- beehiiv is our pick and the one we run ourselves: free up to 2,500 subscribers with unlimited sends, automations from Lite at $49/mo billed yearly.
- Mailchimp's free plan stops at 250 contacts and 500 sends a month with no automations; Kit, MailerLite and Brevo were not tested by us.
- MailerLite (from $12/mo) and Brevo (from $9/mo) list the lowest paid prices on a small list; Kit's free plan holds up to 10,000.
- Prices and limits were read from each vendor's pricing page on 2026-10-08; confirm before you buy.
Mailchimp alternatives are worth a look when the free plan stops fitting your list. Mailchimp's own pricing page, read on 2026-10-08, shows the free plan at 250 contacts and a cap of 500 emails a month or 250 a day, with no automations. If you run a small business or a vending route and want one short email to go out on a schedule, there are cheaper and roomier places to send it from. Every price and limit below comes from each company's own pricing page, checked on 2026-10-08.
Part of our complete guide: how to find vending machine locations.
The short answer
- Pick beehiiv if you will send a real issue every week and want the list to grow from other newsletters and referrals. Free up to 2,500 subscribers with unlimited sends. It is the one we run ourselves.
- Pick Kit if the goal is automatic email sequences at a low listed price, or a free plan that holds up to 10,000 subscribers. Not tested by us.
- Pick MailerLite or Brevo if you want the lowest price on a small list and a paid plan with automations. Neither was tested by us.
- Stay with Mailchimp if your list is already built there and under a few hundred contacts, or you need its long list of app connections. Switching costs an evening and saves nothing if the free plan still fits.
Affiliate link. We earn a commission if you sign up through it, at no extra cost to you. It does not change which tool we recommend.
VendBuddy is our product, and the VendBuddy Operator Brief is one of three newsletters we send on beehiiv. That is why beehiiv is the only tool here we can describe from daily use. For the others we have only what their pricing pages say, and we mark each one as not tested by us.
Why people leave Mailchimp, from the page itself
We are not going to invent complaints or quote reviews we cannot source. These are the facts that show up on Mailchimp's pricing page and tend to push a small list elsewhere:
- The free plan is small. 250 contacts, 500 sends a month or 250 a day, one seat, one audience. A weekly email to 200 people fits. A list that keeps growing does not.
- Automations are not on Free. The page lists automation and flow limits as not included on the free plan. A welcome email that sends itself needs a paid plan.
- Paid plans start low but are tied to your contact count. Essentials starts at $13 a month and Standard at $20 a month, each shown as a starting price for 12 months. The price you pay depends on how many contacts you hold, and we did not verify it at 1,000 contacts.
- The trial needs a payment method. The 14 days on Standard or Essentials start with valid payment details. Kit and beehiiv both say no card for their trials.
None of that makes Mailchimp a bad tool. It makes it a poor fit for one kind of owner: someone with a small list who wants automatic emails without paying before they know they will keep sending. If that is not you, the last section says when to stay.
How we checked
On 2026-10-08 we read the pricing pages for Mailchimp, beehiiv, Kit, MailerLite and Brevo and copied plan names, prices and limits into the table. For beehiiv we also use our own account: three publications, a free 7-day challenge and a paid 30-day sprint that run as automations, a referral program and a signup box on our blog posts. We did not run Kit, MailerLite, Brevo or Mailchimp for this post. Anything we say about them is what the page says, and nothing more.
We give no 1-to-5 scores. A score for a tool we have not used would be made up. We compared five things instead: free plan size, the first paid price, whether automatic emails are included, whether a card is needed for the trial, and how much we know first-hand.
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Start building free →Side-by-side table (checked 2026-10-08)
| What you care about | Mailchimp | beehiiv | Kit | MailerLite | Brevo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free plan | 250 contacts, 500 sends a month or 250 a day | Up to 2,500 subscribers, unlimited sends | Up to 10,000 subscribers | Up to 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails a month, 3 automations | Free plan listed; its limits were not on the page text we read |
| First paid price | Essentials from $13/mo, Standard from $20/mo | Lite $49/mo billed yearly | Creator $33/mo, $390 billed yearly (shown for 1,000 subscribers) | Growing Business from $12/mo, $10.80 billed yearly (up to 500 subscribers) | Starter from $9/mo, $8.08 billed yearly; Standard from $18/mo, $16.17 billed yearly |
| Automatic emails | Essentials: up to 4 flow steps. Standard: up to 200 flows | Lite and up | Creator and up | 50 automations on Growing Business, unlimited on Advanced | Marketing automation listed on Standard and up, not Starter |
| Trial | 14 days, payment details needed | Lite and Pro include a trial, no card | 14 days, no card | 14 days of premium features, no card | Trial terms not on the page text we read |
| Tested by us? | No | Yes, we use it | No | No | No |
Sources: the five pricing pages linked above, read 2026-10-08. Prices change, and some are shown for a set list size, so confirm on the vendor page before you buy.
