Email Marketing for Small Business: What a 1,000-Subscriber List Costs
List-based pricing makes free tiers look generous until the list grows. Five newsletter and email tools priced at the size most small businesses actually reach.
Quick answer
For a 1,000-subscriber list on 27 October 2026, Kit's Free plan (up to 10,000 subscribers) and self-hosted listmonk cost nothing in subscription fees. MailerLite and Mailchimp free plans stop at 250 subscribers or contacts. Ghost(Pro) Starter covers 1,000 members for $18 a month billed yearly. Mailchimp's printed paid prices were 12-month promotional rates.
Email marketing tools charge by list size, not by seat, so the question for a small business is simple: what does it cost at the list you have? We picked 1,000 subscribers, the point where most free tiers have already run out. Prices were read from vendor pages and help centres on 27 October 2026.
The short answer in one table
| Tool | Free plan ceiling | At 1,000 subscribers | Seats |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kit | 10,000 subscribers | $0 (Free), or $39/mo on Creator | Not stated |
| MailerLite | 250 subscribers | From $12/mo (Comfort)* | Free 2, Comfort 3 |
| Mailchimp | 250 contacts | Not confirmed (promo prices only) | Essentials 3, Standard 5 |
| Ghost(Pro) | No free hosted plan | $18/mo billed yearly (Starter) | Starter 1 staff user |
| listmonk | Self-hosted | $0 licence + server + sending | Your choice |
*"Starting" price for the smallest tier; the 1,000-subscriber price was not visible. Profiles: Kit, MailerLite, listmonk.
Kit
Kit's main pricing page refused automated requests, so we used its help centre. The Free plan article says Free gives "up to 10,000 email subscribers, unlimited forms and landing pages, and unlimited email broadcasts at no cost". The billing article's example prices the Creator plan at $39 a month for 1,000 subscribers and $59 for 3,000, with annual plans at "12 months for the price of 10". For a business that mostly sends a newsletter, Kit's free ceiling is the standout figure in this category.
MailerLite
The free plan covers 250 subscribers, 2,500 emails a month, 2 seats and 3 active automations. The FAQ gives Comfort as "starting $12/month" with 3 seats, and Power as "starting $25/month" with unlimited seats. The subscriber-tier grid did not render in the copy we read, so the 1,000-subscriber price is not confirmed. Annual plans get 10% off, according to MailerLite's help centre. Watch the seat limits: a fourth person logging in pushes you to Power.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp's free plan allows 250 contacts and 500 sends a month, with one seat. Its paid cards showed Essentials at $13 and Standard at $20 a month "for 12 months", next to "Save 50%", and the post-promotion amount was blank. Mailchimp's help centre says Essentials and Standard base prices include 500 contacts, so a 1,000-contact list costs more than the base. Seats: Essentials 3, Standard 5, Premium unlimited. Enterprise SSO is in Premium only.
Ghost(Pro)
Ghost is a publishing platform with newsletters and paid memberships built in, and it is open source (MIT) if you would rather run it yourself. Ghost(Pro) Starter costs $18 a month billed yearly for 1,000 members and 1 staff user. Publisher costs $29 with 3 staff users and paid subscriptions. Ghost states "No payment fees", with the processor's fees still applying. It suits a business whose newsletter is the product or a large part of its marketing.
When does self-hosting your email make sense?
listmonk is a free, self-hosted newsletter and mailing-list manager under the AGPL v3, with OIDC single sign-on and subscriber self-service export and deletion. It has no per-subscriber price at all. That stops mattering at 1,000 subscribers and starts mattering at 50,000.
The trade-off is real work: a server, a sending service, and deliverability (authentication records, bounces, reputation). For a small list, a free hosted tier is almost always less effort. For a large one, listmonk can cut the bill to the server and the sending service. Our server comparison covers the hosting side.
What we could not price
Brevo's pricing page did not render in our tools, so it is not included yet. Our method page explains why we leave a product out rather than quote a figure we have not read at source.
Building the site your sign-up form lives on? See website builders priced annually and monthly.
Key points
- Kit's Free plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers, far above the 250-contact free limits at MailerLite and Mailchimp.
- Kit's own billing example prices the Creator plan at $39 a month for 1,000 subscribers.
- Mailchimp printed Essentials at $13 and Standard at $20 a month 'for 12 months', a 50% promotion; the regular price was not visible.
- MailerLite's free plan allows 2 seats and Comfort allows 3, so seat count can force a plan change before list size does.
- listmonk is AGPL-licensed and free to self-host, but you supply the server, the sending service and the deliverability work.
Questions
Which email marketing tool is free for 1,000 subscribers?
Kit's Free plan allows up to 10,000 email subscribers at no cost, according to a Kit help article dated 23 September 2026. MailerLite's free plan stops at 250 subscribers and Mailchimp's at 250 contacts. Self-hosted listmonk has no subscription fee at any list size.
Is Mailchimp's advertised price the real price?
On our read date Mailchimp showed Essentials at $13 and Standard at $20 a month 'for 12 months' under a 'Save 50%' label. The price after the first year was left blank in the page text, so we could not confirm it. Check the full price before you build a budget around Mailchimp.
What does a newsletter platform cost compared with an email tool?
Ghost(Pro) is a publishing platform with built-in newsletters and memberships. Its Starter plan costs $18 a month billed yearly for up to 1,000 members, and Publisher costs $29 with paid subscriptions. Ghost says it takes no payment fees, though the payment processor's own fees still apply.
Can I run my own email marketing software?
Yes. listmonk is a free, self-hosted newsletter and mailing-list manager licensed under the AGPL v3. There is no official hosted version. You provide the server and an email-sending service, and you are responsible for deliverability, including domain authentication and bounce handling.
Why are Brevo and Kit's full pricing page missing?
Brevo's pricing page did not render any plans in our tools on 27 October 2026, and Kit's main pricing page refused automated requests. We quote Kit from its own help-centre articles instead, and will add Brevo once its prices can be read directly from its site.
Who wrote this
Stackfeature Research Desk
The Research Desk is a shared byline, not a person. Work published under it is compiled from vendor pricing pages, documentation and licence files, each linked and dated in the piece. Nothing under this byline claims hands-on testing unless the piece says so and links the evidence.
Citing a figure from this page? Carry its date with it. Prices here were read on the date shown above, and corrections are logged.
Related comparisons
AI Assistants for Business: Seat Prices and Who Trains on Your Data
What an AI assistant costs per seat for a small team, and what each vendor says in writing about using your company's data to train models.
AI tools for work · · 3 min read
The Best CRM for a Small Team, Priced at 5, 10 and 25 Seats
Free CRM tiers stop at two or three users. Here is what five CRMs cost once a team passes that point, read from each vendor's own price page.
CRM · · 4 min read
Password Managers for Teams of 5 to 25: Per-User Costs and SSO
One plan is a flat pack for ten people, one has a ten-user minimum, and two can run on your own server. Four ways to share credentials, priced at 5, 10 and 25 users.
Password managers · · 3 min read