Mailchimp cut its free plan to 250 contacts and raised legacy prices: what changed in 2026

Mailchimp made two separate pricing moves in 2026, and it is worth keeping them apart because they hit different people. One shrank the free plan for everyone starting out. The other raised prices on a specific group of long-standing accounts. Neither changes how a Mailchimp bill is worked out, which is the part that actually decides what you pay.

The free plan is now 250 contacts and 500 sends

Mailchimp cut its free plan again in early 2026, from 500 contacts and 1,000 emails a month down to 250 contacts and 500 emails a month, with the reduced limits taking effect on 17 February 2026. It is the third cut in a few years: the free tier was 2,000 contacts before 2022, then 500, and now 250. Go over the 250-contact limit on the free plan and Mailchimp places a hold on sending, live and test emails alike, until you either upgrade to a paid plan or bring the contact count back down. Separately, since June 2025 the free plan no longer includes the Classic Automation Builder, so multi-step automated sequences now sit behind the paid tiers too.

The practical read: at 250 contacts, the free plan is a place to try the product, not to run a real list on. Anyone with an audience of any size is on a paid, contact-priced plan, which is where the cost math below applies.

Legacy plans went up 11 to 13 percent on 13 April 2026

The second move is a price increase that took effect on 13 April 2026, and it targets legacy plan holders specifically: accounts created before May 2019 that never migrated to one of the newer pricing tiers. For those accounts, prices rose by an average of 11 to 13 percent, starting with the first billing cycle after 13 April. If your account is newer, or you already moved to a current Marketing plan, this particular rise is not aimed at you, but it is a reminder that a plan you have sat on for years is not a fixed price.

What did not change: how the bill is calculated

Both moves change the price of Mailchimp. Neither changes the thing that decides whether Mailchimp is the cheapest option for you in the first place: it bills by how many contacts you store, not by how many emails you send. That is the same model it has always run, and it is the opposite of a send-priced tool like Brevo, which gives every paid plan unlimited stored contacts and charges on emails sent instead. A smaller free tier and a higher legacy price both make the contact-priced bill bigger; they do not change its shape.

So the deciding number is still your contacts-to-sends ratio, how many emails each stored contact receives in a month. A large list you mail rarely pays for every dormant contact under contact-based pricing, which is exactly the case that send-based pricing is cheaper for. A small list you mail constantly is where contact pricing wins. These 2026 changes make the stored-contact side of Mailchimp cost more, which nudges the low-ratio case, the big list mailed occasionally, further toward a send-priced alternative.

Our free email platform cost calculator puts Mailchimp, Klaviyo and Brevo side by side on your own list size and monthly send volume, with every rate editable so you can paste in your current tier, and our full comparison of the three walks the contacts-versus-sends crossover in detail. Before you renew or migrate, run your own ratio: the cheapest option flips on that one number, not on the headline plan price.