How much does email marketing software cost?
The four pricing models, what every major tool really charges, and how to keep the bill down as your list grows.
The honest answer is that most small businesses pay roughly $9 to $50 per month for a list of 1,000 to 2,500 contacts, but the sticker price you see on a pricing page is rarely what you pay at scale. The single biggest cost lever is not the brand you pick, it is the pricing model: tools that charge per stored contact (Mailchimp, Klaviyo, Constant Contact, most of the market) get more expensive as your list grows whether you email it or not, while volume-based tools like Brevo charge for emails sent and let you store unlimited contacts. For a large list emailed infrequently that one choice can swing your bill more than tenfold. The other quiet finding, which we keep running into across this category, is that the cheapest tools tend to score highest with real users on independent ratings, while the most expensive ones (Klaviyo, HubSpot) carry some of the worst satisfaction scores on Trustpilot. Below is what every major tool actually costs as you grow, where the traps are buried, and our Lab Score for cost-fit on each.
The headline answer: real cost by list size
Email marketing software is priced in tiers, and your list size decides almost everything. A free plan covers 250 to 1,000 contacts on most tools. A small business with a few thousand contacts typically pays $9 to $60 per month. A mid-market list of 10,000 contacts runs about $40 on the cheapest per-contact tools and $890 or more on a full CRM suite. Enterprise CRM platforms start at $890 to $3,600 per month before add-ons. Here is the cost of a 10,000-contact list across the majors, which is the cleanest single number for comparing tools because it is past the free tiers and below the point where everyone needs custom pricing.
| Tool | Plan at 10,000 contacts | Monthly cost | Pricing model |
|---|---|---|---|
| MailerLite | Comfort | ~$40 | Per contact |
| Constant Contact | Lite | ~$45 to $60 | Per contact |
| Kit | Creator | ~$45 | Per subscriber |
| Mailchimp | Essentials | $110 | Per contact |
| Mailchimp | Standard | $135 | Per contact |
| Omnisend | Standard | ~$132 | Per contact |
| Klaviyo | ~$130 to $150 | Per contact | |
| HubSpot | Marketing Pro | $890+ | Per contact + seat |
| Brevo | Starter/Business | ~$18 to $65 | Per email sent |
Notice Brevo at the bottom. Its 10,000-contact price depends entirely on how many emails you send, not on the 10,000 stored, so a list you email weekly might cost $18 to $65 while the per-contact tools charge a fixed $110 to $150 regardless. That gap is the whole game.
The two pricing models that decide your bill
Before you compare brands, understand the model each one uses. There are really two, plus a few add-on layers.
- Per contact (the default). Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Klaviyo, Kit, MailerLite, ActiveCampaign, GetResponse, Omnisend and HubSpot all bill on the number of contacts you store. Cost rises with list size no matter how often you actually send. This model punishes large lists you email rarely, and it rewards aggressive list hygiene.
- Per email sent (volume-based). Brevo stores unlimited contacts and bills on monthly send volume. This is the cheapest path for a big list emailed occasionally, and it can be the more expensive path for a tiny list you blast every single day.
- Add-on layers. HubSpot stacks a per-seat charge on top of contacts ($15 to $20 per seat per month on Starter, billed annually). SMS is sold separately as credits on top of email on Klaviyo, Omnisend, Constant Contact and Brevo, so your true total is the email plan plus an SMS package.
The practical rule: if you have a large list you email infrequently, volume pricing (Brevo) wins. If you email a focused list often, per-contact pricing is usually fine, and the cheaper per-contact tools (MailerLite, Kit) are where the value sits.
Tool-by-tool pricing and Lab Score
Here is the full picture for the nine tools we track most closely, with annual-billing rates where they exist. The Lab Score (out of 10) weights cost-fit as you grow, deliverability from independent tests, and real-user satisfaction on G2, Capterra and Trustpilot. It is not the same as a feature score: a powerful tool can score low here if it gets expensive fast or frustrates the people paying for it.
