Email Marketing Cost: Tools, Agencies, EU Rules
Email marketing cost in the EU: tool prices at 1,000 and 10,000 contacts, what an agency adds, and the consent and hosting rules that shape the bill.
Email marketing cost starts with the tool. When we checked on 23 October 2026, a list of about 1,000 contacts cost €14 to €20 a month on Brevo, MailerLite or CleverReach, and $26.50 to $30 a month on Mailchimp or Klaviyo. At about 10,000 contacts the entry plans cost €28 to €129, or $110 to $150. If an agency runs the campaigns, the published entry packages we found ranged from about €60 to €500 a month, and some agencies say the email tool’s own subscription is not included in their fee.
In a small business, email rarely has a budget of its own. It usually sits next to search: SEO brings new people to the site, and email is how you reach them again once they have signed up. If you are planning both, our guide to how much SEO costs has the numbers for the search side.
In short
- Tool at about 1,000 contacts: €14 to €20 a month on Brevo, MailerLite or CleverReach, $26.50 to $30 on Mailchimp or Klaviyo.
- Tool at about 10,000 contacts: from €28 a month (Brevo) to $150 (Klaviyo).
- Agency management: published entry packages from about €60 to €500 a month, in a small sample of four.
- EU law requires prior consent for marketing emails to individuals, with a narrow soft opt-in for existing customers. Ireland limits that soft opt-in to 12 months after the sale.
- Brevo and MailerLite store data in the EU and CleverReach in Europe. Mailchimp stores it in the US, and so does Klaviyo by default.
How much should email marketing cost?
You pay for the tool, for the work, and for growing the list. The work is writing and designing each email, setting up automated flows such as a welcome series, and reading the results, and you pay for it with your own hours or with an invoice. List growth costs whatever your sign-up forms or ads cost.
Tool prices depend on how many contacts are on your list (MailerLite, Mailchimp, Klaviyo, CleverReach) or how many emails you send (Brevo), and on the features in each tier.
Email marketing tool prices at 1,000 and 10,000 contacts
These are list prices for monthly billing on each tool’s own pricing page, seen 23 October 2026. For each list size we picked the cheapest paid plan that covers it.
| Tool | ~1,000 contacts | ~10,000 contacts | Where data is stored | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brevo | €14/mo (Starter, 10,000 emails) | €28/mo (Starter, 20,000 emails) | EU (OVH in France and Germany, Google Cloud in Belgium) | Brevo pricing |
| MailerLite | €17/mo (Comfort, 10,000 emails) | €79/mo (Comfort, 100,000 emails) | EU; EEA customers contract with MailerLite Limited, Dublin | MailerLite pricing |
| Mailchimp | $26.50/mo (Essentials, 501 to 1,500 contacts), about €23.76 | $110/mo (Essentials, 5,001 to 10,000 contacts), about €98.61 | US | Mailchimp pricing |
| Klaviyo | $30/mo (10,000 emails) | $150/mo (100,000 emails) | US by default; Germany-based EU environment for eligible new contracts | Klaviyo pricing |
| CleverReach | €20/mo (Basic, unlimited emails) | €129/mo (Pro) | “exclusively in the European region” | CleverReach prices |
Some details don’t fit in the table:
- Mailchimp’s base price is in USD. Its own pricing tooltip says prices in other currencies “are estimates based on current exchange rates”, so the euro figures above are Mailchimp’s estimates on the day we looked. Klaviyo shows prices only in US or Canadian dollars.
- One tier up, at the same two list sizes, you pay €29 and €55 on Brevo Standard, €35 and €109 on MailerLite Power, and $45 and $135 on Mailchimp Standard.
- Annual billing saves about 10% on Brevo, MailerLite and CleverReach (CleverReach then bills the year in advance). Mailchimp instead takes 15% off the monthly price for the first 12 months at 10,000+ contacts, so Essentials for 5,001 to 10,000 contacts is $93.50 a month in the first year.
- VAT comes on top. Brevo’s prices are “exclusive of taxes”, Mailchimp’s “exclude any applicable taxes and fees”, CleverReach’s are plus statutory VAT, and MailerLite’s “may be subject to applicable taxes”. We found no tax statement on Klaviyo’s pricing page.
