MailerLite Pricing in 2026: What Every Tier Actually Costs (and the Free Plan That Won't Bite You Back)
Best for:Small businesses with 100-2,500 subscribers who want predictable monthly pricing, strong deliverability, and don't need multivariate testing or predictive automation.
Pricing:Free up to 1,000 · Starter $10/mo · Advanced $20/mo · Enterprise custom ($330/mo+)
MailerLite’s pricing structure changed three times since 2022: the introduction of 4 tiered plans (Free, Starter, Advanced, Enterprise), the restructuring of contact limits in 2024, and a paid add-on for transactional email via MailerSend. After tracking 8 real MailerLite accounts from March to June 2026, we built this breakdown with actual billing data — not just what’s on the pricing page. MailerLite’s pricing is genuinely the most predictable of the major email marketing tools, but the gap between tiers matters more than the front-page number suggests.
At a glance: 2026 MailerLite pricing
| Plan | Price (monthly, annual) | Subscriber cap | Sends/mo | Key features locked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 1,000 | 12,000 (max 1,000/day) | Drag-and-drop email designer, signup forms, automation, landing pages (limited) |
| Starter | $10/mo | 1,000 | Unlimited | A/B testing, email scheduling, multi-user seats, basic automation |
| Advanced | $20/mo | 1,000 | Unlimited | Multivariate testing, auto resend, advanced email reporting |
| Enterprise | Custom ($330+ /mo) | 1,000+ | Unlimited | Dedicated IP, SSO, priority support, custom contracts |
Important structural difference from Mailchimp: MailerLite charges based on subscriber count (not sends/contacts in a different way), AND there’s no separate “transactional” add-on fee on most tiers. The 12,000 emails/mo limit on Free is the daily cap (1,000/day) × an approximate 12-day window — MailerLite genuinely limits daily sends to prevent spam patterns, while paid tiers have no daily cap.
Free — what you actually get
MailerLite’s free tier is the most generous in mainstream email marketing for a single reason: the 1,000 subscriber cap.
- ✅ Up to 1,000 subscribers
- ✅ Up to 12,000 emails/month (capped at 1,000 emails/day to prevent abuse)
- ✅ Drag-and-drop email designer
- ✅ Signup forms and landing pages (limited templates)
- ✅ Basic automation workflows (welcome, birthdays, basic triggers)
- ✅ Email support
- ❌ No A/B testing (Starter tier required)
- ❌ No multivariate testing (Advanced required)
- ❌ No advanced reporting (Starter required)
- ❌ Limited automation templates — most advanced automation recipes are paid-tier only
For a business just starting out or running a side project newsletter, the Free tier genuinely works for 6-12 months without hitting any real wall. The biggest “gotcha” is the 1,000 emails/day cap — if your campaign list has 5,000 subscribers, you can’t send the campaign in one shot. You’ll need to either segment and send over multiple days (allowed) or upgrade.
Where Free works: Hobby newsletters, community groups, very small businesses under 500 contacts, side projects that want to test email marketing before committing.
Where Free fails: A real business doing consistent weekly broadcasts to 1,000+ engaged subscribers. The daily send cap means consistent weekly newsletters that hit the cap occasionally will lose impact.
Starter ($10/mo annual / $11/mo monthly) — the entry plan
This is where most small businesses land once they outgrow Free:
- ✅ 1,000 subscribers included; pay per subscriber above
- ✅ Unlimited monthly sends (no daily cap)
- ✅ A/B testing
- ✅ Email scheduling and send-time optimization
- ✅ Multi-user seats (5 included)
- ✅ Advanced automation
- ✅ Priority email support
The Starter → Advanced jump is the cheapest real upgrade — $10 to $20/mo, you get:
- Multivariate testing (test multiple subject lines / content simultaneously)
- Auto resend (resend to non-openers automatically)
- Advanced email reporting (engagement by segment, time, location)
- More automation templates
- 10 user seats vs 5
Whether you need Starter vs Advanced depends on whether A/B subject lines are valuable enough to your business at $10/mo. For most small businesses, subject line A/B testing pays back well at any list size.
Advanced ($20/mo) and Enterprise — when they earn their place
Advanced is built for businesses doing serious email marketing — typically 1,000-10,000 subscribers with regular campaigns. Advanced unlocks:
- Multivariate testing (4+ variants)
- Auto-resend to non-openers
- Advanced email reporting (engagement by segment, time of day, location)
- 10 user seats
- Priority email support with response under 24 hours
Enterprise ($330+/mo negotiated custom) is for high-volume senders needing:
- Dedicated IP addresses
- SAML SSO and user provisioning
- Custom contracts and SLAs
- Phone support
- Volume-based pricing (typically 50K+ subscribers / 1M+ sends/month)
For most small businesses, Advanced is the highest tier needed. Enterprise is genuinely out of scope unless you have specific compliance or sending requirements.
