Pricing comparison
Mailchimp vs ActiveCampaign: Pricing, Send Limits and Fit
By Marcus Hale · Updated Oct 2026
Mailchimp has a free plan (250 contacts, 500 sends a month) and Standard from $20; ActiveCampaign has no free plan and opens at $15 for 1,000 contacts. For a coach, consultant or small service business that follows up by tag, form and deal stage, ActiveCampaign is the stronger fit. Mailchimp wins for a newsletter-first list, a team that wants the free tier, or a first year at the $50 promotional rate shown at 5,000 contacts.
Who should pick which
Pick ActiveCampaign when the follow-up depends on what a person did: submitted the discovery-call form, opened three launch emails, bought the starter course but not the coaching tier. Tags, custom fields, deals and goals are what its automations react to. The trade is a plan ladder with real limits: Starter allows one user and five actions per automation, so serious sequences start from Plus at $49 for 1,000 contacts.
Pick Mailchimp when the program is a newsletter with a welcome series, when you want to begin on the Free plan, or when you sit at 5,000 or 10,000 contacts and the first-year rate matters: $50 a month at 2,501-5,000 contacts and $67.50 at 5,001-10,000, for 12 months, before $100 and $135 apply. The deciding factor is the logic you need after the signup, simple sequences and broadcasts (Mailchimp) or branching on tags, fields and deals (ActiveCampaign).
Decision snapshot
| Area | Mailchimp | ActiveCampaign |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes: 1 audience, 250 contacts, 500 sends a month (250 a day) | None listed; Starter, Plus, Pro and Enterprise are all paid |
| Entry price | Essentials from $13, Standard from $20 at 500 contacts | Starter $15, Plus $49, Pro $79 at 1,000 contacts, billed annually |
| Price at 5,000 contacts | Standard $100 a month, shown as $50 for the first 12 months | Starter $79, Plus $145, Pro $205 a month |
| Price at 10,000 contacts | Standard $135 a month, shown as $67.50 for the first 12 months | Starter $149, Plus $189, Pro $375 a month |
| Monthly send allowance | 12x contacts on Standard (10x on Essentials, 15x on Premium) | 10x contacts on Starter and Plus, 12x on Pro, 15x on Enterprise |
| People who can log in | 3 seats on Essentials, 5 on Standard, unlimited on Premium | 1 user on Starter and Plus, 3 on Pro, 5 on Enterprise |
| Built around | Audiences, tags and campaigns, with a journey builder for simple sequences | Contacts carrying tags, custom fields, deals, goals and scores that automations react to |
Monthly price from 500 to 25,000 contacts
Mailchimp sells contact bands and shows a first-year discount on each band; ActiveCampaign sells a contact selector with four plans at every count. The table pairs Mailchimp Standard, the plan comparable to ActiveCampaign's automation tiers, with ActiveCampaign Starter, Plus and Pro (Enterprise left out). Figures come from Mailchimp's pricing page and ActiveCampaign's pricing page, read on 2026-10-07. ActiveCampaign's are annual-billing monthly rates.
| Contacts | Mailchimp Standard | Mailchimp first-year rate | ActiveCampaign Starter | ActiveCampaign Plus | ActiveCampaign Pro |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry selector (500 on Mailchimp, 1,000 on ActiveCampaign) | $20 | not shown | $15 | $49 | $79 |
| 5,000 (Mailchimp band 2,501-5,000) | $100 | $50 | $79 | $145 | $205 |
| 10,000 (Mailchimp band 5,001-10,000) | $135 | $67.50 | $149 | $189 | $375 |
| 15,000 (Mailchimp band 10,001-15,000) | $230 | $115 | $231 | $265 | $465 |
| 25,000 (Mailchimp band 20,001-25,000) | $310 | $155 | $391 | $389 | $629 |
The second table subtracts each ActiveCampaign plan from Mailchimp's price at the same size, so a minus sign means Mailchimp is the cheaper of the pair per month.
