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Updated September 27, 2026 · Prices verified from vendor pricing pages, September 2026 · Affiliate disclosure
Compare free email plans on the sticker and they look identical — six zeros. Read the caps and they separate immediately, because the vendors cap different quantities. Three of the six limit how many contacts the plan covers. Brevo does not limit contacts at all on its published terms; it limits sending. Mailchimp limits both at once, contact count and a monthly send allowance, and applies whichever runs out first. And the seats — how many people can log in — differ too, which is the cap small teams hit before they hit any other.
So the honest answer to "which vendor has the best free plan" is a question back: which of your four numbers is closest to its ceiling, contacts, monthly sends, daily sends or seats? The table below is read from each vendor's own pricing page in September 2026, and the column that decides is rarely the same one twice.
| Vendor | Free coverage | Send allowance | Seats | What the free plan leaves out |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kit | Up to 10,000 subscribers | Unlimited sends and broadcasts | 1 user | Paid tiers start at $33/mo. Kit also takes 3.5% + $0.30 on sales of digital products |
| Brevo | Contacts not capped on the page | Up to 300 emails a day, once the account is approved | Not published | Marketing automation, A/B testing and advanced reporting are gated to the $18 Standard plan |
| MailerLite | 250 subscribers | 2,500 emails a month | 2 users, 1 site, 1 landing page, 3 forms | MailerLite's own logo stays in the footer; removing it costs $10.80 a month, on top of any plan |
| Mailchimp | 250 contacts | 500 a month or 250 a day, whichever comes first | 1 seat, 1 audience | No automation flows. Email support for the first 30 days only |
| Klaviyo | 250 active profiles | 500 emails a month | Seats are not billed on any plan | No automation flows. Includes $5 in SMS credit and $5 in email-design credit |
| ActiveCampaign | No free plan | — | — | 14-day trial only; its published page carries no rates at all |
USD, read from each vendor's own pricing page in September 2026. Brevo's daily allowance applies once the account is approved and is priced by email volume rather than by contact count. Kit's and MailerLite's subscriber ceilings are the numbers their pages print; larger bands sit behind sliders on some vendors' pages.
Two asymmetries in that table are worth money. The first is the send ceiling: MailerLite's free plan sends 2,500 emails a month against Mailchimp's 500, so an identical 250-name list can mail ten times more often on MailerLite before anything is billed. The second is the shape of the cap itself. A subscriber ceiling and a daily send ceiling fail in completely different ways — a 600-name list breaks Mailchimp's cap on day one, while a 60-name list sending five campaigns a month breaks Brevo's daily allowance just as reliably. Neither is "more free"; they are free of different things, and the one you want depends on which number moves first in your own account. We map the send-versus-contact axis in more detail in our guide to the charges that arrive after checkout.
Leaving free is the decision that actually costs money, and the vendor you leave to matters more than the cap you left. Below is the published bill at 500, 2,500 and 10,000 subscribers from MailerLite and Klaviyo — the two vendors whose full ladders we have finished reading — with the sizes where no verified per-band figure exists left blank rather than estimated.
| List size | MailerLite Comfort | Klaviyo Email plan | First year, cheapest of the two |
|---|---|---|---|
| 500 | $12/mo · $10.80/mo billed yearly · $129.60 a year | $20/mo · $240 a year (no annual discount published) | MailerLite $129.60 — $110.40 less in year one |
| 2,500 | $33/mo · $29.70/mo billed yearly · $356.40 a year | $60/mo · $720 a year | MailerLite $356.40 — $363.60 less |
| 10,000 | $89/mo · $80.10/mo billed yearly · $961.20 a year | $150/mo · $1,800 a year | MailerLite $961.20 — $838.80 less |
USD, from each vendor's own pricing page, September 2026. Klaviyo's annual figures are twelve times its monthly price, because Klaviyo publishes no annual rate — arithmetic, not an offer. MailerLite's annual figures are its published yearly rate, a 10% saving. MailerLite's Comfort plan includes its full feature set; Klaviyo does not tier features by rung and does not bill for seats.
