Being one of the oldest email marketing software, Mailchimp is a 21-year-old notable tool due to its extensive features that cater to different audience groups - startups, small businesses, developers, and agencies. While Mailchimp boasts the highest market share among email marketing platforms, like any tool, it also has areas where there is room for improvement.
If you’re here, you’re probably contemplating whether Mailchimp is the right tool for your business. To help you out, we have written this unbiased Mailchimp review based on our personal experience and analysis of Mailchimp’s customer reviews.
Table of Contents
What is Mailchimp?
Mailchimp is an all-in-one email marketing and automation platform empowering businesses to scale their revenue and connect with their audience. It has a huge customer base of over 12 million people and is best suited for startups, e-commerce businesses, agencies, and developers.
The tool equips its customers with advanced technology to build, scale, and grow their businesses. Features like marketing automation, email template, and landing page builder, and more than 300 integrations to streamline your workflow.
What are Mailchimp’s core features?
Mailchimp stands out among its competitors due to its wide range of features not limited to email marketing. Let’s have a look at some of its core Mailchimp features:
• Drag-and-drop email template builder
Mailchimp’s email builder is among the most advanced template editors allowing you to create engaging and responsive email templates. You can choose from their pre-made 50+ templates or code your own. All the pre-made templates are available in their marketplace, and out of these, only 5 templates are free to use, and the rest are paid.
As for their template builder, Mailchimp has a classic editor, and they're also testing an AI-based editor that’s still in the beta version. The AI editor gives suggestions based on the industry and helps you optimize your emails.
• Marketing automation journey builder
The automation builder offers customization based on the customer’s behavior and interests. You can create a journey for retargeting, transactional emails, and other email marketing campaigns. You can create more personalized and targeted journeys by integrating Mailchimp with 300+ CRM, e-commerce, and social media tools.
Mailchimp has pre-made journey templates that you can customize based on your audience and use case to make it even easier.
• Extensive analytics and reporting
You get a holistic view of your marketing campaign with Mailchimp’s 360-degree analytics feature. Not only this, you get personalized recommendations such as the best time to send an email or the best segment to target. The tool creates a holistic view of your campaign’s performance when integrating your Martech stack, such as Hull, Grow, Geckoboard, and more.
Mailchimp pricing details
As Mailchimp is an email marketing and automation platform, it has three different pricing for three core services, i.e., marketing platform, Website and e-commerce, and transactional emails.
For marketing platform services, Mailchimp monthly charges consider your subscriber list size. In addition, every plan also has a set email send limit.
| Number of contacts | Free | Essential | Standard | Premium |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 500 | 0/month | USD 9.38/month | 14.01 /month | USD 280.23/month |
| 2,500 | NA | USD 28.02/month | USD 46.91/month | USD 280.23/month |
| 20,000 | NA | USD 148.64/month | USD 170.58/month | USD 377.70/month |
| 75,000 | NA | NA | USD 377.70/month | USD 609.20/month |
| 1,00,000+ | NA | NA | NA | USD 749.31/month |
For website and e-commerce services, Mailchimp has three plans
| Plan | Pricing | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 0/month | - Email support for first 30 days, no live chat support - Number of users: 1 - Can’t add a custom domain - Transaction fee: 2% |
| Core | Starts at USD 10.06/month | - 24/7 customer support - Number of users: 3 - Can add a customer domain - Transaction fee: 1.5% |
| Plus | Starts at USD 29.16/month | - 24/7 customer support - Number of users: 5 - Can add a customer domain - Transaction fee: 0.5% |
Get a complete analysis of Mailchimps’ pricing plans.
Mailchimp’s key strengths and weaknesses
Based on Mailchimp’s customer review, we have highlighted the pros and cons of the tool:
Mailchimp pros
Extensive integrations: Mailchimp has 300+ integration and add-ons with almost all the tools, whether lead generation or signup tools.
360-degree view of email performance: Mailchimp has the best analytics tool to completely understand an email campaign’s performance.
Survey creation and distribution: With Mailchimp, you can create surveys for email, website, and social media channels and get a complete analysis of all these surveys in a single place.
Email automation: The tool’s automation feature allows various opportunities to send triggered emails. For example, you can send personalized emails based on user activity, like clicking a link or filling out a form.
