Mailchimp Review: Features, Pricing, & Alternatives

In the modern realm of digital marketing, one of the best methods to expand reach and engagement is through email marketing. However, manually sending hundreds or thousands of emails can be time-consuming.

So, how can you get the most out of email marketing? By using an automation solution that saves you time and money while handling your email marketing tasks with ease.

Mailchimp is one of the best email marketing automation platforms that can quickly turn your campaigns from boring to amazing.

With its cutting-edge features and user-friendly UI, even beginners at marketing can send attractive emails that engage, convert, and impress their target audience.

In this article, we will understand the pros and cons, features, and top alternatives to Mailchimp to help you decide if it is the right choice for your marketing needs.

SMB Guide’s Verdict for Mailchimp

SMB Guide’s overall rating for Mailchimp is 8 out of 10.

Here’s the detailed breakdown of the scoring for each factor:

Factor	Rating (out of 10)
Pricing & Plans	8.5
Marketing Automation Capabilities	8.5
Email Builder	8.5
Personalization & Customization	8.5
Campaign Performance Tracking	8
User Interface and User Experience	8.5
Integrations and Compatibility	8
Customer Support	6
SMB Guide Rating	8

In this review of Mailchimp, I’ve followed SMB Guide’s detailed criteria for evaluating the marketing automation software.

Pricing & Plans

Mailchimp has a range of price options to suit the needs of various user types and sizes, including small and large businesses. Every plan is made to fit different marketing requirements and financial constraints.

The platform’s pricing is based on the number of contacts in your audience. You can start using the platform for free, but once you hit 500 contacts on your list, they start billing you.

With the tiered choices, you can be sure you’re only paying for the resources you require. This makes Mailchimp an affordable and adaptable alternative for companies of all sizes.

Free

The Free plan offers basic email marketing tools and can help companies new to email marketing determine what they need.

Price

• Free

Features

• 1,000 monthly emails
• 1 user
• 1 audience
• Email support for the first 30 days
• Limited reporting and analytics
• Limited creative assistant
• Limited pre-built email templates

Who it’s for: Ideal for small businesses with few contacts and infrequent communication via email

Essentials

This plan offers the most basic and essential features, with limited usage caps and customer service.

Price

• $11 per month (billed annually)
• $38 per month (billed monthly)

Features

• 25,000 monthly emails
• 3 users
• 3 audiences
• 24/7 email & chat support
• Limited reporting and analytics
• Limited creative assistant
• Pre-built email templates
• Remove Mailchimp branding
• Email Scheduling
• A/B Testing
• 4 automated customer journey points
• 2 role-based access

Who it’s for: Ideal for growing businesses in need of sophisticated skills

Standard

This plan includes the majority of the features offered by the platform, and there are higher usage caps.

Price

• $17 per month (billed annually)
• $51 per month (billed monthly)

Features

• 30,000 monthly emails
• 5 users
• 5 audiences
• 24/7 email & chat support
• 1 session personalized onboarding
• Reporting and analytics
• Creative assistant
• Custom coded templates
• Pre-built email templates
• Remove Mailchimp branding
• Email Scheduling
• A/B Testing
• 200 automated customer journey points
• 4 role-based access

Who it’s for: Best for companies prepared to step up their marketing initiatives

Premium

All features are accessible with this package, including priority assistance and no limit on usage.

Price

• $298 per month (billed annually)

Features

• 1500,000 monthly emails
• Unlimited users
• Unlimited audiences
• Phone and priority support
• 4 sessions personalized onboarding
• Reporting and analytics
• Creative assistant
• Custom coded templates
• Pre-built email templates
• Remove Mailchimp branding
• Email Scheduling
• A/B Testing
• 200 automated customer journey points
• 5 role-based access

Who it’s for: Designed for high-volume senders and large enterprises

Marketing Automation Capabilities

With Mailchimp’s automation feature, you can program emails to send out in response to particular actions taken by your subscribers.  It allows you to create automatic processes that are triggered by specific behaviors, such as a consumer leaving their cart or subscribing to your email list.

By taking care of regular communication, the automation feature saves time and gives your subscribers a more tailored experience by providing pertinent and timely information.

Additionally, based on how your subscribers have interacted with your prior emails, you can create complete workflows to lead them through a personalized experience.

Mailchimp allows you to choose from a variety of templated campaigns that cover transactional emails and notifications, customer loyalty, and more than just customer acquisition.

