For a U.S. small business with about 500 marketable contacts, MailerLite Comfort is the strongest all-around starting point at $12 a month. Brevo Starter costs less if footer branding is acceptable, while Mailchimp and Constant Contact make more sense for specific integration, support, or event needs.
The four entry plans sit within a few dollars of one another, but the subscription price is only the first filter. Sending allowances, automation limits, user seats, branding, and the work required to change platforms can produce a very different real cost.
Prices and plan details were checked against official U.S. vendor pages on September 7, 2026. Figures below use month-to-month starting prices for up to 500 contacts and exclude taxes, temporary promotions, annual-prepayment discounts, optional add-ons, and account-specific offers. Vendors can change pricing or features, so confirm the checkout total before purchasing.
The criteria that change the choice
This comparison applies the same five questions to each plan:
- What is the regular monthly starting price?
- Can the allowance cover campaigns and automated messages during a busy month?
- Does the plan support the required automation without an immediate upgrade?
- Can everyone who needs access have a separate account?
- Would switching erase the savings through setup work or lost functionality?
A lower price does not win automatically. A plan becomes more expensive in practice if the business must buy logo removal, move to a higher tier for a basic workflow, share credentials, or spend days rebuilding forms and integrations.
Free plans are not the main comparison here. MailerLite and Mailchimp limit their free tiers to 250 contacts. Brevo's free plan stores larger lists, but its 300-email daily allowance cannot deliver one campaign to all 500 contacts on the same day.
Swipe sideways to view every column.
| Plan | Monthly | Sends | Main limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| MailerLite Comfort | $12 | 5,000 | Email-only support |
| Brevo Starter | $9 | 5,000 | Brevo footer logo |
| Mailchimp Essentials | $13 | 5,000 | Four-step flows |
| Constant Contact Lite | $12 | 5,000 | One automation template |
Each email delivered to one recipient counts as one send. A newsletter sent to 500 contacts therefore consumes 500 sends, and automated messages, reminders, and resends draw from the same monthly pool.
MailerLite Comfort offers the most room at the entry price
MailerLite Comfort costs $12 per month for up to 500 subscribers. It includes 5,000 monthly emails, three user seats, removal of MailerLite branding, a subscriber preference center, and up to 50 visual automations. The account also includes forms, templates, landing pages, and website tools.
That combination fits a typical owner-managed program: a regular newsletter, lead-magnet delivery, a welcome sequence, customer follow-ups, and a few segmented campaigns. Three seats can cover the owner, an employee, and an outside contractor without requiring a shared password.
The main compromise is support. Comfort includes 24/7 email support, while live chat is reserved for the higher Power plan. A business that expects real-time help during launches may value another provider's support model more than MailerLite's automation capacity.
There is also a billing detail to watch. MailerLite counts active subscribers cumulatively during the billing cycle. An address that was active earlier in the month may continue to count until the billing anniversary even if it is deleted later. Unsubscribed and bounced addresses do not count as active subscribers.
Best fit: a new account with no more than three users that needs unbranded email and several ordinary automations without moving immediately to a higher tier.
Brevo Starter wins on price only when its branding is acceptable
Brevo Starter begins at $9 per month for 5,000 emails and up to 500 stored contacts. It removes the free plan's daily sending restriction, so the full allowance can be used according to the business's schedule. Starter also carries forward Brevo's campaign, transactional email, and multichannel automation capabilities.
The condition is visible in every campaign: Starter emails include a “Sent by Brevo” footer logo by default. Removing it costs another $9 per month. An unbranded Starter setup therefore reaches $18 per month, which is also Brevo Standard's starting price.
That makes the buying rule straightforward. Choose the $9 Starter configuration when one person runs simple campaigns and third-party footer branding does not weaken the presentation. If unbranded email is required, compare Standard with competing $12 and $13 plans instead of treating the logo add-on as a minor expense.
Brevo also links contact storage to the selected email tier. Its first Starter tiers pair 5,000 sends with 500 contacts, 10,000 sends with 1,500 contacts, and 15,000 sends with 2,500 contacts. A list near 500 leaves almost no room for growth on the first tier.
Mailchimp Essentials is easier to defend than to adopt
Mailchimp Essentials starts at $13 per month for 500 contacts. It includes 5,000 monthly sends, three seats, three audiences, email scheduling, A/B testing, removal of Mailchimp branding, and 24/7 email and chat support.
Its main constraint is automation depth. An Essentials flow can contain up to four steps. That can handle a compact welcome series, but longer nurture paths and branching workflows may require Standard, which starts at $20 per month at this contact level.
