Mailchimp provides three different account types; forever free, monthly subscription and pay as you go. These are all self-explanatory and the best plan to use is determined by the functionality you require as well as the number of subscribers you have and the volume of emails (campaigns) you’ll be sending. For example, the Forever Free plan allows for a maximum of 2000 subscribers and 12000 monthly sends. The plan however doesn’t include the awesome possibilities available with Automation.
So what happens if you reach the maximum number of subscribers allowed in your lists?
Import Paused: Upgrade Action Required
A list import was started that will cause your total number of subscribers to exceed the 12,000 subscriber limit on your current account plan. We’ve paused the import so that you won’t exceed your plan limit. To resume the import, please upgrade your account.
Only an admin user can approve an account upgrade.
If you use a monthly subscription then you’ll likely encounter the above error message when trying to import or individually add new subscribers. The monthly plan may be upgraded or alternately, if you use multiple lists, then it’ll likely be beneficial to combine lists into a single list and use Groups.
The other thing to be aware of regarding importing subscribers is that those email addresses that will hard-bounce (i.e. undeliverable email addresses) will only be automatically removed from your list once you send your Campaign. If you want to save some money by removing email addresses that will hard bounce rather than import them into Mailchimp then why not use our list validation and verification service where we’ll remove the undeliverable email addresses (you also get three months free subscription from Mailchimp as we’re Mailchimp listed Experts).
Account status
You’ve hit your account subscriber limit. Your Forever Free plan can only send while your total subscriber count (all lists combined) is at or under 2000. upgrade to re-enable
Should you be using a free Mailchimp account then you’ll still be able to add subscribers to your list even if you hit the maximum number of subscribers allowed. You won’t however be able to send your Campaigns until you either remove the excess number of email addresses or upgrade your account.
Vijay says
December 29, 2015 at 9:13 pmI want to know more about Mailchimp API Integration (Custom coding).
Gary says
December 30, 2015 at 12:04 pmVijay, you can learn more at https://apidocs.mailchimp.com/
Diane says
March 3, 2016 at 11:24 amI am using the free subscriber Mailchimp for the first time and cannot import a subscriber list because it is “disabled for this account”.
How can I enable this function to import a subscriber list?
Thank you.
Gary says
March 4, 2016 at 9:08 amDiane, unfortunately this can occur if Mailchimp thinks you may be sending to people that haven’t subscribed to receive your information (see https://www.organicweb.com.au/20568/email-marketing/mailchimp-import-warning/).
Marvin says
March 20, 2016 at 7:40 amHow does mail chimp count duplicates in my lists? Say I have two lists of 1000 addresses with exactly the same recipients in them. Does that make my subscriber count sum up to 2000 or only 1000 since there are 1000 unique addresses in my account?
I have 8 lists and many addresses are in several lists. So before I import any more addresses from Eventbrite I’d need to know how this is calculated.
Thank you.
Gary says
March 21, 2016 at 12:00 pmIf you have the identical email address in two lists then that email address is counted twice. Best practice is to have a single list and then use Segments. Using a single list eliminates the ‘double charging’.
Marvin says
March 21, 2016 at 4:56 pmOk. Thank you for that explanation! I’ll have to look into segments in that case.
Haris says
August 7, 2016 at 4:37 pmBut Mailchimp monthly subscriber sent limit is 12000. I have sent only to 1900 subscriber so why they have hit account disabled
Gary says
August 8, 2016 at 10:02 amHaris, there are many reasons that your account may be suspended (such as a large number of your subscribers marking your campaigns as spam). Contact Mailchimp to find out the reason that your account is suspended.
Ann says
August 16, 2016 at 12:22 amWe couldnot upgrade our account as pay as you go! Please help
Gary says
August 16, 2016 at 7:43 pmPlease contact Mailchimp directly.
Tanya says
March 9, 2017 at 2:45 pmhello,
from all of the sudden subscribers are not added to the list. Api call returns an error. “We received an unexpected error: nullError” My account status shows “doing great” message and
I am not exceeding the subscribers limit yet (1998 out of 2000 and 6500 out of 12 000). What could be the issue?