Drip Pricing 2026: $39/month for Up to 2,500 People, Then Band by Band

For a direct-to-consumer store with up to 2,500 people on its list that wants behavior-triggered automation, such as cart recovery, browse follow-up and post-purchase sequences, Drip is the best pick in this guide at $39 per month, billed monthly. That band includes unlimited email sends, dynamic segments, onsite campaigns and up to 50 workflows, and the pricing page offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card. The reason to read past the entry price is that Drip moves to a higher band as the list grows, so the figure to budget around is the list size you expect in twelve months, not the one you have today. Prices here were checked on 7 October 2026 against drip.com/pricing.

How Drip bills people, bands and sends

Drip's pricing page describes a monthly, usage-based model. The monthly price is set by the band your number of people falls into, and each band carries one flat monthly figure. A band is a range, such as 9,001 to 10,000 people, so the price stays the same between sends, between flows and between campaigns. It changes only when your count crosses a band boundary. That makes the bill predictable within a band and sudden at the edges.

Sends are the second meter, and this is where the published list is less uniform than the headline suggests. Most of the bands list unlimited email sends. The two largest bands on the page are different: 37,501–40,000 people at $609 a month lists a send allowance of 480,000 emails, and 45,001–50,000 people at $699 lists 600,000 emails. A store that mails heavily at those sizes should confirm the allowance covers its monthly volume before it commits to the band.

The list also has gaps. Not every intermediate size is listed, so a list of 5,500 people or 14,000 people has no directly quoted figure in the published bands. Sizes between two listed bands should be confirmed with Drip before you plan a budget around them. Do not assume the lower band applies, because the boundary rules decide what you pay in the month the list crosses the line.

The features are not identical across every band. The core set of dynamic segments, onsite campaigns and up to 50 workflows is listed on the entry band and on the 4,501–5,000 and 9,001–10,000 bands. The higher bands mostly differ in support and onboarding: email support appears from 4,501–5,000, chat and email support from 9,001–10,000, and free migration and personalized onboarding from 22,501–25,000. If help during a migration matters to you, check the band you will buy rather than the entry price.

Drip's band list in full

The table below gives each published band with its monthly price and the inclusions listed for it. Use it as the starting point for your twelve-month projection, then confirm any size that falls between two rows.

Read the table as a staircase. The steps are small in the lower bands, where a few hundred extra people add $10 or $15 a month, and they grow in the upper bands, where the jump from 17,501–20,000 to 22,501–25,000 is $80 a month. The shape matters more than any single row, because it tells you how sensitive the bill is to growth at each stage of your list.

How Drip compares with the main alternatives

Drip sits in a group of ecommerce-focused email and automation tools that most shortlists include. The table below compares the entry price, the best-fit use and the main limitation for five tools, using the monthly figures on each vendor's pricing page as checked on 7 October 2026.

The table is a starting point rather than a verdict. Drip is the most direct fit for a store that wants several behavior-driven flows, onsite campaigns and a clear band structure without per-send charges. Omnisend and MailerLite are better choices when a free plan is the real requirement. Klaviyo and Customer.io fit when the profile or event model is central to the product, and in those cases the price should be read against the tier you will actually need rather than the lowest one listed.

What the $39 band includes

The entry band is the plan most readers will evaluate, so it is worth being exact about what it covers. The published list for 1–2,500 people includes four items, and each one maps onto a part of a DTC playbook.

• Unlimited email sends: you can test subject lines, send frequencies and flow timing without a per-send charge. The constraint is the number of people you hold, not the number of messages.
• Dynamic segments: audiences update as behavior changes, so a shopper who buys leaves the browse segment without manual cleanup.
• Onsite campaigns: popups and slide-ins can use the same segments as your email, which keeps the message consistent between the website and the inbox.
• Up to 50 workflows: enough for a welcome series, cart and browse recovery, post-purchase and win-back, plus a few seasonal flows. A mature account with many overlapping flows should consolidate before reaching the ceiling.

Two practical questions follow from that list. The first is whether your store platform connects cleanly. Confirm product, order and browse data arrive with the fields your flows need, because a flow built on incomplete events will look like a weak tool when the real problem is the input. The second is whether your flows fit inside 50 workflows. Count them before the trial begins, and write down which ones would merge if you hit the ceiling.

