Research · Cost analysis · Living page
Email newsletter pricing at scale: what you pay from 500 to 10,000 subscribers
Short version: Kit is free up to 10,000 subscribers, but the one-automation limit is a real constraint. beehiiv is free to 2,500, then $49/month for up to 100,000. Its flat-rate model makes it the lowest per-subscriber cost above 3,000 subscribers. MailerLite starts cheapest at small paid tiers ($12/mo at 500 subscribers) but climbs quickly. The numbers are below.
Cost comparison at a glance
The table shows what you pay monthly at each subscriber tier. The Kit free column assumes you can work within its one-automation limit; if you need more automations, you are on Creator.
| Subscribers | Kit free | Kit Creator | beehiiv | MailerLite Comfort |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 to 250 | $0 | n/a | $0 | $0 |
| 251 to 500 | $0 | n/a | $0 | $12/mo |
| 501 to 1,000 | $0 | $39/mo | $0 | $19/mo |
| 1,001 to 2,500 | $0 | $39/mo | $0 | $33/mo |
| 2,501 to 5,000 | $0 | $59 to $89/mo | $49/mo | $33 to $49/mo |
| 5,001 to 10,000 | $0 | $89 to $139/mo | $49/mo | $49 to $89/mo |
| 10,001 to 25,000 | Upgrade required | $139 to $199/mo | $49/mo | $89 to $179/mo |
Kit: free to 10,000 subscribers, with one hard limit
Kit's free Newsletter plan holds 10,000 subscribers with unlimited sends at $0. The limit: one Visual Automation total. A welcome sequence uses that slot. Adding a second automation (an onboarding drip, a re-engagement sequence) requires Creator, which starts at $39/mo for 1,000 subscribers and scales to $139/mo at 10,000.
That constraint reshapes the math. If you have 8,000 subscribers and can run on one automation, Kit free costs $0 against beehiiv Scale at $49 or MailerLite Comfort at $89. If you need two sequences, the comparison shifts entirely.
What Creator adds: A/B testing, unlimited email sequences, SMS marketing, 100+ direct app integrations, and 24/7 support. The Pro plan ($66/mo at 1k, monthly billing) adds subscriber engagement signals and unlimited team seats.
Annual billing saves roughly 16%. Creator drops to $33/mo at 1k, $75/mo at 5k, $116/mo at 10k on the annual plan.
We run on Kit's free plan. If the one-automation limit fits your situation for now: start with Kit free (affiliate link; commission if you later upgrade to a paid plan, at no cost to you).
beehiiv: $0 to 2,500, then $49 flat to 100,000
beehiiv's structure is different from the others: free up to 2,500 subscribers, then one jump to Scale at $49/mo (or $43/mo billed annually) covering up to 100,000 subscribers. No intermediate tier. That flat band is why beehiiv becomes the lowest-cost option at scale.
At 5,000 subscribers: Kit Creator is $89/mo, MailerLite Comfort is $49/mo, beehiiv Scale is $49/mo. At 10,000: Kit Creator is $139/mo, MailerLite is $89/mo, beehiiv is still $49/mo. At 25,000: Kit Creator is $199/mo, MailerLite Comfort is $179/mo, beehiiv is still $49/mo.
The trade-off: beehiiv's feature set is built around media business tools. Its Ad Network, paid subscriptions, and Recommendations network are all Scale features. The automation builder on Scale is capable but less integration-rich than Kit's. If you are running an affiliate newsletter, beehiiv's affiliate link policy is worth reading, as it differs from Kit's explicit permission language.
For pure cost, beehiiv Scale becomes the clear choice once you clear 3,000 subscribers and need more than Kit's one free automation. The question is whether its feature set matches your newsletter's workflow.
The free Launch tier has no automation at all: no welcome sequences, no drips. If your newsletter relies on automated subscriber onboarding, beehiiv free does not cover it. You would pay $49/mo from day one for those features, which makes it more expensive than Kit free at small list sizes.
MailerLite: cheapest at small paid tiers, with a policy caveat
MailerLite Comfort is the cheapest option at 500 to 2,500 subscribers for anyone who needs more than one automation and is not on a free plan: $12/mo at 500 subscribers, $19/mo at 1,000, $33/mo at 2,500. All cheaper than Kit Creator and cheaper than beehiiv Scale in that range.
The sends limit is worth understanding. Comfort sends are capped at 10 times the subscriber ceiling per month. At 1,000 subscribers on the $19/mo tier: 10,000 sends per month, enough for a weekly newsletter to your full list. The Power plan ($39/mo at 1k) removes the send cap.
