Moosend vs Mailchimp Pricing 2026: Which Actually Costs Less?

Moosend starts at $9/month. Mailchimp starts at $13/month. Both do email marketing, but the pricing gap grows fast as your list scales, and the features you get at each price point are dramatically different.

Here’s the full cost breakdown at every contact level, including the hidden fees that make the real difference.

The real cost: side by side at every list size

Both tools price by contact count. Here’s what you actually pay on comparable plans (monthly billing):

Contacts	Moosend Pro	Mailchimp Essentials	Mailchimp Standard	Difference (Moosend vs Essentials)
500	$9	$13	$20	Moosend saves $4/mo
1,000	$16	$13	$20	Mailchimp saves $3/mo
2,500	$32	$39	$60	Moosend saves $7/mo
5,000	$48	$69	$87	Moosend saves $21/mo
10,000	$88	$100	$135	Moosend saves $12/mo
25,000	$160	$230	$270	Moosend saves $70/mo
50,000	$315	$385	$450	Moosend saves $70/mo

At 500 contacts, the gap is negligible. At 25,000+, Moosend saves you $70–$135/month depending on which Mailchimp tier you’d need. That’s $840–$1,620/year in savings.

What each plan actually includes

Moosend Pro, starting at $9/mo

Every paid Moosend user gets the same feature set. There’s no feature-gating between tiers:

• Unlimited emails, no send limits, period
• Automation workflows with a visual builder
• Landing pages and subscription forms
• A/B testing
• Segmentation and personalization
• AI Writer for subject lines and copy
• Real-time analytics and reporting
• SMTP server and transactional emails

The only variable is your contact count. A 500-subscriber business gets the exact same tools as a 50,000-subscriber business.

Mailchimp Essentials, starting at $13/mo

• Email send limit: 10x your contact count (500 contacts = 5,000 emails/mo)
• Basic email templates
• A/B testing
• Basic automation only (single-step)
• 24/7 email and chat support
• Remove Mailchimp branding

Mailchimp Standard, starting at $20/mo

• Email send limit: 12x your contact count
• Advanced automation (multi-step customer journeys)
• Predictive segmentation
• Send time optimization
• Campaign manager
• Custom-coded templates

The critical difference: Moosend includes full automation at $9/mo. Mailchimp gates it behind the $20/mo Standard plan. If you need automation (and most email marketers do), Mailchimp’s real starting price is $20, not $13.

The hidden costs nobody mentions

Mailchimp’s contact counting is punishing

Mailchimp counts unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts toward your limit. If 1,000 people signed up and 300 unsubscribed, you’re paying for 1,000 contacts even though you can only email 700. This inflates your bill by 20–40% over time.

Moosend only counts active subscribers.

Mailchimp’s free plan is effectively dead

Mailchimp’s free plan was gutted to 250 contacts and 500 emails/month. That’s one email blast to a tiny list. It exists for marketing purposes (“Look, we have a free plan!”) but it’s unusable for any real business.

Moosend’s 30-day free trial gives you up to 1,000 contacts with unlimited emails and full feature access. It’s a better “free” experience despite not being a permanent plan.

Mailchimp’s send limits can bite

At 5,000 contacts on Essentials, you can send 50,000 emails/month. If you email your list twice a week (8x/month), that’s 40,000 emails, cutting it close. Weekly newsletters + automation sequences can push you over.

Moosend: unlimited. Send as much as you want.

Where Mailchimp still wins

Brand recognition and integrations. Mailchimp connects to virtually everything: every e-commerce platform, every CRM, every form builder. If you need a specific integration, Mailchimp almost certainly has it.

Mailchimp’s Standard plan has genuinely excellent automation tools. The customer journey builder is visual, flexible, and well-designed. If you’re on Standard and using it fully, the tool earns its price.

The ecosystem. Mailchimp’s website builder, CRM, and social posting tools (basic as they are) mean you can do more from one dashboard. Moosend is focused purely on email.

Who should choose which

Choose Moosend if:

• Budget matters and you want full features without tier-climbing
• You need automation from day one at a low price
• Your list is 5,000+ contacts (the savings become significant)
• You want unlimited sends without watching limits
• You’re migrating from Mailchimp and tired of price increases

Choose Mailchimp if:

• You need a specific Mailchimp integration that Moosend doesn’t support
• You’re already deeply invested in Mailchimp’s ecosystem
• You need the Standard plan’s customer journey builder for complex sequences
• Brand familiarity matters more than cost optimization

The verdict

For most small businesses and growing email lists, Moosend is the better value. You get more features at a lower price, with no send limits and no contact-counting tricks. The savings compound as your list grows. A business with 25,000 contacts saves $840–$1,620/year by choosing Moosend over Mailchimp.

Mailchimp earns its premium only if you’re using the Standard plan’s advanced automation tools extensively, or if you depend on integrations that Moosend doesn’t support. For everyone else, it’s hard to justify paying more for less.

Read the full breakdowns: Moosend pricing | Mailchimp pricing

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Pricing sourced from Moosend’s official pricing page and Mailchimp’s pricing page. Last checked February 2026.