AI assistance is a common question in this category, and the answer for Drip needs care. The price list does not itemize any AI feature, so you cannot read the scope of an assistant from the pricing page. Treat any AI capability as something to test during the trial: ask what it does, whether it is included in the band you plan to buy, and whether it works with your own product and event data rather than sample data.

The tools in detail

Each tool below is judged on the same questions: what it does well for an ecommerce or DTC team, where it falls short, what it costs on the published page, and where to read the full pricing.

Drip: what it does well and where it stops

Drip works best when the list is made of people who behave: shoppers who browse, add to cart, buy or stop buying. The 1–2,500 band puts unlimited sends, dynamic segments, onsite campaigns and up to 50 workflows under one monthly price, so a small store can run cart recovery, browse follow-up, post-purchase and win-back flows without adding a per-message cost. That cost structure rewards testing, because a new subject line or a second reminder does not change the bill.

Drip stops being simple as the list grows. The monthly price rises by band, the top two bands use send allowances, and there is no permanent free plan. A store with a large but unengaged list pays for every person in the band, including people who never open. The published list does not describe billing-event triggers such as failed payments or cancellations, so a subscription business should check how those events arrive before choosing Drip.

Price: $39/month for 1–2,500 people, billed monthly, with a 14-day trial and no credit card. Full band list: drip.com/pricing.

Klaviyo: a price path you can read

Klaviyo is the most common comparison for Drip in ecommerce. Its Email plan is listed by active profile: $20/month for 500 profiles, $30 for 1,000, $60 for 2,500, $100 for 5,000, $150 for 10,000 and $400 for 25,000, all billed monthly. The free plan covers 250 active profiles, 500 email sends a month and $5 of mobile messages. For a team that wants to see the cost at every step up to 25,000 profiles, the published ladder is easier to read than most.

Klaviyo falls short in two places. Its Email+SMS plans are listed by profile count without a published price, so any budget that depends on SMS needs a quote before a decision. Above 25,000 profiles the published list shows no figure, which means a large store must request pricing. Compare the features you will use with Drip's, rather than assuming the profile model and the band model produce the same result at the same list size.

Price: $20/month for the Email plan at 500 profiles, billed monthly. Full pricing: klaviyo.com/pricing.

Omnisend: email and SMS on one small bill

Omnisend suits a small store that wants email and SMS on one bill. The free plan covers 250 contacts with 500 emails and 500 web push notifications a month. The Standard plan is listed at $11.20/month for 500 contacts and 6,000 emails, shown with a 30% first-three-month upfront offer rate. The Pro plan is listed at $41.30/month for 2,500 contacts, with unlimited monthly emails and SMS starting at $0.007 per message. For a store that needs SMS at a small size, this is the most direct comparison with Drip's 2,500-person band.

The limits are the free plan's contact cap, which is tight, and SMS cost, which changes with country and volume and needs its own forecast. Above 2,500 contacts the published list shows no Pro-tier price, so larger stores should request a quote. Note also that the Standard figure is a displayed offer rate, so the price after the introductory months should be checked before comparing totals.

Price: free for 250 contacts; Pro $41.30/month for 2,500 contacts, billed monthly, with SMS billed separately. Full pricing: omnisend.com/pricing.

Customer.io: event-driven messages from your own product

Customer.io suits product and SaaS teams that send messages triggered by events in their own systems. Its Essentials plan is listed at $100/month and includes the visual workflow builder, email and community support, basic data integrations and AI Agent core skills. The Essentials profile tiers run from $145/month at 10,000 profiles, $235 at 20,000, $325 at 30,000, $415 at 40,000 and $505+ at 50,000 and above, all billed monthly. Premium uses custom profile volume and is listed at $1,000/month with elevated AI Agent limits and premium support.

For an ecommerce store, the trade-off is focus. The published inclusions center on workflows, data integrations and the AI Agent rather than onsite popups, so a store that depends on onsite campaigns should check whether Customer.io covers that use case before comparing prices. Profile tiers also stack cost as the list grows, and Premium is custom-priced. Eligible early-stage companies that have raised under $10 million can receive 12 months free through the Startup Program, which can change the comparison for a young company.

Price: Essentials listed at $100/month; profile tiers from $145/month at 10,000 profiles, billed monthly. Full pricing: customer.io/pricing.

