12 Best Mailchimp Alternatives in 2024 (Features and Pricing)
For many users, Mailchimp has been the gold standard of email marketing for years. It first burst into the scene in 2001, but it gained popularity in the 2010s with its whimsical mascot, clever marketing, and robust features.
We’ve recommended Mailchimp ourselves in our guides on Best Klaviyo Alternatives and Best Constant Contact Alternatives.
But we know Maichimp isn’t for everyone. Their free tier is severely limited, and the user interface is hard to figure out. If you make a mistake with your campaigns, you often have to start from scratch.
And to make matters worse, Mailchimp is killing their free newsletter service, TinyLetter. It lets users host up to 5,000 contacts for free, but Mailchimp’s free plan only supports up to 1,000 contacts.
So, if you’re searching for a Mailchimp alternative, you’ve got plenty of options, and we’re here to walk you through the best ones for different use cases.
What is the Best Mailchimp Alternative?
When you’re on the hunt for the best Mailchimp alternative, remember that “best” is subjective. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution in email marketing platforms. The right choice depends on your specific requirements, goals, and budget.
If your marketing strategy revolves around specific needs, such as high deliverability, a specialized tool is the best choice. These platforms often offer more focused features.
But if you need more features, like CRM, an all-in-one platform is a better option.
Here are our recommendations:
- Campaign Refinery — maximum deliverability and engagement for all types of senders,
- ActiveCampaign — CRM and sales features,
- SendGrid — transactional email features,
- HubSpot — inbound marketing features,
- Klaviyo — e-commerce analytics,
- Brevo — basic marketing automation,
- Mailerlite — websites and landing pages,
- Drip — small-scale e-commerce,
- Constant Contact — online marketing and event management,
- Flodesk — design-focused emails,
- Convertkit — monetize newsletters,
- Mautic — an open source Mailchimp alternative,
- tinyEmail — Shopify Plus email extension.
Campaign Refinery vs Mailchimp: A Mailchimp Alternative for Next-Level Deliverability and Engagement
At Campaign Refinery, we help our customers harness the full potential of their email lists to generate recurring revenue and turn campaigns into stable assets.
As a robust Mailchimp Alternative, we distinguish ourselves without our targeted focus on email marketing.
We zero in on what matters most to businesses: landing in the inbox, advanced automation, and unique engagement strategies.
If you’re serious about email marketing, Campaign Refinery isn’t just an alternative; it’s an upgrade for your business.
Built on Proven Email Marketing Principles
Unlike many platforms, Campaign Refinery is built around proven email marketing principles that generate recurring revenue.
Here’s what you can expect:
- Generate scarcity to drive sales: You can use our countdown timer feature to create genuine scarcity in your campaigns. The timer activates separately for each user depending on their stage in the customer journey. And, unlike many competitors, the user can’t trick the system into giving them the offer after the clock runs out.
- Tag-based system: You have the flexibility to sort your contacts into unlimited categories and include or exclude individual contacts from campaigns. With tags, you don’t have to divide your list into static segments. You can easily apply multiple tags to a single contact for unlimited creative marketing.
- Powerful audience segmentation: A large list of undifferentiated contacts is a recipe for low engagement. Our platform helps you divide your list into smaller groups with shared interests and send campaigns that resonate with each segment.
Unmatched Deliverability
We’ve built our platform on a foundation of deliverability. If your emails don’t make it to the inbox, the effort and creativity you’ve put into crafting your messages and strategies will go unnoticed.
Here’s what we do:
- Reputation management: All our clients undergo a rigorous vetting process to make sure they follow reliable sending practices. When you’re part of a pool of strong senders, your deliverability rates benefit from the collective sender reputation.
- Domain authentication: We help all our customers implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC from the first day they join us. This proactive approach to email security boosts your deliverability and prevents spoofing.
- Automatic email list cleaning: Our platform reviews your list and automatically removes known spam traps, inactive contacts, and undeliverable addresses. On average, our cleaning tool improves open rates by 37 percent!
Enhancing Engagement Through Gamification
We’ve integrated a unique gamification feature into our platform, which lets you ethically reward your subscribers for their engagement. We incentivize subscriber interaction to significantly improve engagement rates by up to eight times.
