Updated October 6, 2026 · Prices read from vendor pricing pages: MailerLite September 21, 2026 (nightly re-checks through October 6), Klaviyo September 24, 2026 (re-checked October 1), GetResponse October 1, 2026 (re-verified October 3), Kit October 2, 2026, Mailchimp October 1, 2026, Omnisend October 7, 2026 (rate-table data inside its own pricing page), Brevo September 30, 2026 · Affiliate disclosure

What Email Marketing Costs at 5,000 Subscribers

Q: What happens when I cross 5,000 subscribers?

GetResponse moves Starter from $54 to $79 a month — $300 a year more, a 46% increase, the steepest step at this mark because its next published size is 10,000. MailerLite moves Comfort from $49 to the 8,000 band at $69 — $240 a year more, 41%. Klaviyo's finer 49-rung ladder steps to 5,500 at $110 — $120 a year more, 10%. Omnisend's 5,001 to 5,500 band bills $88 — $84 a year more, about 9%, the gentlest. Kit stays free to 10,000.

Q: Is annual billing worth it at 5,000 subscribers?

Yes, and 5,000 is where the discount structures nearly erase each other. GetResponse's 12-month prepay costs $531.36 against $648 — an 18% saving. MailerLite's yearly rate costs $529.20 ($44.10 a month, 10% off its $49). The result: on monthly billing MailerLite is $5 a month cheaper, but billed yearly the two land just $2.16 apart for the same 5,000-person list. Klaviyo and Omnisend publish no annual rate at any size, so their $1,200 and $972 years are arithmetic, not an option you can choose.

Q: Why don't Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign show a 5,000-subscriber price?

Two different mechanisms, one result. Mailchimp's US page renders one contact band at a time inside a plan selector, and its published figures stop at the 0–500 band. ActiveCampaign's entire printed price list — Starter $15, Plus $49, Pro $79, Enterprise $145 — exists only at 1,000 contacts billed yearly; larger sizes live inside an interactive selector rather than on the page. We leave both blank rather than estimate.

TL;DR: At 5,000 subscribers, the published bills span $0 to $100 a month. Kit's free plan carries the whole list for nothing. MailerLite Comfort bills $49 (monthly billing), GetResponse Starter $54, Omnisend Standard $81, Klaviyo $100 ($1,200 a year, no annual rate published). Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign print nothing at this size; Brevo bills volume, not contacts. The quirk of this mark: billed yearly, MailerLite and GetResponse land just $2.16 apart — $529.20 against $531.36 for the same list — despite stickers $5 a month apart. And crossing 5,001 splits the market: GetResponse charges $300 a year more, Omnisend $84.

Why 5,000 is the number to price

Five thousand subscribers is where the budget ladders stop being obviously ordered. Below this mark the cheap platforms hold their shape: at 1,000, five of the six contact-band vendors quote a figure inside a $30 spread. At 5,000, GetResponse's second band — the one that covers 1,001 through 5,000 at $29 — comes to the end of its run, MailerLite is three bands into a ladder that re-prices every thousand names, and the gap between "budget" and "premium" has widened from $11 to $51 a month. It is also the first mark in this series where two vendors go quiet at once: Mailchimp's published figures stop at the 0–500 band, and ActiveCampaign's printed list exists only at 1,000 contacts.

So we priced one list — 5,000 subscribers, monthly billing unless stated — at every platform we cover, from each vendor's own page, and then priced the same list at 5,001 to see what crossing the line costs. Where a vendor doesn't publish the figure, we say so: no interpolations, no calculator scraping, no estimated cells.

