MailerLite Price Increase: Free Plan Cut in Half, Paid Plans Up 10-30%

MailerLite built its reputation as the budget-friendly email platform—the tool you recommended to anyone starting out. That positioning is eroding fast: over the past year MailerLite has cut its free plan in half, then cut it again, and raised paid plans roughly 10–30% across subscriber tiers.

Back in 2023 we predicted this. When we covered Mailchimp's post-acquisition price hikes, we noted that MailerLite had also been acquired by private equity and to "expect them to start implementing similar price hikes." Here we are.

What changed in MailerLite's pricing?

The squeeze came in stages:

September 2025: free plan halved. The free tier dropped from 1,000 to 500 subscribers. Anyone in the 500–1,000 range suddenly needed a paid plan—effectively an infinite price increase for that group.
The 2026 update: paid plans up 10–30%. MailerLite renamed its plans (the Growing Business and Advanced plans became "Comfort" and "Power") and raised prices across subscriber tiers. The top-tier plan at 1,000 subscribers, for example, jumped from $30 to $39/month—an extra $108/year for the same list. These changes apply to existing customers as well as new ones.
The free plan shrank again, dropping to 250 subscribers with monthly sending cut from 12,000 to 2,500 emails.

Each change is modest in isolation. Together, they've transformed the cheapest serious option in email marketing into a mid-priced product—one whose free tier no longer covers even a small newsletter.

Why is MailerLite raising prices?

The same reason we flagged in 2023: ownership. MailerLite took private equity investment, and PE firms buy software companies with sticky customers precisely because prices can be raised without losing many of them. Add rising email infrastructure costs and Gmail/Yahoo's stricter bulk-sender requirements, and cheap plans across the industry are being repriced to "what the market will bear."

What should MailerLite customers do?

If you're on the free plan with more than 250 subscribers, you'll need to pay or move—compare paid options now rather than at the deadline.
If you're on a paid plan, check your renewal rate against the new pricing tables; annual billing softens the increase.
Weigh features, not just price. MailerLite's discount vs. modern platforms has narrowed to a few dollars—if you're paying near-parity prices, compare what you actually get.

The whole industry is moving the same way

MailerLite's trajectory matches nearly every ESP over the past three years: Mailchimp cut its free plan to 250 contacts and raised legacy prices, Constant Contact killed its free plan outright, Kit raised its Creator plan 34%, Flodesk ended unlimited pricing, and Brevo is migrating legacy plans to new pricing this September.

The best MailerLite alternative

If MailerLite's price advantage was why you chose it, that advantage has narrowed to a few dollars—and on functionality, Audienceful has leapfrogged it entirely:

A built-in AI agent MailerLite can't match: It writes emails in your voice, generates images, builds segments and entire automations from a plain-language brief, runs list hygiene, and answers questions about your data—included on every plan.
Feature-complete at every tier: Multi-step automations with branching logic, segmentation, A/B testing, detailed analytics, and native Stripe and Shopify integrations—several of which MailerLite gates behind higher plans.
An editor a generation ahead: Real-time collaborative, Notion-style email building with design systems (themes) that keep every send on-brand across Gmail and Outlook.
Stable, predictable pricing: We're independent and sustainably priced—no PE-driven repricing cycles hitting loyal customers.

See the numbers side by side: MailerLite vs Audienceful.