Being one of the oldest email marketing solution, 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
Mailchimp Overview & Ratings
Here’s the overall rating from different review platforms and Mailchimp's features and functionality:
| Features | Rating | Expert’s note |
|---|---|---|
| Overall G2 | 4.3 | |
| Ease of use | 4/5 | User-friendly interface facilitates smooth navigation. |
| Email editor/design | 4/5 | Flexible editor empowers customization and creativity. |
| Email deliverability | 4/5 | Consistently high deliverability ensures message reach. |
| Customer support | 3/5 | Not a great support, can be lots of improvement in responsiveness. |
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.
Don't worry about the email templates if you are specifically looking for them because you can use 300+ email templates for free with Mailmodo.
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 email 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.
AI marketing
Mailchimp now provides AI marketing tools, including content optimizer, generative AI, and subject line generator, that help you automate tasks like welcoming new contacts, recovering abandoned carts, and re-engaging lost customers. With AI-generated automation and email, drafts allow you to focus on reviewing and publishing.
Source: Adweek
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.
Disclaimer: All pricing plans and details are accurate as of 12 April 2024.
| Number of contacts | Free | Essential | Standard | Premium |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 500 | $0/month | $9.20/month | $13.75/month | $274.94/month |
| 2,500 | NA | $27.49/month | $46.02/month | $274.94/month |
| 20,000 | NA | $145.84/month | $173.33/month | $370.57/month |
| 75,000 | NA | NA | $370.57/month | $597.69/month |
| 100,000 | NA | NA | $460.22/month | $645.50/month |
| 200,000 | NA | NA | NA | $1,010.09/month |
| 250,000+ | NA | NA | NA | Contact sales |
For website services, Mailchimp has two 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 $10/month | - 24/7 customer support - Number of users: 3 - Can add a customer domain - Transaction fee: 1.5% |
Mailchimp also offers transactional email plans for developers. It works upon the number of blocks you want. Here's the pricing plan:
| Total blocks | Emails per month | Price |
|---|---|---|
| 1-20 blocks | 1 to 500k emails | $20/block |
| 21-40 blocks | 500k to 1M emails | $18/block |
| 41-80 blocks | 1M to 2M emails | $16/block |
| 81-120 blocks | 2M to 3M emails | $14/block |
| 121-160 blocks | 3M to 4M emails | $12/block |
| 161+ blocks | 4M+ emails | $10/block |
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 alternative
Check out this Mailchimp alternative which is 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 300+ 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 (50,000 contacts) - Pro: $399/month (1,00,000 contacts) - Pro: $639/month (2,00,000 contacts) |
- Essentials: $239.07/month (50,000 contacts) - Standard: $460.22/month (1,00,000 contacts) - Premium: $1,010.09/month (2,00,000 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 50,000 contacts for only $199/month with the lite plan, while the cost for the same number of contacts is $239.07/month on their essential plan. By choosing Mailmodo you cave $40/monthly and $480/year.
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 Mailchimp alternatives in the market, such as Mailmodo, Brevo, and Constant Contact.
