MailerLite free plan limits, 2026
1,000. Then 500.
Now 250.
Subscriber 251
locks every send.
Since 16 June 2026, MailerLite’s Free plan allows 250 active subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, with 3 active automations of up to 5 steps, 3 forms, 1 landing page, 1 website and 2 user seats. Unsubscribed and bounced contacts don’t count. Go over 250 and MailerLite locks sending: campaigns and automations stop until you upgrade or remove active subscribers. The cheapest paid plan, Comfort, is $12 a month for 500 subscribers and 5,000 emails. Below: what changed, what keeps working once you’re locked, a checker that prices your list on MailerLite, Kit, Brevo and Builderify’s email campaigns, and how to get back under 250.
By the Builderify team
MailerLite’s free plan,
cut twice in nine months.
Plenty of articles still quote 1,000 or 500 subscribers. Both numbers are gone. MailerLite halved the free plan in September 2025, then halved it again in June 2026, cut the monthly emails by four fifths, and put caps on automations, forms and pages for the first time.
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Until 23 Sep 2025
1,000 subscribers · 12,000 emails a month. The free plan most tutorials still describe.
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500 subscribers · 12,000 emails a month. Accounts over 500 could no longer send campaigns, run automations or add subscribers by hand.
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250 subscribers · 2,500 emails a month. Caps on automations, forms and pages; a second seat and some paid features added. Mailsoftly reports existing free accounts moved over on 1 July.
From MailerLite’s Free plan update FAQ and its pricing page, compared with the copy archived on 3 June 2026. “No cap listed” means the old pricing page gave no number for it. Prices are US dollars a month, billed monthly; yearly billing saves 10%.
What happens when you go over
250 subscribers on MailerLite Free?
Sending stops, and nothing on your website tells you. MailerLite doesn’t delete anything or charge you, but the account stays locked until you upgrade or bring the active count back to 250. Three different limits lock three different things.
Over 250 active subscribers
- Stops: Campaigns stop sending, and scheduled emails are not sent.
- Stops: Active automations stop, welcome emails included.
- Stops: Adding subscribers by hand, by API or through integrations is paused; shop integrations stop adding new customers.
- Keeps working: Forms and landing pages keep collecting sign-ups, with no error for visitors.
- Keeps working: Your data stays, and nothing is charged unless you upgrade.
Over 2,500 emails in a month
- Stops: Campaign and automation emails pause for the rest of the month.
- Keeps working: The count resets each month on the date you registered the account.
- Keeps working: Subscribers, forms and automations stay as they are.
Over 3 automations or 3 forms, or a second page
- Stops: You can’t create, activate or edit automations, forms, websites, landing pages or products.
- Stops: Sending and subscriber imports are switched off.
- Keeps working: Active forms and landing pages keep working.
- Keeps working: Drafts don’t count; only active or published items do.
Only active subscribers count
Unsubscribed and bounced contacts are left out, and someone in three groups counts once. That is the opposite of Mailchimp, which counts unsubscribes too.
The forms keep filling a list you can’t email
Because sign-ups still arrive while you’re locked, the number you have to remove grows every day you wait.
Upgrading counts the whole month
On a paid plan MailerLite counts every address that was active at any point in the billing cycle, so someone you delete mid-cycle still counts until your next billing date.
If Mailchimp is the free plan you are weighing up instead, its 2026 changes are in their own guide.
Does your list fit MailerLite’s free plan,
and what does it cost if not?
Put in your account as it is today. The checker tests all four free limits and says how many subscribers to remove; the price board finds the cheapest plan that holds the same email on MailerLite, Kit, Brevo and Builderify.
Not counting unsubscribed or bounced.
Net of people who leave.
Each to everyone.
Sent by an automation.
Paused ones don’t count.
Embeds and pop-ups.
For Builderify’s widget.
- Active subscribers 400 of 250 · remove 150
- Emails this month 1,660 of 2,500
- Active automations 2 of 3
- Active forms 2 of 3
Until you are back at 250 active subscribers or upgrade, MailerLite locks every campaign and automation.
At this size, the 2,500 emails leave room for 6 campaigns a month after welcome emails.
The same email, priced four ways
USD · billed monthly · before taxAllowance 5,000 emails a month. Logo removed.