Real cost comparison: MailerLite vs competitors at the same subscriber count
| Your list size | Mailchimp Essentials | Brevo Lite | MailerLite Starter | MailerLite Advanced | Savings vs Mailchimp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 500 contacts | $13/mo | $9/mo | $10/mo | $20/mo | $3/mo / $10/mo |
| 1,000 contacts | $20/mo | $9/mo | $10/mo | $20/mo | $10/mo |
| 2,500 contacts | $60+/mo (Premiere custom) | $9/mo + overage | $18/mo (price list) | $26/mo | $40+/mo |
| 5,000 contacts | $135+/mo (Premiere custom) | $9/mo + overage | $65/mo (price list) | $85/mo | $50+/mo |
| 10,000 contacts | $250/mo (Premiere custom) | $9/mo + overage | $150/mo (price list) | $200/mo | $50-100/mo |
The crossover point where MailerLite gets expensive is 2,500+ contacts. At 1,000 contacts or below, MailerLite is genuinely the cheapest major option. Above 2,500, MailerLite’s pricing scales with subscriber count, while Brevo’s pricing stays flat at $9/mo because it charges by sends, not subscribers.
This means: for businesses doing 1-2 sends per week to a 5,000+ subscriber list, Brevo can be 50-70% cheaper than MailerLite. The catch is Brevo’s daily send cap and more limited automation templates.
Transactional email — MailerLite’s hidden advantage
MailerLite bundles transactional email via its sister product MailerSend. Pricing:
- Free MailerLite: MailerSend free tier (3,000 emails/month, 100 emails/day)
- MailerLite Starter ($10/mo): MailerSend $10/mo (50,000 emails/month, no daily cap)
- MailerLite Advanced ($20/mo): MailerSend $10/mo or pay-as-you-go
For a typical e-commerce store sending 10,000 transactional emails per month (order confirmations, shipping notifications, password resets), MailerLite Starter + MailerSend at $10/mo handles everything for $20/mo total. By comparison:
- Mailchimp + Mandrill: $13/mo + $20/mo base + per-email costs = $33/mo minimum
- Brevo Lite: $9/mo with transactional included (best for transactional-heavy businesses)
- MailerLite + MailerSend: $10/mo + $10/mo = $20/mo (mid-price, but with better deliverability than Mailchimp according to vendor documentation)
For most businesses, MailerLite’s transactional pricing sits in the middle of the market — not the cheapest (Brevo), not the most expensive (Mailchimp/Mandrill), and provides solid deliverability.
What changed in 2026
The most material changes since MailerLite’s 2024 restructure:
- Free tier subscriber cap remained at 1,000 (consistent with 2023)
- New AI features added to Advanced+ (subject line AI, content AI) — included in standard pricing
- Auto resend moved from Advanced to all paid tiers (Starter+ now includes this)
- MailerSend transactional pricing flat — no usage tier changes for transactional in 2026
- Annual billing discount stayed at 15% (vs. Mailchimp’s 15%, Brevo’s 20%)
If you signed up before the 2024 restructure, you may still be on MailerLite Classic — the simpler 3-tier plan that included features now locked behind Advanced. MailerLite has committed to grandfathering Classic pricing for existing accounts, but new signups go to the new 4-tier plan.
Hidden costs nobody mentions at signup
Three charges that catch small businesses by surprise:
-
Subscriber overages above your tier — Subscriber tiers often show “up to 1,000” but buying “Tier 1 (1,001-2,500)” costs incrementally more. MailerLite doesn’t increase your plan automatically, but if you hit your cap, you must upgrade to the next tier to send. This is documented but easy to miss.
-
MailerSend transactional overage — Once you exceed your MailerSend monthly email cap (e.g., 50,000 on the $10 plan), overage charges apply $0.20 per 1,000 emails — cheap, but compounding.
-
Multi-user seats — Starter includes 5 seats; Advanced includes 10. Beyond that, additional seats cost $5/seat/month on either tier.
For most small businesses, these hidden costs are negligible. The bigger surprise is the page-level subscriber upgrade dance — once you grow from 950 to 1,050 subscribers, your plan auto-upgrades to the next tier’s pricing (e.g., $10/mo → $20/mo for the 1,001-2,500 tier), not just incremental billing.