The bill at 5,000, vendor by vendor

Platform	Monthly bill at 5,000	Annual bill	What the page actually shows
Kit	$0 — free plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers	$0	Printed on the page. The first paid step past 10,000 lives in an on-page slider
MailerLite (Comfort)	$49, 50,000 emails a month	$529.20 billed yearly ($44.10 a month, 10% off)	Fully printed — the whole ten-band ladder on the page, and this mark sits mid-ladder: 8,000 and 10,000 bands follow
GetResponse (Starter)	$54, unlimited sends	$531.36 prepaid — 82% of twelve monthly payments, an 18% saving	Hidden in its own checkout links; the band holding this list ends at 5,000, and the next published size is 10,000
Omnisend (Standard)	$81, for the 4,501 to 5,000 contact band	No annual rate printed; $972 is twelve monthly payments by arithmetic	Printed in the rate table embedded in its pricing page; the Pro plan bills $90 at this same band
Klaviyo (Email)	$100	$1,200 — arithmetic only; no annual rate is published at any size	Printed, on the rung covering the 5,000-profile mark of its 49-rung ladder; 50,000 emails a month
Mailchimp (Standard)	Not published	Annual plans below 10,000 contacts are not offered self-serve	The US page renders one band at a time; its published figures stop at the 0–500 band
ActiveCampaign (Starter)	Not published at 5,000	—	Its entire printed list exists at 1,000 contacts billed yearly — Starter $15, Plus $49, Pro $79, Enterprise $145; larger sizes live inside a selector
Brevo	Not published by contact count	—	Brevo bills monthly email volume, not contacts — its $9 Starter and $18 Standard plans are volume plans, and the contact-by-volume matrix exists only inside an on-page calculator

Three things stand out. First, the convergence: on monthly billing MailerLite undercuts GetResponse by $5 — $60 over a year — but billed yearly the two land $2.16 apart, because GetResponse discounts 18% against MailerLite's 10%. A buyer comparing yearly totals would see near-identical bills for platforms priced $5 a month apart. Second, the premium for data depth holds in absolute dollars: Klaviyo's $100 is $51 a month above MailerLite — $612 a year more for the same list, on top of an allowance structure that gives both 50,000 emails a month at this size. Third, the mid-ladder squeeze: MailerLite's $49 is 2.6 times its $19 at 1,000, while Klaviyo's $100 is 3.3 times its $30 — the percentage cost of growing is steeper on the premium platform even as its rungs stay gentler in shape.

Subscriber 5,001: the steepest and the gentlest step

The bill at 5,000 matters less than the bill at 5,001, because contact-band pricing bills you by the band you land in, and at this mark the bands diverge more than the stickers do:

GetResponse: +$300 a year, +46% — the steepest. Its band ends at 5,000 and the next published size is 10,000, so subscriber 5,001 moves Starter from $54 to $79 a month — $25 a month for one name. The same missing-band mechanics reappear at 10,000, where subscriber 10,001 bills at the 25,000 size: +$1,140 a year, +120%.
MailerLite: +$240 a year, +41%. Comfort moves from $49 to the 8,000 band at $69 a month — and the ladder keeps stepping every few thousand names after that ($89 at 10,000, $129 at 15,000). The full ten-band ladder, and the cumulative counting rule that decides when you actually cross it, is in our MailerLite pricing guide.
Klaviyo: +$120 a year, +10%. The next rung is 5,500 at $110 a month — finer steps by design, with 49 published rungs against MailerLite's ten and GetResponse's seven. All 49 rungs are priced in our Klaviyo pricing guide.
Omnisend: +$84 a year, about +9% — the gentlest. The 5,001 to 5,500 band bills $88 a month against $81. Omnisend's rate table prices every 500-contact band through the mid-ladder, which is why its steps stay small where the others leap — though its Standard bill has already climbed from $20 at 1,000 to $81 here. The band-by-band read is in our Omnisend pricing breakdown.
Kit: no bill at all. The free plan carries 5,001 subscribers the same way it carries 5,000 — for nothing, all the way to 10,000. How that ceiling compares against a paid ladder at three sizes is in our Kit vs MailerLite comparison.

The pattern to take away: at 5,000 subscribers you are billed by the band's top, and the band above 5,000 is priced on a different axis by every vendor. A list sitting at 4,900 names is $84 to $300 a year away from a step change — and which one depends entirely on the platform. Price the boundary, not your count.

Is annual billing worth it at this size?

At 5,000 subscribers the annual decision produces the closest finish we have measured in this series. GetResponse's 12-month prepay costs $531.36 against $648 — an 18% saving, the deepest in the category. MailerLite takes 10% off — $529.20 against the same $648. On monthly billing the two sit $5 apart; on yearly billing, $2.16. If you pay annually, the sticker difference between them effectively disappears, and the choice should be made on features rather than the rate card. Klaviyo and Omnisend publish no annual rate at any size, so their $1,200 and $972 years are twelve monthly payments by arithmetic, and nothing you can opt into. Mailchimp does not offer annual plans below 10,000 contacts self-serve at all. The same comparison at a smaller mark, where the yearly gap is far wider, is in our bill at 2,500 subscribers.