Check out these Mailchimp reviews by its customers to know what they like about it the most:
Whether we want to automate operations to save time or personalize things to work the way we want, Mailchimp is the ideal option. Mailchimp allows us to develop bespoke templates while also offering a variety of pre-made themes and campaigns. It allows us to combine numerous data sources and other apps to expedite operations and collect data in real time, giving us a single source of truth for information and other material. - Head Of Global Marketing
I like the reports it generates. You can see what your audience clicked on, who opened it, who received it, the bounce rate, unsubscribed, and more. If you run a poll, you can get the results per user. You can also resend the newsletter to the audience members who did not open it the first time. In addition, you can create tags for your audience members to differentiate them, which can also help if you want to send a newsletter to a selected group of people. - Dainelis R., Bilingual Assistant & Promotional Assistant
Mailchimp cons
Huge subscription cost: The pricing is too high. Besides, the brand recently increased its pricing after being acquitted by Intuit for 12 Million USD.
Lack of customer support: If you need hands-on support, Mailchimp isn't a good choice as customer service isn't that reliable. Besides, if you're on their free plan, customer support is limited to only emails for 30 days.
Confusion due to two different editors: As Mailchimp is testing its new AI-based template builder, it’s confusing which template to use and which one will help create good templates.
Users can get a bit confused at times with the number of different features in the service. Customization of email templates is very limited, leaving me with no choice but to create and design our templates from scratch. I wish there was more information on customizing automated RSS email templates. - Senior Data Analyst
It's one of the most expensive email marketing and automation tools. I would also like more customization options with the drag-and-drop email template builder. You are often left with the default layout of the selected template, meaning you can't add 3 columns to any template. - Daniel H., Marketing Manager / Web Developer
Is Mailchimp the right tool for you?
Now, the biggest question. Should you use Mailchimp as your email service provider? We’ve jotted down key pointers to help you decide:
When it’s recommended
If you’re a beginner email marketer: Mailchimp is a good tool to step your foot in email marketing as you can explore the tool on its free plan with up to 500 subscribers, and if you have the budget, you can get access to advanced features.
If you want to do email marketing and landing page creation: Along with email marketing services, you can also create landing pages with its landing page builder. Even though you don’t own a domain, Mailchimp will help you create one.
If you want to send newsletters: If you’re just starting with an email newsletter, Mailchimp is the best tool.
If automation features are vital to your campaigns: Mailchimp’s automation is top-notch, and if you create long-complete journeys across different segments, the tool will be helpful to you.
If you want to run cross-channel marketing campaigns: Mailchimp is not bound to email alone, as it lets you run retargeting ads, build surveys and forms, integrate with social media channels, and create campaigns based on web activity.
When it’s not
If you’re an affiliate marketer: Mailchimp has a strict policy against letting any affiliate marketer use its product. So, it’s best not to use the tool if you’re one.
If you run any of the following businesses: Mailchimp has strict prohibition policies against businesses which belong to any of the following sectors:
Escort services, mail-order bride/spouse finders, international marriage brokers, and other similar sites and services
Hookup, swinger, or sexual encounter sites or services
Pharmaceutical products
Work-at-home scams, make money online, and lead generation opportunities
Gambling services or products
Multi-level marketing
Credit repair and get out of debt opportunities
List brokers or list rental services
Selling “Likes” or followers for a social media platform
Cryptocurrencies, virtual currencies, and any digital assets related to an Initial Coin Offering
You want to scale your email marketing campaigns: Mailchimp offers basic features on its basic plan, and if you want to scale your marketing efforts, you need to buy an essential or premium plan. But, if you don’t have the budget, scaling might be difficult with Mailchimp.
Mailchimp alternatives
Check out these Mailchimp alternatives that are much more affordable and might be the right choice.
Mailmodo
Mailmodo is one of the emerging and best email marketing platforms that help you create and send interactive AMP emails, build automated journeys, and create trigger campaigns. Apart from this, the tool is much cheaper than Mailchimp and is also known for its excellent customer support, one of the major issues Mailchimp users face.
