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Updated October 10, 2026 · Prices read from vendor pricing pages: MailerLite September 21, 2026 (re-verified October 8), Klaviyo September 24, 2026 (re-verified October 8), GetResponse October 1, 2026 (re-verified October 3), Kit October 2, 2026 (re-verified October 10), Omnisend October 4, 2026 (embedded rate table re-verified October 8), Mailchimp October 8, 2026, ActiveCampaign September 30, 2026 (re-verified October 8), AWeber October 8, 2026, EmailOctopus October 9, 2026, Mailjet October 9, 2026, Constant Contact October 10, 2026 · Affiliate disclosure
One scope note before the numbers. This page prices tools — what an email platform charges to store and send to a list, per thousand subscribers. It is not about buying or renting email addresses, a market we do not price and a shortcut every platform on this page prohibits: purchased lists violate the permission requirements in Mailchimp's, Constant Contact's and the other vendors' terms, and the bounces a bought list produces count against the same sending allowances priced below. The question here is narrower and, for anyone who already has a list, more useful: what does each platform charge per thousand names, and how does that rate move as the list grows?
No vendor prints a per-thousand rate; every one of them prints a monthly bill for a band of list sizes. So the unit price here is one piece of labeled arithmetic on those official bills: the published monthly price at a given list size, divided by the number of thousands in that list. At 2,500 subscribers, GetResponse's Starter bill is $29 a month — $11.60 per thousand. The bills themselves are read from each vendor's own pricing page or checkout links, with the reading date on record; the division is ours and says nothing the bill does not. Where a vendor publishes no per-band figure at a size — Mailchimp above 500 contacts, ActiveCampaign above 1,000 — there is no bill to divide, and the cell stays empty rather than estimated. The bills behind every figure here are priced vendor by vendor in our guide at 2,500 subscribers, at 1,000 and the larger marks linked below.
| Platform (plan) | Per 1,000 at 2,500 | Per 1,000 at 10,000 | Per 1,000 at 25,000 | The bill it comes from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GetResponse (Starter) | $29 → $11.60 | $79 → $7.90 | $174 → $6.96 | Monthly bills read from its checkout links; falls 40% across the three marks |
| MailerLite (Comfort) | $33 → $13.20 | $89 → $8.90 | $179 → $7.16 | Fully printed ten-band ladder; the biggest fall here, down 46% |
| Omnisend (Standard) | $44 → $17.60 | $132 → $13.20 | $282 → $11.28 | Rate table embedded in its pricing page; down 36% |
| Klaviyo (Email) | $60 → $24.00 | $150 → $15.00 | $400 → $16.00 | 49 published rungs; down 33% overall — but the only rate that climbs between two marks |
| EmailOctopus (Pro) | $20 → $8.00 | $44.50 → $4.45 | — | All 44 bands printed; the floor of the table at both sizes we quote |
| Mailchimp | No published per-band price above 500 contacts | The US page renders one band at a time; nothing to divide | ||
| ActiveCampaign | No published price above 1,000 contacts | Its entire price list exists at 1,000 contacts, billed yearly | ||
Three readings. First, the spread is a pricing decision, not a law of nature. The same 2,500-subscriber list costs $8 per thousand on EmailOctopus and $24 on Klaviyo — three times as much for the same names, $720 a year against $240. At 25,000 the multiple is still 2.3 ($6.96 against $16.00), a $4,800 annual bill against $2,088. Second, size is the discount. MailerLite's rate drops 46% from the 2,500 mark to the 25,000 mark ($13.20 to $7.16), GetResponse's 40%, Omnisend's 36%, Klaviyo's 33% — nobody's ladder gets more expensive per head as it widens. Third, the one climb. Klaviyo is the exception that proves the shape matters: its per-thousand rate falls from $24.00 to $15.00 between 2,500 and 10,000, then rises back to $16.00 at 25,000 — the only rate on any ladder we have read that costs more per thousand at a larger mark. The rung arithmetic behind it is priced out in our Klaviyo ladder guide.