How much does it cost to send 10,000 emails?
That depends on whether you mean 1,000 contacts mailed ten times a month or one campaign to 10,000 contacts.
| Scenario | Brevo | MailerLite | CleverReach | Mailchimp | Klaviyo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ~1,000 contacts, ~10 sends a month | €14 | €17 | €20 | $26.50 | $30 |
| One send to ~10,000 contacts | €28 | €79 | €129 | $110 | $150 |
None of the free plans covers 10,000 emails a month. Brevo’s free plan allows 300 emails a day, MailerLite’s 2,500 a month, CleverReach’s 1,000 a month, and Mailchimp’s and Klaviyo’s 500 a month.
Brevo charges by emails sent, so a large list that you mail once a month stays cheap. The other four charge by the number of contacts or subscribers on your list, whether or not you email them that month. On those tools, removing people who never open your emails lowers the bill.
What an agency adds on top of the tool
We found four European agencies and freelancers that publish a monthly email marketing price on their own sites (seen 23 October 2026). Their entry packages ran from about €60 a month for one designed email (labelled launch pricing) to €500 a month for four campaigns. Two of the four say VAT comes on top, and the other two don’t mention it. Four is too few for an average, and the scopes differ. Where the pages mention the tool, it is a separate cost. One of the four says you need your own account with an email provider. A Dublin agency outside the sample says the Klaviyo subscription is not included in its fees, and it charges a €250 one-off Klaviyo setup fee, excl. VAT.
Our own Email marketing add-on is €490/mo excl. VAT and covers newsletters, automated flows and list growth on EU-hosted tools. You can add it to any plan or buy it on its own. That puts it near the top of the published range above. Email marketing and automation is also part of our Full Funnel plan at €1,890/mo + ad spend, excl. VAT. If your list growth relies on paid campaigns, budget for them separately: what Google Ads costs has those numbers.
EU rules that change the cost of email marketing
We are engineers, not lawyers. This is background for budgeting; for your own situation, ask a data protection lawyer.
- Prior consent: under Article 13 of the ePrivacy Directive, marketing email to individuals is allowed “only in respect of subscribers or users who have given their prior consent.”
- Soft opt-in for customers: the same article lets a business email existing customers about its own similar products or services, if they could object when their address was collected and can object in every message.
- Ireland’s 12-month limit: S.I. No. 336/2011, Regulation 13 only allows the soft opt-in if the sale happened no more than 12 months earlier, or the address was used for that marketing within that period.
- What counts as consent: GDPR Article 4(11) requires a “freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous” indication. Article 7 says you must be able to demonstrate consent and that withdrawing it must be as easy as giving it. Recital 32 rules out pre-ticked boxes.
- Double opt-in: neither the ePrivacy Directive nor the GDPR mentions it. German supervisory authorities, however, call it “geboten” (called for) to verify electronic consent, and say that storing an IP address alone is not enough (DSK guidance, February 2022, section 3.3).
For the budget, the rules mostly add setup work: sign-up forms that record when and how each person agreed, a confirmation email if you use double opt-in, and an easy way to unsubscribe in every message. They also limit the list to people you may email, and on a per-contact tool that is the list you pay for.
Where your email data is stored
Mailchimp says its servers are in the United States, and its data processing addendum uses the EU standard contractual clauses. Klaviyo stores data in the US by default. Since 15 September 2026, eligible new contracted customers can be set up in its Germany-based EU environment in a limited rollout, but existing US-hosted accounts can’t be moved there yet. With a US-hosted tool your subscribers’ data leaves the EU, so your contract with the provider has to cover the transfer, and your privacy notice has to mention it (GDPR Article 13(1)(f)). With an EU-hosted tool the stored list stays inside the EU.
What a self-run or managed newsletter costs
A newsletter you run yourself costs €14 to €20 a month at about 1,000 contacts on Brevo, MailerLite or CleverReach, and €28 to €129 at 10,000, plus your time. Agency management adds roughly €60 to €500 a month in the published packages we found, plus any setup fee and VAT. For the wider budget, including SEO and ads, see how to set a digital marketing budget, or contact us if you want a second opinion on your tools and list.