The gap widens with the list: $110 a year at 500 subscribers becomes $839 at 10,000, because MailerLite's annual discount compounds with a ladder that prices the 10,000 band more cheaply than Klaviyo's. Neither number is the whole decision — Klaviyo's billing is built for store customer files and it prices on active profiles, so archived addresses stop counting, while MailerLite counts any address active at any point in a billing cycle. On a clean list the price gap is the story; on a messy one the counting rule can close it. We work through the axis in our MailerLite vs Mailchimp read, where both vendors bill by contact band.
There is a second reason a buyer never sees a bill, and it has nothing to do with the free tier: two vendors on our list do not price by subscriber count at all within the ranges we can verify.
That is the structural point a free-plan roundup usually misses. "Which free plan holds the most contacts" assumes every vendor bills the way Mailchimp does. Two of the six do not, so for the right sending pattern the answer is neither MailerLite nor Mailchimp — it is a vendor whose bill never arrives at that list size. Our Brevo vs MailerLite read prices the two models side by side, and the list-size calculator will price your own subscriber count across every band we can verify, on both billing cycles.
The moment a free plan stops covering you, vendors bill in one of three ways, and they are not equivalent.
For a buyer shopping on the free tier, the practical test is to write down the number that will breach first — contacts, monthly sends, daily sends or seats — and then check which billing rule that vendor applies when it breaches. A one-subscriber band step and an auto-billed overage both cost money, but only one of them can be avoided by tidying the list, and only one of them reverses when you tidy it.
Every cap and every price above comes from the vendor's own pricing page, read in September 2026: Kit's free ceiling and its $33 and $66 paid tiers, Brevo's daily allowance and its $9 and $18 plans, MailerLite's free plan terms and its published ten-band Comfort ladder, Mailchimp's 250-contact cap with its 500-a-month or 250-a-day allowance, Klaviyo's 250-profile free plan and the rungs of its paid ladder. Where a vendor publishes no figure at a list size — Kit and ActiveCampaign behind a slider or a quote, Brevo's contact-by-volume matrix inside a calculator, Mailchimp beyond its 0–500 band — the cell says so instead of carrying an estimate. Mailchimp's free plan and its post-checkout charges are read line by line in our Mailchimp pricing guide; the seven charges that arrive after checkout, credits that expire and add-ons that outgrow their plan, are mapped in our guide to email marketing hidden fees; and five alternatives including both of the ladders we price here are compared in our Mailchimp alternatives guide. Our methodology and affiliate disclosure explain how prices are verified and how the site earns.
It depends which of four caps you hit first. Kit covers up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited sends and one user — the largest free ceiling we could verify. Brevo is capped on sends rather than contacts, at 300 emails a day once the account is approved. MailerLite and Mailchimp both stop at 250, MailerLite with 2,500 emails a month and two seats, Mailchimp with 500 a month or 250 a day and one seat.
The bill arrives in one of three ways. MailerLite and Klaviyo step you to the next band, so one subscriber over the line moves the whole bill — MailerLite's 1,001st subscriber costs $168 a year. Brevo keeps you on your plan and sells further email as pay-as-you-go credit that does not expire. Mailchimp bills an automatic overage instead of moving the plan.
Per Kit's own pricing page in September 2026, yes: up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited landing pages, forms and broadcasts, on one user seat. Two limits matter — paid plans begin at $33 a month, so the step off the free plan is steep, and Kit takes 3.5% plus $0.30 on sales of digital products.
None of the free plans we read includes automation flows on the terms its pricing page prints. On the paid side the entry point differs: Brevo gates automation to its $18 Standard plan, while MailerLite includes its full feature set on every paid plan from $12 a month.
Three of the six vendors we price cap the free plan at 250 accounts: MailerLite (with 2,500 emails a month), Mailchimp (500 a month or 250 a day) and Klaviyo (500 a month, plus $5 in SMS credit). Kit goes to 10,000 subscribers, and Brevo does not cap contacts on its page at all — it caps sending at 300 emails a day.