When MailerLite pricing is the right call
- You have 100-1,000 contacts and don’t need multivariate testing — Starter at $10/mo is genuinely the best deal
- You send transactional + marketing email from one vendor — MailerLite + MailerSend handles both at $20/mo total
- You value predictable pricing — MailerLite’s flat tier model means you know your bill before you get it
- You need solid deliverability — MailerLite measured best-in-class inbox placement according to vendor documentation, matching Mailchimp at half the price
When MailerLite pricing is the wrong call
- You have 5,000+ subscribers and send infrequently — Brevo at $9/mo + overage is dramatically cheaper than MailerLite at $65+/mo
- You need multivariate testing at scale — MailerLite’s Advanced at $20/mo caps multivariate complexity; Mailchimp or HubSpot scale better for complex split tests
- You need a dedicated IP — MailerLite only offers this on custom Enterprise contracts; Mailchimp includes it on Premium
- You rely heavily on phone support — MailerLite keeps phone support for Enterprise contracts only; consider ActiveCampaign or HubSpot if this matters
The verdict
MailerLite pricing in 2026 is the best-in-class option for small businesses with under 1,000 contacts — there’s genuinely no competitor matching the 1,000-subscriber free tier + $10/mo Starter price point.
For businesses above 2,500 contacts, the math shifts: Brevo’s send-based pricing becomes dramatically more competitive for low-frequency senders, while Mailchimp’s bundled toolset (social posting, brand kit, landing pages) justifies its premium if you’ll actually use them.
For our complete MailerLite review, the feature-by-feature breakdown, or related comparisons:
- MailerLite vs ConvertKit — when to upgrade from MailerLite to ConvertKit
- MailerLite alternatives — 7 platforms that beat MailerLite on specific dimensions
- MailerLite vs Mailchimp — direct pricing comparison
- Best email marketing tools for small business — top picks under $30/mo
How we built this breakdown
Pricing below is taken from each vendor’s public pricing page and modelled at common subscriber and volume tiers. We do not have access to invoices from accounts we do not operate, so these are list-price calculations — always confirm current pricing with the vendor.
Disclosure: Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you sign up for MailerLite or one of the alternatives we compare, we may earn a commission. This never changes our recommendations.
Frequently asked questions about MailerLite pricing
How many subscribers does MailerLite’s free plan support in 2026?
MailerLite’s free plan supports 1,000 subscribers and up to 12,000 emails per month, with a 1,000/day sending cap. If you need to send a campaign to your entire list in one go, Starter’s unlimited sending is the reason to upgrade.
How much is MailerLite Starter per month in 2026?
MailerLite Starter is $10/mo billed annually, or $11/mo monthly. It covers 1,000 subscribers, unlimited monthly sending, A/B testing and 5 user seats — the natural next step once the free plan’s daily cap starts getting in the way.
What is the price gap between MailerLite Advanced and Starter in 2026?
Advanced is $20/mo, about $10/mo above Starter on annual billing. That difference buys multivariate testing, auto-resend and advanced reporting. If subject-line A/B testing covers your needs, Starter remains the better value.
What does MailerLite cost for 5,000 subscribers in 2026?
At 5,000 subscribers, MailerLite Starter lists at $65/mo and Advanced at $85/mo. Worth noting: Brevo prices by send volume rather than list size, starting around $9/mo plus overages — so a large list that mails infrequently should price both models before choosing.
What is MailerLite’s free plan daily send limit in 2026?
1,000 emails per day. Even with a full 1,000 subscribers on the account, that ceiling constrains same-day bulk sending. Upgrading to Starter removes both the daily cap and the monthly limit.
What does MailerSend transactional email cost alongside MailerLite in 2026?
A typical pairing is $20/mo — MailerLite Starter at $10 plus MailerSend at $10, the latter covering 50,000 emails with no daily cap. Beyond that allowance, overage runs $0.20 per 1,000 emails. MailerSend’s free tier is 3,000/month with a 100/day cap.
Quick pros and cons
What we like
- Free tier covers 1,000 subscribers — 4x Mailchimp's 250-contact cap, the most generous free tier among mainstream competitors
- Predictable price scaling: $10/mo standard plan, $20/mo for advanced features — flat price tiers by contact count
- Email deliverability best-in-class inbox placement according to vendor documentation, on par with Mailchimp at half the price
- No per-email overage fees on paid tiers (until you exceed 4× your subscriber cap)
- Annual billing saves 15% — meaningful savings for businesses committed for a year
- Embedded payment for transactional email (MailerSend) at $10/mo bundled — cheaper than separate Mandrill on Mailchimp
- GDPR-compliant by default — important for EU small businesses
What we don't
- Free tier's email designer is missing drag-and-drop for landing pages (only basic email editor)
- Standard plan at $20/mo doesn't include multivariate testing — needs Advanced ($330/mo)
- Subscriber limits on lower tiers cap at 1,000/2,500/5,000 subscribers with hard feature gates between them
- No dedicated IP option on any pricing tier — only available on custom enterprise plans
- Phone support reserved for Advanced+ tier — email-only chat on the affordable tiers
- Advanced automations (multivariate, predictive) limited to Advanced tier and above
- MailerLite Classic plan retention: pre-2022 grandfathered accounts may still pay $10 instead of $20+