Mailchimp vs. Mailmodo: Which one should you use?
| Criterion | Mailmodo | Mailchimp |
|---|---|---|
| No-code email builder | For both AMP and HTML emails with 200+ pre-made templates | Only HTML emails and only 80+ pre-made templates |
| AMP email support | ✅ | ❌ |
| Transactional emails | Available on all plans | Only on paid plans |
| Dedicated support | Email, chat & phone support 24/7 | Email and chat support |
| Custom template import | Available on all plans | Only on paid plans |
| Email automation | ✅ | ✅ |
| Dynamic email & personalization | ✅ | ✅ |
| List Management | ✅ | ✅ |
| Reports and Analysis | ✅ | ✅ |
| Subject line A/B testing | ✅ | ✅ |
| Supported integrations | 20+ integrations including Shopify, Segment, HubSpot, Calendly, Salesforce, Zoom Webinar, Mix Panel, Facebook, Zapier, Webhooks, Integromat, Google Sheets, Influencer Bit, Pabbly | 300+ integrations including Shopify, Zapier, Hubspot, Magento, WooCommerce, Google Analytics, Shopify, Salesforce, Calendly, Facebook, website builders, and marketing analytics tools. |
| Pricing | - Lite: $$199/month (40,000 contacts) - Pro: $459/month (1,00,000 contacts) - Max: $1,129/month (3,00,000 contacts) |
- Essential: $330/month (40,000 contacts) - Standard: $700/month (1,00,000 contacts) - Premium: Contact sales team (3,00,000 contacts) |
When should you choose Mailmodo over Mailchimp?
There are various reasons for choosing Mailmodo over Mailchimp:
1. Excellent customer support matters to you.
Our customers have praised us for our reliable and excellent customer support. The CS team can readily resolve customers’ queries and lead them in the right direction, even if you’re on the free plan.
2. If you want to send interactive AMP emails
AMP emails are the future of email marketing as they allow you to reduce friction and let your recipient take action inside the email. Mailmodo is the only ESP that helps you create and send engaging AMP emails with its no-code editor. So, if you want to use both AMP and HTML email, go for Mailmodo.
3. When you have a huge email list but a low budget
Mailmodo is a much more affordable tool than Mailchimp. You can send emails to 40,000 contacts for only $99/month with the Silver plan, while the cost for the same number of contacts is $237.69/month on their essential plan.
Other Mailchimp alternatives
Check out these Mailchimp alternatives that are much more affordable and might be the right choice.
Mailerlite
Mailerlite is a good tool for beginner email marketers and is way more affordable than Mailchimp. You can begin your email marketing campaign for free or opt for their paid plan starting from $19/month. Its customer support is available for free and paid users, unlike Mailchimp, which offers good support only to paid users.
Sendinblue
Sendinblue comes across as an affordable all-in-one email marketing solution compared to Mailchimp. The tool is best known for its automation software and list management capabilities. One key difference is Mailchimp has a free landing page builder while you have to pay $49.66 to create landing pages in Sendinblue; even then, you can create only 5 unless you pay extra.
The verdict
Mailchimp is an amazing tool with 300+ integrations allowing you to create and send behavioral-based messaging to the right user base. Its CRM and landing page builder also make it a holistic tool for various marketing projects.
But, one bottleneck is its high subscription charges which might be a turn-off for many businesses with low budgets. To make a wise decision, explore more options in the market, such as Mailmodo, Sendinblue, Mailerlite, and Constant Contact.
FAQs
1. What are the disadvantages of Mailchimp?
Two major drawbacks of Mailchimps’ is its lack of customer support and high pricing. Customer support is a major criterion for SaaS users, and it’s also one of the reasons why Mailchimp users shift to other ESPs.
2. Is Mailchimp free to use?
Mailchimp has a lifetime free trial, but only if your email list has 500 or fewer subscribers. It also offers a one-month free trial for essential (up to 50k subscribers) and a standard plan (up to 1 Lac subscribers).
3. Is Mailchimp a CRM?
Yes, Mailchimp offers a marketing CRM service business to help them collect, organize, and grow their customer database in a single place. Based on the data in the CRM, businesses can build better relationships with their customers and personalize their email campaigns.
4. Why not use Mailchimp?
There are many reasons for not using Mailchimp.
If you’re an affiliate marketer, it’s best not to use Mailchimp as they have a strict policy against such users.
If you have a low budget and want to scale your email marketing performance, Mailchimp isn’t the right fit.
If you want to send interactive AMP emails as Mailchimp doesn’t support AMP yet while Mailmodo does.
5. Why are some people not getting my Mailchimp emails?
Email Deliverability report 2022 reveals that Mailchimp has an 81% inbox placement rate and a 14% spam rate. The spam rate is much higher than the standard rate, which might affect your deliverability rate. The email tester tool also confirmed that Mailchimp’s email often ends up in the promotions tab, which gets less open than emails that land in the inbox. These two can be why your subscribers are not seeing your emails. Check out this article for details about Mailchimp’s deliverability issues.