Once a subscriber collects enough engagement points, you can reward them with any of these:
- VIP access to limited resources,
- PDF downloads,
- Exclusive memberships,
- Training videos,
- Special live events,
- Discounts,
- Bonus materials.
Transparent Pricing That Fuels Your Growth
Our pricing structure is straightforward and tailored to facilitate your growth. Instead of punishing you for growing your list, let you have unlimited contacts.
We use a credit-based system that only charges you based on your usage:
- Sending each email costs 1 credit.
- Cleaning your list costs 5 credits.
Our plans start at $99 per month for 50,000 emails and easily scale up to 1,000,000 monthly sends.
- Sending 50,000 emails? Starting at $99 per month.
- Sending 200,000 emails? Starting at $299 per month.
- Sending 1,000,000 emails? Starting at $1,000 per month.
We don’t offer a standard free trial because we vet all our clients before onboarding them. So, you don’t have to worry about whether our platform is the right choice for you.
Interested in Taking Your Email Marketing to the Next Level?
Book your discovery call and apply to join Campaign Refinery.
Why Choose Campaign Refinery Over Mailchimp?
With our advanced automation, high deliverability, and unique engagement strategies, Campaign Refinery is an ideal choice for marketers who require more than just basic email functionalities. It’s a platform that grows with your business, adapting to your evolving marketing needs.
| Feature | Campaign Refinery | Mailchimp |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing structure | Per email – optimized for growth | Per contact – hinders growth |
| Campaign optimization | Advanced | Basic |
| Automation flexibility | High | Moderate |
| Customization flexibility | High | Moderate |
| Reporting and analytics | Advanced | Moderate |
| Ease of use | 10 | 7 |
| Affordability | 9 | 6 |
| Email list segmentation | ✅ | ✅ |
| Unlimited contacts | ✅ | ❌ |
| Advanced deliverability | ✅ | ❌ |
| Engagement gamification | ✅ | ❌ |
| Automatic list cleaning | ✅ | ❌ |
| Campaign library | ✅ | ❌ |
| Dynamic timers | ✅ | ❌ |
ActiveCampaign vs Mailchimp: A Mailchimp Alternative with CRM and Sales Features
| Unique Feature | Integration with CRM and Sale tools |
| Free Version | No free plan, but offers a 14-day free trial. |
| Pros | Comprehensive sales features Conditional content blocks for personalized emails Detailed reporting, including heat maps and IP tracking |
| Cons | Steep learning curve Prices increase quickly with more subscribers More complex than basic email solutions |
ActiveCampaign offers a comprehensive sales and marketing platform for medium to large businesses. It’s an all-in-one solution for managing customer experiences across multiple channels.
As a Mailchimp competitor, the platform unifies marketing and sales operations. The marketing side covers email marketing, automation, personalization, landing pages, and forms. On the other hand, the sales side consists of a CRM with pipeline management and lead scoring tools.
Key Features
- Integrated CRM: The integrated CRM unifies customer interactions with sales processes and lead nurturing. It helps you automate and track the entire customer journey, from initial contact to post-sale follow-up. However, taking full advantage of the tool requires a deep understanding of marketing and sales, not to mention a dedicated team.
- Integration with popular e-commerce platforms: ActiveCampaign connects to popular e-commerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce. This integration lets you tailor email marketing campaigns based on customer shopping behavior, purchase history, and preferences.
- Email API: If you have a development team, you can implement the API to integrate email capabilities into your custom solutions. The API also lets you send transactional emails from other platforms via Postmark, an email delivery startup that ActiveCampaign acquired in May 2022.
- Site tracking: This feature lets you track user interactions on your website and use this data to create more targeted and personalized email campaigns. One example is sending reminder emails to users who abandon their carts before checking out.
Pricing
As with most Mailchimp-type services, ActiveCampaign’s pricing is tiered based on the number of contacts and the level of features. Marketing, Sales, and Transactional Emails have separate subscriptions. And you can choose bundled subscriptions if you need both Marketing and Sales features.