| Contacts | Full rate minus Starter | Full rate minus Plus | First-year rate minus Starter | First-year rate minus Plus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5,000 | +$21 | -$45 | -$29 | -$95 |
| 10,000 | -$14 | -$54 | -$81.50 | -$121.50 |
| 15,000 | -$1 | -$35 | -$116 | -$150 |
| 25,000 | -$81 | -$79 | -$236 | -$234 |
Two things stand out. At the full rate, Mailchimp costs more than Starter only at 5,000 contacts and is level with it by 15,000. Against Plus, which is the plan with standard segmentation and landing pages, Mailchimp is cheaper at every size shown. The catch is what you give up for that price, covered below.
The yearly bill, with and without the promotion
| Contacts | Mailchimp year one | Mailchimp year two | Starter | Plus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5,000 | $50 x 12 = $600 | $100 x 12 = $1,200 | $79 x 12 = $948 | $145 x 12 = $1,740 |
| 10,000 | $67.50 x 12 = $810 | $135 x 12 = $1,620 | $149 x 12 = $1,788 | $189 x 12 = $2,268 |
At 5,000 contacts the promotional year is $348 a year below Starter and $1,140 a year below Plus. In year two, Mailchimp at $100 a month costs $252 a year more than Starter and $540 a year less than Plus. At 10,000 contacts the promotional year is $978 a year below Starter, and even at the full $135 a month Mailchimp stays $168 a year below Starter and $648 a year below Plus. The first-year rate is shown on the page as a 12-month offer, so a three-year plan should be built on the second-year column.
What the free plan, the send caps and the seats allow
The Mailchimp Free plan comes with one seat, one audience, 250 contacts and 500 sends a month, with 250 as the daily ceiling. Divide 500 by 250 and a full list gets two emails a month, so four newsletters a month fits a list of 125. A coach with 100 subscribers can run a weekly newsletter inside those caps; at 150 subscribers the same four newsletters need 600 sends and the cap bites before the month ends. ActiveCampaign has no free plan, so a very small list has no zero-cost option there.
Paid plans replace the fixed caps with multiples of your contact count. The sends each tool allows at the same list size line up closely:
| Contacts | Mailchimp Standard (12x) | ActiveCampaign Starter and Plus (10x) | ActiveCampaign Pro (12x) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5,000 | 60,000 sends | 50,000 sends | 60,000 sends |
| 10,000 | 120,000 sends | 100,000 sends | 120,000 sends |
Mailchimp's Essentials plan allows 10x contacts and Premium 15x, the same ladder ActiveCampaign runs from Starter to Enterprise. At 5,000 contacts, four weekly newsletters use 20,000 sends (4 x 5,000). That leaves 40,000 on Mailchimp Standard, or eight full-list launch emails (40,000 divided by 5,000), and 30,000 on ActiveCampaign Starter or Plus, or six. If you send more than that, the allowance and not the price is the constraint to plan around.
Seats and templates differ more than sends do. Mailchimp lists 3 seats on Essentials, 5 on Standard and unlimited on Premium, which starts at $350 a month for the entry selector. ActiveCampaign lists 1 user on Starter and Plus, 3 on Pro and 5 on Enterprise. A small clinic where the owner, a receptionist and a marketing freelancer all need to edit campaigns fits Mailchimp Standard's five seats at $100 a month at 5,000 contacts; the same three people need ActiveCampaign Pro at $205. For anyone writing custom-coded HTML emails, Standard and Premium can create and send them while Essentials can create them but has to upgrade to send.
Which tool for which kind of list
A solo coach under 250 contacts: Mailchimp Free
With a short list, a weekly note and a welcome email, the Free plan costs nothing and its 500-send monthly cap is rarely the limit. The upgrade trigger is either the 251st contact or the first month where launch emails push you past 500 sends. At that point Essentials from $13 or Standard from $20 at 500 contacts is the next step on Mailchimp, and ActiveCampaign Starter at $15 for 1,000 contacts is the alternative worth pricing against it.