The cheapest way to find out whether you will keep sending is a free plan. Send three issues, then decide.
Affiliate link. We earn a commission if you sign up through it, at no extra cost to you. It does not change which tool we recommend.
beehiiv: the one we use
Best for: an owner who wants a weekly or monthly email to go out reliably and a list that can grow without ad spend. Price: free to 2,500 subscribers, then Lite at $49 a month and Pro at $95 a month, both billed yearly.
What we do with it, plainly. The VendBuddy Operator Brief goes out Monday, Wednesday and Friday. We run a free 7-day challenge and a paid 30-day sprint as automations. Readers who click on certain links get sorted into groups, so someone reading about machines gets a different follow-up from someone reading about money. We have a referral program with milestones and a signup box on our blog posts that drops people straight into the list.
Real downsides we ran into:
- Automations are not on the free plan. They start on Lite, so a welcome series costs money.
- It is built for people who publish a newsletter as a product. Words like Boosts, tiers and recommendation network take a little time to learn if you only want to email your customers.
- Embedded forms do not fill in an email address from a link on your own page.
Skip it if you only email a handful of people you know by name, or you want text messages from the same account. Full detail is in our beehiiv review for small business.
Kit: unrated, not tested by us
Best for (per its pricing page): a creator or small shop that wants sequences and a free list that holds up to 10,000 subscribers. Creator is $33 a month, or $390 billed yearly, for 1,000 subscribers. Free does not include sequences or automations. Trial is 14 days with no card. Side by side with our pick: beehiiv vs Kit.
Downside from the page: Kit describes itself as a platform for creator businesses. Check that the wording fits a local business before you commit.
MailerLite: unrated, not tested by us
Best for (per its pricing page): the lowest paid price on a small list with real automation. Growing Business starts at $12 a month ($10.80 billed yearly) for up to 500 subscribers and lists 50 automations. Advanced starts at $25 a month ($22.50 billed yearly) with unlimited automations and unlimited monthly emails. Every new account gets 14 days of premium features without a card.
Downside from the page: the free plan is capped at 250 subscribers and 2,500 monthly emails, which is close to Mailchimp's. It is a place to test, not a place to stay.
Brevo: unrated, not tested by us
Best for (per its pricing page): a business that also wants texting and CRM tools later. Starter starts at $9 a month ($8.08 billed yearly) and Standard at $18 a month ($16.17 billed yearly). Marketing automation is listed on Standard and up, so the cheapest plan does not send automatic emails. Professional starts at $499 a month, which tells you who the top end is built for.
This is where marketing starts to compound. A Google Business Profile comes first, then around machine three to five a site that catches inbound requests. AI builders like Wix and Base44 make that an evening job, and the Wix vs Base44 comparison helps you pick. Affiliate link, so we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
Downside from the page: we could not read the free plan's limits or the trial terms in the page text, so we are leaving them out.
What a year costs at the smallest list
This is our arithmetic from the starting prices above, for the cheapest plan on each tool that sends automatic emails. List sizes differ by tool because that is how each page shows its price, so treat it as a rough ladder and not a ranking.
| Tool and plan | Price shown | 12-month total | List size the price is shown for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mailchimp Essentials | $13/mo starting price | $156 | Starting tier, up to 500 contacts |
| MailerLite Growing Business | $10.80/mo billed yearly | $129.60 | Up to 500 subscribers |
| Brevo Standard | $16.17/mo billed yearly | $194.04 | Starting price; list size not stated |
| Kit Creator | $390 billed yearly | $390 | 1,000 subscribers |
| beehiiv Lite | $49/mo billed yearly | $588 | 1,000 subscribers |
Two honest notes. First, beehiiv and Kit are shown at 1,000 subscribers and the others at about 500, so the gap is partly list size. Second, beehiiv is the priciest line here for a reason you may not need: the free plan covers 2,500 subscribers, so a small business can stay at $0 for a long time and only pay once it wants automations.
