MailerLite vs. Mailchimp: Which is best for email marketing?

Explore our expert comparison of MailerLite vs. Mailchimp, covering key features, pricing, and more to help you choose the best email marketing tool for your needs.

Choosing between MailerLite and Mailchimp can be difficult. Both are powerful email marketing tools, but which fits your needs best?

In this MailerLite vs. Mailchimp comparison, we’ll explore their best features, ease of use, pricing, and more to help you make an informed decision.

Let’s dive in.

MailerLite vs. Mailchimp: At a Glance

Criteria	MailerLite	Mailchimp	Winner
SMB Guide’s Rating	8.2/10	8/10	MailerLite
Marketing Automation Capabilities	Basic automation	Basic automation	Mailchimp
Email Builder	Intuitive, easy-to-use drag-and-drop builder	Intuitive, easy-to-use	Mailchimp
Personalization & Customization	Basic personalization	Basic personalization	Mailchimp
Campaign Performance Tracking	More advanced	Standard metrics	Tie
Email Deliverability	✅	✅	Tie
List Management	Easy to manage	Simple lists	Mailchimp
A/B Testing	✅	✅	Mailchimp
Advanced Reporting & Insights	Detailed reports	Basic reports	Mailchimp
Compliance & Security	✅	✅	Tie
User Experience and User Interface	User-friendly interface	User-friendly interface	MailerLite
Integrations and Compatibility	150+ integrations	300+ integrations	Mailchimp
Customer Support	Excellent support options	Limited support	Tie
Pricing	Free – $1,900/mo	Free – $1,600/mo	MailerLite
Scalability	✅	✅	Tie

MailerLite: Key Features, Pros, Cons, & Pricing

MailerLite is a robust email marketing platform that caters to a diverse range of users, from small business owners to larger corporations.

Standout features include:

• Email marketing
• Automation
• Integration capabilities
• Forms and Popups
• Analytics and Reporting

Pros & Cons

Pricing

• Free: $0 for up to 1,000 subscribers
• Growing Business: Starts at $9/month and scales until you hit 50,000 subscribers
• Advanced: Starts at $18/month and scales until you hit 500,000 subscribers – then you must go to a custom-priced enterprise plan
• Enterprise: Custom pricing for businesses with over 100,000 subscribers.

Mailchimp: Key Features, Pros, Cons, & Pricing

Mailchimp stands out for its versatility and ease of use, making it a valuable tool for businesses looking to streamline their marketing efforts.

Key features include:

• Email marketing
• Automation
• Audience management
• Analytics and Reporting
• Integration capabilities
• Ecommerce solutions
• Landing pages and forms
• Social media advertising

Pros & Cons

Pricing

• Free Plan: Limited to 500 contacts and basic email templates.
• Essentials Plan: Starts at $13/month/500 contacts. 
• Standard Plan: Starts at $20/month/500 contacts, up to $800/month/100,000 contacts
• Premium Plan: Starts at $350/month/10,000 contacts, $1,600/month/200,000 contacts, custom pricing for additional contacts.

Marketing Automation Capabilities

MailerLite offers strong automation features, but Mailchimp’s advanced marketing automation capabilities, which include detailed customer journey mapping and behavioral targeting, give it the edge.

Mailchimp supports multi-channel automation. It allows users to integrate landing pages, SMS, pop-ups, and social media within workflows.

✅ Winner: Mailchimp

Email Builder

While both platforms offer user-friendly drag-and-drop editors, Mailchimp’s email builder includes more customization options and a wide variety of templates, making it the winner in this category.

You can also use a rich text editor or hand-code your templates with HTML on either platform.

✅ Winner: Mailchimp

Personalization & Customization

Mailchimp excels in personalization with its dynamic content blocks and advanced segmentation capabilities.

MailerLite is robust, but Mailchimp’s extensive tools for tailoring emails to individual recipients set it apart.

✅ Winner: Mailchimp

Campaign Performance Tracking

Mailchimp offers more comprehensive real-time analytics and performance tracking tools than MailerLite, allowing for deeper insights into campaign success.

✅ Winner: Tie

Email Deliverability

Both platforms focus on high deliverability, but Mailchimp has a slight advantage with its advanced domain authentication and compliance checks, ensuring your emails reach the inbox more reliably.

✅ Winner: Tie

List Management

MailChimp’s list management features are more extensive, offering sophisticated segmentation and automated list hygiene processes that surpass MailerLite’s capabilities.

In most cases, Mailchimp automatically removes any email addresses that have a hard bounce.

✅ Winner: Mailchimp

A/B Testing

Mailchimp’s A/B testing tools are more advanced, allowing for multiple variations and in-depth analysis.