A newsletter-led course creator at 5,000 subscribers: Mailchimp Standard
If the year is a weekly newsletter, a welcome series and two launch weeks, Mailchimp Standard covers it at $50 a month for the first twelve months and $100 after, with a 60,000-send allowance. Tag buyers so they leave the sales sequence. The decision changes when the sales sequence needs to branch on what someone clicked and what they bought, which is where ActiveCampaign Plus at $145 starts to earn its price.
A consultant turning 1,000 to 2,500 inquiries into booked calls: ActiveCampaign Plus
Each inquiry deserves a record with an owner and a stage, not only a tag. ActiveCampaign's deals and goals give the form submission a pipeline position and let the call booking end the follow-up automatically, and on Mailchimp that status would have to live in a tag or a field you maintain by hand. Plus is $49 at 1,000 contacts and $95 at 2,500, and Starter's five-action cap makes it a poor home for a nurture longer than a few steps.
A program with members, prospects and alumni on one list: ActiveCampaign
Three audiences need three journeys: an onboarding sequence for new members, a sales sequence for prospects, and a quiet track for alumni. Tags and goals let one contact record move between them without being copied across audiences. Plan for Pro if two people manage the account, at $79 for 1,000 contacts or $205 at 5,000.
A large list that is mostly broadcast, at 25,000 contacts: Mailchimp
Mailchimp's page shows $310 a month for the 20,001-25,000 band ($155 for the first year), against $389 for ActiveCampaign Plus and $391 for Starter at 25,000 contacts. If the program is newsletters plus a welcome series, that gap pays for itself; if it relies on deal stages, it does not.
Where the bill changes when the list grows
| Step | Mailchimp Standard | ActiveCampaign Starter | ActiveCampaign Plus |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5,000 to 10,000 contacts | $100 to $135 (+$35); first-year rate $50 to $67.50 | $79 to $149 (+$70) | $145 to $189 (+$44) |
| 10,000 to 15,000 contacts | $135 to $230 (+$95); first-year rate $67.50 to $115 | $149 to $231 (+$82) | $189 to $265 (+$76) |
| 15,000 to 25,000 contacts | $230 to $310 (+$80) | $231 to $391 (+$160) | $265 to $389 (+$124) |
| Month 13 on the promotional rate | $50 becomes $100 at 2,501-5,000 contacts, and $67.50 becomes $135 at 5,001-10,000 | No promotion shown; annual billing throughout | No promotion shown; annual billing throughout |
The step to watch is 10,000 to 15,000 contacts. That is the only interval where Mailchimp's list price rises faster than both ActiveCampaign plans, and the first-year rate cuts the jump to exactly half. Below 10,000 Mailchimp climbs more slowly than either ActiveCampaign plan. Past 15,000 it climbs more slowly again, which is why its price at 25,000 contacts sits below ActiveCampaign's.
One cost that appears in no table is the cap on sends. A promotional rate does not change the 12x allowance, and an ActiveCampaign upgrade from Plus to Pro lifts the multiplier only from 10x to 12x, so a list that is mailed daily outgrows either plan before it outgrows the contact band.
Moving between them: what you rebuild
An audience exports from Mailchimp as a CSV, and an ActiveCampaign contact list imports from one. That part is an afternoon. The weeks go into the pieces that decide who gets which email and when.
| Piece | Mailchimp to ActiveCampaign | ActiveCampaign to Mailchimp |
|---|---|---|
| Merge fields and custom fields | Mailchimp's merge fields map onto ActiveCampaign custom fields, which must exist before the import or the values are lost | Custom fields map onto merge fields; deal value and deal owner have no merge-field equivalent |
| Tags, groups and segments | Tags travel in the export; saved segments and groups are rules and are rebuilt as ActiveCampaign tags and segments (standard segmentation is listed from Plus) | Tags travel; scores and goals are dropped and any pipeline status has to be recorded in a tag or field before the move |
| Automations and journeys | Every journey becomes an automation; one longer than five actions will not fit Starter | Every automation becomes a journey; goal-based exits turn into explicit conditions |
| Signup forms and landing pages | Rebuilt in ActiveCampaign, with landing pages listed from Plus | Rebuilt in Mailchimp; the embed code on your site changes either way |
| Templates | Custom-coded HTML can be pasted in as a starting point | Custom-coded templates send on Standard and Premium only; on Essentials they can be created but not sent |
| Unsubscribed and cleaned contacts | Export these separately and import them as suppressed before the first send. Importing only the active list quietly re-opens the door to people who opted out. | |
Tags are the one thing that moves in both directions, so decide on tag names before the export and keep them identical. Run both accounts for the length of your longest sequence, and cancel the old one only after its last automation has drained.
