How much does it cost to send 10,000 emails?

On Amazon SES, sending 10,000 emails costs $1 at the list price of $0.10 per 1,000. A full email marketing setup costs more, because you also pay for the app (SaaS plan or server) and, if you self-host, your time.

What is the cheapest way to send a newsletter to 100,000 subscribers?

Self-hosting on Amazon SES is usually the cheapest in cash terms. Our estimate is about $98–$123 a month at 4 sends per month, against $439–$1,380 for the SaaS plans we checked. It only stays cheapest if your admin time is small and your deliverability is under control.

How much does Amazon SES cost per email?

Amazon SES lists outbound email at $0.10 per 1,000 emails, attachments at $0.12 per GB, and an optional standard dedicated IP at $24.95 per month (checked 17 October 2026).

Is Amazon SES free to use?

Not permanently. New AWS accounts get up to $200 in Free Tier credits that can be used on SES, and the free plan lasts six months. After that you pay per email.

How much does Mailchimp cost for 50,000 contacts?

Mailchimp listed Essentials at $385, Standard at $450 and Premium at $815 a month for 50,000 contacts on 16 October 2026 (USD). Essentials is not available at 100,000 contacts.

NetSendo SILVER is a free licence for your own business with unlimited contacts, but you still pay for the server and for sending. GOLD is $97 a month for unlimited AI campaigns, A/B testing, auto-webinars and priority support.

What it really costs to email 10k, 50k and 100k contacts

Q: When is SaaS cheaper than self-hosting?

When the list is small, when nobody owns operations, or when the hours you spend on the server cost more than the price gap. At 10,000 contacts the gap to MailerLite is about $56 a month, which is roughly one hour of admin time at $50 an hour.

How much does it cost to email 10k, 50k and 100k contacts?

The short answer, assuming each contact gets 4 emails a month:

List size	Emails / month	SaaS plans (USD, monthly billing)	Self-hosted estimate (USD / month)
10,000	40,000	$89–$150	about $33
50,000	200,000	$319–$720	about $78–$103
100,000	400,000	$439–$1,380	about $98–$123

SaaS ranges cover MailerLite Comfort, Kit Creator, Mailchimp Standard and Klaviyo Email, checked on vendor pages on 16 October 2026. Self-hosted figures are estimates: a VPS, weekly backups and Amazon SES, with the upper figure including a dedicated IP. A free licence such as NetSendo SILVER is assumed. Your time is not included. The assumptions are listed below.

Self-hosting is cheaper in cash at every size here. The gap grows with the list: about $56 a month at 10,000 contacts and over $300 a month at 100,000, against the cheapest USD plan we checked. Whether it is cheaper overall depends on how many hours you spend running it, which is the part most cost comparisons leave out. We cover that in the section on when SaaS is cheaper.

What do SaaS email tools charge at 10k, 50k and 100k contacts?

SaaS tools mostly price by contacts, with a cap on emails per month. Here are the list prices for the tier that covers each list size:

Platform and plan	10k contacts	50k contacts	100k contacts	Send limit and notes
Mailchimp Essentials	$110	$385	not available	10× contacts per month
Mailchimp Standard	$135	$450	$800	12× contacts per month
Mailchimp Premium	$350	$815	$1,025	15× contacts per month
MailerLite Comfort	$89	$319	$439	10× contacts per month; 10k and 50k monthly prices derived from yearly ÷ 0.9
MailerLite Power	$129	$389	$489	Unlimited emails
Kit Creator	$139	$379 (55k tier)	$679 (105k tier)	Free plan up to 10,000 subscribers
Kit Pro	$189	$519 (55k tier)	$879 (105k tier)
Klaviyo Email	$150	$720	$1,380	10× profiles; 150k+ is "talk to sales"
ActiveCampaign Plus	$189	$609	quote only	"Starts at", billed annually; 10× sends
GetResponse Starter (EUR)	€69	€259	€469	Unlimited sends; net prices
GetResponse Creator (EUR)	€114	€369	€599	Includes webinars
Brevo Standard (EUR, priced by emails)	€69 (40k emails)	€229 (250k emails)	€399 (500k emails)	Mapped at 4 sends per contact; some figures derived from yearly ÷ 0.9

Monthly prices in the currency the vendor page served, checked on 16 October 2026. Sources: Mailchimp, MailerLite, Kit, Klaviyo (the page redirected to /uk/pricing but showed USD), ActiveCampaign, GetResponse, Brevo. Prices change and some are geo-priced or promotional, so check the vendor page before you decide.

