Mailchimp and HubSpot alternatives in 2026: why people leave, and what you will pay next

Most people looking for Mailchimp alternatives are not unhappy with how it works. The bill went up as the list grew, and it started to feel like a lot to pay for a newsletter.

People looking for HubSpot alternatives usually have a different complaint. HubSpot charges for each person who logs in, some plans come with an onboarding fee you must pay but cannot see the price of, and all they wanted was a tidy list and a way to email it.

Often it is the same business, a year apart. It outgrows a free email plan, looks for something "more grown-up", lands on a sales CRM and finds it is built for a company with a sales team. This page is for that business. It does not pick a winner. It has the prices as we read them today, and the questions that will decide it for you.

The short answer. If you want the tools and will run them yourself, Mailchimp, HubSpot or one of the alternatives below. If you want the work done for you, Bernard: £200 a year for one site, enterprise packages for a team.

The sums are below if you want them.

Bernard is an AI-assisted website and marketing platform for small businesses. He builds a new site or moves an existing one, keeps it fast and readable to search and AI tools, and looks after it. Once measuring is on, he reads your numbers each week and suggests what to do next, with a button that does it. On the Medium and Large plans he also plans your marketing every six weeks and drafts your posts, emails and pages. Everything lands on a draft you approve. One flat price per site.

Why no one tool is best for everyone

Every list of the best email marketing platforms is written for somebody.

Which one suits you comes down to three things:

• How big your list is, and how fast it is growing. Most tools here charge by list size.
• How many people need to log in. HubSpot charges for each one. Others include one, three or five.
• Whether you sell to people or to companies. A pottery shop and a firm selling software to hospitals both "need a CRM", but they need very different things.

Why people leave Mailchimp

The pricing page explains most of it. Mailchimp asks how many contacts you have and prices from there. On 21 October 2026, on its UK page in pounds, the Standard plan (the one Mailchimp points you to for automations) was:

Two more lines on that page matter. Above 10,000 contacts there is 15% off for the first 12 months, after which the full price applies. And if you go over your contact or sending limit, Mailchimp says it will automatically bill you for the overage.

So the bill grows with the list, and on most lists plenty of people signed up once and never open anything. There is more on this in What email marketing really costs.

Why people look for HubSpot alternatives

HubSpot has two pricing pages. From the UK, its marketing pricing address takes you to one page for the whole platform, priced by the seat. In US dollars, the same address shows Marketing Hub on its own, priced per hub: on 21 October 2026 its Professional plan started at $800 a month with three seats, plus a required $3,000 onboarding fee. The prices here are from the UK page, read on 21 October 2026 and set to pounds, billed yearly:

The Starter price is a limited-time offer. Most of the marketing tools small businesses go to HubSpot for, such as managing your social media accounts, are on Professional. HubSpot’s own FAQ says Professional and Enterprise customers must buy onboarding. The UK page does not say what that costs in pounds, so we cannot tell you either. Ask before you sign.

HubSpot is a good CRM. It handles deals, sales tasks, a help desk and calls. Do you need any of those?

How each one counts you

Your bill depends on what each company counts, which comparison tables rarely show.

When you read a pricing page, check four things.

Does it charge for contacts or for emails sent? A list of 5,000 people you write to twice a month is 10,000 sends. A tool that charges per contact bills you for the 5,000 whether you write or not. A tool that charges per send bills you for the 10,000, however many people are on the list.

How many people can log in? If three of you need to, multiply. Brevo includes one marketing seat on Standard and charges £7.17 a month for each extra. ActiveCampaign includes one user on Plus, three on Pro and five on Enterprise.

Is there a compulsory onboarding fee? It is part of the first year’s cost, printed or not.

What does the next tier cost? Look at the price for the list you hope to have in two years.

A worked sum: a yoga studio

She runs a yoga studio. She emails her list twice a month, and wants a welcome email for new sign-ups and a thank you after someone books. Here is what the email tool alone costs her for a year, at two list sizes, on each company’s own pricing page on 21 October 2026, before VAT. Dollar prices are turned into pounds at 75p to the dollar.

These are comparisons of broadly similar business needs, not identical products. Some of these services include things Bernard does not do. Bernard includes planning, reading your numbers and doing the work, which these combinations do not give you without more tools or more of your own time.

It is not a ranking. The email tools on that list price the email only. Her website is a separate bill. Bernard’s Small plan is £200 a year and includes the website, her contacts, forms, campaigns and the automatic emails, with no charge per contact, so to compare like with like, add what she pays for her website now. On Squarespace, for example, the Core plan is £204 a year before VAT.

Squarespace’s own email is low because it charges by sends and includes unlimited contacts. If she is already on Squarespace and a newsletter is all she needs, it is a good choice.

