What Mailchimp, Kit, beehiiv, MailerLite and EmailOctopus cost when you run three sites
How per-audience billing works on five popular email platforms, with a worked example at 1,000 contacts per site. Prices checked 3 September 2026.
SendBeam team
7 min read
Email pricing pages are written for one brand with one list. If you run three sites, the number you need is not on the page; you have to work out how the platform treats a second and third audience, and then multiply. This post does that for five platforms people ask us about, with a worked example at 1,000 contacts per site.
Two ground rules. First, every figure here comes from the platform’s own pricing page and was checked on 3 September 2026; pricing pages change, so treat this as a snapshot and use the links to verify. Second, we compare the cheapest plan that removes the platform’s branding from your emails, because that is the plan most people running a real site end up on. Where a free tier would genuinely do the job, we say so. Prices are in US dollars, billed monthly.
If you would rather put in your own numbers, the cost calculator uses exactly the same figures and rules, and the alternatives pages go platform by platform.
The unit of billing is the whole story
Every platform prices by list size in some form, but they differ on what a “list” is and whether you may have more than one.
Mailchimp organises contacts into audiences. The Free plan allows one audience of up to 500 contacts and 1,000 emails a month, with Mailchimp branding. On the plans we checked, running several sites in one account means several audiences, and each audience adds to the contact count you pay for; a person who subscribes to two of your sites is counted twice. Mailchimp also counts unsubscribed and cleaned contacts towards your total, which is unusual and worth knowing before you import a list with a long history. Automations are no longer on the free plan. The ladder we checked: 500 contacts at $13 (Essentials), 2,500 at $45 (Standard), 10,000 at $100, 25,000 at $270. Mailchimp pricing.
Kit (formerly ConvertKit) is built around one creator. An account is one identity with one subscriber list, so separate sites with separate brands need separate accounts. The free Newsletter plan is generous on size, up to 10,000 subscribers, but it carries Kit branding and allows one basic automation. The Creator plan removes both limits: $29 at 500 subscribers, $49 at 2,500, $119 at 10,000, $199 at 25,000. Kit pricing.
beehiiv organises everything around a publication. The Launch plan is free up to 2,500 subscribers with beehiiv branding. The Scale plan is $39 at both 500 and 2,500 subscribers, $79 at 10,000 and $129 at 25,000. Extra publications cost extra on most plans, so three sites generally means three lots of Scale or three separate free accounts. beehiiv is a newsletter product with a website, an ad network and paid subscriptions built in; it is not designed to handle contact forms or transactional mail for a site. beehiiv pricing.
MailerLite is the friendliest of the five to more than one site: one account can hold several websites and domains, and pricing is per account. The Free plan covers 1,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails a month with MailerLite branding and one user. Growing Business, which removes the branding, is $10 at 500 subscribers, $20 at 2,500, $54 at 10,000 and $130 at 25,000. Every subscriber is counted once across all your sites, which is exactly what you want, though the ladder steps up quickly once three modest lists are added together. New accounts go through an approval process before they can send. MailerLite pricing.
EmailOctopus is the cheapest per contact at scale and keeps things simple. The free plan covers 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails a month with EmailOctopus branding, 30-day reporting, one form and one landing page. Pro removes those limits: $10 at 500 subscribers, $16 at 2,500, $36 at 10,000 and $68 at 25,000. One account is one sender identity, so several sites means several accounts, and there is no transactional email or contact-form handling. EmailOctopus pricing.
Worked example: three sites, 1,000 contacts each
Assume three sites with about 1,000 contacts each, 3,000 in total, sending a newsletter a month or so to each. You want your own branding on the emails.
One method note, so the table is fair. Platforms publish prices at steps (500, 2,500, 10,000 and so on). Where 1,000 contacts falls between steps, the figure shown is the next rung up on the ladder we recorded, which is how the cost calculator works too. Some platforms have finer bands in their own calculator and will quote a little less for exactly 1,000; the shape of the result does not change.
| Platform | How you have to buy it for three sites | Free option that fits? | Monthly, branding removed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mailchimp | One account, three audiences, 3,000 contacts (10,000 rung); or three accounts at the 2,500 rung | No (Free is one audience of 500) | $100 as one account, or 3 × $45 = $135 as three |
| Kit | Three accounts, one per site | Yes, with Kit branding and one automation each | 3 × $49 = $147 |
| beehiiv | Three publications; extra publications cost extra on most plans | Yes, with beehiiv branding | 3 × $39 = $117 |
| MailerLite | One account, 3,000 subscribers (10,000 rung) | No (Free stops at 1,000 in total) | $54 |
| EmailOctopus | One account, three lists, 3,000 subscribers pooled | Yes, with EmailOctopus branding (free to 2,500) | $31.50 |
| SendBeam | One account, three workspaces, 3,000 contacts pooled | No (Free is 500 contacts, two workspaces) | $29 (Pro) |
Prices checked 3 September 2026 (EmailOctopus re-read from its live slider on 4 September). USD, billed monthly.
Three things stand out.
First, the platforms that treat a second site as a second account (Kit, beehiiv, EmailOctopus) turn a small audience into a medium bill, or push you onto a free tier with their branding on every email you send. If you are comfortable with that branding, Kit, beehiiv and EmailOctopus will all run three 1,000-contact lists for nothing, and that is a perfectly reasonable choice for a hobby project.
Second, the per-account platforms (MailerLite, and Mailchimp if you accept multiple audiences in one account) do better, but their ladders step steeply once you add lists together. 3,000 contacts is priced on the 10,000 rung on both.
Third, the SendBeam figure is not the cheapest possible in every scenario, and we would rather you saw where. At exactly 3,000 pooled contacts you need Pro at $29, because Starter caps at 2,500 contacts (Starter does allow five workspaces, so three sites of 800 contacts each would be $9). At the other end, our largest plan is 50,000 pooled contacts; three sites of 25,000 would exceed it, and at that scale EmailOctopus at 3 × $94.50 = $283.50 a month is a real option we cannot currently match with a listed plan. And if what you actually run is a single newsletter that you want to monetise with ads or paid tiers, beehiiv’s price buys you tools we do not have.
The costs that are not on the pricing page
Three things tend to be missed when people compare on price alone.
Duplicate contacts. On any platform that counts per audience or per account, someone who signs up to two of your sites is paid for twice. For a portfolio of related sites the overlap is rarely zero. SendBeam also keeps contacts separate per workspace (a signup on one site is not a signup on another), so the same person on two of your sites is two contacts against your pool as well. The difference is that the pool is one number on one plan, not two invoices.
Unsubscribed and bounced contacts. Mailchimp counts unsubscribed and cleaned contacts towards the total you are billed on. If a list is old, a meaningful share of it may be people you can no longer email but are still paying for. Check how each platform treats suppressed addresses before you import.
Your time. Three accounts means three domain set-ups, three sets of DKIM records, three suppression lists that do not talk to each other, and three places to check when a subscriber complains. That is not a line on an invoice, but it is why small sites so often end up with no newsletter at all. We wrote about our own version of this in why we built SendBeam around one account for every site.
What to do with this
If you are choosing a platform for several sites, decide three things before you look at a single price: whether you can live with the platform’s branding on your email, how many contacts you have across all sites once duplicates are counted, and whether you need contact forms and transactional email or only a newsletter. Then put your real numbers into the cost calculator, which uses the same ladders as this post and will show you the plan on each platform, including ours.
And if you are already paying three times over, Move-in carries subscribers, suppressions and the consent evidence your old platform kept across into one account, workspace by workspace, and it is included on Pro and Business.
In the docs