MailerLite Buyer's Checklist: Twelve Tests Before You Sign or Renew

Use this before you sign up for MailerLite, or before your first renewal on the new price list. It is built from the vendor's billing documentation and from what 100 recent reviewers report, and it is ordered by what costs money if you get it wrong.

Each item has a test you can run yourself in under ten minutes. Where the answer depends on your own list, the test tells you which number to look at.

1. Find your band at your peak, not today

The price is set by active subscribers, counted cumulatively within the billing cycle. "any email address that was Active at any point during the cycle counts toward your subscriber limit, even if it is deleted later." ^[3]

So the band that matters is your highest point in a month, not your average. If you run a lead-magnet campaign that brings in 600 addresses and you clean 400 of them a week later, you pay for the 600 for that cycle.

Test. Take your highest list size in the last twelve months and add the largest single import or campaign you expect next year. Find that number in the published ladder. That is your real price, not the one for today's list.

Worked example. A coach with 900 subscribers runs a free webinar every spring that adds about 500 sign-ups, and loses half of them to unsubscribes within a month. Average list: about 1,150. Peak list: 1,400. On the published ladder, 900 sits in the 1,000 band at $19 a month on Comfort. The spring peak lands in the 2,500 band at $33. The cumulative count means the whole cycle in which the webinar runs is billed at $33, and the band stays there until the coach downgrades by hand, because the list never drops back under 1,000 by itself. Budget $33, not $19. That is $168 a year of difference on a list that, on average, barely moved.

Watch for. Bands that sit just above your peak. A list that hovers around 1,000 is the most expensive place to be, because $19 becomes $33 at 1,001.

## 2. Count your sends against the ten-times rule

On Comfort, monthly email volume is capped at ten times the top of your band. "The multiplier is based on the top of your tier, not your exact subscriber count." ^[2] Exceed it and the plan upgrades automatically to the next band for the rest of that cycle.

Test. Count every email you send in a busy month: campaigns, automations, resends. Divide by the top of your band. If the answer is above eight, you are close enough to the cap that a product launch will trip it.

Worked example. A 2,500-band account on Comfort has 25,000 sends a month. A weekly newsletter to 2,200 people uses 8,800 to 11,000, depending on the month. A six-email welcome series for 300 new subscribers adds 1,800. A resend to non-openers each week adds roughly 6,000. A product launch with three extra campaigns adds 6,600. Total in a launch month: about 25,400, which is over the cap by 400 emails. The plan moves to the 5,000 band for the rest of the cycle, at $49 instead of $33, and moves back at renewal. One launch, $16, and nobody pressed a button.

Watch for. Automations. A welcome sequence of six emails to 300 new subscribers is 1,800 sends that nobody scheduled by hand.

3. Check whether Power costs the same as your next Comfort band

On the 2,500, 5,000, 10,000 and 100,000 bands, the next Comfort band costs exactly what Power costs on your current band: $49, $69, $129 and $489. We found that in the vendor's own ladder, and it is not mentioned in the vendor's prose.

Test. Look up your band and the one above it. If Comfort's next band equals Power's price at your band, any month you exceed the send cap costs you Power's price with Comfort's limits.

Worked example. The account in item 2 trips the meter twice a year. Two months at $49 instead of $33 is $32 extra, for a Comfort plan that still has three seats and 50 automations. On Power the same account would pay $49 every month, $192 more a year than Comfort, and send without limit. On cost alone Comfort never loses, because a tripped month costs exactly what Power would have. What changes is what the money buys. An account that trips the meter in most months is paying Power's price for Comfort's caps, and for the same money it could have unlimited sending, unlimited seats and live chat. For a 10,000-band account the stakes are larger: a single send-triggered upgrade costs $40, and $129 is also the Power price.

Watch for. Heavy senders on those four bands. For them, a tripped month costs exactly the Power price, so an account that trips it most months gets Power's bill without Power's limits.

## 4. List the features you will actually activate

Comfort's caps are on active items: 50 automations, 10 forms, 10 websites and landing pages combined, 5 digital products or bookings, 3 seats ^[3]. Exceeding one does not charge you. It freezes creating and editing.

Test. Write down how many landing pages, forms and products you will have live at once a year from now, not this month. Creators who build one page per product reach ten faster than they expect.

