Mailchimp Competitors & Alternatives
Mailchimp is the most popular email marketing tool used by small businesses. Mailchimp received a SoftwarePundit Analyst rating of 90, making it one of the highest rated products in this vertical. Mailchimp is very easy to use and reasonably priced, and its tool kit is sufficient for most moderately complex marketing campaigns.
However, there are a variety of different solutions on the market today that may be better for your specific needs and budget. In this article, we will compare Mailchimp to seven of its top competitors to familiarize you with the market. When comparing Mailchimp’s features and pricing to its competitors, Mailchimp ranks near the middle.
If you want to learn more about Mailchimp, you can read our in-depth Mailchimp review. All of the information in this article is based upon research, discussions with marketers, and dozens of hours spent hand-testing the leading email marketing software platforms. The details of our research process can be found on our email marketing software page.
Table of Contents
- Mailchimp Features
- Mailchimp Competitor Overview: Features
- Mailchimp Competitor Overview: Pricing
- Top Mailchimp Competitors
Mailchimp Features
Before we compare Mailchimp against its competitors, it’s important to understand the features included in Mailchimp. We highlight seven of the most important features found in Mailchimp in the table below.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Data Integration and Storage | Email marketing solutions allow you to collect and store data about your audience. This data is key to segmentation, personalizing content, and implementing trigger emails. |
| Segmentation | Email marketing solutions allow you to use data fields to create segments of your audience. Using segments is a best practice to increase the relevancy of your emails, and save cost by reducing send volume. |
| Email Builder | Drag-and-drop email builders allow you to create custom email templates. You can add and arrange elements, like images and buttons, in your emails, and customize the layout and formatting of your email templates. |
| Email Testing and Preview | Most email marketing platforms offer basic email testing features, so you can preview how emails appear on desktop and mobile devices. More robust solutions offer better email testing tools that show you how emails will appear on a variety of different email clients and devices. |
| A/B Testing | Most email marketing solutions offer an A/B testing tool that can be used to optimize your emails. You can create multiple versions of an email, and the system automatically sends each version to a portion of your customers. You can A/B test different variables, such as email content, from name, send time, and subject lines. |
| Drip Campaigns | Email marketing solutions allow you to send a series of automated emails to your audience. The best solutions allow you to build complex workflows with splits and branching points based on your contacts' behavior and data. Less robust are limited to sending emails in a single sequential order. This limitation should be a deal breaker if your business is serious about creating targeted and personalized email campaigns. |
| Deliverability | You should choose an email system that gets a high percentage of your emails into recipient inboxes. In the email world, this is known as deliverability. The email marketing solutions on our list all have strong reputations for deliverability. |
| Reporting and Analytics | Email marketing solutions help you monitor the performance of your emails and campaigns. These solutions allow you to track important metrics like click rate, open rate, and bounce rate. |
Mailchimp Competitor Overview: Features
We created a chart comparing the features included in each solution. Mailchimp includes all of the most important email marketing features found in similar-priced solutions. Mailchimp’s feature suite is ideal for small B2C businesses. It is not a multichannel marketing automation platform, and doesn’t include features like SMS marketing or a built-in sales CRM.
Mailchimp Competitor Overview: Pricing
Mailchimp pricing starts at $9.99 per month, and increases depending on your number of contacts. Mailchimp offers one free plan, and three paid plans.
Below, we created a table comparing the cost of Mailchimp to its top competitors. We used the most popular plan for each solution, and listed the software vendors from least to most expensive. As you can see, Mailchimp is a reasonably-priced solution that ranks in the middle of the list.
| Software Vendor | Starting Monthly Price | Price of 5,000 contacts |
|---|---|---|
| Moosend | $8 | $24 |
| SendPulse | $6.40 | $28 |
| AWeber | $19 | $49 |
| Mailchimp | $9.99 | $79 |
| Constant Contact | $20 | $95 |
| Campaign Monitor | $29 | $99 |
| Klaviyo | $30 | $100 |
| ActiveCampaign | $9 | $199 |
Top Mailchimp Competitors
There are a variety of email marketing solutions available on the market today. Overall, Mailchimp is a solid, easy-to-use solution that is ideal for many small businesses. However, there may be a solution on this list that is better suited for your specific business needs.
