Data note
Mailchimp Free Plan Limits in 2026: 250 Contacts, 500 Sends, 30 Days of Support
Mailchimp's free plan limits as of 2026-10-25: 250 contacts, 500 monthly sends, 30 days of email support, and the $13 first paid tier.
The Mailchimp free plan includes 1 seat, 1 audience with a maximum of 250 contacts, and up to 500 sends per month with a daily cap of 250. Support is email only, for the first 30 days. The first paid step is Essentials, free for 14 days and then starting at $13 per month.
- Mailchimp Free allows 1 seat and 1 audience with a maximum of 250 contacts (checked 2026-10-25).
- The free plan allows up to 500 sends per month, with a daily limit of 250 sends (checked 2026-10-25).
- Free plan support is email only and lasts for the first 30 days (checked 2026-10-25).
- The first paid step is Essentials, free for 14 days and then starting at $13 per month (checked 2026-10-25).
- Paid plans scale the send limit with contacts: 10 times the contact count on Essentials, 12 times on Standard and 15 times on Premium (checked 2026-10-25).
- At 250 free contacts, two monthly campaigns use the entire 500-send allowance, so four campaigns overrun the monthly cap by 500 sends (calculated 2026-10-25).
2 primary sources · If this is out of date, tell us and we will re-measure.
On this page
Mailchimp's free plan is capped in four places at once, and the cap that stops most senders is not the one they expect. The plan includes 1 seat, 1 audience with a maximum of 250 contacts, and up to 500 sends per month, with a daily ceiling of 250 sends. Support is email only and lasts the first 30 days. Once any of those runs out, the first paid step is Essentials, which is free for 14 days and then starts at $13 per month.
The four free plan limits
| Limit | Free plan | Where the next tier differs |
|---|---|---|
| Contacts | 250 maximum, 1 audience | Essentials and above scale the allowance, listed up to 50,000 contacts |
| Monthly sends | 500, no rollover stated | 10 times the contact count on Essentials, 12 times on Standard, 15 times on Premium |
| Daily sends | 250 | Not capped by the same rule on paid plans |
| Seats | 1 | Additional seats on paid tiers |
| Support | Email, first 30 days | Email and chat on Essentials and Standard, phone on Premium |
| Price | $0 | Essentials from $13 per month after a 14-day trial |
What 500 sends a month allows at 250 contacts
| Campaigns per month to the full list | Sends used | Against the 500 monthly cap |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 250 | 250 left |
| 2 | 500 | Exactly at the cap |
| 4 | 1,000 | 500 over |
| 8 | 2,000 | 1,500 over |
Send counts assume every campaign goes to all 250 contacts (calculated 2026-10-25).
What the numbers actually mean
The send cap binds before the contact cap. At 250 contacts, two monthly campaigns to the whole list consume the entire 500-send allowance, which means a sender who mails weekly is two or three campaigns short every month (calculated 2026-10-25). The contact limit only becomes the binding constraint for a list that is mailed once or twice a month, and almost no newsletter is.
That is why the free plan feels tighter than 250 contacts suggests. A 250-contact list mailed weekly sends roughly 1,000 messages a month and needs twice the allowance, so at four campaigns a month the real ceiling is a 125-contact list (calculated 2026-10-25). Anyone planning a weekly send should size the list against sends, not contacts.
The support window is the limit nobody prices. Email support ends after 30 days on Free, and there is no phone support anywhere below Premium, so a new sender gets one month of help and then self-service. For a paid plan that matters less, because Essentials and Standard both include email and chat support for as long as the subscription runs.
The gaps between paid tiers are set by a multiplier rather than a fixed number. Essentials allows 10 times the contact count in monthly sends, Standard 12 times and Premium 15 times. At 1,000 contacts that is 10,000 sends on Essentials and 15,000 on Premium (calculated 2026-10-25), which is the practical reason to move up a tier before the contact count forces it.
How we measured it
Every limit here comes from the Mailchimp pricing page fetched on 2026-10-25, where the free plan terms appear in the plan tooltips and the send multipliers appear in the plan comparison copy. The page is a JavaScript calculator and does not print a per-contact price table in its HTML, so cost figures are limited to the published starting prices: $13 per month for Essentials, $20 per month for Standard, and custom pricing for Premium. Multipliers, send totals and list sizes are arithmetic on those published rules and are marked calculated.
What changes in practice
Size the list to the cadence you actually send. A weekly newsletter on the free plan caps out around 125 contacts, and a monthly one reaches the full 250, so the plan's real usefulness depends on how often you hit send.
Watch the daily cap when importing. 250 sends per day means a 250-contact list can be mailed once per day, not twice, and a list of 200 contacts can take a second campaign only by splitting the day.
Plan the upgrade before the cap bites. Essentials at $13 per month buys 10 times the contact count in sends, which at 250 contacts is 2,500 sends, five times the free allowance (calculated 2026-10-25). Moving up is cheaper than running two free accounts, which the single-audience rule does not allow anyway.
Bottom line
The free plan is real but narrow: 250 contacts, 500 sends a month, one seat and 30 days of email support. If you send weekly, plan on 125 contacts or on the $13 Essentials tier, because at 250 contacts a weekly cadence needs 1,000 sends against a 500-send cap (calculated 2026-10-25).
Frequently asked questions
Is the free send limit 500 or 1,000 per month?
500 per month with 250 per day is the figure stated twice on the current pricing page, in the free plan tooltip and in the plan comparison text. The page also carries a stale tooltip variant mentioning 1,000 sends, which is not the limit the plan terms describe.
What happens after the first 30 days of support?
Email support ends for free accounts. Paid tiers list email and chat support, and Premium adds phone support in English during business hours.
How many contacts can I have before paying?
250, in a single audience. The 250 contacts and 500 sends are separate caps, and at full list size the send cap runs out first.
What does the first paid tier include that Free does not?
Essentials starts at $13 per month after a 14-day trial, adds seats and multiple audiences, and sets the monthly send limit at 10 times the contact count rather than a flat 500.
Sources
- Mailchimp pricingChecked 2026-10-25
- Mailchimp plan comparisonChecked 2026-10-25
Cite this page
Nadia Voss (2026). “Mailchimp Free Plan Limits in 2026: 250 Contacts, 500 Sends, 30 Days of Support”. Actual Database. https://actualdatabase.com/mailchimp-free-plan-limits-2026/