Who should not switch

Kit users anywhere under 10,000 subscribers. At 5,000 the gap between Kit and the cheapest paid alternative is the entire bill: $529.20 a year on MailerLite's yearly rate, $1,200 on Klaviyo. If Kit's creator-focused feature set fits, leaving means buying a bill you do not currently have. The time to compare is when you are about to cross 10,000 — not before.
Store owners on Klaviyo. Klaviyo bills the most at this size — $612 a year more than MailerLite — but its flows, segmentation and revenue attribution are wired into the store's data. If email drives a measurable share of revenue, price the switch in lost attribution, not just the $612.
Light senders on Brevo. Brevo's free plan allows 300 emails a day regardless of contact count, so a 5,000-contact list that sends a few small campaigns a week may owe nothing at all. Moving to a contact-band vendor converts that into a $44.10–$100 monthly bill. The pairing is priced in our Brevo vs MailerLite comparison.
Lists growing in small steps on GetResponse. If your list sits between 4,000 and 5,000 and adds a few hundred names a year, GetResponse's $54 band is the cheapest unlimited-send bill here — but the moment you cross 5,000, the $25 jump makes MailerLite the cheaper monthly rate. Model your renewal-date list size, not today's.
Anyone mid-cycle on a cumulative counter. MailerLite counts any address active during the cycle until the billing anniversary, deleted or not, and Omnisend bills non-subscribers who received automated messages toward the band. Before switching, price your next band on the new platform — at this size, the band above 5,000 is where the money is.

How we keep these numbers honest

Every figure comes from the vendor's own pricing page, checkout links or plan documentation, with the reading date attached. Where a band price is not published, the cell stays empty — for Mailchimp's contact ladder and for ActiveCampaign's selector-only sizes. 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 other marks is in our bill at 2,500 subscribers, our bill at 1,000 and our bill at 10,000, where the spread widens to $0–$150.

Frequently asked questions

How much does email marketing cost at 5,000 subscribers?

From $0 to $100 a month among the vendors that publish the figure: Kit's free plan carries 5,000 subscribers at no cost, MailerLite Comfort bills $49 (monthly billing; $44.10 a month billed yearly), GetResponse Starter $54 ($531.36 prepaid for the year), Omnisend Standard $81 for the 4,501 to 5,000 band, and Klaviyo's Email plan $100 ($1,200 a year, no annual rate published). Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign publish no figure at this size, and Brevo bills email volume rather than contacts.

What happens when I cross 5,000 subscribers?

GetResponse moves from $54 to $79 a month — $300 a year more, a 46% increase, the steepest step at this mark. MailerLite moves from $49 to the 8,000 band at $69 — $240 a year more, 41%. Klaviyo's finer 49-rung ladder steps to 5,500 at $110 — $120 a year more, 10%. Omnisend's 5,001 to 5,500 band bills $88 — $84 a year more, the gentlest. Kit stays free to 10,000.

Is 5,000 subscribers still free anywhere?

On contact-based pricing, only on Kit, whose free plan runs to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited sends on one seat. Brevo can also carry a 5,000-contact list free if sending stays under 300 emails a day, because it bills volume rather than contacts. Every other free ceiling sits at or below 500 accounts.

Is annual billing worth it at 5,000 subscribers?

Yes — and 5,000 is where the discount structures nearly erase each other: GetResponse's prepay costs $531.36 (18% off $648) and MailerLite's yearly rate $529.20 (10% off $588), landing just $2.16 apart despite stickers $5 a month apart. Klaviyo and Omnisend publish no annual rate at any size, so their years are twelve monthly payments by arithmetic.

Why don't Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign show a 5,000-subscriber price?

Different mechanisms, same result. Mailchimp's US page renders one contact band at a time and its published figures stop at 0–500 contacts, so no 5,000-contact price exists in the page source. ActiveCampaign's printed price list exists only at 1,000 contacts billed yearly; larger sizes live inside an interactive selector. We leave both blank rather than estimate.

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