| Tool | Free plan | Entry paid (annual) | Deliverability | Trustpilot | Lab Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MailerLite | 250 contacts, 2,500 emails | ~$12 (500) | ~94% avg | n/a | 9.0 |
| Brevo | Unlimited contacts, 300/day | ~$9 (5k sends) | ~88 to 96% | 4.2 | 9.0 |
| ActiveCampaign | None (14-day trial) | $15 (1k) | ~94.2% | 2.8 | 8.0 |
| GetResponse | 500 contacts | ~$15.58 (1k) | Strong | 4.3 | 8.0 |
| Kit | Up to 10,000 subscribers | $33 (1k) | Strong | n/a | 7.5 |
| Omnisend | 250 contacts, 500 emails | ~$16 (500) | Solid | n/a | 7.5 |
| Constant Contact | None (trial only) | $12 (500) | Solid | 3.9 | 7.0 |
| Klaviyo | 250 contacts, 500 sends | ~$20 (500) | Strong | 1.8 | 6.5 |
| Mailchimp | 500 contacts, ~1,000 emails | $13 (500) | ~82 to 87% | 2.6 | 6.0 |
| HubSpot | Basic email + forms | $15/seat (1k) | Strong | n/a | 5.5 |
A few notes that the table cannot hold. Klaviyo is the most capable tool for Shopify and e-commerce, with predictive analytics and 350-plus integrations, but it earns a 1.8 on Trustpilot (billing and support complaints) and its price climbs steeply as your list grows, so its cost-fit score is middling despite genuine power. Mailchimp is the most widely used name in the category and rates 4.3 on G2 and 4.5 on Capterra, but its independent deliverability sits at roughly 82 to 87% and declining, the weakest among the majors, and its 2.6 Trustpilot score reflects billing friction. HubSpot is a full CRM and marketing suite, not really an email tool, which is why it sits last on pure cost-fit.
Real cost at scale: four worked examples
Sticker prices lie by omission because they quote the smallest tier. Here is what the same list actually costs as it grows from a side project to a real audience.
| Tool / plan | 500 contacts | 1,000 | 10,000 | 50,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brevo (volume) | ~$9 | ~$9 | ~$18 to $65 | ~$18 to $40* |
| MailerLite Comfort | ~$12 | ~$15 | ~$40 | Custom |
| GetResponse Starter | n/a | $15.58 | Scales up | Custom |
| Mailchimp Standard | $20 | ~$20 | $135 | $450 |
| Mailchimp Essentials | $13 | ~$13 | $110 | $385 |
| Klaviyo Email | ~$20 | ~$30 | ~$130 to $150 | $720 |
| Kit Creator | n/a | $33 | ~$45 | Scales up |
*The key insight lives in that asterisk. For a 50,000-contact list emailed only once a month (50,000 sends), Brevo’s volume tier costs roughly $18 to $40, while Mailchimp charges $385 to $450 for the same list because it bills the stored contacts, not the sends. That is a 10-times-plus swing driven purely by the pricing model. Flip the scenario, a 500-contact list emailed daily, and Brevo’s send-based price can creep above the flat per-contact tools. Match the model to your sending habit and you can cut your bill in half without changing a single feature.
Ten cost traps that inflate the real bill
The list price is the floor, not the number on your card. These are the ten traps we see most often, all verified against current pricing pages.
- Paying for dead weight. Most per-contact tools bill stored unsubscribed, inactive and bounced contacts. Mailchimp counts the same person in two audiences as two billable contacts. Cleaning your list directly cuts the bill.
- Contact-tier cliffs. Tiers are sparse, so a list of 8,000 is often billed at the 10,000 rate. Crossing a threshold jumps your price in a step, not a slope.
- Automatic overage billing. Mailchimp auto-charges overages once you pass a contact or send limit after the trial. It is easy to get surprised by a bill you did not approve.
- Send-limit multipliers. Per-contact tools cap your sends at 10 to 15 times your contact count (Mailchimp at 10x, 12x and 15x by tier, Klaviyo around 10x). High-frequency senders get pushed up a tier by the send cap, not the list size.
- SMS billed separately. On Klaviyo, Omnisend, Constant Contact and Brevo, SMS is a credit package on top of email. Klaviyo SMS packages start at about $15 per month for 1,250 credits. Budget the email plan plus SMS, not one or the other.
- Mandatory onboarding fees. HubSpot Marketing Pro carries a one-time $3,000 onboarding fee that is non-refundable and charged whether or not you use the onboarding.
- Annual lock-in for the headline price. Most “from $X” rates require annual prepay. Paying monthly costs roughly 15 to 20% more: ActiveCampaign is $15 annual versus $19 monthly, HubSpot $15 versus $20 per seat.
- Premium-tier minimums. Mailchimp Premium has a $350 per month floor that applies even to a tiny list, and Klaviyo’s enterprise tier becomes mandatory once your spend passes about $10,000 a month.
- Feature gating. Automations, A/B testing, advanced reporting, dynamic content and dedicated IPs are often locked behind the second or third tier regardless of list size, so you upgrade for a feature, not for room.
