Newsletter Platform Pricing Comparison 2026: What Every Platform Costs at Your List Size

Last updated: March 2026

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The most common email platform mistake: choosing based on what you pay today, not what you’ll pay when your list hits 5,000 or 10,000 subscribers. Platform pricing varies wildly at subscriber milestones, and some platforms can cost 5–10x more than alternatives at the same list size.

This page is the reference. Bookmark it. Every comparison article on NewsletterPick links here.

1. Why Subscriber Count Matters So Much for Pricing

Not all platforms price the same way:

beehiiv charges a flat monthly fee per plan, not per subscriber (up to 100k on Scale/Max)
Substack charges 0% on your free list — but takes 10% (verify at vendor site) of any paid subscription revenue
Kit has a genuinely free tier to 10,000 subscribers; paid plans scale by subscriber count
MailerLite scales pricing by subscriber count on all paid plans
Mailchimp scales by contact count — including unsubscribes by default [CRITICAL: see note below]
ActiveCampaign scales by contact count across plans (verify at vendor site)

The pricing difference at 10,000 subscribers can be over $150/month between the cheapest and most expensive option on this list. At 25,000 subscribers, we’re talking $300–500/month difference.

2. The Master Pricing Table

Notes on methodology:
– All prices are for monthly billing unless noted; annual billing is typically 10–20% cheaper
– “Contacts” and “subscribers” are used interchangeably here; see platform-specific quirks below
– Prices shown are for the lowest tier that includes usable paid functionality (not bare-bones free tiers)
– (verify at vendor site) = pricing confirmed directionally but needs live verification before publishing

| Subscriber count | beehiiv | Substack | Kit | MailerLite | Mailchimp | ActiveCampaign |
|—|—|—|—|—|—|—|
| **0–500** | $0 (Launch) | $0 | $0 (Newsletter) | $0 (Free, 500 limit) | $0 (250 limit) | N/A (no free tier) |
| **500–1,000** | $0 (Launch) | $0 | $0 (Newsletter) | from ~$10/mo* | from ~$13/mo* | ~$15/mo* |
| **1,000–2,500** | $0 (Launch) | $0 | $0 (Newsletter) | ~$15/mo* | ~$20/mo* | ~$29/mo* |
| **2,500–5,000** | $43/mo (Scale) | $0 | $0 (Newsletter) | ~$25–30/mo* | ~$35–45/mo* | ~$39–49/mo* |
| **5,000–10,000** | $43/mo (Scale) | $0 | ~$33–66/mo* | ~$40–50/mo* | ~$75–100/mo* | ~$69–79/mo* |
| **10,000–25,000** | $43/mo (Scale) | $0 | ~$99–149/mo* | ~$73–115/mo* | ~$150–200/mo* | ~$135–179/mo* |
| **25,000–50,000** | $43/mo (Scale) | $0 | ~$179–299/mo* | ~$115–220/mo* | ~$270–350/mo* | ~$179–259/mo* |

Important: Substack shows $0 for free lists. If you have paid subscribers, Substack takes 10% of subscription revenue — which at scale can dwarf the cost of any paid platform. 1,000 paid subscribers at $10/month = $10,000/month in revenue; Substack’s cut: ~$1,000+/month.

Pricing verified March 2026. Check vendor site before purchasing — email platform pricing changes frequently, especially at subscriber milestones.

3. Key Pricing Quirks to Know

beehiiv: Flat pricing is genuinely flat (mostly)
beehiiv Scale at $43/month is the same price whether you have 2,501 subscribers or 99,999. This is unusual and means beehiiv gets dramatically cheaper per-subscriber as your list grows. The one nuance: check beehiiv’s current Scale plan terms for any send limits at very high subscriber counts.

Substack: The 10% cut is deceptively expensive at scale
Substack’s model makes it attractive at zero — but if you build a meaningful paid subscriber base, the 10% take rate becomes your biggest email cost by far. The platform is designed this way intentionally. $50k/month in subscription revenue = $5,000/month to Substack. beehiiv Scale: $43/month. Do the math.