Switching checklist
- Export your contacts from Mailchimp, including who unsubscribed. Do not re-add anyone who left.
- Keep your sending address and footer consistent. US marketing email needs a working unsubscribe link and your mailing address, and each tool adds both for you.
- Rebuild one automation first, usually the welcome email, and send yourself a test before moving anything else.
- Run both for a week if you can, then cancel the paid Mailchimp plan on a date you write down. Free-plan accounts can simply go quiet.
- Do not paste a cold prospect list into any newsletter tool. A newsletter is for people who asked to hear from you. Cold first contact is a short one-to-one email, as in our cold email scripts for vending contracts.
When to stay with Mailchimp
Stay if your list sits comfortably under 250 contacts and you send fewer than 500 emails a month, because the free plan still fits and a move buys you nothing. Stay if you rely on an app connection that only Mailchimp has, and you have checked that the replacement offers an equivalent. And stay if you send twice a year and a switch would take longer than the savings are worth.
How to choose, and who to send it to
Ask three questions. Will you write something every week or month? A tool you skip for two months does nothing, so pick the one that makes the next send feel small. Do you need automatic emails on day one? If yes, budget for a paid plan on any of these. Does the list live mostly in your head? Then start free and add only people who asked.
The other half of an email list is who is on it. If you run a vending route and your list is thin, the fix is not a better tool. It is more conversations with the people who decide where machines go. When you need to know who that person is at a building, you can find them with VendBuddy, our product: searching a ZIP is free, and one credit gets the best contact on file for one business. It is built for vending operators looking for locations. It is not an email platform and it is not for sending a newsletter. For the wider picture of getting your own inbound traffic, see how to market your vending business.
Compare in more depth
- Best newsletter platform for small business: the three-way comparison with the 12-month cost at 1,000 subscribers.
- beehiiv vs Mailchimp: free plan limits and what changes past 250 contacts.
- beehiiv vs Kit: two creator-first tools side by side.
- beehiiv review for small business: what we run on it and where it falls short.
Start with a free plan, send three issues, then decide whether a paid plan earns its keep.
Affiliate link. We earn a commission if you sign up through it, at no extra cost to you. It does not change which tool we recommend.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best Mailchimp alternative for a small business?
For most owners who will send a regular email, we pick beehiiv because it is the one we run ourselves and its free plan covers up to 2,500 subscribers with unlimited sends, per its pricing page on 2026-10-08. Kit is a strong choice for automations at a lower listed price, and MailerLite and Brevo list the lowest paid starting prices. We have not tested Kit, MailerLite or Brevo.
Is there a free Mailchimp alternative?
Yes. beehiiv's free plan holds up to 2,500 subscribers, Kit's up to 10,000, and MailerLite's up to 250 subscribers with 2,500 emails a month. Mailchimp's own free plan stops at 250 contacts. Free plans on beehiiv and Kit do not include automatic emails.
Is MailerLite cheaper than Mailchimp?
On starting prices, yes. MailerLite's Growing Business plan starts at $12 a month ($10.80 billed yearly) for up to 500 subscribers, while Mailchimp Essentials starts at $13 and Standard at $20, per each pricing page on 2026-10-08. Mailchimp's price rises with contacts, so compare at your own list size.
Can I move my list from Mailchimp without losing subscribers?
You can export your contacts from Mailchimp and import them into any of these tools. Keep your list of people who unsubscribed and do not add them back. Rebuild one automation first and test it before you cancel the old plan.
Can I use a newsletter tool to email businesses I found online?
Treat a newsletter as a list of people who asked to hear from you. For a first contact, send a short one-to-one email instead. US marketing email also requires a working unsubscribe link and your mailing address, which these platforms add to the footer.
What is selling, which buildings say yes, and the numbers before you buy a machine. Free, confirm from your inbox, unsubscribe in one click. Refer one friend and get 25 VendBuddy credits.
General information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Rules change, so check the official source. Revenue and income figures are examples, not promises. See our terms.