The Lite plan for the marketing platform starts at $39 per month, which gives you 1,000 contacts. You can purchase add-ons, such as custom reporting, for an extra price.
- Have 10,000 contacts? Starting at $174 per month.
- Have 50,000 contacts? Starting at $486 per month.
If you have more than 50,000 contacts, you have to contact the sales department.
SendGrid vs Mailchimp: A Mailchimp Alternative with Transactional Email Features
| Unique Feature | Robust email API for high-volume email sending |
| Free Version | Up to 2,000 contacts and 6,000 emails per month |
| Pros | Extensive email performance reporting Easy integrations with various CRM and automation software Customizable email templates |
| Cons | Basic plans lack key features The user interface can be complex and not intuitive Targeted at developers and advanced marketers |
SendGrid is an email delivery service. It’s famous for sending transactional emails, such as notifications, receipts, and other messages. Its target audience is large-scale businesses that need a scalable infrastructure and developers who need custom email capabilities in their applications.
SendGrid also offers email marketing and automation features covering A/B testing, design templates, signup forms, and analytics.
However, it doesn’t offer features, like advanced automation, detailed segmentation, and extensive template libraries that you can find in other services similar to Mailchimp. That’s because SendGrid is more focused on transactional emails.
Key Features
- Scalability: SendGrid’s infrastructure supports high volumes of emails. It’s a good choice for businesses with large-scale email requirements, and you won’t experience a drop in performance even as your number of contacts grows.
- Email API: SendGrid’s API allows developers to integrate email functionality seamlessly into applications and websites. This integration enables both straightforward use cases such as emailing receipts and complex situations based on use behavior.
- Multichannel support: Since SendGrid is part of Twilio, it lets you engage customers across various channels. So, you can reach their customers through email, SMS, WhatsApp, and video. This is a great feature for running synchronized promotion campaigns across multiple channels.
Pricing
SendGrid’s pricing structure can feel complex since you need to consider both your contact list size and monthly email volume.
Plus, the company also includes charges based on the number of team members accessing the platform. This means if you need multiple team members to manage your marketing automation efforts, the cost will increase.
And if you need to send transactional emails through the API, you’ll need a separate subscription, which starts at $19.95 per month for up to 50,000 emails.
- Have 10,000 contacts? Starting at $25 per month.
- Have 50,000 contacts? Starting at $120 per month.
- Have 100,000 contacts? Starting at $200 per month.
HubSpot vs Mailchimp: A Mailchimp Alternative with Inbound Marketing Features
| Unique Feature | Integrated CRM with various tools for email marketing, landing pages, blogs, and customer interaction management |
| Free Version | Limited free plan mainly for basic CRM features + 14-day free trial for some subsystems |
| Pros | User-friendly interface Lets you manage entire email marketing strategies under one roof Resources for learning and improving marketing strategies |
| Cons | Expensive for full features Limited customer support on free planA/B testing not available on lower-tier plans |
HubSpot is a holistic digital marketing and sales platform that integrates social media marketing, email marketing, and content management into one platform. Unlike many Mailchimp alternatives, HubSpot includes a robust CRM system, which lets you track and nurture leads throughout the sales funnel.
The platform provides detailed analytics across all marketing channels, not just email. However, its comprehensiveness can be overwhelming for small businesses or digital marketing beginners.
Plus, HubSpot can be expensive as you add more subscribers to your contact list. And many of the useful features are locked behind higher-tier plans.
Key Features
- Comprehensive analytics: HubSpot’s analytics tools track many data points across marketing channels, including website traffic, email campaign performance, social media engagement, and CRM activities.
- All-in-one CMS: You can use HubSpot to create, manage, and optimize your website content. The platform provides built-in SEO and content strategy tools.
- Learning resources: HubSpot Academy is a comprehensive learning platform that offers various free online courses and certifications. Plus, the platform has an extensive library of how-to guides, tutorials, and best practice tips.
Pricing
HubSpot’s pricing is reasonable for when you’re starting out. You can get on the platform for a small $20 monthly fee. This gets you basic email marketing, forms, landing pages, and email support.