This enables users to fine-tune their campaigns more precisely than MailerLite’s A/B testing features.

✅ Winner: Mailchimp

Advanced Reporting & Insights

With its detailed and customizable reports, Mailchimp provides more in-depth insights into campaign performance, giving it an edge over MailerLite’s reporting tools.

✅ Winner: Mailchimp

Compliance and Security

Both Mailchimp and MailerLite prioritize compliance and security, adhering to GDPR and other regulations while implementing strong data protection measures.

They are equally reliable in this respect.

✅ Winner: Tie

User Interface and User Experience

MailerLite’s clean and intuitive interface is often praised for its ease of use, making it more accessible, especially for beginners, compared to Mailchimp’s more complex layout.

The Mailchimp interface is visually appealing and has more features than MailerLite. However, the wide range of features makes learning complex for new users.

✅ Winner: MailerLite

Integrations and Compatibility

Mailchimp offers a broader range of integrations with third-party applications, including CRM systems and eCommerce platforms, which provides greater compatibility and enhances overall marketing strategies.

✅ Winner: Mailchimp

Customer Support

Both platforms provide excellent customer support with responsive teams and extensive knowledge bases. The support quality and resources available are comparable.

✅ Winner: Tie

Pricing

MailerLite’s pricing is generally more affordable. It offers competitive rates and a generous free trial period, making it a cost-effective choice for businesses on a budget.

Though the rates are similar, you can have a bigger subscriber list at MailerLite for the same price point, making it more cost-effective.

Ultimately, you can have a significantly larger list at just slightly more expensive than Mailchimp’s top limit before requiring a custom enterprise plan.

✅ Winner: MailerLite

Scalability

Mailchimp’s scalability is more robust. It effectively accommodates the needs of small and large enterprises as they grow, offering a wider range of advanced features to support expanding operations.

✅ Winner: Mailchimp

Standout Features of MailerLite

Comprehensive form & pop-up customization

MailerLite offers extensive customization options for forms and pop-ups, allowing users to design and deploy engaging lead capture mechanisms.

The platform provides a variety of templates and customization tools to ensure that forms and pop-ups align with the brand’s identity.

This feature-rich customization is where MailerLite outshines Mailchimp, giving users more flexibility and control over collecting and managing leads.

Built-in landing page builder

This tool enables users to create dedicated landing pages for specific campaigns directly within the platform without needing external tools.

The landing page builder seamlessly integrates with MailerLite’s other features, creating a cohesive experience for capturing leads and driving conversions.

While Mailchimp does offer landing pages, the integration and ease of use that MailerLite provides are notable advantages.

Intuitive drag-and-drop editor

MailerLite’s drag-and-drop editor is praised for its simplicity and ease of use. Thanks to its intuitive interface, you can create professional-looking emails without any coding knowledge.

This feature is especially beneficial for beginners or small teams who need to produce high-quality email campaigns efficiently. While Mailchimp also offers a drag-and-drop editor, many find MailerLite’s version more user-friendly and less complex.

Standout Features of Mailchimp

Comprehensive CRM system

Mailchimp provides a robust CRM system, allowing users to manage customer relationships more effectively.

This integrated CRM offers detailed insights into customer behavior, enabling businesses to segment their audience and tailor communications based on this data.

MailerLite, while offering basic subscriber management capabilities, does not provide the same depth of CRM functionality, making Mailchimp a better choice for businesses looking for an all-in-one marketing and customer management solution.

Advanced reporting and analytics

Mailchimp’s advanced reporting and analytics tools give users a deeper understanding of their email campaign performance.

The platform provides detailed metrics, including bounce rates, click-through rates, and conversion tracking, along with visual reports that help users analyze and optimize their strategies.

While MailerLite offers basic reporting features, Mailchimp’s analytics are more comprehensive and sophisticated, providing critical insights for data-driven decision-making.

Broader range of integrations

Mailchimp boasts a broader range of integrations than MailerLite. It connects seamlessly with numerous third-party apps and services, including eCommerce platforms like Shopify and Magento, social media channels, and various customer support tools.

This extensive integration capability allows businesses to create a cohesive marketing ecosystem, leveraging different tools to enhance their email marketing efforts.

MailerLite, while offering integrations, doesn’t match the breadth and depth that Mailchimp provides.

MailerLite vs. Mailchimp: SMB Guide’s Verdict

Mailchimp wins in most categories, especially in automation, email building, and advanced analytics. However, MailerLite wins in usability and pricing, making it an attractive option for startups and small businesses.

Evaluate your specific needs to choose the best platform for your business.