Kit: Charges for ALL subscribers, including unconfirmed
Kit counts every subscriber in your account toward your plan limit — including unconfirmed subscribers (if you use double opt-in). This is a billing gotcha: you may be charged for subscribers who have never confirmed or engaged. This can inflate your apparent subscriber count beyond your actual active list.

MailerLite: Generous but slider-based pricing (hard to predict)
MailerLite pricing is from ~$10/mo (varies by list size — check mailerlite.com). The numbers in the table above are approximate; check the current slider at mailerlite.com/pricing before committing.

*Prices marked with * are estimates based on publicly available data as of March 2026 — verify at each platform’s pricing page before purchasing.

Mailchimp: The most expensive mistake in email marketing
⚠️ Mailchimp charges for unsubscribed contacts. When someone unsubscribes from your list, Mailchimp doesn’t remove them from your contact count — it keeps them as “unsubscribed” and still charges you for them unless you manually archive them. A list with 10,000 total historical contacts and 4,000 active subscribers can still cost you as if you have 10,000. This can make Mailchimp 2–3x more expensive than alternatives at similar active subscriber counts. You must manually archive unsubscribed contacts to avoid this.

ActiveCampaign: No free tier, modular pricing
ActiveCampaign has no permanent free tier (trial only). They price by contact count and plan tier (Starter, Plus, Professional, Enterprise). The “per contact” cost is higher than Kit or MailerLite at equivalent counts, but the automation depth justifies it for users who use those features. Check activecampaign.com for current plan names and pricing — they update periodically.

4. Free Tier Comparison: What You Can Do for Free

Free tier winner for newsletters: Substack (unlimited) or Kit (10,000 subs with 1 sequence)
Free tier winner for features: beehiiv (2,500 subs, custom domain, full toolset)
Free tier winner for course sellers: Kit (10,000 subs, tagging, 1 sequence)

5. The Most Expensive Mistake: Mailchimp and Unsubscribed Contacts

⚠️ Warning for Mailchimp users: Mailchimp counts unsubscribed contacts against your plan limit unless you manually archive them. This is the number-one hidden cost in email marketing.

Here’s what this looks like in practice:

You start a list in 2023 with 0 subscribers
Over two years, 8,000 people sign up
3,000 people unsubscribe
You have 5,000 active subscribers

In Mailchimp, your plan cost is based on 8,000 contacts — not 5,000. You’re paying for 60% more subscribers than you actually have, unless you go into Settings → Archive and manually remove every unsubscribed contact.

Most Mailchimp users don’t know this. For a list with 40–50% historical churn (normal for email lists), this can mean paying twice what you’d pay on Kit or MailerLite for the same active subscriber count.

How other platforms handle this:
– beehiiv: Unsubscribed contacts are removed from billing count
– Kit: Only active subscribers count (unconfirmed subscribers do count — see Kit billing quirk above)
– MailerLite: Only active subscribers count
– ActiveCampaign: Contact-based billing — check activecampaign.com for inactive contact policies

6. Update History

Date	Update
March 2026	Initial pricing table created; prices verified live for beehiiv and Kit; all others marked (verify at vendor site)

This page is updated quarterly. If you notice pricing discrepancies, pricing changes frequently at subscriber milestones.

7. Bottom Line + Links to Comparison Pages

The five-second version:
– Cheapest for free/small lists: Kit (free to 10k) or Substack (always free)
– Best flat pricing at scale: beehiiv ($43/month to 100k subs)
– Best budget paid option: MailerLite
– Most expensive at scale: Mailchimp (if you don’t clean unsubscribes) and Substack (if you have paid subs)
– No free tier: ActiveCampaign

Dig deeper:
– beehiiv vs Substack
– beehiiv vs Kit
– Kit (ConvertKit) Alternatives
– Substack Alternatives
– Best Email Platform for Course Sellers