But the Professional plan, which includes the more useful features, such as comprehensive analytics and customer support, starts at a whopping $890 per month for 2,000 contacts only!
On top of these costs, if you want the CRM and content management features, you’ll have to pay a few hundred dollars more per month.
- Have 10,000 contacts? Starting at $176 per month.
- Have 50,000 contacts? Starting at $860 per month.
- Have 100,000 contacts? Starting at $1616 per month.
Klaviyo vs Mailchimp: A Mailchimp Alternative Aimed at E-commerce Companies
| Unique Feature | Advanced automation with a strong focus on integration with e-commerce platforms |
| Free Version | Free plan available, with up to 500 monthly emails and 150 free monthly SMS/MMS credits for 250 contacts + 60-day email support |
| Pros | User-friendly yet advanced Comprehensive customer intelligence analytics Robust integrations with e-commerce platforms |
| Cons | Limited pre-designed templates Limited monthly email sends on each plan Costly compared to other email service providers like Mailchimp |
Klaviyo is a powerful email marketing and customer data platform for large-scale e-commerce businesses. It features advanced automation tools and covers multiple channels, including email, SMS, and mobile notifications.
You can capture leads through web forms, create automated flows to nurture them, and predict the likelihood of a purchase.
The platform’s CDP pools data from various touchpoints to build 360° views of customers.
These include:
- E-commerce platforms, such as Shopify,
- Customer support channels,
- Email and SMS,
- Paid advertising channels,
- Social media.
Key Features
- Email templates: Klaviyo offers more than 100 pre-built email templates for promotional campaigns, newsletters, and transactional emails. You can customize these HTML templates using a drag-and-drop editor to add your brand logo, colors, and images.
- A/B testing: The A/B testing feature helps you test different elements of your emails, such as subject lines, content, and CTA buttons, to identify what resonates best with your audience.
- Predictive analytics: Using the data platform, you can estimate each customer’s lifetime values — how much you can earn from each customer before they no longer buy from you. You can also calculate the likelihood of customers making future purchases and the risk of customer churn. These metrics help you take proactive measures and maximize your revenue.
Pricing
Klaviyo uses a tiered pricing model based on the number of contacts. It’s more expensive than basic email marketing tools, but many users are satisfied with its advanced data platform and deep e-commerce integrations.
The free plan lets you have up to 250 contacts and send 500 emails per month. But if you have more contacts, you’ll need to select a paid plan that lets you send just emails or emails + SMS.
The monthly SMS sending cap isn’t tied to your number of contacts. You can increase it in any way you like. Each 1250 SMS credits will cost you roughly $10.
- Have 10,000 contacts? Starting at $175 per month.
- Have 50,000 contacts? Starting at $790 per month.
- Have 200,000 contacts? Starting at $2300 per month.
Sendinblue (Brevo) vs Mailchimp: A Mailchimp Alternative with SMS Support
| Unique Feature | Combines email and SMS marketing with chat, CRM, and marketing automation tools |
| Free Version | Free plan allowing up to 300 emails per day + 30-day free trial. |
| Pros | Wide range of features User-friendly interfaceMulti-channel support |
| Cons | Customer support can be slow Some users report issues with deliverability rates Limited options in the free and starter plans |
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is an email marketing and CRM platform for small businesses and entrepreneurs. It also lets you run SMS and WhatsApp campaigns, send transactional emails, and receive payments.
Brevo’s main advantage is its simplicity and ease of use. So, it’s a suitable choice if you’re new to email marketing or have limited technical expertise. You can start your email marketing efforts and, if you see a need, move on to a more specialized platform once you’re ready to scale your operations.
But if you’re looking for more advanced features, especially in terms of automation and detailed analytics, Brevo might fall short.
Key Features
- Email campaigns and automation: Brevo offers a user-friendly interface for creating and managing email campaigns. Although it doesn’t have the in-depth automation features of some of its competitors, it covers the basics well.
- Template design and customization: The platform provides a range of templates that you can easily customize using the native editor.
- Subscriber management: Brevo includes essential tools for managing subscriber lists, although it lacks the advanced segmentation capabilities in more sophisticated platforms.