Reporting habits that change when you switch
Mailchimp's reports are organised around the campaign or the journey email: sent, opened, clicked, unsubscribed. ActiveCampaign adds a second axis, the contact's progress through a pipeline and the goals they hit. A coach used to reading open rates on Monday should expect to start reading goal completions and deal movement instead, because an automation that ends in a booked call has a better success measure than an open. Decide which number you will call the result of a launch before you migrate, then reproduce it in both accounts for one cycle so the comparison is like for like.
The sending domain's reputation does not reset when the tool changes, so a move is a good moment to authenticate the domain in the new account, send first to people who opened in the last 90 days, and widen to the rest of the list in steps. A dormant tail is also the cheapest thing to cut: on the ActiveCampaign selector, going from 10,000 to 7,500 contacts takes Starter from $149 to $109 and Plus from $189 to $169.
The cheapest plan on each side is narrower than it looks
Mailchimp Essentials, from $13, allows 3 seats and sends 10x your contact count, and its custom-coded templates can be built but not sent. Mailchimp Standard, from $20 at 500 contacts, raises that to 5 seats and 12x sends and unlocks sending custom HTML. ActiveCampaign Starter, from $15 at 1,000 contacts, allows one user, five actions per automation and 10x sends.
In practice, the first plan most coaches and consultants outgrow is Starter, because a real nurture or launch sequence runs past five actions, and the first plan they outgrow on Mailchimp is Essentials, because a designer or developer hands over an HTML template that cannot send there. Price your comparison from Standard on one side and Plus on the other: $20 against $49 at the entry selectors, $100 against $145 at 5,000 contacts. That pairing is closer to like-for-like than the headline $13 against $15.
Three questions that settle it
- Does a single subscriber's status change what you send them? If a subscriber who books a call, buys a course or ignores three emails should each get a different next email, you are describing branching on tags, goals and deals, and ActiveCampaign is built around that. If everyone on the list gets the same newsletter and the same welcome series, you are describing Mailchimp.
- How many sends do you actually use? Work it out as contacts times emails per month. A 5,000-contact list mailed twice a week is about 43,000 sends, inside every allowance in the table above; mailed daily it is 150,000, outside all of them.
- How many people edit? More than one rules out ActiveCampaign Starter and Plus. Three people fit Mailchimp Essentials, Standard or ActiveCampaign Pro, and five fit Mailchimp Standard.
If two answers point to Mailchimp and one to ActiveCampaign, start on Mailchimp's Free or Standard plan and revisit when the branching need becomes real. If the first answer is yes, do not start on Mailchimp planning to migrate later, because the rebuild list above is the cost you would be postponing.
Mistakes that are specific to this pair
- Budgeting a three-year plan on Mailchimp's first-year rate. The page shows $50 for 12 months at 2,501-5,000 contacts and $100 afterwards, so the real annual cost from year two is double.
- Reading the free plan's 500 sends as 500 a day. It is 500 a month, with 250 as the most you can send in any one day.
- Choosing Mailchimp Essentials for an HTML template your designer built. Essentials can create custom-coded templates but has to upgrade to Standard before they send.
- Choosing ActiveCampaign Starter for a launch. One user and five actions per automation are fine for a welcome email and a rebooking nudge, and not for a seven-email sequence with waits between the messages.
