Most hosted email marketing platforms bill by contacts, so the bill grows with your list whether people open or not. The ones without contact limits are the send-based and self-owned options: Amazon SES (no contact concept, $0.10 per 1,000 emails), self-hosted tools like Sendy, Listmonk and Mautic, and a dedicated SMTP server with its own campaign panel. Once contacts are free, the real limit becomes how many emails a day you can send, which is set by IPs and reputation, not list size.
Who charges per contact, and who does not
| Platform | How it bills | Contact limit |
|---|---|---|
| Mailchimp | by contacts in your audience | yes, by tier, unsubscribes count |
| Klaviyo | by active profiles | yes, by tier |
| HubSpot Marketing Hub | by marketing contacts | yes, buy contact blocks |
| ActiveCampaign | by contacts | yes, by tier |
| Brevo | by emails sent | contact caps per tier since 2025 |
| Mailjet | by emails sent | contact caps on lower tiers |
| Amazon SES | by emails sent, $0.10 per 1,000 | none, no contact concept |
| Sendy (self-hosted) | $69 once, sends through SES | none |
| Listmonk, Mautic (open source) | free software, your server | none |
| Own SMTP server with panel | one-time setup, hosting | none, daily send limit instead |
Prices and tiers change. Check the live pages, such as Mailchimp's pricing, before you decide. Sendy's own site lists the $69 one-time licence and says self-hosting means "unlimited everything".
Where each option sits on billing model and contact caps
Why ESPs charge per contact
Three reasons, only one of which helps you.
- It is predictable for them. Lists grow slowly and rarely shrink, so revenue climbs every month.
- It tracks value, roughly. A bigger list usually means a bigger business.
- It charges for silence. A contact who has not opened in two years costs the same as your best customer. Mailchimp even counts unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts in the audience total.
That last point is why the bill feels unfair. A 100,000 contact list where 40,000 never open is billed as 100,000. Our Mailchimp contact limit reached post shows how archiving cuts it, and Klaviyo getting expensive covers the same problem on Klaviyo.
What the per-contact model costs at scale
| List size | Mailchimp Standard, approx. monthly | 3 years | Own server, 3 years |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25,000 | about $310 | about $11,160 | about $945 on Basic |
| 50,000 | about $450 | about $16,200 | about $945 on Basic |
| 100,000 | about $800 | about $28,800 | about $2,963 on Advance |
These are 2026 list prices from earlier posts on this site. Mailchimp asks larger accounts to check pricing in the account, so your figure may differ. The own-server column is the one-time setup plus hosting: $549 and about $11 a month on Basic, $1,199 and about $49 a month on Advance.
What dropping per-contact pricing saves at 100,000 contacts
Is unlimited contacts really unlimited?
For storing contacts, yes, within your disk and database. A server holding a million contacts uses a small amount of storage.
For sending, no. When contacts stop costing money, a different limit takes over. That is not a trick. It is how email works on every platform, and per-contact pricing just hides it behind the bill.
What limits your sending once contacts are free
The limits that take over once contacts are free
| Limit | What sets it | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Daily capacity | the plan or server size | 25,000, 200,000 or 1,000,000 a day on our plans |
| Warmed IPs | how many IPs, how long they have sent | a fresh IP starts at a few hundred a day |
| Reputation | complaints, bounces, engagement | Gmail's spam complaint ceiling is 0.3% |
| Receiver throttling | Gmail, Microsoft, Yahoo per IP | around 10,000 to 20,000 a day per warmed IP |
The practical rule: size your setup by emails per day, not by list size. A 300,000 contact list mailed weekly needs about 43,000 a day if you spread it over the week, or 300,000 in a day if you blast it. Those are very different setups. How many IPs you need for your volume does the maths.
When per-contact pricing still makes sense
It is not always the wrong choice.
- Small lists. Under a few thousand contacts, Mailchimp or Klaviyo cost little and include a lot.
- Heavy automation and ecommerce flows. Klaviyo's product feeds and flows are hard to rebuild.
- No one to own the sending side. A hosted ESP handles reputation for you, within its rules.
A common middle path is to keep the ESP for flows and move bulk campaigns to your own server. Our Mailchimp vs your own SMTP server post covers the split.
How BulkEmailSetup helps
Every plan has unlimited contacts. You pay once for the setup and then only for hosting in your own account, so the bill does not move when the list grows.
| Plan | One-time fee | Emails per day | Dedicated IPs | Hosting you pay your host |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $549 | 25,000 | 3 | about $11 a month |
| Advance | $1,199 | 200,000 | 15 | about $49 a month |
| Custom | $2,997 | 1,000,000 | 60 | about $170 a month |
SPF, DKIM and DMARC, a campaign platform, customer panel, campaign stats and an IP warm-up plan are included. There is no monthly fee to us, and the 15-day money-back guarantee applies until server access is handed over. See the Advance plan or compare all pricing.
Frequently asked questions
Which email platforms have no contact limits?
Amazon SES has no contact concept at all and bills per email. Self-hosted tools like Sendy, which is a one-time $69 licence on top of SES, and open-source Listmonk or Mautic store as many contacts as your server holds. A dedicated SMTP server with a campaign panel, such as BulkEmailSetup's plans, has unlimited contacts and a daily sending limit instead. Most hosted ESPs cap contacts by tier.
Why do ESPs charge per contact?
Because list size tracks the value a customer gets and grows steadily, which makes for predictable revenue. It also means you pay for contacts who never open. Mailchimp, Klaviyo, HubSpot and ActiveCampaign all price on contacts, and Mailchimp counts unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts in the audience too, so cleaning the list is the first way to cut the bill.
Is unlimited contacts really unlimited?
For storage, usually yes, within the server's disk and database. For sending, no. Once contacts are free, the limit moves to how many emails a day you can send, which depends on IPs, warm-up and the receivers. A server sized for 25,000 emails a day stores unlimited contacts but still sends only 25,000 a day.
What limits sending if not contacts?
Four things: the daily capacity of your server or plan, the number of warmed dedicated IPs, the reputation of those IPs and your domain, and how fast Gmail, Microsoft and Yahoo accept mail from you. A single warmed IP is comfortable somewhere around 10,000 to 20,000 messages a day at the big receivers, so IP count matters more than list size.
Does Brevo have unlimited contacts?
Brevo is known for billing by emails sent rather than contacts, but since 2025 its plans include a set number of contacts per tier and the free plan stops at 300 emails a day. Check Brevo's current pricing page for your tier. Per-send billing still makes Brevo cheaper than per-contact tools for big lists mailed occasionally.
How much do I save by moving off per-contact pricing?
At 100,000 contacts, Mailchimp Standard is about $800 a month at 2026 list prices, or about $28,800 over three years. BulkEmailSetup's Advance plan, which sends 200,000 a day with unlimited contacts, is $1,199 once plus about $49 a month in hosting, about $2,963 over three years. That is roughly $25,837 kept, before you count list growth.
