Mailchimp just cut its free plan twice in three months. In January 2026, the free tier dropped from 500 contacts and 1,000 sends a month to 250 contacts and 500 sends. In April, legacy account holders — anyone who signed up before May 2019 — got hit with an additional 11–13% price increase on top of that.
If you're running a newsletter on Mailchimp and your list has crossed 2,500 contacts, this is the moment to actually run the numbers instead of renewing on autopilot.
What Mailchimp Costs You Right Now
Mailchimp prices by contact count, not by how much you send. Here's what the Standard plan — the tier most newsletter creators land on, since it's where multi-step automation unlocks — actually costs as your list grows:
500 contacts: $20/month
2,500 contacts: around $60/month
5,000 contacts: $100/month
10,000 contacts: around $135/month
That's $1,200 a year at 5,000 contacts, climbing past $1,600 a year once you cross 10,000. And that's before any of Mailchimp's known hidden costs kick in.
Mailchimp bills you for unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts sitting in your account. Unless you manually archive them, dead contacts keep counting toward your plan limit — and your bill. If your list has any churn at all, you could be paying full price for subscribers who can't even receive your emails anymore.
Beehiiv's Flat-Fee Math, Side by Side
Beehiiv charges one flat rate per tier, with no per-contact scaling and no charge for unsubscribed contacts:
Scale plan: $49/month flat, covers 2,500–10,000 subscribers
Max plan: $99/month flat, covers 10,000–100,000 subscribers
Run the same tiers through both platforms:
At 2,500 contacts: Mailchimp Standard ~$60/month vs. Beehiiv Scale $49/month
At 5,000 contacts: Mailchimp Standard $100/month vs. Beehiiv Scale $49/month — a $612/year difference
At 10,000 contacts: Mailchimp Standard ~$135/month vs. Beehiiv Max $99/month — a $432/year difference
The gap widens every time your list grows. On Mailchimp, growth raises your bill. On Beehiiv, your bill is fixed until you cross into the next tier — and the tiers are wide enough that most creators sit in one for a long time.
How to Actually Migrate (Without Losing a Subscriber)
Export your audience. In Mailchimp, go to Audience → All Contacts → Export Audience. This pulls a CSV with names, emails, tags, and subscription status — keep this file as your backup regardless of what happens next.
Clean the list before you import it. Archive unsubscribed and bounced contacts in Mailchimp first. There's no reason to pay to migrate dead weight, and a cleaner list protects your sender reputation on Beehiiv from day one.
Import into Beehiiv. You can build this on Beehiiv, which accepts a direct CSV import and automatically tags contacts as imported subscribers rather than organic signups — important for keeping your engagement metrics accurate.
Rebuild your automations manually. Mailchimp's customer journeys don't transfer. Budget an afternoon to recreate your welcome sequence and any drip campaigns directly in Beehiiv's automation builder.
Point your domain and update your forms. Update your signup forms, embed codes, and any link-in-bio tools to point to your new Beehiiv-hosted pages before you fully cut over.
Send a test issue before you cancel Mailchimp. Confirm formatting, links, and deliverability look right, then cancel your Mailchimp subscription once you're confident the migration held.
Most creators with lists under 10,000 contacts complete this in a single afternoon.
What You Actually Gain Beyond the Price
The cost savings are the easiest thing to point to, but they're not the only reason creators migrate. Beehiiv includes a built-in ad network and a referral/Boosts system for paid growth — neither of which Mailchimp offers natively for newsletter monetization. If you're trying to turn a list into income rather than just maintaining a mailing tool, that distinction matters more as your list grows.
If you're earlier in this decision and weighing automation depth against a simpler flat-fee platform, our Kit-to-Beehiiv breakdown covers the same cost-math approach for creators coming from Kit — worth a read if you're comparing more than one platform before you commit.
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