About the Pay As You Go Plan

The Pay As You Go Plan is a flexible alternative to a monthly plan. Instead of paying a recurring monthly charge, you buy email credits as needed. It's a good option for users who send infrequently.

In this article, you'll learn about the Pay As You Go Plan and how it works.

Mailchimp introduced a new pricing model on May 15, 2019. The new pricing includes some changes to the Pay As You Go plan.

Learn more about the legacy Pay As You Go plan.

Definitions

Credits Units of payment that are used for the Pay As You Go Plan. Each email send costs one credit.

Send A term we use to measure the number of emails you send. Each email sent to an individual contact counts as one send. For example, one email sent to 500 contacts equals 500 sends. This includes transactional, automation, email and test sends.

Contact The people whose information you store in your Mailchimp account. A person’s contact type determines which emails they’re eligible for, and whether they count toward your monthly contact limit. About Your Contacts

Free plan Mailchimp's free, introductory plan that includes up to 500 contacts and 1,000 monthly sends.

Paid monthly plan A recurring plan that charges once per month based on contact count and send volume, and includes additional features exclusive to paid plans. We offer 3 paid monthly plan options, so you can choose the one that’s best for your marketing needs. About Mailchimp Pricing Plans

Paid features

The Pay As You Go Plan comes with the same set of features as our Essentials plan, including access to email themes and layouts, pre-built segments, and basic reporting.

To learn more about the features included in the Essentials plan, visit our pricing page.

How the Pay As You Go plan works

The Pay As You Go plan uses email credits that you purchase to cover your sending needs. Each email sent to an individual contact costs one credit. Credits expire after 12 months. This plan works best for infrequent or inconsistent senders, such as users who send quarterly newsletters or promote seasonal events.

Credits are used for any attempted email send, including test emails, automations, and emails that bounced or were stopped due to compliance review. Credits are not deducted for signup form response emails. To send an email, the number of available credits in your account must be equal to or greater than the number of planned recipients.

If you upgrade from a Pay As You Go Plan, any remaining credits will be converted to Referral Credits and will be applied to your monthly bill. We do not provide refunds for unused Pay As You Go credits, unless a system malfunction caused a problem.

Buy credits

Pay As You Go credit blocks start 5000 credits. These credits cannot be used with any other Mailchimp pricing plan.

If you purchase credits while on the Free plan, you'll upgrade to the Pay As You Go Plan immediately, and any remaining Free sends will not carry over. If you purchase credits while on a paid plan, we'll stop your monthly billing cycle and switch you to the Pay As You Go Plan.

To purchase Pay As You Go credits, you need to sign up for a Mailchimp account. Then, follow these steps.

1. Click your profile icon and choose Account.

2. In the navigation bar, click Billing and choose Monthly plans or credits.
   

3. In the Convert to Pay As You Go section, click How many credits would you like to purchase?.
4. Choose a credit package.
   
   Your credit options are:
   • 5,000 credits
   • 10,000 credits
   • 15,000 credits
   • 50,000 credits
   • 75,000 credits
   • 200,000 credits
   • 2,000,000 credits
   • 5,000,0000 credits
   • 25,000,000 credits
     
     You'll see the localized rates in the credit blocks.
5. Review your transaction in the sidebar, type in your CVV, and click Complete Purchase.