Some of the more useful and targeted automation templates include order alters, rewarding loyal customers, after-purchase follow-up, browse or cart abandonment, and retaining and engaging customers.

With Mailchimp, you can configure this such that it all happens on automation at predetermined intervals and doesn’t require your intervention. Each automation workflow can have a single email created for it, or you can create a series.

Email Builder

Mailchimp simplifies the process of creating an email campaign by offering a comprehensive step-by-step guide.

Mailchimp provides a variety of templates to use for your marketing campaigns. The platform offers you an immense number of options and versatility when it comes to email design features.

During the email creation process, you can select simple layouts, layouts intended for specific campaign styles, template themes or code your own template.

The platform allows you to customize each component, regardless of whether you’re creating an email from scratch or starting with a template. With the platform’s drag-and-drop editor, creating aesthetically pleasing emails is simple and doesn’t require any technical knowledge.

You can easily modify your template by including more elements like photographs, videos, social media buttons, and text blocks. Additionally, everything can be fully tailored to your brand, including the font, indents, colors and shades, and spell checking. 

Mailchimp’s responsive design guarantees that your emails appear amazing on all devices.

Personalization & Customization

By enabling you to customize email content according to the individual interests or previous actions of your subscribers, personalization takes email marketing a step further and gives each message a more relevant and intimate feel.

You can also take advantage of Mailchimp’s segmentation features to create groups within your audience according to specified criteria, behavior, or demographics.

Mailchimp’s Segment Builder allows you to construct segments for your customers. A plethora of templates, including groups for new clients and subscribers, are available to assist you in getting started.

Alternatively, you can make a new section depending on any criteria you want. Mailchimp allows you to create an almost endless number of segments, each one containing its own set of criteria.

The smart segmentation can help improve your marketing efforts. It enables you to produce personalized material that appeals to different segments of your target customers.

By making sure the correct messages reach the right people, this feature boosts effectiveness and engagement.

Campaign Performance Tracking

The analytics features offered by Mailchimp are excellent for evaluating the effectiveness of your email campaigns. You can get comprehensive reports tracking clicks, opens, and conversions, giving you information about what would work for you.

To help you better understand your achievements, the platform also compares the effectiveness of your efforts to industry standards. By improving your understanding of your target market, these statistics enable more precise segmentation and more focused marketing in the future.

You can increase the efficacy of your campaigns with the help of Mailchimp’s comparative reports.

With the help of Mailchimp’s Marketing Platform, you can get the information needed to determine the actual return on investment for each campaign. You can track your ongoing email campaigns with Mailchimp’s helpful and extensive data.

It offers useful reports such as total income, average order revenue, and the quantity of orders placed. This data indicates if the results are improving or declining, and whether there are any particular high points for especially fruitful emails.

Additionally, you can rapidly spot any problems as well as any characteristics shared by successful campaigns.

This allows you to identify which campaigns have had an impact, rather than following idle metrics that haven’t resulted in income.

User Interface and User Experience

Mailchimp is simple to use and has a user-friendly layout with easy navigation.

It is easy to perform basic tasks such as generating an HTML or plain text email or launching an email list. However, there is a learning curve for the more complex aspects, such automation and segmentation.

When you first sign up and create an account, the platform asks a number of questions to understand your business and your requirements from the platform.

Upon logging in, a dashboard appears with vital information such as the performance of your recent emails, the number of new members of your audience, and the tasks you have left to complete.

You can find all the necessary tools in the sidebar on the left where you can manage your subscribers, view your reports, and start new campaigns.

Integrations and Compatibility

Mailchimp’s wide range of integration possibilities is what sets it apart. The platform offers a variety of connectors with major email marketing platforms as well as others in categories like eCommerce, social networking, CRM systems, and more to establish a unified marketing environment.

Some of the integrations offered by Mailchimp include:

• Analytics integrations with Google Analytics, Facebook, Supermetrics and more
• Booking and scheduling integrations with Calandly, Jane, Formbuilder, and more
• Contact management integrations with Shopify, Outfunnel, QuickBooks Online, and more
• Content integrations with Instagram, Twitter, and more
• Payment integrations with Stripe, SamCart and more
• Marketing integrations with LinkedIn, mailmunch, Wix and more

This flexibility of integrating Mailchimp with nearly every platform helps you to improve your email marketing operations by streamlining your workflow and utilizing data from various sources.

You can schedule email campaigns based on client activity and sync contact data by linking Mailchimp to your CRM system. These integrations can boost the efficacy of your email marketing, resulting in increased engagement and conversion rates, while also streamlining your workflow.

