Mailchimp Free Plan: What It Includes and When Sending Stops

Yes, the Mailchimp free plan is still available. As of 25 October 2026 it covers up to 250 contacts and 500 email sends a month, with at most 250 sends a day. You get one user and one audience, but no email scheduling and no automation flows.

The limits are hard stops. Contact number 251 puts a hold on every send, tests included, until you pay or make room.

A list of about 200 people that gets two emails a month fits. A weekly newsletter to over 125 people runs out of sends in its first month.

What the Mailchimp free plan includes

The Mailchimp free plan gives you the core email tools with tight limits on volume and people. This is what Mailchimp's plan comparison page and help centre list for it.

Feature	Mailchimp free plan
Price	$0 a month
Contacts	Up to 250
Email sends	500 a month, at most 250 a day
Audiences	1
Users	1, with Owner permissions
Pre-built email templates	A limited selection
Custom-coded templates	You can build one; sending it needs Standard or Premium
Sign-up forms, pop-up forms and landing pages	Included
Reports and segmentation	Basic
Email scheduling	Not included
A/B testing	Not included
Automation flows	Not included
Removing Mailchimp branding	Not possible
Support	Email support for the first 30 days

Without scheduling, a campaign goes out the moment you press send. A Sunday-morning newsletter means being at a keyboard on Sunday morning.

Without automation flows there is no welcome email series for new sign-ups. Flow steps start on Essentials, the cheapest paid plan.

Many older pages still quote 500 contacts and 1,000 sends, and some say 2,000 contacts. Those limits have gone, and Mailchimp's own pages now show the figures above.

Sends or contacts: which Mailchimp limit you hit first

If your whole list gets more than two emails a month, the 500 sends run out before the 250 contacts. Dividing 500 by your emails a month gives the largest list the Mailchimp free plan can serve.

Emails to the whole list each month	Largest list that 500 sends cover	Limit you reach first
1	500	Contacts, at 250
2	250	Both together: one test send tips the month over
3	166	Sends
4, a weekly newsletter	125	Sends
5	100	Sends

The daily ceiling adds one more rule. Two emails to the same list on one day fit only if the list has 125 people or fewer. On a bigger list, a same-day reminder after a newsletter can't go out until the following day.

What counts towards the 250 contacts

Mailchimp's 250 includes people who unsubscribed and people who never opted in, not only your subscribers. Someone who unsubscribed can no longer get your newsletter, yet still takes one of the 250 places.

Non-subscribed contacts, such as shop customers added through an integration, count too, though you can't send them a campaign. The full list of statuses that do and don't count is in what counts as a contact in Mailchimp.

A pending sign-up, someone who has not yet confirmed a double opt-in email, stays outside the 250 until they click. Mailchimp deletes pending sign-ups after 60 days without confirmation.

The limit applies at every moment, not at the end of the month. The help centre says you can keep collecting and importing contacts while you are over it, so a sign-up form never stops at 250 contacts.

Archiving is the free way to make room. Archived contacts leave the count but keep their data and email history, and you can unarchive them later.

How the 500 sends are counted, tests included

One email to one contact is one send, so a newsletter to 220 subscribers uses 220 sends. Mailchimp adds that test and transactional emails count towards the monthly limit too.

Every test address is a separate send. A free account can send 12 tests of one email in 24 hours and 24 tests in all, to six addresses at most each time. A test to three committee members uses three tests and three of your 500 sends.

Worked example: a 230-contact choir on the Mailchimp free plan

A community choir in Frome, our example group, has 230 contacts in Mailchimp: 218 singers and supporters who get its newsletter, and 12 who have unsubscribed. Twice a month it sends a newsletter, testing each one on two committee members first.

Its website form brings in six sign-ups every month, while roughly one person leaves.

Month	Contacts counted at the start	People it can email	Sends used	What happens
1	230	218	440	Both newsletters go out
2	236	223	450	Both go out
3	242	228	460	Both go out
4	248	233	235	The third sign-up makes 251, and the second newsletter can't go

Method: we applied Mailchimp's published counting rules, month by month. The choir and its numbers are invented, and we assume no bounces.

Mailchimp describes what happens at contact 251: "a hold is placed on sending live emails or test emails" until you upgrade or reduce your contact total. The choir can still edit its next newsletter, but it can't even send itself a test.

Archiving those 15 contacts lifts the hold. If the choir also archives each new unsubscribe, its list grows by five a month.

Three months later, two newsletters and four tests need about 500 sends, and the count passes 250 in the same month. Both limits arrive together, and only a paid plan fits.

Moving from the free plan to a paid plan

An upgrade from Free takes effect immediately, and any sends left over that month are lost. Mailchimp's help pages say a move to a higher plan type brings a prorated charge at once. The full price follows on the next billing date, even if that date is the next day.

Mailchimp's 14-day free trial is a trial of Essentials or Standard, a separate offer from the free plan. Under Mailchimp's offer terms, an existing free account qualifies only if it was created within the last 90 days, in select countries. A club that has used Free for a year pays from day one.

A list of 251 to 500 contacts sits in the lowest paid tier. These are Mailchimp's prices for that tier on 25 October 2026, in US dollars.

Plan	From, a month	Contacts at that price	Monthly sends	What it adds to the free plan
Essentials	$13	500	5,000	Scheduling, A/B testing, no Mailchimp branding, flows of up to 4 steps, 3 users, 24/7 email and chat support
Standard	$20	500	6,000	Branching flows of up to 200 steps, send time optimisation, 5 users

For the choir, Essentials costs $13 a month, $156 over twelve months, until its count passes 500 contacts. The next tier, up to 1,500 contacts, costs $26.50 a month, then $45 at 2,500 contacts on Mailchimp's contact ladder.

Going back has a catch. Mailchimp allows one move back to Free per account, ever. After a downgrade with over 250 contacts, sending stays paused until you remove the extra.

How MailGraf prices a list past 250

MailGraf, a UK alternative to Mailchimp, has no free plan. Each plan sets your monthly sends and has no contact limit at a club's size. A busy sign-up form can't hold up the next newsletter.

The smallest, 5K a month, covers 5,000 sends for $190, paid once a year. The 10K a month plan costs $29 billed monthly, or $290 yearly. At the choir's size, Essentials costs less: $156 a year against $190.

A test to the committee uses none of those sends, within a limit of 100 tests a day per account (sending a test email).

Once archiving stops making room, set Essentials against 5K a month on our pricing page and choose with both prices in front of you.