Mailchimp’s free plan — the limits, what it leaves out and what happens when 250 fills up

Mailchimp is many people’s first email tool, and its free plan is the first place they hit a limit. The limit is not only in the number of contacts: sending volume, how unsubscribes are counted and what happens when the limit is exceeded all matter. This page was read from Mailchimp’s own help pages and pricing page on 23 October 2026.

Short answer

Mailchimp’s free plan is enough for a list of under 250 contacts that gets at most two newsletters a month. The limit fills faster than the number suggests, because unsubscribes count, and when it is exceeded all sending stops. The same list fits ten times over on EmailOctopus’s free plan.

• The same list ten times over, for free

  EmailOctopus

  2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails a month on the free plan; unsubscribes do not count toward the limit.

  Start free — 2,500 subscribers (ad)

• When you send often

  Systeme.io

  2,000 contacts with no sending limit on the free plan.

  Start free — 2,000 contacts (ad)

• When the list is large and the newsletter rare

  Brevo

  The number of contacts is not limited; you may send 300 emails a day.

  Start free — 300 emails/day

The limits of Mailchimp’s free plan

Mailchimp’s help page lists what the free plan includes:

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Read from Mailchimp’s help page About Mailchimp pricing plans on 23 October 2026. The Essentials automation limit also appears in the pricing page comparison table: “Up to 4 flow steps”.

Two rows matter more in practice than the contact limit. 500 sends a month means a 250-person list gets two newsletters a month, no more. And the daily limit of 250 prevents sending two newsletters on the same day.

Unsubscribes count toward the limit

According to Mailchimp’s contacts help page, an unsubscribed contact counts toward the monthly contact limit. Archived, cleaned and deleted contacts do not. On the free plan this means the list also fills up with people who no longer get the newsletter: the 250-contact limit might hold, say, 200 subscribers and 50 unsubscribes.

The fix is to archive unsubscribes regularly. Not every tool counts them: in EmailOctopus and MailerLite unsubscribes do not count toward the limit at all. The rules for all seven: how contacts are counted.

What happens when contact 251 arrives

Mailchimp’s help page says it directly: if you exceed the 250-contact limit on the free plan, “a hold is placed on sending live emails or test emails until you upgrade to a paid plan or reduce your contact total”. Sending stops, test emails included, until the account is paid or has 250 contacts or fewer again.

According to the help page, you can still work on emails and templates and collect and import new contacts. The form keeps collecting subscribers past the limit, but none of them gets a newsletter until a choice is made. That is why the move is best settled before the list reaches 250, not after.

Free plans that fit the same list

Five of the seven tools we compare have a free plan, and three of them fit a list several times larger. EmailOctopus fits 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails a month on its free plan. Systeme.io allows 2,000 contacts with no sending limit. Brevo does not limit the number of contacts at all, but allows 300 emails a day. MailerLite’s free plan is the same 250 subscribers as Mailchimp’s.

The cheapest paid plans at the same list sizes:

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Prices exclude VAT, billed monthly unless stated otherwise.(ad) = ad link

• The price is the monthly price of the cheapest paid plan at that list size. The Free plan column shows when you do not have to pay.
• EmailOctopus: the price list only shows the monthly price on annual billing. Monthly billing costs more.

Mailchimp’s figures are list prices. According to its pricing page, the first 12 months are sold at a discount, after which the price rises to this. If a move is on the cards, do it in stages: migrating from Mailchimp. All the alternatives side by side: Mailchimp alternatives.

Data location, free plan included

The free plan does not change where the data is. Mailchimp belongs to the US Intuit group, and transfers outside the EU rely on the EU–US Data Privacy Framework. What that means for your own privacy notice: email marketing and GDPR. Seven tools’ data location as read from their privacy policies: email tools and EU data location.

Which suits whom

• The list is growing past 250 and there is no budget → EmailOctopus: the free plan fits 2,500 subscribers, and unsubscribes do not use up the limit. Try it free (ad)
• The newsletter goes out weekly → Systeme.io: the free plan has no sending limit, while Mailchimp’s 500 sends cover two newsletters to 250 people. Try it free (ad)
• Mailchimp’s integrations are already in use → Mailchimp: moving costs work; the Essentials plan raises the limit to 500 contacts and adds automation. Try it free
• The data must not leave the EU → MailerLite: the contracting party for EEA customers is the Irish MailerLite Limited, and the data centre is in the EU. Try it free

Who EmailOctopus does not suit: if you need e-commerce automations or the 300+ ready-made integrations Mailchimp has. EmailOctopus’s automations are light and lack conditional branches. Then compare from the online shop’s point of view: email tool for online shops.

What we have not checked

The limits were read from Mailchimp’s own help pages and pricing page. We do not know how quickly the sending hold takes effect in practice: that would be a measurement result, and there is no measurement. Nor does the help page say whether free plan emails carry Mailchimp’s own branding. How we compare.