Customer Support

Mailchimp has advantages and disadvantages when it comes to support.

Technical help is limited to the first thirty days for users of the free plan. For smaller firms who are unfamiliar with email marketing and want assistance in using all the functions available in the system, this could be a drawback.

After the first thirty days, Mailchimp’s free plan users are limited to using the knowledge base and are not eligible for additional support services like live chat or phone assistance.

However, Mailchimp has a huge knowledge library with a variety of material kinds, including podcasts, videos, tutorials, help manuals, and more. 

Email and live chat assistance are available to subscribers of paid plans. Phone support is also available to Premium subscribers.

Mailchimp — Unique Features

Here are some of the special features Mailchimp offers that made it stand out to me.

Landing page editor

Landing pages are created with a call to action, in contrast to regular web pages.

You can make and modify these landing pages with Mailchimp’s Landing Page Editor function. You have the option of creating your own design from scratch or selecting one of the many available templates.

This editor also allows you to add and arrange text, photos, buttons, and other components on your landing page. In addition, it helps you to design landing pages with specific audiences and campaigns in mind.

This can boost your marketing efforts and raise your conversion rates. You can save time and effort by designing and customizing landing pages more easily with the help of the Landing Page Editor.

CRM and contact list

The contact list functionality of Mailchimp is connected with its CRM system. You can use it to organize and categorize your contacts according to custom categories, interaction, or demographics.

The CRM from Mailchimp stands out because of its seamless connection with email marketing solutions. It helps you cultivate relationships rather than merely sending emails.

Although more sophisticated CRM systems usually have this level of data for tracking contacts, Mailchimp provides it in a more approachable and user-friendly manner.

What the Experts Say About Mailchimp

Mailchimp has a 4.3 rating on G2 with 12,569 reviews and a 4.5 rating on Capterra with over 17,000. It is praised for its ease of use and integration capabilities.

My overall experience with mailchimp has been excellent over the years I’ve been using them for well over 12 years now has never have any issue the platform just keeps getting better and better and I recommend them to friends that are getting started online all the while and they love the platform as well.

Stephen, CEO – Verified Capterra review

Our overall experience has been fantastic and we’ve gotten great results from using the features available. We’ve done everything from creating sign-up popups for use on our website, installed a sign-up form on social media platforms, and then created drip campaigns to multiple segments of our list. The reporting and data that we get back from Mailchimp is also incredibly helpful, and we’ve been able to create follow-up campaigns for people who either did or did not interact with previous emails very easily.

Greg, CEO – Verified Capterra review

Mailchimp Alternatives

Mailchimp provides great email marketing automation at an affordable price. However, it may not be the greatest option for all organizations because each has its own set of requirements. If you have more specific requirements, check out the best Mailchimp alternatives.

Here are three excellent Mailchimp alternatives that you should look at.

Klaviyo

Klaviyo is a marketing automation platform similar to Mailchimp. It’s known for its seamless integration with ecommerce platforms. While both platforms excel in data-driven marketing with highly granular segmentation and automation capabilities, Klaviyo is better suited for smaller businesses.

Get started with Klaviyo for free

ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign provides a comprehensive array of email marketing solutions. It sets itself apart with its better CRM and sales automation features.

The pricing plans for this software start at $15 a month.

ActiveCampaign may be a better option if you need a platform for both email marketing and CRM.

Sign up for your free trial of ActiveCampaign

Brevo

Brevo is one of the least expensive all-in-one email marketing products on the market. It is accessible in six languages and has powerful automation features and a built-in CRM.

It is a multi-channel platform that works with email, SMS, and WhatsApp with a stronger CRM functionality. It offers a free plan and paid plans starting from $9 a month.

Brevo may be a better choice for you if you’re looking for advanced marketing automation.

Sign up to Brevo for free today!

Other options: Best ActiveCampaign alternatives

Getting Started with Mailchimp

With its array of capabilities and options for both free and pay-per-use plans, MailChimp is a respectable email marketing automation tool. 

With its many functions, it may be used by nearly any kind of business.

Mailchimp is an excellent option if you want a simple way to segment your list, send out promotional emails, or even manage email campaigns.

Additionally, Mailchimp might be a great option for individuals seeking to monetize their email marketing campaigns.

Give Mailchimp a try for free today!

FAQs

Related articles:

• Mailchimp vs. ActiveCampaign
• Mailchimp vs. Klaviyo