What Campaign Monitor costs
Campaign Monitor charges on the size of your subscriber list rather than a flat monthly fee, so your bill steps up as your list grows. Its billing model is Per subscriber, and the entry plan is Lite, starting at $19/mo (Lite). Plans and pricing checked July 2026, and every figure on this page is pulled live from our database rather than typed in by hand.
That headline figure is where most comparisons stop, and it is where most buyers get caught out. Campaign Monitor does not run one price ladder. It runs two.
The two ladders, and why the cheap one cannot automate
Campaign Monitor's plans split into a Lite ladder and an Essentials ladder, and both climb through the same subscriber bands. The difference is not a handful of extra features at the margins. It is automation.
Lite covers campaigns, the template library, A/B testing and reporting. What it does not do is run an automated journey: no welcome series, no birthday email, no abandoned cart flow, no lapsed-customer re-engagement. Our data records Campaign Monitor's automation position as Basic (Lite), Advanced (Essentials+), and that bracket is the whole story. Automation begins on Essentials.
The practical consequence is that the entry price is only your real price if you intend to send manual broadcasts and nothing else. The moment automation appears on your requirements list, you jump ladders, and the Essentials figure at your subscriber count is substantially higher than the Lite figure at the same count. That is not a small uplift at the smallest band, and it does not narrow as your list grows: the two ladders run in parallel with a persistent gap between them.
Use the calculator above rather than the headline. It costs Campaign Monitor from its real plan structure at your own subscriber count, so if you tell it you need automation it prices the plan that can actually deliver it, not the one whose price you saw on the pricing page.
There is no free plan, only a trial
Campaign Monitor's free plan position is No (free trial). That is worth flagging plainly, because it is unusual in this category. Kit, Brevo, MailerLite and Mailchimp all run a genuine free tier you can sit on indefinitely while a small list gets going, and Campaign Monitor does not. Once the trial expires you are on a paid plan or you are not sending.
For a business with an established list and a budget already allocated, this is a non-issue. For a sole trader or a new store testing whether email is worth the effort at all, it is a real barrier, and one of the cheaper rivals is the more sensible starting point.
Billing counts every subscribed contact
Campaign Monitor bills on All subscribed contacts, so the number that drives your price is the size of your subscribed list, not how many emails you actually send.
This cuts both ways. If you send frequently to a modest list, subscriber billing is generous: your cost does not move when you send more often. If you hold a large list you rarely email, you are paying for people you are not contacting, and a send-billed tool like Brevo (Unlimited contacts (billed by sends)) is the structurally cheaper shape for that pattern. The habit that saves you money on Campaign Monitor is list hygiene: unsubscribed and dead contacts should come off the list, because subscribed contacts are what you are paying for.
The Australian case for Campaign Monitor
This is where Campaign Monitor earns its place, and it is the reason the price premium is defensible for some buyers rather than simply worse value.
Campaign Monitor's country of origin is Australia. It was founded in Sydney, and that shows up in three ways an Australian buyer can actually feel. First, the price is quoted and charged in Australian dollars, so there is no exchange-rate wobble between the figure you budgeted and the figure on your card. MailerLite, Kit, AWeber and Mailchimp all price in US dollars, and the Australian dollar figures you see for them are converted at a recent rate. Second, support runs AU business hours, so a problem raised at 10am Tuesday in Melbourne is answered that day rather than overnight. Third, its deliverability position is High (AU-origin, strong AU deliverability), and Spam Act compliance is Yes.
None of that appears in a price comparison, and for a business sending to an Australian customer base it is worth something. Whether it is worth the gap between Campaign Monitor and the cheaper rivals is a judgement only you can make with your own numbers, which is what the calculator is for.
Where Campaign Monitor falls short
The two-ladder structure is the main one, because it makes the advertised entry price misleading for the majority of buyers who want automation. Beyond that, there is no free plan to start on. Native SMS marketing is No, so text campaigns need a separate tool. The integration library sits at 250+ and the template library at 100+, both respectable but not the largest in the category. And on pure entry price it is beaten by most of the market.
How it compares with cheaper rivals
We rank on published rates, so here is the position stated plainly: Campaign Monitor is not the cheap option.
Kit is free to start at $0 (free to 10K) and includes basic automation on that free tier. Brevo starts at $12/mo (Starter) and bills on emails sent rather than list size, which suits a large list emailed occasionally. MailerLite starts at $17/mo (Comfort) with automation included on its entry Comfort plan. Mailchimp starts at $18.85/mo (Essentials), also with basic automation included, though it bills on All contacts including unsubscribed, which inflates the count on an uncleaned list.
Every one of those four is cheaper than Campaign Monitor at the entry band, and every one of them includes at least basic automation at that price where Campaign Monitor's Lite plan does not. Compared like for like against Campaign Monitor's Essentials ladder, which is the fair comparison once automation is required, the gap is wider again.
Who Campaign Monitor suits
Established Australian businesses and agencies that email a local customer base, want a bill in Australian dollars, value support in their own time zone, and are buying deliverability and design quality rather than the lowest monthly figure. If you fit that description, Essentials is the plan to price, and the premium buys something real.
If you are a sole trader, a new store, or anyone testing whether email marketing works for you at all, the cheaper rivals above give you automation at a lower price, and most of them let you start for nothing. Run your own subscriber count through the calculator before you decide.