Entry bands invert the picture. The first paid band on every contact-billed platform covers 0–500 contacts, and dividing those small bills by half a thousand produces the highest unit prices in this whole comparison:
| Platform (entry plan) | Monthly bill at 0–500 | Per 1,000 at 500 contacts |
|---|---|---|
| AWeber (Lite) | $15 | $30.00 |
| Mailchimp (Essentials) | $13 | $26.00 |
| Constant Contact (Lite) | $12 | $24.00 |
| EmailOctopus (Pro) | $9 | $18.00 |
A 500-contact list on Mailchimp Essentials pays $26 per thousand — more than Klaviyo charges per thousand at 10,000 subscribers ($15.00), and more than four times EmailOctopus's rate at the same 10,000 mark. Scale the list and the rate falls; stay small and you are paying premium-tool unit prices for entry-tool features. The one-band-first-step versions of this trap are steeper still: a MailerLite list that crosses from 1,000 to 1,001 subscribers jumps from $19 to $33 a month — and at that band edge the effective rate is $32.97 per thousand, the highest figure we computed on this page. Where each first paid step lands is priced in our guide at 1,000 subscribers.
Prepaying reshuffles the per-thousand ranking more than the sticker prices suggest. At 25,000 subscribers, MailerLite's 10% annual discount takes the monthly-equivalent bill from $179 to $161.10 — $6.44 per thousand instead of $7.16. GetResponse's 18% prepay takes $174 to $142.68 — $5.71 per thousand instead of $6.96 — widening an already existing lead. Klaviyo and Omnisend publish no annual rate at any size, so their per-thousand rates are what they are; there is no cheaper variant to elect. The full two-cycle picture, vendor by vendor, is in our annual vs monthly read.
Every bill divided on this page comes from the vendor's own pricing page, checkout links or embedded rate table, with the reading date attached in the line at the top. Where a band price is not published, no rate is computed — the Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign rows are empty for that reason, not oversight. If you would rather price your own list size, the cost calculator shows the published bill at every band from 500 to 30,000 subscribers and leaves the gaps blank. The same exercise at single marks is in our bill at 2,500 subscribers and at 10,000, and the rules we verify by are on our methodology page.
Among the contact-billed platforms we price, $8.00 (EmailOctopus Pro) to $24.00 (Klaviyo) per thousand for a 2,500-subscriber list, $4.45 to $15.00 at 10,000, and $6.96 (GetResponse) to $16.00 (Klaviyo) at 25,000. Kit is $0 per thousand up to 10,000 subscribers, MailerLite's 1,001-subscriber band edge works out at $32.97 per thousand, and Mailjet's volume-based Essential plan carries 5,000 subscribers at $3.80 per thousand. Each figure is the vendor's own monthly bill divided by list size.
On every contact-band ladder we priced, yes — MailerLite falls 46% from $13.20 at 2,500 to $7.16 at 25,000, GetResponse 40%, Omnisend 36%, Klaviyo 33%. The one exception is a climb within a single vendor's curve: Klaviyo's rate rises from $15.00 at 10,000 to $16.00 at 25,000.
No. This page prices tools — the platform fee for storing and sending to a list. Buying or renting email addresses is a different market we do not price, and every platform named here prohibits purchased lists in its terms; the bounces they generate count against the same sending allowances these plans set.
Where an annual rate is published, yes: at 25,000 subscribers MailerLite's 10% discount takes the rate to $6.44 per thousand and GetResponse's 18% prepay to $5.71. Klaviyo and Omnisend publish no annual rate at any size.
Kit, at $0 per thousand for lists up to 10,000 on its free plan. Among paid contact-band bills, EmailOctopus Pro at $44.50 a month for 10,000 subscribers — $4.45 per thousand — is the lowest we verified. Mailjet's Essential plan reaches $3.80 per thousand at 5,000 subscribers, but it bills email volume rather than contacts.