Sequences, visual automations and no Kit branding. Two months cheaper billed yearly.
Up to 500 contacts at this volume. Brevo's logo stays unless you add $12 a month.
2 Growth packs, bought once. 940 credits a month, 250 of them free.
Emails a month = subscribers × campaigns + sign-ups × welcome emails. MailerLite: Free if all four checks pass; otherwise the cheaper of the Comfort tier whose allowance (ten times the tier) covers your emails, or Power at your subscriber tier. Kit: Free up to 10,000 subscribers while nothing sends itself; sequences and automations need Creator. Brevo: Free while your busiest day, one campaign plus that day’s welcome emails, fits in 300 emails; Starter is priced by monthly emails, and each volume carries a contact limit. Builderify: its published rate card, 0.5 credits an email, 1 a new lead, 10 per 1,000 page loads of the widget that carries your sign-up forms, 250 free credits a month, and one-time packs from $9. Vendor prices read on 17 October 2026; yearly billing is cheaper at all three.
How to stay on MailerLite’s free plan:
trim in this order.
If the checker says you are a few dozen over, trimming is quicker than switching tools. Deleting unsubscribes won’t help, because they already don’t count; the people to remove are active subscribers who no longer open anything.
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01
Keep a copy first
Download your subscribers before you delete anyone, so a mistake can be undone and a future tool can be given the same people.
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02
Clean up inactive subscribers
MailerLite’s Subscribers section has a Clean up inactive tab for people who stopped opening your campaigns. Removing them is MailerLite’s own first suggestion. Bear in mind that Apple Mail Privacy Protection marks many unread emails as opened, so “inactive” can miss people; the open-rate guide explains why.
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03
Check the addresses
MailerLite points to its sister product MailerCheck for role addresses, disposable inboxes and typos. It checks 10 addresses free.
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04
Choose what to keep, then switch the rest off
Over a feature limit, pause automations from their Overview, turn pop-up forms off with their Status toggle, and unpublish extra landing pages. Embedded forms can only be deleted. Choose first: anything switched off while you are over a limit can’t be switched back on until you are under it.
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05
Slow the inflow before a launch
Forms keep adding subscribers while you’re locked, so a busy form can push you back over the day after you trim. Upgrade before a launch or a giveaway, not after the lock.
A MailerLite free alternative
with no subscriber limit.
Builderify has no plans and no subscriber tiers. People who sign up through your website’s popups, quizzes, bookings, callback requests, document downloads or live chat land in your lead lists once you connect them to one, and each one confirms by email before anything else is sent. Sequences and campaigns then go out from your own domain, and you pay in credits for what you send.
It is built for a list you grow from your own site. It is not a place to bring an existing MailerLite list in one go: there is no CSV import, so you add people one at a time or invite them to sign up again. If your list is the asset you are protecting, a tool with an importer is the better choice.
What it does
- Double opt-in on every list: nobody gets a campaign or sequence email until they confirm
- Sequences: emails at day and hour offsets after someone joins, with a sending window and weekends skipped if you like
- Confirmed sign-ups join the list’s running sequences on their own, where a sequence is set to take new leads
- Campaigns to one list, from a drag-and-drop designer or a rich-text editor, sent now or scheduled
- Sent from your own domain, with SPF, DKIM and DMARC records listed for you
- Open counts per campaign and per sequence email
- One-click unsubscribe; unsubscribed and bounced contacts are skipped
- Export any list to CSV; no Builderify badge in your emails
What it doesn’t
- CSV import of an existing list
- Segments, groups or tags: a campaign goes to one whole list
- Click tracking
- A visual automation builder, branches or conditions; sequences run in a straight line
- Landing pages or a website builder
Sending is paced at 100 emails an hour by default, shared by campaigns and sequences, so 1,000 subscribers take about ten hours. You need your own domain, not a Gmail or Outlook address, and each sending domain is reviewed before its first send.
Know this first: credits
Sign-up forms live in the Builderify widget, which spends credits on page loads. If your balance reaches zero, the widget pauses until you top up or your 250 free credits renew; a cookie banner, if you run one, keeps working.
Setting up the domain
The records are the same three every sender needs. The SPF, DKIM and DMARC guide builds them with you.
Writing the welcome emails
MailerLite Free caps automations at 5 steps. The welcome sequence guide has a template you can use in either tool.