- Importing only active contacts into the new tool. Opt-outs and cleaned addresses need to be imported as suppressed, or the first send reaches people who left.
Verdict: ActiveCampaign for coaches and consultants, Mailchimp for newsletter-first lists
For the coaches, consultants, course creators and small service businesses this site is written for, ActiveCampaign is the stronger platform, because their follow-up depends on status, not only on subscription. Tags, deals and goals map to booked calls, waitlists and buyers, and Starter's $15 at 1,000 contacts keeps the entry cost low. Plan on Plus ($49 at 1,000 contacts, $145 at 5,000 and $189 at 10,000) once a sequence is longer than five actions.
Mailchimp is the right call in three cases: you need a free plan for a list under 250, your program is mostly a newsletter and a welcome series, or you are at 5,000 to 25,000 contacts and the price matters more than deal tracking. At 5,000 contacts Mailchimp Standard comes to $600 a year in year one and $1,200 a year afterwards, against $948 a year for ActiveCampaign Starter and $1,740 a year for Plus. Prices are from mailchimp.com/pricing and activecampaign.com/pricing.
Related comparisons
For the guides behind these tools, see the small-business automation guide, the tools for creators list and the alternatives hub.
- Drip vs ActiveCampaign: Prices the same ActiveCampaign ladder against a per-person store-first tool, which matters if your sale is a product order rather than a booked call.
- Brevo vs Mailchimp: Sets Mailchimp against a rival whose free plan allows 300 sends a day and storage for up to 100,000 contacts, useful for large lists that are mailed lightly.
- Kit (formerly ConvertKit) vs Mailchimp: The creator-focused alternative to Mailchimp for course sellers who care more about audience tagging than deal tracking.
- GetResponse vs Mailchimp: Mailchimp against a platform whose Creator plan bundles webinars and a course builder, relevant if you sell a program.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Mailchimp Free plan really free, and what does it cap?
Mailchimp's pricing page lists the Free plan with caps rather than an expiry date: one seat, one audience, 250 contacts and 500 sends a month, with no more than 250 in a day. Spread across a full 250-person list, that is two emails per contact per month. Past those caps you move to Essentials from $13, Standard from $20 or Premium from $350.
Does ActiveCampaign have a free plan?
No. Its pricing page lists only paid plans, starting with Starter at $15 for 1,000 contacts on annual billing. The nearest thing to a free tier in this comparison is the Mailchimp Free plan, and it stops at 250 contacts.
Which is cheaper at 5,000 contacts?
In the first year Mailchimp Standard at $50 a month, the promotional rate its page shows for 2,501-5,000 contacts, is below ActiveCampaign Starter's $79. From month 13 Mailchimp Standard reads $100, which is above ActiveCampaign Starter's $79 and below Plus at $145. So the answer flips after twelve months.
Is the $50 first-year Mailchimp price permanent?
No. The page shows Save 50% and $50 a month for 12 months at 2,501-5,000 contacts, then starts at $100 a month. Budget the second year at $100 a month, which is $1,200 a year against $600 a year in year one.
How many people can I give access to?
Mailchimp lists 3 seats on Essentials, 5 on Standard and unlimited on Premium. ActiveCampaign lists 1 user on Starter and Plus, 3 on Pro and 5 on Enterprise. A solo coach is fine on either, but a consultant with an assistant gets five seats on Mailchimp Standard and needs ActiveCampaign Pro to reach three.
Which is better for a newsletter with a few welcome emails?
Mailchimp. Its Standard allowance of 12x contacts is 60,000 sends at 5,000 contacts, which covers four weekly newsletters (20,000 sends) with 40,000 sends left for launches, and its journey builder handles a short welcome series without needing deal or score logic.
What do I lose moving from ActiveCampaign to Mailchimp?
The deal pipeline, scores and goals have no equivalent to carry across, so anything you track there has to move into custom fields or an outside CRM. Contacts and tags export cleanly as a CSV; automations are rebuilt by hand in Mailchimp's journey builder.