1: Campaign Monitor
Campaign Monitor is one of the best overall email marketing solutions for B2C small to medium size businesses. It includes the core set of email marketing features, and is very easy to use. Unlike Mailchimp, this solution offers unlimited email sends in all plans. However, Mailchimp’s free plan is far more generous than Campaign Monitor’s. Also, Mailchimp’s reporting and analytics tools are more robust.
- You want a free plan
- You want the more popular solution
- You want better reporting and analytics in your solution
- You want unlimited email sends
- You need robust email design testing and inbox preview features
- You use Shopify
2: Klaviyo
Klaviyo is a popular marketing automation solution that includes both email and SMS marketing tools. Klaviyo is more expensive than Mailchimp, but offers a wider and more robust set of features. Klaviyo is the better solution for e-commerce businesses.
- You want the more affordable solution
- You only need email marketing
- You want a email marketing tool that is completely free to use
- You want the more robust solution
- Your an e-commerce business that uses Shopify
- You want SMS marketing tools
3: SendPulse
SendPulse is a popular email marketing solution used by over 1,300,000 customers. SendPulse is the more affordable solution, and includes several unique features such as SMS marketing and chatbots. However, Mailchimp’s reporting is better than SendPulse’s. Also, Mailchimp offers more integrations to third-party software.
- You need a large library of third-party integrations
- You want better reporting
- You want a large library of email templates
- You want 24/7 email, live chat, and phone support in your free plan
- You want the more affordable solution
- You want SMS marketing tools
4: ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is a marketing automation tool that is used by both B2B and B2C businesses. It is the more expensive solution, but is more robust and offers a broader suite of marketing features, including a built-in CRM and SMS marketing. Mailchimp is the more affordable solution that is best for small businesses with moderately-advanced marketing needs.
For a direct comparison, check out our ActiveCampaign vs. Mailchimp article.
- You want a moderately-advanced solution for your small business
- You want a solution with a free plan
- You want the more affordable email marketing solution
- You are a B2B business
- You are willing to invest in a more robust solution
- You want a built-in CRM and SMS marketing tools
5: Moosend
Moosend is an affordable email marketing solution that is robust enough for most moderately-advanced marketing needs. At 5,000 contacts, Moosend is less than half as expensive as Mailchimp. However, Mailchimp offers more pre-designed email templates and a higher number of built-in integrations to third-party platforms. Also, Mailchimp’s free plan includes more contacts and monthly email sends.
- You want a large library of pre-designed email templates
- You have a complex tech stack, and need many built-in integrations
- You want the more affordable solution
- You want unlimited custom data fields
- You want unlimited segments
6: AWeber
AWeber is a popular email marketing solution used by over 150,000 customers. AWeber is less robust than Mailchimp. You can’t create complex drip campaigns which significantly limits your ability to create personalized and targeted customer journeys. Also, you can not create as many custom data fields in AWeber. However, AWeber is the more affordable solution. At 5,000 contacts, AWeber is 47% less expensive than Mailchimp.
- You want the more robust solution
- You want to create complex drip campaigns
- You want the more generous free plan
- You want the more affordable solution
- You want 24/7 email, live chat, and phone support in your free plan
- You have basic marketing needs
7: Constant Contact
Constant Contact is one of Mailchimp’s oldest and most popular competitors, and is currently used by more than 600,000 businesses worldwide. Mailchimp is the better email marketing solution for most small businesses. Mailchimp is more affordable than Constant Contact, while offering a broader and better suite of email marketing features.
For a direct comparison, check out our Constant Contact vs. Mailchimp article.
- You want a solution with a free plan
- You want the solution with better automation and A/B testing tools
- You want the more affordable solution
- If you currently use Shopify to manage your online store
- You want a subscription that includes unlimited email sends and lists