Maropost vs. Mailchimp — Which One to Pick in 2024? 

If you’re a growing business, email marketing is likely a big part of your expansion plan. You’ll want to choose an email platform that can keep up with your growth; one that makes it easy to talk to your audience, handle your campaigns, and set up time-saving automations. 

And you’ve narrowed your choice to Maropost vs. Mailchimp. 

Mailchimp is a comprehensive marketing platform that helps you manage and connect with your customers across various channels. While a lot of users are satisfied with what Mailchimp offers, its cost and the complexity of some features have drawn some criticism.

Maropost is a lesser-known marketing automation platform based in Australia. It has comprehensive features for automating emails, SMS, mobile campaigns, and customer journeys. Marpost is a solid choice for e-commerce companies, but it has a steep learning curve and can be pricey. 

Now, the big question: which one should you choose? Let’s help you pick the right one. 

Plus, we’ve got a third option that might just outshine them both, especially if you’re dealing with lots of emails and need the absolute highest deliverability.

---

---

Maropost vs. Mailchimp — Which Option is Better? 

But they stand apart when you look at who they’re made for and the special features they bring to those users.

Now, let’s get into the specifics.

---

Automating Your Marketing Efforts 

Winner: Mailchimp 

Building strong connections with your customers isn’t easy. It means being there for them at every turn. Thankfully, marketing automation can help by handling a lot of the communication for you.

With Maropost and Mailchimp, you’ll enjoy: 

Feature	Maropost	Mailchimp
Visual customer journey builder	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Personalization	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Multi-channel support	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐
E-commerce automation	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Visual Journey Builder

Mailchimp’s visual automation builder is its strongest feature. This visual tool helps you plot out and automate the journey your customers take before they decide to buy something from you. It lets you create any sequence from sales funnels to drip campaigns. 

If you’re on the Essentials plan, you’ll be limited to a maximum of four points per journey, but higher plans support up to 200 points and conditional logic. 

Maropost’s journey builder might not win any beauty contests, but it’s just as effective. It lets you set up event-driven workflows tailored to different triggers. This means when a customer takes a specific action, you can automatically send them the most relevant content to increase their interest and chances of making a purchase.

Users on the Essential and Professional plans can create journeys with up to five points, while Enterprise users get unlimited journey points. 

Personalization

Both platforms make it easy to add dynamic content to your messages — from adding the recipient’s name to offering personalized coupons and product suggestions. 

And thanks to the drag-and-drop email editors, you don’t have to know HTML to send personalized messages — you can add the relevant block, and you’re done. 

Personalizing your messages isn’t just about what you send—it’s also about timing. Mailchimp and Maropost let you schedule your campaigns to hit the inbox when recipients usually read their emails. 

They consider factors like the recipient’s time zone, their past interactions, and when they usually make purchases to optimize the send time for different campaigns.

Multi-Channel Support 

This unified view lets you deliver relevant content and create an enjoyable experience regardless of the channel and device. 

E-Commerce Automation 

Both Maropost and Mailchimp offer versatile automation tools for e-commerce. You can send emails for abandoned carts, welcome new subscribers, and pull those who haven’t engaged in a while back in. 

They also integrate with the most popular online store platforms, including Shopify and WooCommerce. 

Mailchimp gives you an option to build your own website, though you’ll need a separate subscription from their marketing services. Maropost offers a similar feature for setting up an online store, which also requires a separate subscription. 

Finally, if you need to send transactional emails, such as order confirmations or thank you messages, Mailchimp will give you access to a dedicated infrastructure. But Maropost doesn’t support transactional messages. 

At Campaign Refinery, we give you the freedom to market all kinds of products, whether they’re digital or physical. Our tools help you set up automated sequences with ease. And if you want to make your emails even more compelling, you can include foolproof countdown timers to drive urgency. 

---

Managing and Segmenting Your Email List 

Winner: Maropost

For your email marketing to hit the mark, you need a solid email list. It’s important to pick a platform that lets you take good care of your list and squeeze every bit of value out of it.

