ManyChat pricing 2026: free plan, Pro at $39 and what you will actually pay
Searches for “manychat pricing” shot up this year, and a lot of those people probably just got a bigger bill than expected. Since March 2, 2026, ManyChat no longer charges by contacts stored, but by active contacts in the month, with a fee for each one above your plan’s quota.
On paper, it is fairer. In practice, one post that takes off can bump you into another bracket. We ran the numbers.
Key takeaways
- Free: 25 active contacts, 4 automations, 2 channels, no WhatsApp. Fine for testing, not for selling.
- Essential $17 (250 contacts), Pro $39 (2,500), Business $99 (7,500), Advanced $199 (25,000), per month, no commitment.
- Above 2,500 contacts, Pro costs $0.05 per extra contact. From 3,700 active contacts, Business becomes cheaper than Pro.
- Paying yearly cuts the price by 18 to 30% depending on the plan. That is the only guaranteed discount, Black Friday or not.
- WhatsApp messages are billed on top, by Meta.
The five plans at a glance
ManyChat simplified its pricing this year: one free plan and four paid ones that differ almost only by included active contacts. AI features come with Pro.
ManyChat plans, October 2026
What counts as an “active contact”?
Anyone who interacts with your account through ManyChat during the billing month: they comment the keyword that triggers a DM, reply to a message, tap a button. Someone sitting in your list who does nothing that month does not count.
Here is the trap. Picture a creator posting a Reel with “Comment GUIDE to get the PDF”. The Reel does well and 3,000 people comment. She had 800 active contacts last month and 3,800 this month. On Pro she pays the 2,500 quota plus 1,300 contacts at $0.05, so $65 extra. Her bill goes from $39 to $104, and she only finds out at the end of the month.
What Pro really costs as you grow
The chart below shows the Pro bill by number of active contacts. The highlighted bar is the tipping point: at 3,700 contacts you pay $99, exactly the price of Business, which includes 7,500 contacts.
Cost per contact drops fast
Per contact, the gap between plans is huge. Essential is by far the priciest per person: $17 for 250 contacts works out to $68 per thousand. If you know you will go past 250 active contacts, even slightly, go straight to Pro.
What the free plan does (and doesn’t) cover
Twenty-five active contacts is a test. You can build your 4 automations, connect Instagram and Facebook, and check everything works with friends and coworkers. The moment a real post triggers the keyword, the quota is gone within an hour.
ManyChat Free
Included
- 25 active contacts a month
- 4 automations
- 2 channels (Instagram, Facebook…)
- The visual flow builder
Not included
- AI features
- More than 25 people a month
- A real comment campaign
Black Friday, yearly billing: how to pay less
Lots of people are searching “manychat black friday” right now. As of this article, ManyChat has announced nothing for 2026, and we are not going to promise you a deal that may not exist. Yearly billing, though, is a permanent discount: $14 instead of $17 for Essential, $29 instead of $39 for Pro, $69 instead of $99 for Business, $139 instead of $199 for Advanced.
It is only worth it if you are sure you will use it all year. And note that active-contact overages are still billed monthly.
Savings with yearly billing
The costs people forget
- WhatsApp: ManyChat only relays. Meta bills each conversation or template message, by country and category (marketing, utility, authentication).
- Overages: $0.05 per active contact above quota on Pro, and you only see the bill at month end.
- Other tools: ManyChat does not schedule your posts and has no real account analytics. Most users also pay for Metricool, Later or Buffer on the side.
ManyChat or Perroly: the real math
If you need WhatsApp, SMS or email in your flows, ManyChat is still the right tool, and we say so plainly in our Perroly vs ManyChat comparison.
If what you mostly do is comment-to-DM, welcome messages and story mention replies on Instagram and Facebook, Perroly handles that with 7 triggers, with no active-contact cap, plus scheduling across 6 networks, a shared inbox and analytics. Perroly is free during the beta, then €40 a month for Premium. Compare that with ManyChat Pro plus a scheduler, which quickly passes $60 a month.
Several of our users arrived with exactly that math in mind. We walk through it in replace Metricool and ManyChat with one tool.
Frequently asked questions
Is ManyChat free?
There is a free plan limited to 25 active contacts a month, 4 automations and 2 channels, with no WhatsApp. It is mainly for testing.
How much is ManyChat Pro in 2026?
$39 a month with no commitment ($29 billed yearly) for 2,500 active contacts, then $0.05 per extra contact.
What is an active contact on ManyChat?
Someone who interacts with your account through ManyChat during the billing month: a trigger comment, a reply, a button tap. Since March 2, 2026, that number sets your price.
Does ManyChat run a Black Friday deal?
Nothing had been announced for 2026 at the time of writing. The guaranteed discount is yearly billing: 18 to 30% off depending on the plan.
Is WhatsApp included in ManyChat?
Not on the free plan. On paid plans the channel is available, but conversations are billed separately by Meta.
What is a good ManyChat alternative for Instagram?
For Instagram and Facebook automations (comment-to-DM, welcome, story mentions) with scheduling and analytics in one place, Perroly is free during its beta and does not cap active contacts.