There is a caveat for affiliate newsletters: MailerLite's terms of service distinguish between "affiliate marketing" (banned) and "affiliate links" (permitted). It is not an obvious distinction. Our affiliate links policy comparison covers this in detail. If you are monetizing through affiliate links, read that page before choosing MailerLite.
Pricing note: MailerLite repriced in June 2026 (roughly 10 to 30% across tiers). The entries above reflect post-June 2026 pricing. The free plan also cut from 500 to 250 active subscribers in 2026. See the free plan comparison for details.
The per-send alternative: Brevo
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) charges by email volume sent, not by subscriber count. You can store 100,000 contacts and pay only for the emails you send, which can be significantly cheaper if you email infrequently to a large list.
Verified from brevo.com/pricing (fetched July 2026): the free plan allows 300 emails per day (roughly 9,000 per month) with unlimited contact storage. The Starter plan begins at $9/mo for 5,000 emails per month; pricing above that base tier is volume-based — see brevo.com/pricing for your specific send volume.
The per-send model makes sense when send frequency is low relative to list size. A list of 5,000 subscribers with one monthly send is 5,000 emails: Brevo Starter at $9/mo covers it, compared to Kit's $89/mo or beehiiv's $49/mo. Weekly sends to that same 5,000 subscribers total 20,000 emails per month, which requires a higher Brevo tier. (Intermediate volume pricing is calculator-based and not directly quotable here; check brevo.com/pricing for your send volume.)
Brevo's free tier has no automation. The Starter plan also excludes automation; multi-step workflows require Standard at $18/mo or higher. For affiliate newsletters that rely on welcome sequences and drip content, this is a meaningful constraint.
The per-send model is worth evaluating if you have a large list you contact infrequently, or if you want to minimize cost during a low-activity period.
The break-even math
Three scenarios that clarify when each choice wins:
Scenario 1: 1,000 subscribers, 1 automation, weekly sends. Kit free = $0. beehiiv free = $0 (no automation). MailerLite Comfort = $19/mo. Winner on cost: Kit free, unless you need automation and have fewer than 250 subscribers (MailerLite free covers that case).
Scenario 2: 5,000 subscribers, multiple automations, weekly sends. Kit Creator = $89/mo. beehiiv Scale = $49/mo. MailerLite Comfort = $49/mo. beehiiv and MailerLite tie at $49/mo with different feature trade-offs. For an affiliate newsletter, the affiliate link policy becomes the deciding factor between those two.
Scenario 3: 10,000 subscribers, multiple automations, weekly sends. Kit Creator = $139/mo. beehiiv Scale = $49/mo. MailerLite Comfort = $89/mo. beehiiv wins at $49/mo, which is $90/mo less than Kit and $40/mo less than MailerLite. Whether beehiiv's feature set fits your workflow is the deciding question.
Calculating the crossover: beehiiv Scale becomes cheaper than Kit Creator at 3,000 subscribers (Kit $59, beehiiv $49). Below 2,500: both are free. Between 2,500 and 3,000: beehiiv has just crossed to paid ($49), while Kit remains free if one automation is enough. Above 3,000 with more than one automation: beehiiv wins on price through 100,000 subscribers, still at $49/mo.
Who this is NOT for
This comparison is built for newsletter operators at the 500 to 10,000 subscriber stage who are choosing or reconsidering their platform. It does not cover:
- Enterprise email marketing (Salesforce Marketing Cloud, HubSpot, Klaviyo for ecommerce): different use case, different scale, different pricing models entirely.
- Cold email and outbound sales sequences: these tools are not designed for it, and most prohibit it outright.
- Transactional email (receipts, account notifications): a separate infrastructure decision from newsletter broadcasting.
- Readers prioritizing deliverability data over cost: our Kit selection decision log covers the deliverability reasoning. We do not yet have first-party send data to compare platforms on inbox rates.
Sources
- Kit: kit.com/pricing, fetched July 2026 (1,000-subscriber base tier, first-party). Multi-tier Creator pricing (1k to 25k): justpricing.com, updated April 19, 2026, citing kit.com/pricing (third-party; verify at kit.com/pricing).
- beehiiv: beehiiv.com/pricing, fetched July 2026 (first-party).
- MailerLite: mailerlite.com/pricing, fetched July 2026 (base plan confirmed). Comfort tier pricing: emailvendorselection.com, verified July 16, 2026 (third-party; verify at mailerlite.com/pricing).
- Brevo: brevo.com/pricing, fetched July 2026 (first-party). Volume tiers above 5k: see brevo.com/pricing for current rates (calculator-based).