HubSpot Starter is low because of a promotion and because it counts seats, not contacts. Check what it costs when the offer ends before you plan around £84. HubSpot also meters email sending in credits and does not make it easy to work out how many emails they buy. It is a less than transparent restriction, so ask what your sending will cost.

Brevo’s price depends on sends, but on its calculator today the 10,000 and 15,000 email tiers included only 1,500 and 2,500 contacts. At 5,000 people she needs the 20,000 tier, which included 500,000.

What each Mailchimp alternative does well

MailerLite. Every paid plan gets the full feature set, it says, and you only pay more for a bigger list or more sending. It counts active subscribers only. Comfort includes automations.

Kit (the email tool that used to be called ConvertKit). The free plan takes up to 10,000 subscribers. It is built for people who write: newsletters, paid newsletters, recommendations between writers. Its page offers free migrations. The visual automations start on the Creator plan.

Brevo. It charges for the emails you send rather than the people you hold, which suits a big list you write to rarely. It also does text messages and WhatsApp if you need them.

ActiveCampaign. Automation is the reason to choose it. Plus has unlimited automation actions, and its price is shown in pounds. ActiveCampaign’s pricing, explained has the full band table.

Squarespace Email Campaigns. Unlimited contacts, priced by sends, and it sits with a Squarespace site and shop. For an existing Squarespace owner it is the least effort.

HubSpot. A full CRM for a business that sells through people: deals, pipelines, sales tasks, a help desk. The free plan is useful for two users who want one shared list.

Staying on Mailchimp. That is a fair choice too. If the list is under 250 people the free plan does the job.

Where Bernard fits

Bernard is a website platform that emails your list. He is not an email tool you add to a website hosted somewhere else, so he only makes sense if your site lives with him too, moved across or built from nothing.

The work goes on after the move. The accessibility check re-runs itself every week, and his reports show which AI assistants are reading your site. Measuring is on from the start, so each week he reads your numbers and suggests up to three things to do, each with a button that does it.

On every plan, from Small at £200 a year: the website, your contacts with the permission each person gave recorded beside them, forms that land in those contacts, email campaigns to your list, and automatic emails for the ordinary jobs (a welcome, a thank you after a purchase, an enquiry follow-up, a review request when a course ends). Companies can sit in a simple pipeline with stages, which is about as much CRM as most shops and studios use. The price does not change when the list grows. There is a monthly sending allowance, which is there to protect your sending reputation, not to move you up a band.

Medium, at £500 a year, adds the marketing side: Bernard drafts your campaigns, writes a marketing plan every six weeks, keeps a content calendar, and has social posting and scheduling. Large, at £1,000, adds a shop and courses. Bernard prepares changes for your approval. Website edits stay on a draft until you choose to publish them, and you can undo them. Social posts can be scheduled to go out automatically at the time you approved.

What he does not do:

• There is no free-form automation builder. The automatic emails are set types for common jobs, not a canvas with branches.
• No deals, lead scoring, A/B tests or text messages. If you sell to companies through a sales team, HubSpot is built for that and Bernard is not.
• Opens and clicks are recorded only for readers who agree to it, and only on sites we have switched on for it, which today means asking us.
• He is newer and smaller than everyone on this page. If you want to tinker with code or reach for a huge library of plugins and integrations, he is not for you.

What comparisons miss

Whether the email arrives. No table can tell you that. Most of it is up to you: send from your own domain, set it up the way your provider asks, and stop emailing people who never open.

Moving your list. The addresses come across easily. The unsubscribes and bounces matter more, because if you import a list without them, somebody who left two years ago gets an email. Export both. Moving is also a good time to clean the list: ask everyone to confirm they still want to hear from you. The people who say yes are the ones who open, and you start on the new tool with a record of how each of them agreed. Bernard asks for that record before a campaign goes out, and an ActiveCampaign list can come across with its permission already confirmed, list by list (here is how it works).

How to choose a Mailchimp or HubSpot alternative

1. Write down your list size now and in two years. Put that number into every calculator on this page.
2. Count who needs to log in. One, or a team?
3. Decide whether you need a sales CRM or a good list. If nobody in the business chases deals, you need a good list.
4. Count your sends. Twice a month to 5,000 people is 10,000 emails. If that is small next to your list, a per-send price may suit you.
5. Ask what onboarding costs, and what the price is after the offer. Get both in writing.
6. Ask how the move works, including the unsubscribes and the permission. A good answer names the steps.
7. If you only need a newsletter, start free.

If you pay for the website and the list separately and it feels like paying twice, think about keeping both in one place, with whoever you choose.

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See what Bernard would do with your business. Already have a website? Paste its address and he measures it up, free, and shows you the new place before you decide anything. Starting from nothing? Tell him what you are building.