beehiiv vs Mailchimp (2026): Free Plans, Send Limits and Cost

Short answer: if you're starting a newsletter, beehiiv's free plan goes much further: 2,500 subscribers and unlimited sends, against Mailchimp's 250 contacts and 500 sends a month. If you run an online store and want abandoned-cart and back-in-stock emails tied to it, Mailchimp is built for that, and beehiiv's pricing page doesn't list anything like it.

How we wrote this: every price and limit below comes from beehiiv's and Mailchimp's official pricing pages and help docs, checked live October 23, 2026, in USD. We haven't run a newsletter on Mailchimp, so we don't make claims about deliverability or support quality.

Quick verdict

beehiiv is a newsletter platform. You write posts, send them to your list, publish them on a beehiiv website, and later add paid subscriptions or ads. Mailchimp is an email marketing tool for businesses, and a lot of its plan features are about selling: store connections, automation flows, SMS and segments built from purchase data.

That split explains most of the cost gap. With 501 to 2,500 subscribers, beehiiv costs $0 and Mailchimp Essentials costs $26.50 to $45 a month. Past 2,500, Mailchimp Essentials has the lower monthly list price at every size we checked, though it counts your list differently (more on that below).

For a newsletter, beehiiv is the easier and cheaper start: 2,500 free subscribers, unlimited sends and paid subscriptions once you're on Lite. Mailchimp makes more sense when email is part of running a store and you need cart, product and SMS automations. Past 2,500 readers, compare the two at your real list size, and count your unsubscribed contacts when you price Mailchimp.

Why are people leaving Mailchimp?

When people ask this, the answers usually come back to cost and limits. Here's what Mailchimp's own pages say about each of those, as of October 23, 2026.

• The free plan is small. It's for up to 250 contacts, with 500 email sends a month and no more than 250 a day. If you go over 250 contacts, Mailchimp holds your live and test sends until you upgrade or cut the list (Mailchimp help). You'll still see older reviews quoting 500 contacts and 1,000 sends; those numbers are out of date.
• Unsubscribed contacts still count. Subscribed, unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts all count toward your contact limit. Only archived, cleaned and deleted contacts don't (Mailchimp help). Non-subscribed contacts can come in from a connected online store.
• You pay for your peak. Mailchimp bills on the highest contact total you reached in the billing period, even if you cleaned the list later. Paid plans don't stop your campaigns when you go over; Mailchimp adds an overage charge instead (Mailchimp help).
• The price climbs with contacts. Essentials starts at $13 a month for up to 500 contacts and is $110 at 5,001 to 10,000 (Mailchimp pricing).

Mailchimp is priced for businesses that earn from their list through a store. For a newsletter that grows one reader at a time, paying by stored contact adds up quickly.

Free plans side by side

Sources: beehiiv pricing, Mailchimp pricing and Mailchimp help, checked October 23, 2026.

The send limit is the one that matters for a newsletter. With 500 sends a month, a full 250-contact list gets two emails a month on Mailchimp Free. A weekly newsletter doesn't fit, even at the very start. beehiiv Free has no send cap at all.

Mailchimp Free also leaves out email scheduling. One point in Mailchimp's favor: its branding comes off on Essentials, the cheapest paid plan, while beehiiv keeps its branding until Pro.

What a newsletter costs at 1k, 2.5k, 5k and 10k subscribers

Prices are USD per month on monthly billing, with beehiiv's yearly-billing price in brackets. Mailchimp's Essentials and Standard plans are sold month to month at these sizes; its annual plans start at 10,000+ contacts and go through sales. Sources: beehiiv pricing and the Mailchimp pricing contact selector, both checked live October 23, 2026. Mailchimp prices are list prices after its 14-day free trial. Mailchimp was also showing a 15% discount for the first 12 months on larger lists (for example $93.50 instead of $110 for Essentials at 5,001 to 10,000), but the contact threshold in that offer changed between page loads, so check it yourself before you rely on it.

Above 2,500 subscribers, Mailchimp Essentials has the lower list price, but two things narrow the gap. First, beehiiv prices by active subscribers, people you're still sending to who haven't unsubscribed (beehiiv help). Mailchimp counts unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts too, so a 1,000-reader newsletter with 600 old unsubscribes on file sits in Mailchimp's 1,501 to 2,500 tier ($45 on Essentials), unless you archive them. Second, the plans don't include the same things. beehiiv Lite includes paid subscriptions and the beehiiv ad network; Essentials limits automation flows to 4 steps.

For the full beehiiv tier list, see our beehiiv pricing guide.

Send limits: weekly vs daily newsletters

Mailchimp's paid plans tie sends to your contact tier. Essentials gives you 10 times your contact limit each month, Standard 12 times and Premium 15 times (Mailchimp help). Test and transactional emails count toward that number too.

• Weekly: a month has four or five issues, so 1,000 contacts need at most 5,000 sends. The 501 to 1,500 Essentials tier includes 15,000, so a weekly newsletter on a paid plan stays well inside the cap.
• Twice a week: 8 to 10 issues a month, which is right at the Essentials limit of 10 sends per contact.
• Three times a week: about 13 issues a month. That's past both Essentials (10x) and Standard (12x), so you'd pay overages or move up a tier.
• Daily: about 30 issues a month, or 30,000 sends for 1,000 contacts. That's double the Essentials allowance of 15,000 and well over Standard's 18,000.

Over the limit, Mailchimp adds "add-on contact blocks" to your bill instead of stopping sends. The block price is only shown inside a logged-in account, so we can't quote it (Mailchimp help). beehiiv includes unlimited email sends on every plan, Free included (beehiiv pricing FAQ). If you plan to publish more than twice a week, that difference matters more than the headline price.