Let’s see how Mailchimp and Maropost stack up in helping you achieve that:

Feature	Maropost	Mailchimp
List segmentation	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐
Tag-based segmentation	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐
Duplicate contacts	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐
Subscriber caps	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐

List Segmentation

Mailchimp turns list segmentation into a bit of a puzzle. To get it right, you have to wrap your head around tags, groups, segments, and audiences. What’s more, the segmentation builder interface is cluttered with tons of conditions and criteria, which makes it confusing to pick the right ones. You can choose up to five conditions for a segment. 

Maropost segmentation builder is slightly simpler. It uses the info you already have about your customers, like where they’re from, what they’ve bought, and how they interact with you, to help you create different contact groups. 

You’re free to set up segments using one rule or several. And unlike Mailchimp, Maropost doesn’t limit how many conditions you can add to a segment.

Tag-Based Segmentation

On both platforms, you’re free to add as many tags as you like to your audience members. Maropost uses tags as a handy method to divide your list into segments. You can put tags on people yourself or have it happen automatically once certain conditions are met. 

Mailchimp looks at tags a bit differently, seeing them more as additional info, which doesn’t offer much room to play around.

Duplicate Contacts

With Mailchimp, you can handle several “audiences” under one account, but there’s a catch: if you add the same contact to different audiences, the platform will count that person more than once, which means you’ll be charged for duplicates.

To prevent duplicate contacts in Maropost, you need to create a unique custom field for each contact, like a member ID, account ID, or customer ID. This unique bit of info can’t just be their email address.

The unique ID lets you keep your contacts in sync across email, SMS, and app messages. Plus, it helps Maropost’s other tools and your external CRM stay updated together.

Subscriber Caps

Mailchimp’s pricing depends on how many contacts you have, and each price tier sets a limit on your list size. Maropost, though, doesn’t restrict how big your list or subscriber count can get, but it usually comes with a heftier price tag than typical email-focused platforms.

Now picture a platform that lets you manage your contacts any way you want, without any caps on the number. Plus, it won’t cost you an arm and a leg. Campaign Refinery is exactly that kind of platform. 

With us, you can store all your contacts and use our tag-based system to customize your interactions with every subscriber, making each of their journeys with you uniquely personal.

---

Landing in the Primary Inbox — Deliverability 

Winner: Maropost 

Independent research shows that Mailchimp’s email deliverability rates have varied from 82% to 95% over the past four years. This suggests that, on average, about 1 in every 10 emails might not reach the intended inbox.

Maropost keeps its deliverability statistics under wraps but boasts about having high rates. While customer feedback and their documentation suggest they follow good practices, it’s hard to be sure without actual numbers.

Check out the comparison table below to see how Mailchimp and Maropost measure up against each other:

Feature	Maropost	Mailchimp
Automatic list cleaning	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐
IP reputation management	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐
Monitoring sender behavior	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐
Domain authentication	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐
Subscriber consent	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

 

---

Automatic List Cleaning

Both platforms offer tools to spot subscribers who aren’t active anymore. You can try to re-engage them with dedicated campaigns, and if they still don’t respond, you have the option to remove them from your list.

Maropost goes a step further with its Cleansing feature. This is an automatic daily process that lets you set up rules under the “Cleansing Rules” section for removing email addresses. They’ve included a few ready-made rules to help you weed out inactive contacts and internet bots.

IP Reputation

Both platforms pay close attention to the IP addresses they use for sending emails. However, because these IPs are shared among unvetted users, you might not always get the best deliverability rates since the behavior of other users is outside your control. 

Maropost and Mailchimp do give you the chance to get your own dedicated IP address, but honestly, we think that’s more than most people need. 

In many situations, a dedicated IP could actually do more harm than good unless you have enough volume to maintain consistency and frequency. 

Monitoring Sender Behavior

Maropost keeps an eye out for risky email practices, such as high bounce rates, excessive spam complaints, and a surge in people unsubscribing. The objective is to protect deliverability for all senders. 

