/month
• Mailchimp Essentials: around $13/month

At 1,000 subscribers:

• MailerLite Growing Business: around $15/month
• Mailchimp Essentials: approximately $20/month

At 5,000 subscribers:

• MailerLite Growing Business: around $39/month
• Mailchimp Essentials: around $75/month; Mailchimp Standard: around $100/month

The gap widens considerably as your list grows. By the time you reach 5,000 subscribers, MailerLite costs roughly half what Mailchimp charges for its entry-level paid plan — and MailerLite’s plan includes features that require Mailchimp Standard (the next tier up).

Verify current prices directly before committing: MailerLite pricing page and Mailchimp pricing page, as both platforms adjust rates periodically.

Automation and Workflows

MailerLite’s automation builder handles the common creator workflows well: welcome sequences, tagging based on link clicks, and drip campaigns. The visual builder is straightforward. You can trigger automations based on subscriber actions, form sign-ups, and custom fields. On the Growing Business plan and above, the number of automations is unlimited.

Mailchimp’s automation depth on the Standard plan is stronger for e-commerce use cases. Abandoned cart sequences, post-purchase follow-ups, and product retargeting work well if you connect a Shopify or WooCommerce store. Predictive segmentation — which uses machine learning to forecast who is likely to buy — is exclusive to Standard and above.

If your primary need is nurture sequences, onboarding flows, and broadcast newsletters, MailerLite covers it well at a lower cost. If you run an online store and want e-commerce-triggered automations tied to purchase behaviour, Mailchimp Standard pulls ahead.

Templates and Design

Both platforms offer a drag-and-drop editor with template libraries. MailerLite’s templates are clean and modern, though the library is smaller (around 70 templates). The editor is fast and the mobile preview is accurate.

Mailchimp has a larger template library and more design customisation options at the Standard level. The editor was rebuilt a few years ago and is generally well-regarded, though some users find it less intuitive than MailerLite’s. If brand consistency is critical and your designer wants fine-grained control, Mailchimp’s Custom HTML editor (available on Standard and above) and Creative Assistant features provide more flexibility.

Deliverability

Both platforms maintain solid deliverability on shared infrastructure. MailerLite enforces strict anti-spam policies and has consistently ranked well in independent deliverability tests. Its clean IP pools reflect the platform’s relatively strict onboarding process.

Mailchimp’s deliverability is reliable at scale, though its large size means it shares infrastructure with a wide range of senders. The impact is minimal for established senders with good engagement rates. For new accounts with small lists, either platform performs comparably.

See our email deliverability guide for a deeper look at what actually moves inbox placement numbers.

Support

MailerLite offers 24/7 chat and email support on paid plans. Free plan users get email support only, and response times can run to 24 hours during busy periods. The help documentation is well-organised.

Mailchimp offers 24/7 chat and email support on Essentials and above. Phone support is available on Premium only. The support quality varies; some users report fast, helpful responses while others describe frustratingly generic replies. Documentation is extensive given the platform’s age.

Neither platform offers genuinely exceptional support. For a small business running routine campaigns, either is acceptable.

Who Should Choose MailerLite

MailerLite is the better fit if you are a blogger, creator, nonprofit, or small business that wants solid email marketing at a predictable low cost. The free plan is usable for getting started. The paid plans offer strong value — automation, landing pages, and a website builder included — without the pricing gymnastics of scaling on Mailchimp.

It is also the right call if you are migrating away from a more expensive platform (like Kit, which raised Creator plan pricing to $39/month for 1,000 subscribers in late 2025) and want to keep costs low while retaining automation capability. See our guide to switching email platforms if you are moving an existing list.

Who Should Choose Mailchimp

Mailchimp makes sense if you run an e-commerce store that needs tight Shopify or WooCommerce integration, or if your team is already trained on Mailchimp and switching costs outweigh the price difference. The Standard plan’s predictive segmentation and e-commerce automations are genuinely useful for product-based businesses.

It also makes sense if you are part of an agency or larger team where Mailchimp’s deep integration ecosystem and multi-account management are already embedded in your workflow. Browse our best email marketing tools for agencies if that is your context.

The Bottom Line

For most small businesses, creators, and anyone who is not running a large e-commerce operation, MailerLite is the better deal in 2026. It is cheaper at every tier that matters, the free plan is more practical, and the feature set covers most use cases without requiring expensive plan upgrades.

Mailchimp’s strength — its e-commerce automation and massive integration library — is meaningful for online stores. But for email-first marketing to a newsletter audience or service business list, paying two to three times more for Mailchimp Standard rarely pencils out.

For a broader look at the market, see our best email marketing platforms roundup and our email marketing pricing comparison across 15+ tools.

Sources

1. MailerLite Pricing Plans — accessed 2026-04-06
2. Mailchimp Marketing Pricing Plans — accessed 2026-04-06