Worked example. A course creator sells five products, each with its own landing page, a signup form for its lead magnet, and an automation for delivery and follow-up. That is five products, five landing pages, five forms and five automations, inside every Comfort cap. Add a sixth product and the products cap is exceeded. The creator cannot activate the new product, and under the documented rule cannot edit the existing five either, until one is deactivated. The billing meter does not move; the business does. For this buyer, Power is a feature decision before it is a price decision.

Watch for. The features page, which still says "Unlimited automation workflows" ^[10]. That predates the June limits. The billing help page is current.

5. Decide monthly or annual on growth, not on the discount

Annual saves 10%. It does not fix your price: an upgrade inside the year is charged "based on the new annual cost and the time remaining in the current billing cycle" ^[3], and a downgrade waits for the anniversary.

Test. If your list grew by more than one band last year, choose monthly. If it was flat, annual is a reasonable 10%.

Worked example. At the 1,000 band, annual Comfort is $17.10 a month against $19, a saving of $22.80 a year. If the list crosses into the 2,500 band in month four, the account pays a pro-rated top-up calculated on the 2,500 band's annual price for the remaining eight months. The 10% saving survives, but the money is committed for the rest of the year, and if the list falls back the downgrade waits for the anniversary. Monthly would have cost $22.80 more and kept the option to step down after one cycle.

Watch for. The pricing page opens on "Billed yearly" ^[2]. The big numbers are the annual ones.

## 6. Know where the upgrade brake is

The vendor documents a control for pending upgrades in Account settings, under Plan and billing: "Click Cancel scheduled upgrade." ^[3] It is the only published way to stop an automatic move before it lands.

Test. Before your first big import, open Plan and billing and find the button. Note your billing date next to it.

Worked example. A nonprofit imports a 1,400-address donor file from an old system, meaning to remove the 600 lapsed donors the same afternoon. The import pushes the account over its 1,000 band and schedules an upgrade. If the lapsed donors are removed and the scheduled upgrade is cancelled before it lands, the cost is nothing. If not, the cumulative count has already recorded 1,400 for the cycle. Clean the file before the import, not after it, and check the brake anyway.

Watch for. Upgrades already charged. The brake is for scheduled moves. Once a pro-rated charge has been taken, the refund policy applies, and it is narrow.

7. Read the refund policy as written

"There is no other circumstance in which you will be entitled to a refund from us" ^[6], after the one guaranteed case, which is the vendor ending the service without cause. Unused months, a forgotten cancellation and a plan purchased by mistake are all named as not refundable.

Test. Ask yourself whether you would be comfortable losing the remaining months of an annual plan. If not, buy monthly.

Worked example. An annual Power plan at the 2,500 band costs $529.20 a year, $44.10 a month. A business that stops using the product after three months has $396.90 of unused time. Under the published policy none of it is returned, because unused time is named as not refundable and the business is not a consumer with a 14-day right. The same business on monthly billing would have paid $49 a month, $147 for three months, and owed nothing further after cancelling.

Watch for. The 14-day withdrawal right. It applies to individuals using the product outside a business, not to companies.

## 8. Protect the account before the first send

The sharpest theme in the reviews is not price. It is suspension. Eleven of 100 recent Trustpilot reviews describe an account suspended or terminated, ten of them at one or two stars, several on a first or third campaign to a list of one or two hundred ^[12]. The terms allow termination "with or without cause" ^[8].

Test. Before you import, check that every address has a consent record you can produce: the form, the date, the source. Send your first campaign to a small, recent, clearly opted-in segment.

Worked example. Two reviewers describe the pattern in their own words. One writes of a list of "merely 200" being banned; another of an account "terminated" on a third campaign to existing subscribers ^[12]. Neither publishes their consent records, so we cannot judge the decisions. What both show is that review happens early and at small sizes. A first send to 150 people who signed up through a MailerLite form last week, with a clear sender name and an unsubscribe link, gives the account a clean history before the older addresses go out.

Watch for. Purchased, scraped or very old lists. They are what account review exists to catch, and a legitimate list that looks like one gets caught with them.

