MailerLite is the cheaper platform for most Australian senders, and the reason is not a clever pricing model: it is the same per-list model as Mailchimp with a stricter definition of who you pay for, sitting on a ladder that runs lower at nearly every rung. Choose Mailchimp if you want its integration depth, its native AI tooling, or an invoice in Australian dollars that does not move.
Plans and pricing checked July 2026, and every figure below is read live from our pricing database.
Pricing and plans compared
Start with what they share, because it is more than the usual head-to-head. MailerLite's pricing model is Per subscriber and Mailchimp's is Per contact. Both climb in steps as your list grows, and neither charges by send volume.
The difference is in the definition. MailerLite bills Active subscribers. Mailchimp bills All contacts including unsubscribed.
That sounds like a footnote and it is worth real money. Everyone who has ever opted out stays on your Mailchimp bill until you go in and delete them, and almost nobody does. On MailerLite they fall off the bill the moment they unsubscribe. The dead weight does not just cost you money, it pushes you into the next tier earlier than your live audience justifies.
MailerLite also starts lower on the headline number: $17/mo (Comfort) against Mailchimp's $18.85/mo (Essentials), on the Comfort and Essentials tiers respectively, and the gap widens rather than narrows as the contact count rises. The table on this page shows both ladders in full, and the calculator above prices them against your own numbers, which is the only comparison that settles it.
Who each one is for
MailerLite suits the sender whose cost is dominated by list size and who wants a clean tool that does the core job: newsletter publishers, creators, clubs, single-location retailers, service businesses whose mailing list grows quietly in the background. If your list has been accumulating for years and gets a campaign once or twice a month, this is where the arithmetic points.
Mailchimp suits the business whose email sits inside a wider stack. Its integration count is 300+ against MailerLite's 140+, and that is not a vanity number: if your bookings tool, loyalty platform or accounting system has one native email integration, there is a fair chance it is Mailchimp's. Rebuilding that plumbing through a middleman costs money and breaks at inconvenient times.
Free plans, and the send allowance nobody reads
- MailerLite free plan: Yes (250 contacts, 2,500 emails /mo)
- Mailchimp free plan: Yes (250 contacts, 500 sends /mo)
Both stop at the same free contact limit, 250 contacts, so on paper they look like the same offer. They are not. MailerLite's monthly send allowance on that identical limit is several times Mailchimp's, the difference between a free plan you can run a monthly newsletter on and one that runs out after two campaigns.
The allowance matters on the paid plans too, and it is the number most people never check. Both entry plans cap monthly sends at a multiple of your contact tier, so a business that mails the same list weekly can hit the send ceiling well before the contact ceiling. Step up and they diverge: MailerLite's Power plan removes the send cap altogether, where Mailchimp's Standard raises the ceiling but keeps one. For a high-frequency sender to a modest list, that is the most important line here.
Automation is not what the entry price buys
Neither entry plan includes automation. MailerLite's automation availability is Basic (Comfort), Advanced (Power) and Mailchimp's is Basic (Essentials), Advanced (Standard+). So if a welcome series or a re-engagement sequence is part of the plan, ignore both entry prices: the honest comparison is MailerLite Power against Mailchimp Standard.
Here the result flips at one end, and we would rather say so than bury it. On the smallest contact tier Mailchimp's automation plan is the cheaper of the two, so a business with a few hundred contacts that needs real workflows is the one case in this matchup where Mailchimp is the better buy on price. Above that tier MailerLite pulls ahead and stays ahead, with the send-cap difference stacked on top.
A/B testing follows the same pattern: MailerLite offers it Yes (Comfort+) and Mailchimp Yes (Standard+), so subject-line testing arrives at a different point on each ladder.
Deliverability, AI and the rest of the toolkit
Neither has an inbox advantage worth choosing on: MailerLite's deliverability reputation is High and Mailchimp's is High (89% in independent tests). Segmentation is close too, Moderate (interests, activity, custom fields) against Moderate (tags, predicted demographics).
On AI the two have gone in opposite directions. Mailchimp's AI features are Native (Intuit Assist, 20+ AI) against MailerLite's Native (AI writing assistant), so Mailchimp has the deeper toolset inside the editor. MailerLite answers from outside it: its AI assistant integration is Native MCP (official, beta) where Mailchimp's is Via 3rd-party (Zapier), so driving the account from an AI assistant is first-party on one and a middleman on the other.
Support is level, both Business hours only. On user ratings MailerLite scores 4.7 on Capterra against Mailchimp's 4.3 on G2, though Mailchimp's sample is far larger at 18,303 reviews against 2,277.
Australian considerations
Currency is the clearest practical difference for an Australian buyer, and it goes Mailchimp's way. Mailchimp publishes a real Australian dollar rate card, so its monthly charge is a fixed amount you can budget. MailerLite prices in US dollars, so the Australian figure here is a conversion at our recorded rate: your invoice moves with the exchange rate, and most Australian cards add an international transaction fee. The saving usually survives both, but a business that wants a predictable invoice has a fair reason to prefer Mailchimp.
On the Spam Act 2003 both do what a compliant platform should: MailerLite is Yes and Mailchimp is Yes (consent tools, unsubscribe). Both capture consent through signup forms and put a working unsubscribe in every campaign, which you must honour within five working days. Holding real consent and identifying yourself as the sender stay your obligations.
SMS is a dead heat, and the answer is no on both sides. MailerLite's Australian SMS marketing is No (via integrations only) and Mailchimp's is No (US only). If text messaging is on your roadmap, neither of these is the tool for it and you want a multichannel platform instead.
Pros and cons for this matchup
MailerLite wins on price at nearly every contact tier, on billing only for active subscribers so unsubscribes stop costing you, on a free plan that permits far more sending at the same contact limit, on removing the monthly send cap on its top plan, and on native AI-assistant integration. It loses on being priced in US dollars rather than Australian ones, on a much smaller integration library, and on a shallower set of in-editor AI features.
Mailchimp wins on a genuine Australian dollar rate card that keeps your invoice fixed, on the widest integration ecosystem in the category, on the deeper native AI toolset, and on undercutting MailerLite specifically when a very small list needs automation. It loses on charging you for contacts who have already unsubscribed, on a ladder that runs above MailerLite's at nearly every rung, on a free plan whose send allowance makes it a trial rather than a tool, and on keeping a monthly send cap where MailerLite has dropped it.
The verdict
For most Australian small businesses MailerLite is the better buy, and on price Mailchimp loses. The two charge on the same axis, so there is no clever model arbitrage here: MailerLite is cheaper rung for rung, and it does not bill you for people who told you to stop emailing them. On a list that has been growing for a few years, that second point is often worth more than the first.
Mailchimp earns its higher price in three real cases. If your email has to plug into a long tail of other software, its integration ecosystem is the deepest available and rebuilding that plumbing elsewhere is not free. If you need automation on a list of only a few hundred contacts, its automation tier is genuinely the cheaper of the two. And if a fixed Australian dollar invoice matters more than a lower average bill, Mailchimp is the only one of the pair that offers one.
The rest comes down to a question you can answer in a minute: how many of the contacts you are paying for would still open an email? Put your real numbers into the calculator above, then see the full field in our Australian email marketing comparison, the tier-by-tier breakdown in our MailerLite pricing guide, or the wider set of options in our Mailchimp alternatives guide.