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Verified Free / Business

Is Mailchimp actually free?

Free-ish
How free46/100
Value4/10
How these scores work
Free Score (0–100) follows a fixed rubric: cards up front, auto-billing, hard time cutoffs, withheld core features, and paying with your data or attention all deduct points. 90–100 truly free · 70–89 free forever · 45–69 squeezed · 15–44 trial mechanics · under 15 fake or gone. Value (0–10) is editorial: real-world worth of the free offering measured against its paid equivalent. Full rubric on the methodology page.

Barely, anymore. The famous free plan was cut again in early 2026 to 250 contacts and 500 sends a month with a 250-a-day cap — down from 2,000 contacts a few years ago — with no scheduling, no multi-step automation, and Mailchimp branding on every email.

Use this instead — actually free

HubSpot CRMEmail marketing with far more generous free limits, plus a full CRM
What it’s worth

Paid email tools start around $10–15/month — and several rivals' free tiers now beat this one outright.

What you get free

  • A drag-and-drop email builder and basic templates
  • Up to 250 contacts and 500 sends a month (250/day)
  • Basic signup forms and reporting

In practice: enough to test the editor and email a tiny list — a club, not a business. Anything growing outgrows this in weeks.

Drawbacks

  • Limits shrank roughly 96% from the plan's heyday
  • Unsubscribed contacts still count toward your 250
  • Can't send twice a month to even a modest full list

Also paywalled

  • Email scheduling
  • Multi-step automation
  • Removing Mailchimp branding
  • Support beyond the first 30 days

What the free tier actually gives you

Card requiredNo
Free plan or trialFree plan
Their brandingOn free tier
Export your workYes
Commercial useAllowed
Time limitNone

Same questions, same order, for every listing in Business — so you can compare them side by side. Deliberately no exact allowances: those change monthly, the shape of the limit doesn't.

Free facts

VerdictFree-ish
Card requiredNo
Auto-bills—
AccountRequired
Limits250 contacts, 500 sends/month, 250/day; no scheduling
The real costA free tier cut so thin it's now a demo: 250 contacts, 500 sends a month.

The catch

This is the textbook shrinking free tier: repeated cuts since the Intuit acquisition, and even unsubscribed contacts count against your 250. What was once the default free newsletter tool is now an evaluation sandbox with a famous name.

The smart play

  • Archive unsubscribed and stale contacts — they count against your 250
  • Compare free tiers before committing: several competitors offer multiples of these limits
  • If you stay, watch the annual limit changes; this plan has been cut four times

Common questions

Does Mailchimp require a credit card?
No — Mailchimp does not ask for a card to use the free version. Auto-billing: —.
What are the limits of Mailchimp's free plan?
250 contacts, 500 sends/month, 250/day; no scheduling. This is the textbook shrinking free tier: repeated cuts since the Intuit acquisition, and even unsubscribed contacts count against your 250. What was once the default free newsletter tool is now an evaluation sandbox with a famous name.
What is a free alternative to Mailchimp?
HubSpot CRM. HubSpot CRM: Email marketing with far more generous free limits, plus a full CRM
How do I use Mailchimp without paying?
Archive unsubscribed and stale contacts — they count against your 250 Compare free tiers before committing: several competitors offer multiples of these limits If you stay, watch the annual limit changes; this plan has been cut four times
What does Mailchimp really cost?
A free tier cut so thin it's now a demo: 250 contacts, 500 sends a month.
Why is Mailchimp free?
A free tier cut so thin it's now a demo: 250 contacts, 500 sends a month. Paid email tools start around $10–15/month — and several rivals' free tiers now beat this one outright.
Is Mailchimp still free?
As of our last check, partly — and the free tier is squeezed. Barely, anymore. The famous free plan was cut again in early 2026 to 250 contacts and 500 sends a month with a 250-a-day cap — down from 2,000 contacts a few years ago — with no scheduling, no multi-step automation, and Mailchimp branding on every email. Free tiers change without notice, which is why every page here carries the date it was checked.

More info — tap to expand

How the free plan shrank, year by year
Before 2022: 2,000 contacts and 10,000 sends. Then 500 contacts. Then 1,000 sends. Then, in early 2026, 250 contacts and 500 sends with a daily cap. Each cut arrived by email to a user base that had built on the old numbers — a case study in why 'free forever' needs a date stamp.
The unsubscribed-contacts rule
Mailchimp counts subscribed, non-subscribed, and unsubscribed contacts identically against your limit. People who opted out years ago still occupy slots until you manually archive them. On a 250-contact ceiling, that housekeeping is the difference between free and blocked.

Last checked: August 2026site-wide date · Verdict: Free-ish — a free tier exists, but it's shaped to squeeze you toward paying.

Ratings elsewhereG2 4.3/5Trustpilot 1.3/5App Store 4.9/552KGoogle Play 4.7/524KLive scores from the sources named — not ours. Store counts rounded.

What users actually say

Trustpilot 1.3/5 · G2 4.3/5

What they praiseMarketers still rate the platform's ease of use and templates well — it's the reason people started here.
What they complain aboutThe complaint pattern is the shrinking free tier: reviewers describe repeated cuts (2,000 contacts, then 500, now 250) and sudden bills when a list crosses the line. The word that recurs is 'bait'.

The negative reviews aren't about the software failing — they're about the free plan shrinking underneath people who built on it. That's a different kind of failure.

Our reading of the public review record — patterns, not quotes. Scores link to their sources above.

Visit Mailchimp →

Was this verdict right?

Free tiers change without notice. If you have just used it, you know something we don't.

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