Three details matter more than the headline price:

Tier boundaries. Kit's tiers jump from 45k to 55k and from 95k to 105k, so a 51,000-contact list pays the 55k price. Mailchimp Essentials stops at 50,000 contacts.
Send caps. Mailchimp Standard allows 12× your contacts per month, and MailerLite Comfort and Klaviyo allow 10×. Daily sending (about 30× a month) needs a higher plan or a tool with unlimited sends.
Quote-only tiers. ActiveCampaign publishes no price above 50,000 contacts, and Klaviyo asks you to talk to sales above 150,000.

How do you calculate the cost of self-hosted email marketing?

Self-hosted cost is a sum of a few simple lines. Here is the formula we use:

Monthly cost = server + backups + (emails ÷ 1,000 × SES price) + dedicated IP (optional) + licence + (admin hours × your hourly rate)

where emails = contacts × sends per contact per month

These are the assumptions behind every number in this guide:

Input	Value we use	Source or reasoning
Sends per contact per month	4 (one a week)	Common newsletter cadence; change it for your case
Server, 10k contacts	DigitalOcean Basic 4 GiB / 2 vCPU, $24	DigitalOcean; NetSendo recommends 4 GB RAM (2 GB minimum)
Server, 50k and 100k contacts	DigitalOcean Basic 8 GiB / 4 vCPU, $48	Our conservative sizing assumption, not a benchmark
Backups	Weekly, 20% of droplet cost	DigitalOcean
Sending	Amazon SES, $0.10 per 1,000 emails	AWS
Dedicated IP	$24.95 per month, only at 50k and 100k	AWS; at 40,000 emails a month we stay on shared IPs
Licence	NetSendo SILVER free licence, or GOLD $97/month	NetSendo pricing
Admin time	Shown separately	It varies too much to bake in

We have not measured server sizing per list size. Your needs depend on automations, tracking volume and what else runs on the box. Treat the server line as an estimate and resize after a month of real use.

Worked examples: 10k, 50k and 100k contacts

Here is the formula applied to the three list sizes. All figures are estimates in USD per month:

Line	10k contacts	50k contacts	100k contacts
Emails per month (× 4)	40,000	200,000	400,000
Server (VPS)	$24.00	$48.00	$48.00
Weekly backups (20%)	$4.80	$9.60	$9.60
Amazon SES ($0.10 / 1,000)	$4.00	$20.00	$40.00
Subtotal on shared SES IPs	$32.80	$77.60	$97.60
Dedicated IP (optional)	n/a	$24.95	$24.95
Total with dedicated IP	n/a	$102.55	$122.55
NetSendo GOLD (optional)	+$97.00	+$97.00	+$97.00
Total with GOLD (and dedicated IP at 50k/100k)	$129.80	$199.55	$219.55

Stacked bars of the self-hosted estimate: 10k contacts $32.80, 50k $102.55 and 100k $122.55 on a free licence, with an optional $97 GOLD segment Where the self-hosted money goes. Estimate, USD per month, prices checked 16–17 October 2026.

The licence is the largest single line only if you choose GOLD. On a free licence, the server is the biggest cost until you pass about 480,000 emails a month, the point where SES ($0.10 per 1,000) overtakes a $48 server. SES grows linearly with volume; the server does not.

How does SaaS compare with self-hosted at each list size?

Grouped bar chart of monthly cost at 10k, 50k and 100k contacts for self-hosted SILVER and GOLD estimates, MailerLite Comfort, Kit Creator, Mailchimp Standard and Klaviyo Email SaaS list prices (monthly billing, 16 October 2026) against our self-hosted estimate. Self-hosted bars include a dedicated IP at 50k and 100k.

List size	Cheapest USD SaaS in our table	Self-hosted, SILVER	Self-hosted, GOLD	Monthly gap (SaaS − SILVER)
10,000	MailerLite Comfort, $89	$32.80	$129.80	$56.20
50,000	MailerLite Comfort, $319	$102.55	$199.55	$216.45
100,000	MailerLite Comfort, $439	$122.55	$219.55	$316.45

Estimates. The gap ignores your time; see the next section.

Note that with GOLD, self-hosting costs more than MailerLite at 10,000 contacts. That is fine if you need what GOLD adds (unlimited AI campaigns, A/B testing, auto-webinars), but it is not a cost saving at that size.

When is SaaS cheaper than self-hosting?

