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Sage CRM

Impact of Mailchimp Free Plan Changes on Sage CRM Customers

1 minute read time.

In mid-January 2026, Mailchimp announced significant changes to its Free Marketing plan. These changes take effect on 17 February 2026 and may impact Sage CRM customers who use the Mailchimp integration while relying on the free tier.

What is changing?

The updated free plan introduces several tighter restrictions:

  • Reduced contact limit
    Free accounts will be limited to 250 contacts.

  • Reduced monthly send limit
    Email sends will be capped at 500 emails per month.

  • New daily send limit
    A daily maximum of 250 email sends will be enforced.

  • No automated journeys
    Automated customer journeys are generally not available on the free plan. This follows the removal of the Classic Automation Builder in June 2025.

Mailchimp has confirmed that accounts exceeding the 250 contact limit will have email sending paused unless the user upgrades to a paid plan. These changes were communicated to customers via email notifications and support updates in early January 2026.

What does this mean for Sage CRM users?

For Sage CRM customers using the Mailchimp integration on the free plan, these changes may result in:

  • Email campaigns being paused unexpectedly

  • Automated processes no longer running

  • A need to reduce mailing lists or email frequency

  • Pressure to move to a paid Mailchimp plan sooner than planned

This is most likely to affect smaller businesses, charities, and community organisations that have historically relied on the free tier for light marketing activity.

Next steps

Customers currently using the Mailchimp free plan are encouraged to review their contact counts, email volumes, and reliance on automation ahead of the February deadline. Planning early will help avoid disruption to marketing activity.

  • For anyone potentially affected by this, we built an integration with Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) as an alternative for one BP's end user and they now have it in a handful of sites. Brevo offers a much more flexible free tier:

    • Unlimited contacts on the free plan
    • Up to 300 emails per day (around 9,000 per month)

    We've built many e-marketing integrations with Sage CRM over the years, such as MailerLite, MailJet, Transpond, ClickDimensions and Klaviyo to name a few), but Brevo is one of the quickest and easiest to implement with a really strong API. I'd definitely recommend checking it out.

*Community Hub is the new name for Sage City