- Landing pages and signup forms: Brevo lets you create customized landing pages and double opt-in forms to attract new subscribers. You can use the drag-and-drop editor to create your forms and add custom fields to collect more information about your leads.
Pricing
Brevo’s pricing is competitive, but it can be complicated. You have to pay separate subscriptions for:
- Email marketing,
- Live chat,
- Sale platform,
- Transactional emails.
The marketing platform gives you unlimited contacts, meaning you don’t have to worry about costs as you attract more subscribers.
The free plan is pretty limited, though. You can only send 300 emails per day. To get the most useful features, you’ll have to pay at least $65 per month for the Business tier.
- Sending 10,000 emails? Starting at $25 per month.
- Sending 50,000 emails? Starting at $49 per month.
- Sending 100,000 emails? Starting at $69 per month.
Mailerlite vs Mailchimp: A Mailchimp Alternative with a Website Builder
| Unique Feature | Forms, landing pages, and website builder |
| Free Version | No permanent free tier, but offers a 14-day free trial |
| Pros | Straightforward pricing Versatile form builder with custom fieldsFocused feature set without extra confusing tools |
| Cons | Has a learning curve Extremely expensive for large email lists Single-minded focus on e-commerce |
Mailerlite is another robust all-in-one marketing solution that offers email automation, a website builder, customizable sign-up forms, and e-commerce tools. It’s particularly appealing to small businesses, freelancers, and content creators who want a no-frills tool for their digital marketing activities.
The platform is easy to use and offers a clean dashboard. It has a solid range of features without a hefty price tag, and the customer support is reliable.
However, similar to all all-in-one email marketing tools like Mailchimp, it doesn’t shine in any particular area. This can be a drawback if you’re looking to scale your marketing operations and need sophisticated analytics or automation.
Key Features
- Email campaign designer: Mailerlite has a drag-and-drop editor that lets you customize templates without coding skills. But if you’re familiar with HTML and CSS, you can also use the code editor to modify template codes yourself.
- Automation: You can send customized emails based on user interactions. For example, an automation feature could be triggered on a specific date or when a user fills out a form. If you pay for the Advanced plan, you can set multiple triggers for each automation.
- Website builder: The platform has a simple drag-and-drop website builder that helps you design interactive websites quickly. You can also create online stores to sell digital or physical products. But the tool isn’t as flexible as dedicated website creation tools such as WordPress.
- Paid newsletters: You can outsource payments to Mailerlite and charge subscribers a fee for consuming your newsletter. The payment gateway supports currencies in 135 countries.
Pricing
Mailerlite offers two pricing schemes for its marketing and transactional platforms. The marketing subscription covers automation and audience building, while the transactional subscription is for transactional emails and SMS.
The pricing for the marketing tools is based on the number of contacts on your list. While it starts at affordable prices, it quickly increases as you attract more subscribers and need more features.
You can get 10 percent off if you commit to an annual plan.
- Have 10,000 contacts? Starting at $73 per month.
- Have 50,000 contacts? Starting at $289 per month.
- Have 200,000 contacts? Starting at $820 per month.
Drip vs Mailchimp: A Mailchimp Alternative for Small E-Commerce Brands
| Unique Feature | Advanced automation and CRM integration capabilities |
| Free Version | No permanent free tier, but offers a 14-day free trial |
| Pros | Straightforward pricing Versatile form builder with custom fields Focused feature set without extra confusing tools |
| Cons | Has a learning curve Extremely expensive for large email lists Single-minded focus on e-commerce |
Drip is another Mailchimp alternative for e-commerce businesses. It’s Klaviyo’s most fierce competitor, but it focuses on smaller businesses and individual online store owners. It helps online retailers drive sales through targeted campaigns.
The platform covers email and SMS marketing. It features a visual workflow builder that lets you visually map out the customer journey and automate communications. You can create automated email workflows that trigger based on specific customer actions, such as abandoned carts or browsing behavior.
However, Drip isn’t a great choice outside of the e-commerce industry. Plus, leveraging Drip’s full potential needs investing considerable time and resources.
Key Features
- Multichannel support: You can create automated workflows that cover both email and SMS. This feature is useful for large campaigns that require multiple touchpoints with customers.