- Free-plan branding and daily caps. Free tiers add the vendor logo to your emails (Brevo, GetResponse, Mailchimp) and cap daily sends (Brevo at 300 per day), both designed to nudge you to upgrade.
The cheapest tools win on satisfaction
This is the finding that surprises people. When you line up price against independent ratings, the inexpensive tools come out ahead on how satisfied real users are, and the premium tools trail. The pattern is consistent enough that we treat it as a buying signal, not a coincidence: paying more does not buy you happier customers in this category.
| Tool | Tier | Trustpilot | Deliverability |
|---|---|---|---|
| GetResponse | Value | 4.3 | Strong |
| Brevo | Cheapest at scale | 4.2 | ~88 to 96% |
| Constant Contact | Mid | 3.9 | Solid |
| ActiveCampaign | Mid | 2.8 | ~94.2% |
| Mailchimp | Pricey at scale | 2.6 | ~82 to 87% |
| Klaviyo | Most expensive | 1.8 | Strong |
Trustpilot skews negative and is heavy on billing complaints, which is exactly the point: the tools that generate the most billing complaints are the ones with the most aggressive pricing escalation. On deliverability, the metric that decides whether your email reaches the inbox at all, the value picks hold up. MailerLite and ActiveCampaign both test around 94%, Brevo lands in the high 80s to mid 90s depending on the test round, and the most expensive name in the room is not the one delivering best. The industry inbox-placement average sits in the high 80s to low 90s, so Mailchimp’s 82 to 87% is below par for a market leader.
Which tool fits which budget
- Tightest budget or a large cheap list: Brevo (volume model, free 9,000 emails a month) or MailerLite (cheapest per-contact, top deliverability).
- Small business or beginner wanting hand-holding: Constant Contact (no free plan but simple) or Mailchimp (everywhere, though pricey at scale and weak on deliverability).
- Creators and newsletters: Kit, formerly ConvertKit.
- E-commerce and Shopify: Klaviyo for the most powerful features at the highest cost, or Omnisend as the cheaper e-commerce alternative with built-in SMS.
- Automation power users: ActiveCampaign, the best automation and deliverability per dollar.
- Full CRM plus marketing: HubSpot, the most expensive option, with the $3,000 onboarding on Pro.
- All-in-one with landing pages and webinars: GetResponse, the best Trustpilot score among the majors and strong value.
FAQ
What is the cheapest email marketing software?
For a large list, Brevo is usually cheapest because it bills on emails sent rather than contacts stored, and its free plan allows about 9,000 emails a month (300 per day). For a small focused list, MailerLite is the cheapest credible per-contact tool, starting near $12 per month at 500 subscribers with deliverability around 94%. Both beat Mailchimp and Klaviyo on price at almost every list size.
Is free email marketing software good enough?
For a list under 250 to 1,000 contacts, often yes. Brevo’s free plan offers unlimited contacts with a 300-per-day send cap, MailerLite’s free plan covers 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails, and Kit’s free plan currently allows up to 10,000 subscribers with one automation. The catches are vendor branding on your emails, daily send caps, and feature gating on automation and testing. Free is a real starting point, not a permanent home for a growing list.
Why does my bill jump so much as my list grows?
Two reasons. First, per-contact tools use sparse tiers, so a list of 8,000 is billed at the 10,000 rate, and crossing a threshold is a step change. Second, many tools bill unsubscribed, inactive and duplicate contacts, so your billable count is higher than your real audience. On Mailchimp, the same person in two audiences counts twice. Regular list cleaning is the most direct way to control the bill.
Does annual billing really save money?
Yes, typically 15 to 20%, but you lock in for a year. ActiveCampaign is $15 per month annual versus $19 monthly, and HubSpot is $15 versus $20 per seat. Klaviyo is an exception: its self-serve plans bill monthly with no annual discount in 2026. Take the annual rate only once you are confident in the tool, because the headline “from $X” price almost always assumes the annual commitment.
Is Klaviyo or HubSpot worth the higher price?
It depends on what you are buying. Klaviyo is worth it for a serious Shopify store that will use its predictive analytics and deep integrations, but expect the price to climb steeply with list growth, SMS billed on top, and a 1.8 Trustpilot score. HubSpot is worth it only if you need a full CRM and marketing suite, not just email, and can absorb the $890-plus monthly Pro price plus the mandatory $3,000 onboarding. For email alone, both are overkill and the value tools deliver as well or better.
Want the exact number for your list size and sending frequency instead of a range? Run your contact count and monthly send volume through our Real Cost Calculator to see what each tool actually costs you as you grow, including the model swing between per-contact and per-send pricing.
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