SaaS wins whenever your time costs more than the price gap. The break-even is simple:

Break-even admin hours per month = (SaaS price − self-hosted cash cost) ÷ your hourly rate

At an illustrative $50 an hour, against MailerLite Comfort:

List size	Monthly gap	Break-even at $50/h
10,000	$56.20	about 1.1 hours
50,000	$216.45	about 4.3 hours
100,000	$316.45	about 6.3 hours

If running the server, handling bounces and watching deliverability takes more hours than that, SaaS is cheaper for you. SaaS also wins in these cases:

Small lists. Kit's free plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers (Kit pricing). If its features are enough, $0 beats any server. Mailchimp's and MailerLite's free plans stop at 250 contacts.
No one owns operations. Updates, backups and security patches have to happen every month.
You need it running today. New SES accounts start in a sandbox limited to verified recipients and 200 messages per 24 hours. AWS responds to production-access requests within 96 hours (AWS).

Self-hosting gains when you send more often. SaaS send caps push daily senders up a tier, while SES just scales:

Sends per month (100k contacts)	Emails	SES cost
1	100,000	$10
4	400,000	$40
8	800,000	$80
30 (daily)	3,000,000	$300

SES at $0.10 per 1,000 emails, excluding attachments.

What are the hidden costs of self-hosting?

The cash lines above are the easy part. Budget for these too:

Your time. Installation, updates, backups, restore tests, queue monitoring. This is the biggest hidden cost, and the only one we cannot price for you.
Deliverability work. Gmail requires bulk senders (more than 5,000 messages a day to Gmail accounts) to use SPF, DKIM and DMARC, support one-click unsubscribe and keep the spam rate below 0.30% (Google). A dedicated IP must be warmed up gradually. See the deliverability guide.
Bounce and complaint handling. AWS asks you to confirm you have a process for bounces and complaints before it grants production access.
Extras on the bill. SES charges $0.12 per GB of attachments. Virtual Deliverability Manager is optional at $0.07 per 1,000 emails (AWS).
SMS, if you use it. You pay the gateway directly. Twilio lists US SMS at $0.0083 per segment plus carrier fees of $0.0025–$0.005 (Twilio).

What are the hidden costs of SaaS?

SaaS has its own surprises:

Tier jumps when you cross a boundary (Kit at 55k and 105k, Mailchimp Essentials not available above 50k).
Send caps that force an upgrade if you send more often.
Feature gating: webinars only on GetResponse Creator, A/B testing or automation depth on higher tiers.
Annual billing discounts that lock you in, and promotional first-year prices that end.
Quote-only pricing at scale (ActiveCampaign above 50k, Klaviyo above 150k).

Where does NetSendo fit in this model?

NetSendo is the "licence" line in the formula. SILVER is a free licence for your own business with unlimited contacts. Per the pricing page, it includes email and SMS, a CRM with pipeline, live webinars, automations, all integrations, the public API and MCP server, and up to 3 AI campaigns. GOLD is $97/month for unlimited AI campaigns, local LLM, A/B testing, auto-webinars and priority support.

NetSendo has no sending limits of its own. You connect Amazon SES, Mailgun, SendGrid, Gmail API or its NMI infrastructure, and your volume is set by that provider. It is source-available under the NetSendo EULA, not open source (see Is NetSendo open source?). Managed cloud hosting is planned at +$39/month but not live yet.

If you are comparing NetSendo with other self-hosted tools rather than with SaaS, read the best self-hosted email marketing software. Sendy, for example, is a $69 one-time licence on SES (sendy.co), and listmonk and Mautic are free open-source projects. Their server and SES lines look much like the ones above. For a migration view from Mailchimp, see self-hosted Mailchimp alternative.

Methodology and limits

Prices are list prices from vendor pages on 16 October 2026 (SaaS) and 17 October 2026 (AWS, DigitalOcean). Taxes are excluded, and some prices are geo-priced (GetResponse and Brevo served EUR).
Derived figures: MailerLite's 10k and 50k monthly prices and some Brevo tiers were derived from the yearly price ÷ 0.9, as noted in the table.
Self-hosted numbers are estimates. They are calculations from published unit prices, not benchmarks. Server sizing for 50k and 100k contacts is our assumption.
Not included: your time, domain costs, monitoring tools, SMS, and any paid support.
Re-check before you buy. Vendors change prices often.

To try the self-hosted side with your own list, the quickstart gets NetSendo running with Docker. If you want an AI assistant to work with campaigns on your own instance, see /en/agents and the self-hosted MCP server guide.