- Form builder: Drip’s sign-up form builder lets you create popups, slide-ins, sticky bars, and sidebars and embed them on your site with one line of code. You can even create multi-step forms, which are useful for gathering more detailed information, overwhelming visitors with too many input fields at once.
- Integrations: Drip integrates with popular e-commerce platforms, such as Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento. Other integration options include lead generation tools, payment processors, and customer service software.
Pricing
Drip’s pricing is based on the number of contacts, but it’s refreshingly simple — there’s only one tier. There’s no free plan, but you can test the platform for 14 days without a credit card.
The pricing starts at $39 per month for 1250 contacts, but becomes expensive as your customer base grows.
- Have 10,000 contacts? Starting at $154 per month.
- Have 50,000 contacts? Starting at $699 per month.
- Have 150,000 contacts? Starting at $1699 per month.
Constant Contact vs Mailchimp: A Mailchimp Alternative for Event Management
| Unique Feature | Extensive online marketing tools with additional features like event management and social media integrations |
| Free Version | No permanent free tier, but offers a 60-day free trial |
| Pros | Wide range of features User-friendly interface Multi-channel support |
| Cons | Many complains about customer support Not all users find all the features useful Doesn’t offer specialized features in any area |
Constant Contact is one of the oldest email marketing platforms, which was founded in 1995. However, throughout the years, it has become a weaker version of what it used to be, with many old-time customers complaining about the customer service and lack of design improvements.
Constant Contact is well-suited for small businesses and nonprofits. If you’re looking for an easy-to-use Mailchimp alternative that gives you a bit of everything but doesn’t excel at any particular aspect, Constant Contact is a decent choice.
You’ll get marketing automation, e-commerce integrations, A/B testing, design templates, and more at a relatively affordable price. But as your business grows, you’ll have to migrate to more reliable platforms.
Key Features
- Event management: A unique feature of Constant Contact is its event management capabilities, which include registration forms, invitations, and ticketing. This is particularly useful for businesses and organizations that host events as part of their marketing strategy.
- Social media tools: You can use Constant Contact to create and schedule social media posts and track their performance.
- Surveys and polls: The platform includes tools for gathering customer feedback and insights. This feature helps you understand your audience better and make informed decisions.
- Mobile app: The platform has a mobile app that gives you access to the web version’s functionality on your smartphone. You can create campaigns, track performance, manage your list, and more.
Pricing
Constant Contact offers a tiered pricing model based on the size of the email list. Plus, there are limits on your storage, number of user seats, and monthly email sends. If you exceed the monthly email cap, you’ll be charged $2 for every 1000 emails.
Constant Contact’s prices are affordable for small businesses but can outgrow your budget as you add contacts to your list.
- Have 10,000 contacts? Starting at $180 per month.
- Have 25,000 contacts? Starting at $310 per month.
- Have 50,000 contacts? Starting at $430 per month.
Flodesk vs Mailchimp: A Mailchimp Alternative Focused on Design
| Unique Feature | Beautiful templates for link-in-bio, forms, and landing pages |
| Free Version | Free link in bio tool + 30-day free trial |
| Pros | Flat-rate pricing No caps on the number of contacts Intuitive interface for non-tech users |
| Cons | Occasional software glitches Limited advanced features and integrations Only suitable for solopreneurs and small businesses, not for big senders |
Flodesk is a relatively new player in the email marketing space. It’s attracted small businesses, entrepreneurs, and creatives who value aesthetics and ease of use in their email marketing tools.
The platform has an emphasis on design. It offers an intuitive and visually appealing interface, which makes it easy to create stunning, on-brand emails without advanced design skills. There are many professional-looking customizable templates for various styles and needs.
However, Flodesk’s email marketing features are limited. You get basic automation capabilities, such as welcome emails and nurture series. The integration options and analytics dashboard are also on the basic side.
Key Features
- Link in bio: The tool lets you capture subscribers from your social media accounts without having to send traffic to your website. You can design your landing page from scratch or use professional templates to save you time.