MailerLite: the simplest free start

MailerLite is the simplest free starting point in this group. The free plan covers up to 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month. The Comfort plan is listed at $12/month, or $10.80/month billed annually, for the 500-subscriber starting tier, with a monthly email allowance that is ten times the subscriber ceiling. The Power plan is listed at $25/month, or $22.50/month billed annually, with unlimited monthly emails. For a small store that wants to start without paying, MailerLite removes the trial clock that Drip imposes.

The trade-off is depth. The published list for MailerLite does not describe onsite campaigns or per-band workflow limits in the same way Drip's list does, and the monthly allowance on the paid tiers depends on subscriber count. A store that expects to build many behavior-led flows should test those flows in the trial before committing, rather than assuming the free-plan experience carries over to a larger list.

Price: free for up to 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month; Comfort $12/month, or $10.80/month billed annually. Full pricing: mailerlite.com/pricing.

Where Drip falls short

Drip's main weakness is the slope of its meter. Because the band is set by people on the list, a store that grows pays more each time it crosses a boundary, whether or not the send volume changes. A list that grows from 10,000 to 25,000 moves the monthly price from $154 to $369, and the $39 entry figure says little about what the store will pay at that size. Anyone comparing Drip with a per-message or per-profile tool should model the twelve-month band, not the first month.

The second weakness is the absence of a permanent free plan. The 14-day trial is the only evaluation path that avoids payment. A team that needs a small operation to run indefinitely at no cost will do better with Omnisend's free plan, which covers 250 contacts and 500 emails a month, or MailerLite's free plan, which covers 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month.

The third weakness is the open question about events outside the storefront. Drip is built around ecommerce behavior. If your business depends on failed-payment messages, plan changes or cancellation saves, check how Drip receives those events through its integrations, and whether the flow can be built without custom work. A generous workflow count does not answer that question on its own.

The last weakness is ceiling risk in the top two bands. Sends are not unlimited at 37,501–40,000 people or 45,001–50,000 people on the published list. A large store that expected unlimited mailing at every size should read those two rows closely before budgeting for the upper bands.

Cost at realistic list sizes

The table below prices five list sizes across Drip and the three alternatives that publish figures for those sizes. Where a vendor's published list gives no price at a given size, the cell says "pricing on request". Do not read that as a low price. It means the figure must be requested directly from the vendor.

Read the table in two directions. At 2,500 people Drip's $39 band is the lowest of the figures shown, with Omnisend's Pro plan close behind before SMS is added. At 5,000 and 10,000 people, Drip and Klaviyo sit within a small gap of each other, so the decision turns on which features you will use. At 25,000 people Drip is about $30 a month lower than Klaviyo's Email plan on the published figures. At 50,000 people Drip is the only tool in the table with a published price, which makes it easier to budget for, though the send allowance of 600,000 needs checking against your mailing volume.

Cost scenarios for a growing store

A store rarely stays in one band, so the scenarios below show how a plausible growth path moves the bill on Drip. Each figure is the published monthly price for the band, which illustrates how the meter behaves rather than predicting your actual invoice.

• Launch, 1,800 people: $39 per month on the 1–2,500 band. Run the welcome, cart and browse flows and measure revenue per person before the list grows.
• Growth, 2,800 people: $49 per month after the list crosses into the 2,501–3,000 band. That is a $10 increase from a 200-person step, and the band still lists unlimited email sends.
• Scale, 9,500 people: $154 per month on the 9,001–10,000 band, which lists chat and email support. At this size the support level can matter more than the difference in price.
• Mature account, 24,000 people: $369 per month on the 22,501–25,000 band, which lists free migration and personalized onboarding. A store at this size should price the next band before reaching the boundary.
• Large list, 48,000 people: $699 per month on the 45,001–50,000 band, with 600,000 email sends listed. Check that the allowance covers the monthly volume before committing.

The practical lesson is that list hygiene can move you down a band. Sunsetting people who have not opened or clicked for a long period is the most direct control over the bill, because the meter counts people rather than messages. Build a quarterly suppression step into the operating plan so the list stays in the band you budgeted for, and record the band boundaries in the same place as your send calendar.

How to choose

Start with list size and product type rather than with features. Drip's feature set is consistent across its bands, so the decision usually turns on the price path. Use these questions to narrow the field before you start a trial.