Newsletter features: website, growth and paid subscriptions

beehiiv's features are aimed at publishing and growing a newsletter. Every plan includes a hosted website, subscribe forms and the recommendation network, where newsletters recommend each other. Lite adds a referral program, the ad network (not available in every region), paid subscriptions, A/B testing, custom domains and up to 10 live automations. Pro removes beehiiv branding and adds unlimited automations, RSS to Send and the Send API (beehiiv pricing).

On paid subscriptions, beehiiv says it takes 0% of your paid subscription revenue; Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction still applies. Paid subscriptions start on Lite, not Free (beehiiv pricing FAQ).

We didn't find paid newsletter subscriptions, a referral program or an ad network on Mailchimp's pricing page. If you want to charge readers or sell ads from the same dashboard you send from, beehiiv lists those features and Mailchimp's plans don't.

If you're weighing beehiiv against other newsletter platforms rather than Mailchimp, our beehiiv vs Kit vs Substack comparison covers that.

Where Mailchimp still wins: stores and automations

If you sell physical or digital products through Shopify, Mailchimp does things beehiiv's pricing page doesn't list. Its Shopify integration triggers welcome emails, abandoned-cart reminders and back-in-stock alerts, creates single-use discount codes, syncs Shopify segments and shows campaign revenue in your Shopify dashboard. Mailchimp notes that features vary by plan (Mailchimp Shopify integration).

Automation depth also depends on the plan. Essentials allows automation flows with up to 4 steps. Standard and Premium allow up to 200 flows, and Standard adds predictive segments. SMS is an add-on on paid plans in some countries (Mailchimp pricing).

beehiiv's automations start on Lite, with triggers like sign-ups, tags, survey answers, paid subscriptions and product purchases (beehiiv pricing). Those are built around readers and beehiiv's own digital products, not a separate store's cart.

Stay on Mailchimp if your email mostly drives sales in a connected store, you rely on cart and back-in-stock flows, or you use SMS alongside email. A newsletter list moves with a CSV export, but store flows have to be rebuilt from scratch. If you're automating a Shopify store outside your email tool, our guide to Make.com automations for Shopify shows another route.

Moving from Mailchimp to beehiiv: what transfers

beehiiv's help center has a Mailchimp migration guide (beehiiv help). In short:

• Subscribers: export your audience from Mailchimp as a CSV, then import it in beehiiv and map tags and custom fields. beehiiv sets the import date as each subscriber's sign-up date unless you ask its support team to add the original dates.
• Past campaigns: beehiiv's content import connects to your Mailchimp account and brings campaigns over as posts. Only campaigns built with Mailchimp's New Email Builder (launched in 2022) import; older ones have to be recreated by hand.
• Automations and embedded forms: these don't transfer, and beehiiv's guide says to recreate them in beehiiv (automations need Lite or higher).
• First few weeks: beehiiv suggests leaving out unengaged subscribers for the first 2 to 4 weeks to protect deliverability.

Leave unsubscribed contacts out of the file you import. beehiiv asks you to confirm that everyone in an import opted in to your emails. If you're setting up from scratch, our beehiiv setup walkthrough goes step by step.

Also considering Ghost? beehiiv vs Ghost runs the same cost comparison at 1k, 5k and 10k subscribers.

Who should pick which

• New newsletter, $0 budget: beehiiv Free. It covers 2,500 subscribers with no send cap; Mailchimp Free stops at 250 contacts.
• Weekly newsletter at 5,000 to 10,000 readers, no paid tier: Mailchimp Essentials has the lower list price ($75 to $110 a month), as long as you archive unsubscribes and stay within 4-step flows. beehiiv Lite costs $109 to $139 monthly, or $95 to $119 billed yearly.
• Paid newsletter or sponsorships: beehiiv Lite, which includes paid subscriptions with a 0% beehiiv cut and the ad network.
• Daily or near-daily sending: beehiiv, because sends are unlimited on every plan.
• Online store with cart and back-in-stock emails: Mailchimp, on Standard if you need more than 4-step flows.

Not sure either fits? Our free email marketing tools roundup compares more options.

FAQ

Is Mailchimp still free? Yes, for up to 250 contacts, with 500 sends a month and 250 a day. Sending pauses if you go over (checked October 23, 2026).

Is beehiiv cheaper than Mailchimp? Up to 2,500 subscribers, yes: beehiiv Free costs $0, while Mailchimp is free only up to 250 contacts and Essentials costs $13 to $45 a month up to 2,500. Above 2,500, Mailchimp Essentials has the lower list price, but it counts unsubscribed contacts and has fewer newsletter features.

Does beehiiv cost $49 a month? Only on Lite at up to 1,000 subscribers billed yearly ($588 a year). Billed monthly, it's $59. The Free plan is $0 up to 2,500 subscribers.

Does beehiiv have a free trial? Yes. New accounts can start a 14-day trial of Pro plan features without a credit card. Paid subscriptions and custom domains stay locked during the trial, and if you don't upgrade, the account stays on Free (beehiiv help).

Does Mailchimp have a free trial? Mailchimp offers a 14-day free trial of Essentials and Standard (Mailchimp pricing FAQ).

Does beehiiv take a cut of paid subscriptions? beehiiv says it takes 0%, and Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction applies. Paid subscriptions need Lite or higher.

Can I move my Mailchimp list to beehiiv? Yes, through a CSV export and import. Campaigns built with Mailchimp's New Email Builder can be imported as posts; automations have to be rebuilt.

Ready to start a newsletter? Try beehiiv free, or see Mailchimp's plans.