Home › Guides › MailerLite pricing and hidden costs
Updated October 2, 2026 · Tier prices read from MailerLite's own pricing page, September 21, 2026, and re-verified through the nightly check on October 3, 2026 · Counting rules and plan terms re-checked October 3, 2026 · Affiliate disclosure
MailerLite prices one quantity: subscribers — and, per its own plan terms, subscribers counted on a cumulative basis within each billing cycle. Your count picks the band, the band sets the bill, and the band also sets a send allowance of ten emails per subscriber per month, so the 10,000 band carries 100,000 emails whether the calendar needs them or not. The feature set is identical on every paid plan — the page's own wording is that you pay more only for a bigger list or more sending — which makes MailerLite the rare platform where the buying decision is purely a list-size question. The Power plan sells the same toolset at roughly double the Comfort price for accounts running several brands or funnels.
The table below lists the Comfort bands a growing list actually crosses, exactly as published on MailerLite's pricing page. All ten were read on September 21, 2026, and the nightly price check has reported no change through October 3, 2026.
| Subscribers | Comfort, monthly | Billed yearly (−10%) | Emails per month | Cost per 1,000 subscribers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free plan | $0 | — | 2,500 total | — |
| 500 | $12 | $10.80/mo · $129.60/yr | 5,000 | $24.00 |
| 1,000 | $19 | $17.10/mo | 10,000 | $19.00 |
| 2,500 | $33 | $29.70/mo · $356.40/yr | 25,000 | $13.20 |
| 5,000 | $49 | $44.10/mo | 50,000 | $9.80 |
| 8,000 | $69 | $62.10/mo | 80,000 | $8.63 |
| 10,000 | $89 | $80.10/mo · $961.20/yr | 100,000 | $8.90 |
| 15,000 | $129 | $116.10/mo | 150,000 | $8.60 |
| 20,000 | $159 | $143.10/mo · $1,717.20/yr | 200,000 | $7.95 |
| 25,000 | $179 | $161.10/mo | 250,000 | $7.16 |
| 30,000 | $229 | $206.10/mo | 300,000 | $7.63 |
The Power plan covers the same ten sizes at $25, $39, $49, $69, $99, $129, $179, $219, $239 and $279 a month, with the same 10% off billed yearly ($1,393.20 a year at 10,000 subscribers). Above 30,000 subscribers both plans move to a quote.
MailerLite's plan terms count active subscribers, and the definition does the damage: any address that was active at any point during the billing cycle counts toward your limit, even if it is deleted later, and the count only resets on your billing anniversary. Unsubscribed and bounced addresses do not count — but an address you actively delete in the middle of a cycle stays in the bill until the anniversary arrives. A buyer who trims a 10,000-subscriber list down to 6,000 in January still bills $89 a month at the 10,000 band until the anniversary resets the count; the cleanup is real, but the invoice does not know it yet. This is the opposite failure mode from a per-send platform, where a quiet month bills less: on MailerLite the bill follows the largest the list was during the cycle, not the smallest it has become. We trace the same rule's effect in the cross-vendor hidden fees guide.
Each band prices its ceiling, not your count. One subscriber past 1,000 puts the account in the up-to-2,500 band, and the Comfort bill moves from $19 to $33 a month — $14 more, or $168 a year, for a single extra name, a 74% step on the whole plan. The step is not negotiable and, per the counting rule above, not reversible mid-cycle. The ladder does reward scale on average: the cost per 1,000 subscribers falls from $24.00 at the 500 band to $8.63 at 8,000. But the fall is not monotone — at 10,000 the unit cost rises back to $8.90 ($89 for 10,000 against $69 for 8,000), falls to $7.16 at 25,000, then rises again to $7.63 at 30,000. A buyer sizing a list near a band boundary should price both bands before signing, because the cheaper per-unit band is not always the one the list lands in. Our MailerLite vs Mailchimp comparison prices this band-step logic against Mailchimp's auto-billed overages, and the list-size cost calculator runs all ten bands at any count you enter.