For a new account, paying more for less automation room is hard to justify unless a required app works better with Mailchimp. The calculation changes for an established account. Mailchimp lists more than 300 integrations, and a business may already rely on connections to its store, appointment system, forms, CRM, or reporting process.
Saving $1 per month does not justify disrupting working integrations or rebuilding years of audience structure. Existing Mailchimp users should first document what is connected and confirm that four-step flows still cover the planned work. New users without that history will usually get more flexibility from MailerLite Comfort.
Constant Contact Lite trades automation depth for accessible support
Constant Contact Lite starts at $12 per month. Its send allowance is ten times the highest contact count in the account's pricing tier, which provides 5,000 monthly sends in the 0–500 tier. The plan includes one user, one automation template, signup forms, event registration and payment tools, basic reporting, and live phone and chat support.
Phone access can have practical value for an owner trying to repair a signup form or prepare an event announcement on a deadline. Event tools also make Constant Contact a credible option for workshops, associations, community groups, and small venues that prefer to keep registration and email activity together.
Lite is less suitable when the routine requires several users, scheduled email, subject-line testing, automatic resends, or multiple automation templates. Constant Contact Standard starts at $35 per month and adds three users, scheduling, subject-line A/B tests, resend-to-non-openers, and three automation templates.
Constant Contact does not stop campaigns when an account exceeds its allowance. It charges $0.002 for each additional send, so 1,000 extra sends add $2. That is manageable during an occasional busy month. Regular overages suggest the plan no longer matches the workload.
Test the allowance against a busy month
A 500-contact list does not necessarily stay within 500 sends per campaign. Segmented offers, resends, and automated follow-ups can accumulate quietly.
Consider this hypothetical scenario for a training business with 430 active contacts:
- Four newsletters sent to all 430 contacts: 1,720 sends
- Two welcome messages for 90 new subscribers: 180 sends
- One resend to 194 eligible non-openers: 194 sends
- Two offers sent to a 275-contact customer segment: 550 sends
The monthly total is 2,644 sends. A 5,000-send allowance leaves 2,356 messages for reminders, another campaign, or heavier-than-expected automation use.
Run this calculation with the busiest expected month rather than an annual average. Event reminders, appointment follow-ups, seasonal promotions, and abandoned-cart messages have an inconvenient habit of arriving together.
A small subscription saving can hide a large migration bill
Changing email platforms involves more than importing a CSV. Consent records, unsubscribed addresses, custom fields, forms, templates, automations, domain authentication, and connected applications all need attention.
Before canceling the existing service:
- Export active contacts and suppression records separately so unsubscribed addresses do not return as marketable contacts.
- Map custom fields, groups, tags, and segments before importing data.
- Record every automation's trigger, delays, branches, exit rules, and messages.
- Replace embedded forms, popups, checkout connections, API keys, and automation connectors.
- Authenticate the sending domain and test the unsubscribe process before the first full campaign.
Then calculate the payback period. Suppose, hypothetically, that a migration takes 12 staff hours valued at $45 per hour. The internal switching cost is 12 × $45 = $540. Saving $4 per month would take 135 months—11.25 years—to recover that amount.
A move may still be worthwhile when it fixes a hard operational problem, such as an unusable workflow, missing integration, inadequate account access, or support that does not fit the team. A tiny monthly price gap is weak justification on its own.
Protect unsubscribe records during a move
An old suppression list is not disposable data. The Federal Trade Commission says commercial email senders must honor opt-out requests within 10 business days, and using an email service provider does not remove the sender's compliance responsibility.
Export suppressed addresses before migration, confirm how the new platform handles them, and test the unsubscribe link before sending a full campaign. Questions about a particular message, consent record, or legal obligation should be directed to qualified counsel; platform settings are not individualized legal advice.
Which plan should a 500-contact business choose?
Start with MailerLite Comfort when building a new owner-managed account that needs three seats, unbranded campaigns, and enough automation room for several sequences. It provides the strongest balance of price and usable capacity in this comparison.
Choose Brevo Starter when the $9 bill is the priority, one person manages the account, and the Brevo footer logo is acceptable. Once logo removal is required, compare Brevo Standard rather than assuming Starter remains the cheapest configuration.
Keep or choose Mailchimp Essentials when established integrations, audience history, or familiar workflows outweigh the modest price difference and four-step automations are sufficient.
Choose Constant Contact Lite when phone support and event tools have more value than deeper automation. If scheduling, testing, resends, or multiple users are routine requirements, price the $35 Standard plan from the beginning.
Before buying, enter the actual contact count in each vendor's pricing tool, calculate one busy month of sends, and write down the features the business cannot operate without. For most new 500-contact accounts, that process still points to MailerLite Comfort—not because it has the lowest headline price, but because it requires the fewest immediate compromises.