- Checkout: Flodesk’s checkout feature lets you design sales pages, receive online payments, and deliver digital products immediately after receiving your payment. You can add expirable discounts and upsells to increase your sales and revenue.
- Forms: Like the other features in Flodesk, forms are also focused on design. You can create beautiful forms with customizable fields to capture subscribers.
Pricing
Flodesk is one of the few Mailchimp-type services that doesn’t charge you based on the number of contacts on your list.
The Link-in-bio tool is free, and you’ll have to pay flat rates for the email marketing and e-commerce platforms.
Email marketing tools cost $38, and e-commerce tools are $26 per month. There’s a 30-day free trial, and you’ll get one month free if you pay for the entire year upfront.
ConvertKit vs Mailchimp: A Mailchimp Alternative with Newsletter Features
| Unique Feature | Newsletter management and monetization tools |
| Free Version | Available with basic features and up to 1,000 subscribers + 14-day free trial |
| Pros | Reliable customer support User-friendly interface for beginners Learning resources for content creators |
| Cons | Limited templates Only suitable for solopreneurs Advanced plans are expensive |
ConvertKit is a powerful email marketing platform designed primarily for creators like bloggers, podcasters, and YouTubers. It’s a good choice for individuals and small businesses looking to build and engage with their audience.
ConvertKit’s strength lies in its focus on content. It helps independent digital creators monetize their newsletters through a network of sponsors and paid recommendations. The platform is also known for its robust customer support and user-friendly interface.
However, compared to other email services like Mailchimp, ConvertKit can be pricier, especially if you have many subscribers. Plus, its focus on simplicity means it lacks some of the more advanced features in other platforms.
Key Features
- Email campaigns and automation: ConvertKit offers simple automation features that allow creators to send targeted, behavior-based emails. Its email editor is straightforward and lets you quickly create minimal newsletters.
- Landing pages and forms: ConvertKit provides a range of customizable landing pages and forms to capture leads and grow your email list.
- Integrations: It integrates seamlessly with various platforms, including e-commerce, membership sites, affiliate marketing platforms, and webinar tools.
Pricing
ConvertKit operates on a tiered pricing model based on the number of subscribers. Although it offers a free plan, you can only have up to 1000 contacts and basic features.
If you want automation, customer support, or access to ConvertKit’s sponsor network, you’ll have to pay $29 per month for the same number of contacts. If you commit annually, you’ll get two months off.
- Have 10,000 contacts? Starting at $119 per month.
- Have 50,000 contacts? Starting at $379 per month.
- Have 200,000 contacts? Starting at $1279 per month.
Mautic vs Mailchimp: An Open Source Alternative to Mailchimp
| Unique Feature | Advanced customer data management for a 360°view |
| Free Version | Open-source, completely free to use |
| Pros | Highly customizable Extensive integrations Advanced automation |
| Cons | No customer support Requires technical knowledge for setup and management Limited focus on design and email templates |
Mautic is one of the few solid open-source alternatives to Mailchimp. It’s a comprehensive marketing automation platform that lets you run multi-channel campaigns using email, SMS, web notifications, and social media.
It’s ideal for medium or large businesses that want to avoid the excessive costs of commercial platforms.
You can design your forms, build landing pages, and capture leads using Mautic. It also gives you customizable dashboards that let you view all interactions with all customers and build holistic profiles.
However, there’s no customer support. You need technical expertise to set it up, and you’ll have to rely on Mautic’s community if you run into issues.
Plus, to achieve full functionality, Mautic requires additional plugins or integrations, which can add to the complexity of the platform.
Key Features
- Landing page designer: Mautic features a drag-and-drop landing page designer that lets you create and customize landing pages without advanced design skills or technical knowledge. Landing pages created with Mautic are responsive and look great on all devices.
- Flexible campaign builder: Mautic helps you create and manage email campaigns that range from simple broadcasts to multi-step, multi-channel automations.
- Powerful analytics: Mautic’s analytics offer deep insights into campaign performance and customer behavior. You can use attribution modeling to understand which marketing activities are driving conversions and sales.
Pricing
As an open-source tool, Mautic is free to download and use. But that doesn’t mean you won’t have to spend anything to use it.