The annual discount is the honest part of the page: 10% off every band, both plans, printed in the open, unconditional and without an expiry date. $12 becomes $10.80 a month, $89 becomes $80.10, and the yearly totals are the discounted monthly times twelve — $129.60, $356.40, $961.20. Three terms in the plan documentation temper it. An annual plan cannot be moved to monthly billing until the term expires, so prepaying a year at a list size you expect to shrink is a bet the counting rule above makes riskier. Downgrades start at the next cycle rather than immediately. And only one discount applies at a time, so the promotional code the page currently shows toward a first month cannot stack with the annual rate — the code is a trial lever for monthly buyers, not a second discount. None of this makes the annual rate a trap; it makes it a commitment priced at exactly one tenth off.
Every price in the ladder above is for marketing email. Receipts, password resets, order confirmations — the transactional side — are sold by MailerLite as a separate product with its own pricing page, not as a feature of any band. A store that needs both streams should budget two line items, and a buyer comparing platforms on total email cost should normalize for it: Brevo includes transactional sending on every plan including its free tier, which turns "cheaper sticker" comparisons the other way at the small end. Our Brevo vs MailerLite comparison prices both models at 500, 2,500 and 10,000 subscribers.
MailerLite retired its old plan names: the tiers once called Growing Business and Advanced now run as Comfort and Power, alongside a restructured free plan. The rename matters for buyers because a lot of the guidance still circulating quotes the retired ladder — including figures like $15 a month at 5,000 subscribers, a price the current Comfort plan does not offer: the 5,000 band bills $49. If a review or comparison quotes a MailerLite price that looks too good, check whether it is reading the old names before concluding the platform is cheap; the ten bands in the table above are the ladder that bills.
The free plan covers 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails a month and two user seats — the most generous seat allowance among the free tiers we have read, and a subscriber-shaped allowance rather than a daily-send one. Crossing the ceiling means the 500 band at $12 a month: $144 a year on monthly billing, $129.60 on the annual rate, for four times the subscribers and double the sends. Within the free plan's own limits nothing bills — sending stops at the cap rather than invoicing an overage. Our free-plan guide prices the first paid year across six vendors at 500, 2,500 and 10,000 subscribers.
The ten Comfort band prices and the Power ladder on this page were read from MailerLite's own pricing page on September 21, 2026, and the nightly price check has reported no change through October 3, 2026; the counting rules, plan terms and free-plan caps were re-checked on October 3, 2026. All three dates are printed above. Nothing on this page is converted, interpolated or estimated, and where MailerLite publishes nothing — the quote-only tiers above 30,000 subscribers — we say so rather than fill the cell. Our methodology page explains the full process, and our disclosure explains what affiliate commissions do and do not change. For the opposite transparency profile — a short published list with annual rates in six currencies — see our Brevo guide; for the ladder that hides 21 of its prices in checkout links, our GetResponse guide; and for where MailerLite's own ladder stops being the cheapest option, the best MailerLite alternatives.
Ten Comfort bands: $12 at 500 subscribers, $19 at 1,000, $33 at 2,500, $49 at 5,000, $69 at 8,000, $89 at 10,000, $129 at 15,000, $159 at 20,000, $179 at 25,000 and $229 at 30,000 — Power at $25 to $279 across the same sizes, the full feature set on every paid plan, and ten emails per subscriber per month at every band.
10% off every band on both plans, printed on the page: $12 becomes $10.80 a month, $89 becomes $80.10. The terms: an annual plan cannot convert to monthly until the term ends, downgrades start next cycle, and only one discount applies at a time, so the first-month promotional code does not stack with it.
250 subscribers, 2,500 emails a month and two user seats, with sending stopped — not billed — at the caps. The first paid step is the 500 band at $12 a month, $129.60 a year billed annually.
The bill jumps to the next band's ceiling: one subscriber past 1,000 moves Comfort from $19 to $33 a month — $168 a year for a single extra name. The step is not reversible mid-cycle, because deleted addresses keep counting until the billing anniversary.
Unsubscribed and bounced addresses do not count. But any address that was active at any point in the billing cycle counts even after deletion, until the billing anniversary resets the count — a list trimmed mid-cycle keeps billing at its old band until the anniversary.