Change or Pause Your Marketing Plan

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Mailchimp's flexible pricing plans work with you as your business needs change over time. You can adjust your contact limit, switch plans to access new features, or do both at the same time. You also have the option to pause your account and stop payments for a while.

This article covers

  • How to upgrade and downgrade your plan
  • How to switch to the Pay As You Go plan
  • How to pause and unpause your plan

Before you start

  • If you joined Mailchimp before May 15, 2019, and want to change or upgrade your legacy plan, check out Change or Pause Your Legacy Pricing Plan.
  • If you want to learn how to change or pause your Websites plan, check out Change your Websites Plan.
  • You can downgrade from any paid plan to a Free plan only once over the life of your account.
  • When you upgrade to a paid Marketing plan from a Free Marketing plan, the upgrade is immediate and you lose any remaining sends that you had on the Free plan.
  • If your audience grows more than expected, or you go over your monthly send limit, we won’t interrupt your service. Instead, you’ll see an additional charge on your bill. If this happens, upgrade your pricing tier to accommodate your new contacts.
  • To learn more about what features come with each plan type, check out About Mailchimp Pricing Plans.

Upgrade

As your business grows, your marketing needs will change. You can upgrade your Marketing plan at any time to access more features, increase your send limit, or store more contacts in your audience. You can upgrade your plan type or pricing tier at any time. To learn more about Mailchimp plans and contact limits, check out About Mailchimp Pricing Plans.

If you upgrade your plan or pricing tier mid-cycle, you’ll have access to the new features, higher contact limit, and higher send limit immediately.

When you upgrade to a higher plan type, it results in an immediate charge that is prorated based on the plan you're upgrading to. You'll be billed in full for the upgraded plan on the next billing date, even if it starts the next day.

When you upgrade to a higher pricing tier, it results in an immediate charge that is the difference in cost between your current tier and the upgraded tier.

If you upgrade from a Pay As You Go plan to a monthly Marketing plan, the monthly billing process starts immediately. If you have remaining Pay As You Go credits, they'll be converted into credits and applied to your purchase. If any credits remain after the initial purchase of the monthly plan, we’ll apply the credits to the next monthly bill.

To upgrade your Marketing plan, follow these steps.

  1. Click your profile icon and choose Account.
  2. Click the Billing drop-down and choose Monthly plans or credits.
  3. In the Marketing Plan section, click Change Plan.
  4. Choose your plan and select your contact limit from the contact amount drop-down.
  5. Click Upgrade Now.
  6. Enter or confirm your payment information.
  7. Click I agree.

Nice job! You’ve upgraded your Marketing plan. To exit back to the Billing page from the confirmation screen, click Close.

Downgrade

If you're on a paid Marketing plan that doesn’t fit your needs, you can downgrade your plan type or pricing tier at any time. To learn more about Mailchimp plans and contact limits, check out About Mailchimp Pricing Plans.

If you downgrade your plan type or pricing tier mid-cycle, you’ll still have access to your current plan for the remainder of the billing cycle. The downgrade will take effect at the start of your next billing cycle.

If you downgrade from a Pay As You Go plan to a Free Marketing plan, any remaining credits will be lost.

To downgrade your Marketing plan, follow these steps.

  1. Click your profile icon and choose Account.
  2. Click the Billing drop-down and choose Monthly plans or credits.
  3. In the Marketing Plan section, click Change Plan.
  4. Choose your plan and select your contact limit from the contact amount drop-down.
  5. Click Downgrade.
  6. Review your downgrade. We’ll show you which features you will and won’t have access to after your downgrade. We’ll also let you know if there are any changes you need to make in your account before you downgrade. Changes could include deleting contacts, seats, or audiences.
  7. If you're satisfied with your downgrade selection, click on the confirmation checkbox (you may need to scroll down to see this) to acknowledge that you understand the changes that will take place in your account.
  8. In the Estimate for your future plan sidebar (you may need to scroll up to see this), click Downgrade.

The downgrade will take effect at the beginning of the next billing cycle. If your account still has conflicts after the downgrade is complete, sending will be paused until the changes are made.

To review your downgrade again, or to cancel your pending downgrade, return to the Monthly plans or credits page in your account.

Switch to Pay As You Go

If you're on a monthly Marketing plan and purchase Pay As You Go credits, we'll move you to a Pay As You Go plan and stop monthly billing. On the Pay As You Go plan, credits are like postage stamps and can only be applied to emails. You’ll need one credit for each email you send. Make sure you have enough credits in your account before you send email campaigns.

When you switch to the Pay As You Go plan, the change will occur immediately. We recommend switching from monthly to Pay As You Go toward the end of your billing period.

About the Pay As You Go Plan

Note

If you have a paid Websites plan, you won’t be able to switch to Pay As You Go.

Pause or unpause

If you don’t need to send emails or publish content for a while, pause your Marketing plan to stop monthly billing. When you're ready to start sending again, restart your plan.

  • Choose to pause for 3 or 6 months.
  • You are limited to 2 pauses every 12 months.
  • Pausing retains your data so you can use the account again.
  • You will still be able to create and edit emails, view reports, and manage your audience.
  • Your Websites plan will remain active.

Pause

  1. Click your profile icon and choose Account & billing or Account, depending on your user type.
  2. Click the Settings drop-down and choose Manage my plan.
  3. In the Temporarily pause my Marketing plan section, click Pause my plan.
  4. Review your options and the changes that will happen in your account.
  5. Use the radio buttons to choose to pause your plan for 3 months or 6 months.
  6. Click Pause Marketing plan.

Unpause

Your account automatically unpauses and resumes billing after the 3 or 6-month period. Be sure to reactivate automations after restarting.

To manually restart your plan, log in to your Mailchimp account and click restart your plan in the alert banner. In most cases, you'll be charged automatically and resume your previous plan. If you've gained enough contacts while paused, you may be asked to choose a new pricing tier.

To see or change your plan before restarting, navigate to the Monthly plans and credits page in your account. Review your plan selection and click Restart Plan.

About Mailchimp Pricing Plans

Whether you're starting out or already have a large number of contacts, we have a pricing option for you. Learn about Mailchimp's pricing plans, features, and add-ons.

Change Your Account Billing Settings

Learn how to update your payment method and billing settings in your account.

Pause or Cancel Your Account

To cancel your plan, pause your account to stop billing and keep your data, or permanently delete your account if you don’t need it or your data in the future.