1. What is your list size today, and where will it be in twelve months? If the twelve-month figure sits in a higher band, price that band before comparing entry prices.
2. Do you need a permanent free plan? If yes, Drip is not the answer, and Omnisend or MailerLite should be tested first.
3. Is SMS central to the plan? If it is, compare Omnisend's per-message SMS terms with Klaviyo's Email+SMS quote before committing, since Klaviyo's SMS-inclusive plans have no published price.
4. Do your messages depend on events in your own product? If they do, Customer.io's event-led design deserves a trial alongside Drip, and the Startup Program may apply if you are an early-stage company.
5. How often will you send and test? On Drip's bands with unlimited sends, frequency is free for the people you hold. That suits teams that experiment. It does not help a store whose list is mostly inactive, because those people still count toward the band.
6. Does AI assistance matter for your setup? The Drip price list does not itemize AI features, while Customer.io's published Essentials and Premium tiers list AI Agent capabilities. If AI help is a deciding factor, test the feature on your own data in each trial.
7. Do you need migration help? Drip lists free migration from the 22,501–25,000 band. If your list is smaller, plan for the migration work yourself.

If your answers describe a small ecommerce store with a list under 2,500 people, behavior-led flows and no need for a free plan, Drip is a reasonable pick at $39 a month, and the trial will show whether its flows fit your revenue model. If your answers describe a subscription business, read the section on events outside the storefront before assuming Drip covers the job.

Decision table: which tool for which need

Choose by the constraint that matters most, then confirm it in a trial. The table names the pick, the reason and the one thing to check.

Migration steps for an ecommerce list

A planned rebuild keeps you from paying for flows that rely on bad data. The steps below put the work in an order that protects the trial. Each step has a clear finish point, so you know when to move on.

1. Project the list size. Forecast the number of people for the next twelve months, including the seasonal peak. Finish when you have a band price for the peak month, not only today's count.
2. Clean the list. Suppress people who have not opened or clicked for a long period, and merge duplicate profiles. Finish when the active count matches your suppression rule.
3. Connect the store. Send products, orders and browse events, and check each event's fields. Finish when a test purchase and a test browse produce the expected records.
4. Build revenue flows first. Start with cart recovery, then the welcome series, browse follow-up, post-purchase and win-back. Finish each flow with a trigger, a delay and a suppression rule.
5. Bring over consent records. Import suppressions and the consent evidence you hold for each contact. Finish when suppressed contacts are excluded from every flow in the test account.
6. Port the templates. Rebuild the most-used templates, and use Drip's migration help where your band includes it. Finish when each template renders correctly on mobile and desktop.
7. Set a baseline. Record revenue per person from the previous platform before switching. Finish when you have a number to compare against during the trial.
8. Run the trial. Measure revenue per recipient on the new flows across the full 14 days. Finish when you have a figure to set against the band price.

Keep the old platform running in parallel for at least one full sales cycle where possible. Switching the whole list without a baseline makes it hard to tell whether a change in revenue came from the new tool or from the season.

Use the 14-day trial as a measurement

The trial needs no credit card, so its cost is time rather than money. Use that time to produce three numbers: revenue per person from your first flow, the send frequency your engaged segment tolerates, and the band price for your twelve-month list size. With those three numbers the purchase decision is usually straightforward.

• Validate product, order and browse events before building anything. Broken input invalidates every result that follows.
• Launch cart recovery first and compare it with the baseline from your previous platform.
• Test two or three send frequencies on a segment of engaged people, and watch for fatigue before settling on a cadence.
• Count your workflows against the 50-workflow limit and note which ones could be merged.
• Confirm the scope of any AI assistance on your own data, and check whether it is included in the band you would buy.
• Price the band for your month-twelve list size, then compare it with one alternative from the decision table on the same flows.

A common mistake is to judge the tool on how fast the first flow builds. Build speed matters less than what happens after launch: whether the flow is reaching the right people, whether the suppression rules hold and whether the revenue per recipient justifies the band you will graduate into.

Pricing details to confirm before you commit

Pricing changes, and bands and allowances are the details most likely to move. Before you sign, check the current figures on each vendor's own pricing page, and get any unpublished band or send allowance confirmed in writing. The primary pages for the tools in this guide are listed below, with prices as checked on 7 October 2026.

• Drip pricing
• Klaviyo pricing
• Omnisend pricing
• Customer.io pricing
• MailerLite pricing