On WordPress, the Builderify plugin adds the widget (sending a newsletter from WordPress compares the options there); on Shopify, Squarespace, Wix and Webflow it is one script tag. See Broadcast in full.
Stay, upgrade, or find
a MailerLite alternative that’s free?
| Tool | List on free | Sends on free | Automation on free | First paid step |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MailerLite | 250 active subscribers | 2,500 a month | 3 automations, 5 steps each | Comfort, $12 a month at 500 |
| Kit | Up to 10,000 subscribers | Unlimited broadcasts | None; sequences on Creator | Creator, $39 a month at 1,000 |
| Brevo | Not stated on its pricing page | 300 a day | Not stated | Starter, $9 a month for 5,000 emails |
| Builderify | No subscriber limit | 0.5 credits each, 250 free credits a month | Sequences included | One-time packs from $9 |
You are under 250 active subscribers, send a few campaigns a month, and three automations cover what runs on its own.
Stay on MailerLite Free. It is still a capable plan, and it now includes the HTML editor and templates. Watch the forms, because they keep adding people after you pass 250.
MailerLite is set up the way you like, and you are past 250.
MailerLite Comfort. From $12 a month at 500 subscribers, with ten times your tier in emails, 50 automations and no MailerLite logo. If you send more than that, compare Power, from $25, before buying a bigger Comfort tier.
Your list is large, you mostly send broadcasts, and nothing has to send itself.
Kit’s free plan. Up to 10,000 subscribers and unlimited broadcasts. Sequences, automations and removing Kit’s branding start on Creator.
You have a big list but send rarely.
Brevo. It prices by emails sent, not list size. Free sends 300 a day; Starter is $9 a month for 5,000 emails, and its logo stays unless you pay $12 a month more or move to Standard.
You are building a list from your own website and want welcome sequences without a monthly plan.
Builderify. No subscriber limit or subscription; emails cost 0.5 credits each against 250 free credits a month. If you need to import a list, segments, click tracking or branching automations today, pick one of the tools above.
MailerLite is one of several tools that cut a free plan this year; the shutdown tracker lists the rest, with dates.
MailerLite's free plan, before you ask.
Since 16 June 2026, MailerLite Free allows 250 active subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, with 3 active automations of up to 5 steps, 3 forms, 1 landing page, 1 website and 2 user seats. It was 1,000 subscribers until 23 September 2025 and 500 after that. Paid plans start with Comfort at $12 a month for 500 subscribers.
MailerLite locks sending: campaigns stop, active automations stop, scheduled emails are not sent, and adding subscribers by hand, by API or through integrations is paused. Your forms and landing pages keep collecting sign-ups and nothing is deleted or charged. Sending comes back when you upgrade or bring active subscribers back to 250.
No. MailerLite counts only active subscribers, and each address once even if it is in several groups. Unsubscribed and bounced contacts are left out, so deleting them will not get you back under 250; removing inactive active subscribers will.
Comfort starts at $12 a month for up to 500 subscribers, with ten times your tier in emails, so 5,000 a month at 500. Power starts at $25 a month with unlimited emails. Both are billed monthly in US dollars before tax, and yearly billing saves 10%.
Kit's free plan holds up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited broadcasts, but sequences and automations need its paid Creator plan. Brevo's free plan sends 300 emails a day. Builderify has no subscriber limit and charges credits per email from 250 free credits a month, but it cannot import an existing list from a CSV file.
Sources
Vendor pages, archived copies and reports. Read on 17 October 2026.
- MailerLite Pricing: plans, limits and how subscribers are counted
- MailerLite Help Free plan update: what you need to know
- MailerLite Free plan: what is included
- MailerLite Help, archived The 23 September 2025 cut from 1,000 to 500 subscribers (copy of 8 March 2026)
- MailerLite, archived Pricing before the change: Growing Business and Advanced (copy of 3 June 2026)
- Mailsoftly MailerLite free plan changes 2026: existing accounts moved on 1 July
- GroupMail MailerLite free plan, on the September 2025 cut
- Kit Pricing: Free, Creator and Pro
- Brevo Pricing and plan FAQ
- Brevo Machine-readable pricing, from its pricing API
← All guides Mailchimp’s free plan changes
On the shutdown tracker: MailerLite free plan.
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