Omnisend Standard: $16/Month for 500 Contacts—What Counts as Billable?

Verdict

Omnisend Standard starts at $16/month for up to 500 billable contacts and 6,000 emails per 30-day cycle. First-time paid users can currently prepay three months for $33.60 total, or $11.20/month equivalent, before regular monthly pricing resumes. The bigger buying risk is that billable contacts can include subscribers and some non-subscribers touched by automations.

Free versus Standard

Free is permanent: up to 250 campaign recipients and 500 emails/month, with forms, automations, segmentation, web push, and 24/7 support. You can upload more contacts, but Free campaigns only reach 250 recipients.

Standard raises the entry tier to 500 billable contacts and 6,000 emails per cycle. Its email allowance equals billable contacts × 12. If that allowance is exhausted, campaigns stop and contacts entering automations can be canceled from those workflows until the cycle resets or you upgrade.

Billable contacts are not just subscribers

Paid billing counts subscribers plus certain non-subscribers who received automated messages, such as order confirmations or cart reminders, in the last 30 days. Excluding someone from marketing campaigns does not automatically remove them from billing.

That means checkout activity, integrations, abandoned carts, forms, and automations can increase the bill even when the visible newsletter-subscriber count seems stable. Check Audience → Total billable contacts before budgeting. Pricing tiers adjust as that count grows or shrinks.

$16 monthly or $33.60 for the first three months

Standard's regular entry price is $16/month. New paid subscribers can choose the three-month upfront starter discount: $33.60 total instead of $48. After the three months, billing returns to the regular monthly price unless another plan is selected.

If the list grows mid-cycle, Omnisend can require an immediate tier upgrade before a campaign exceeding the current limit sends. Mid-cycle upgrades are prorated.

Current Standard does not include SMS

For accounts subscribing to a paid plan on or after May 4, 2026, current Standard does not support SMS. SMS requires Pro plus a separate SMS Credits Subscription. Pro starts at $59/month, has unlimited email sends, and current SMS rates can start around $0.007/message depending on volume and country.

Some pre-May-4 Standard accounts can retain qualifying legacy SMS access while that setup stays active. That exception should not be used to judge a new Standard purchase.

Downgrade, cancellation, and refunds differ

A lower paid-tier downgrade can take effect immediately and restart a new 30-day cycle. Unused value from the old plan becomes account credit; it is not paid back as cash. Canceling to Free instead keeps the paid plan active through the current cycle, then moves the account to Free. Omnisend also offers a separate $50 plus VAT freeze option that preserves data for up to 12 months.

Paid charges are non-refundable by default. Omnisend may consider narrow exceptions, such as a genuinely unused last cycle, a failed cancellation, or a service malfunction, but there is no general money-back guarantee.

For context, Moosend Pro 500 is $9/month with unlimited campaigns; MailerLite Comfort starts at $12/month and its 500-subscriber tier includes 5,000 monthly sends; AWeber Lite 500 is $15/month or $150/year with 5,000 sends; Kit Creator is $39/month or $390/year; beehiiv Lite is $59/month or $49/month billed annually at 1,000 subscribers. These are scope comparisons, not deliverability rankings.

Next step

Use Free first if 250 contacts and 500 emails/month are enough to validate your ecommerce workflow. Choose Standard when 500 billable contacts and 6,000 emails fit, and monitor billable contacts—not only subscribers—every cycle. If SMS or unlimited email volume is essential, compare Pro first.

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