You need to consider the costs for:
- Hosting,
- Setup,
- Customization,
- Ongoing maintenance.
If you have the technical capability to manage these aspects, Mautic offers significant value and flexibility compared to proprietary services like Mailchimp.
tinyEmail vs Mailchimp: A Mailchimp Alternative for Shopify
| Unique Feature | AI-driven features for subject line generation and email copywriting |
| Free Version | Up to 500 contacts and 15,000 monthly emails |
| Pros | User-friendly interface Detailed analytics and tracking Affordable pricing |
| Cons | Limited advanced features Limited customer support hours New platform without an established track record |
TinyEmail is a new email marketing platform that’s completely free for Shopify Plus users.
It’s been attracting attention for its focus on dynamic emails and AI. It lets you create interactive emails that contain countdown timers, carousels, products, and polls. tinyEmail also uses AI to generate subject line ideas and personalize email content.
The platform’s target audience includes small businesses, content creators, bloggers, and e-commerce brands. The easy-to-use interface makes tinyEmail accessible to beginners and experienced marketers. It offers a drag-and-drop email editor and a variety of customizable templates.
Despite these advantages, tinyEmail has a few limitations. Its feature set isn’t as extensive as some other email marketing services like Mailchimp. Also, its customer support isn’t as robust as many Mailchimp competitors.
Key Features
- Dynamic content: tinyEmail lets you create emails with content that changes based on user data like age, gender, location, and purchase history. You can also add interactive elements, such as carousels, to your emails. These features can increase your engagement metrics.
- Easy migrations: You can import your contacts from Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Drip, and Campaign Monitor. tinyEmail’s help center has step-by-step guides on how to easily perform the migrations.
- Email editor: The platform’s email editor, called Creative Studio, lets you use 50+ email templates or build your own from scratch. There’s a built-in image editor, and you can create reusable modules for your campaigns.
Pricing
For all its emphasis on simple design, tinyEmail has a cluttered pricing structure. The platform charges you based on the number of emails you send per month and the features.
The free plan also has a cap on your list size: 500 contacts. You can send up 15,000 emails to those contacts without charge.
The Start plan starts at $15 with 20 percent off if you commit annually. And if you’re a Shopify Plus user, you get access to all the features for free.
- Sending 50,000 emails? Starting at $50 per month.
- Sending 100,000 emails? Starting at $100 per month.
- Sending 250,000 emails? Starting at $250 per month.
Free Mailchimp Alternatives
Mailchimp is a strong and popular email marketing platform, so finding a completely free alternative that matches its features can be challenging.
But we understand that you may not want to invest in a paid platform when you’re just starting out. And Mailchimp’s free tier isn’t as generous as it used to be.
So, here are your options:
- Use the free tier of a paid platform.
- Use an open-source platform.
In the table below, we compare the free tiers of a few beginner-friendly email marketing tools like Mailchimp:
| Platform | Subscriber limit | Send limit | Features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mailchimp | 500 | 1,000 | Limited automation, templates, and integrations |
| Brevo | 2,000 | 300 per day | Basic automation, campaign reports, SMS, and WhatsApp |
| Mailerlite | 1,000 | 12,000 per month | Drag-and-drop editor, basic automation, 10 landing pages |
| ConvertKit | 300 | Unlimited broadcasts | Landing pages, forms, segmentation, and community support |
| SendGrid | 2,000 | 6,000 per month | Basic automation, A/B testing, 1 signup form |
| Mailjet | 1,500 | 200 per day | Email editor and basic statistics |
| Beehiiv | 2,500 | Unlimited | Web hosting, analytics, recommendation network |
Your second option is to use open-source platforms. These offer high customization and no subscription costs. But you’ll have to have some technical expertise to set them up on a host server and configure a mail transport agent, such as Amazon SES.
These are your top choices:
- Mautic: Highly customizable with a range of marketing automation features.
- phpList: Focuses on simplicity and basic email marketing needs.
- Sendy: A self-hosted solution that integrates with Amazon SES for sending emails.
If you’re interested in learning more about these platforms, don’t miss our full guide on open-source email marketing platforms.
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