9. Check the integration you depend on, by name

The vendor's own surfaces score very differently. The phone app has 4.7 from 1,106 ratings on the App Store ^[13]. The official WordPress forms plugin has 3.0 from 40, with more one-star reviews than five-star ^[14]. The official Shopify app has 2.4 from 27, and 15 of those are one-star ^[15].

Test. If your list grows through WordPress or Shopify, read the ten most recent reviews of that specific integration, not the platform's overall score.

Worked example. A Shopify store choosing between MailerLite and Klaviyo might compare the platforms' Trustpilot scores, 4.1 against 1.6, and conclude MailerLite is the safer choice. On the surface that matters to a store, the comparison reverses. MailerLite's own Shopify app is 2.4 from 27 reviews. Read the reviews that describe abandoned-cart flows, product sync and pop-ups, because those are the features a store buys the integration for, and they are what the one-star reviews describe failing.

Watch for. A second Shopify listing under the MailerLite name. It belongs to a third party, Combidesk, and is no longer available. The vendor's own app is "MailerLite Email Automation".

## 10. Confirm your renewal price if you were on an old plan

Existing Growing Business and Advanced accounts move to Comfort and Power at renewal. "The renewal price reflects the new plan rather than your previous one." ^[4] There is no way to keep the old price.

Test. Open Plan and billing and read the renewal amount now, not on the day. Then look at your active automations, forms and landing pages against Comfort's caps, because those apply from the renewal too.

Worked example. An Advanced account with eight seats and 80 active automations renews onto Power, which carries no caps, so nothing changes except the price. A Growing Business account with 60 active automations and 12 forms renews onto Comfort and is immediately over two caps. Its automations keep running, but it cannot edit any of them or publish a new form until it deactivates ten automations and two forms, or upgrades to Power. Do the count before the renewal date, while you can still choose.

Watch for. Feature caps you already exceed. Nothing stops running, but you will not be able to edit those items until you get under the limit.

11. If you are on the free plan, know what stops

The free plan covers 250 active subscribers and 2,500 emails a month since 16 June 2026 ^[5]. Over either limit, sending and automations pause and imports stop, while forms keep collecting "without showing any errors to your visitors" ^[5]. Nothing is charged.

Test. Check your active count against 250 and your sends against 2,500. If you are within 20% of either, decide now whether you will upgrade or clean, because a paused welcome sequence is invisible to the people signing up.

Worked example. A free account with 240 subscribers runs a giveaway that brings in 40. It is now at 280. Its welcome automation stops sending, so the 40 new people receive nothing, while the signup form keeps accepting them with no error. Nothing tells the subscriber anything is wrong. The owner can upgrade to Comfort at $12, or remove 30 inactive subscribers using the vendor's clean-up tool. Under the cumulative count, the second option takes effect at the next reset.

Watch for. Sending through the API or an AI assistant. On Free, API and MCP access "doesn't include sending" ^[2].

## 12. Plan the exit before you enter

Leaving is documented and it has conditions. Cancelling keeps the plan until it expires and then moves the account to Free ^[7]. To keep sending after that, the active list must be under 250. Extra users beyond two are removed. And "any existing custom domains need to be disconnected/removed from landing pages and websites first to successfully initiate the plan cancellation" ^[7], so a site on your own domain has to be moved or switched to the default MailerLite address before the cancellation will go through.

Deleting the account is a separate step. It requires typing DELETE MY ACCOUNT, and "MailerLite gives you a 25-day grace period to cancel the deletion request in case you change your mind." ^[11] Cancelling the deletion does not reactivate a subscription you cancelled along the way.

Test. Before you build anything, export a sample of your subscribers with their fields and groups, and check that the file is complete. Write down which landing pages sit on your own domain.

Worked example. A creator with eight landing pages on a custom domain decides to move to another platform. The cancellation cannot start until the domain is disconnected from all eight. The pages then live on the default MailerLite address until the plan expires, which breaks every link printed in an old newsletter. Rebuild the pages elsewhere first, point the domain there, then cancel.

Watch for. Annual plans. Cancellation stops the next charge, not the current one, and the unused months are not refunded.

## The short version

Price your peak, not your average. Count your sends. On four bands, Power costs the same as the upgrade you would otherwise pay for. Buy monthly if you are growing. Keep consent records before the first campaign. And read the billing help page, which is the most honest and most current document the vendor publishes.