Two newsletters a month to 5,000 subscribers: $29 on Buttondown, calculator-only on Mailchimp

A newsletter list of 5,000 is the point where free tiers end and pricing pages get vague. One of the two vendors here states the number outright; the other sells it through a slider.

Buttondown Standard is $29 a month for up to 5,000 subscribers, and its published model assumes at most one send a day, so two sends cost $29 — $14.50 per send. Mailchimp publishes $13 a month for its first 500 contacts and $385 a month at 50,000; the band that contains 5,000 is not in the page source at all.

What 5,000 subscribers cost

Mailchimp's send allowance is a multiplier, not a fixed number: Essentials sets the monthly send limit at 10 times the contact count, Standard at 12 times and Premium at 15 times. Mailchimp's own definition is that one email sent to 500 contacts equals 500 sends.

What the numbers actually mean

Buttondown's price is per subscriber tier and nothing else. The ladder runs $9 for 1,000, $29 for 5,000, $79 for 10,000 and $139 for 20,000, and it charges for active subscribers rather than everyone who ever signed up. Two sends a month do not move the meter, because the plan assumes up to one a day.

Mailchimp's price is per contact band, and the band is the whole product. The published anchors bracket 5,000 tightly: $13 a month buys 500 contacts and $385 a month buys 50,000 on the same plan. A price anywhere between those two is plausible for 5,000 contacts, which is exactly why the calculator exists and why this page will not print a number it cannot source.

The send allowance matters less than list owners expect. At 5,000 contacts an Essentials account can send 50,000 emails a month, so two campaigns use a fifth of it and ten campaigns still fit. Frequency is not what costs money on either platform; list size is.

How we measured it

Buttondown's tier prices were read from the plan data on its pricing page, and its send assumption from the FAQ on that page, on 2026-10-25. Mailchimp's base prices, contact ceilings and send-limit multipliers come from its pricing page and its plans help article, both opened the same day; the 5,000-contact band price was searched for across the pricing page, the marketing pricing page and the plan comparison table, and does not exist in static form. No account was created and no email was sent.

What changes in practice

The first difference is what you can budget. $29 is a fixed number you can put in a spreadsheet. A Mailchimp bill at 5,000 contacts is a function of a contact band that changes the moment 400 people subscribe, and Mailchimp's help article is explicit that the Essentials price increases with the contact total.

The second is overshoot. Buttondown's tiers are ceilings rather than metered bands, so 5,100 subscribers means moving to the $79 Professional tier for 10,000 — a 172% jump for 100 extra people. Mailchimp's bands move in smaller steps but apply to every contact, so growth is charged immediately rather than at the next boundary.

The third is what happens when nobody opens the email. Buttondown charges for active subscribers; Mailchimp counts stored contacts, so a list that has gone cold still bills at full band. That is the single line most likely to explain a large difference between two quotes for the same 5,000 people.

A final check is the cost of crossing a tier boundary. Buttondown's next tier is $79 for 10,000 subscribers, 2.7 times the $29 Standard price for twice the list (calculated 2026-10-25). Mailchimp's bands are narrower, but they apply to every contact, so growth past a band boundary reprices the whole account rather than just the new subscribers.

Bottom line

At 5,000 subscribers and two sends a month, Buttondown's $29 is the number to budget: it includes the volume, charges nothing per send, and sits $50 below the next tier. Mailchimp is only comparable once you run its calculator — and because its send allowance is ten times the contact count, a list that mails twice a month is being charged for audience size, not for sending.