If a sender gets too many complaints, they’ll limit their ability to upload new contacts and ask you for proof of consent. However, the sender will still be able to keep sending harmful emails at the cost of the overall reputation until their account gets banned. 

Mailchimp plays by similar rules. They have rules for avoiding spam and making sure emails aren’t going out to people who haven’t signed up for them, but they’re not as strict. 

Domain Authentication

Maropost and Mailchimp automatically add default authentication to marketing emails sent from their domains. However, if you prefer to send emails from your own domain, Maropost requires you to set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. On the other hand, Mailchimp recommends using these protocols but doesn’t force them.

Starting in February 2024, Gmail and Yahoo have updated their rules. This means — if you send lots of emails, you’ll need to make sure your domain is authenticated.

Subscriber Consent

Maropost and Mailchimp don’t allow you to use purchased lists or do cold outreach. Setting up double opt-in forms is straightforward with both, so you don’t have to resort to shady practices to get people to join your list. 

If your list is particularly large, Maropost prefers to check it themselves rather than letting you upload it directly. They might even ask you to show how you got consent from your contacts.

With Mailchimp, though, you have a bit more flexibility. You can add contacts who haven’t signed up for marketing emails and still send them transactional messages or confirmation emails.

At Campaign Refinery, we work exclusively with carefully selected senders to maintain our stellar IP reputation. Joining us means benefiting from the collective good practices of our community. We’re also quick to act against anyone not following our guidelines to keep our IP reputation spotless.

---

Maropost vs. Mailchimp Pricing — Crunching the Numbers 

Mailchimp decides your price based on how many contacts you have, while Maropost bases its fees on the number of emails you send. Both services, though, often get criticized for their high prices.

Mailchimp has four pricing levels, including a free option for those with up to 500 contacts. Once your list goes beyond 50,000 subscribers, your choices narrow down to two. 

If your email list is smaller than 25,000, Mailchimp is easier on your budget compared to Maropost. If your list is bigger, the more affordable option depends on your email-sending frequency and the features you need.

Mailchimp’s Standard and Premium plans can still be more cost-effective than Maropost’s higher-tier plans, even if you have 200k subscribers. However, Maropost’s Essentials plan can be the way to go to save money.

Here’s what you’re looking at for a list with 75k contacts with Mailchimp: 

Tier	Monthly commitment	Annual commitment
Essentials	Not available	Not available
Standard — extra features for content optimization, personalization, and A/B testing	$630	Not available
Premium — Better support, personal onboarding, and larger utilization caps.	$90	Not available

 Maropost doesn’t have a free option. Its prices kick off with packages that allow for 225,000 emails a month, spread across three different levels. If you need to send more, every extra 1,000 emails will set you back by $1 to $2. 

Opting for a yearly commitment gets you a 10% discount. But there’s no option just to pay month by month—you’ll need to cover at least three months upfront to start using their services.

Here’s what the costs look like for 225k emails: 

Tier	Quarterly commitment	Annual commitment
Essential	$279 per month	$251 per month
Professional — adds dedicated success manager, training, and 5GB storage	$849 per month	$764 per month
Enterprise — adds AI, unlimited journey points, and custom contact fields	$1699 per month	$1529 per month

---

Maropost vs. Mailchimp — The Verdict  

If you run a small business and are looking for a marketing platform that comes with strong e-commerce connections, Mailchimp might be just what you need.

However, if your business is on the larger side and you’re okay with paying a large premium for higher deliverability, Maropost could be the way to go. 

We’ve created a detailed comparison table to show you how Mailchimp and Maropost stack up against each other:

Feature	Maropost	Mailchimp
Email marketing automation	Advanced	Advanced
Deliverability	Relatively higher	Fluctuates
Email editor	User-friendly and simple	Versatile and advanced
Customer journey builder	Advanced	Advanced
List segmentation	Efficient	Cumbersome
Dynamic content	Complex	Complex
Analytics and reporting	Comprehensive and advanced	Comprehensive and advanced
Integrations	Extensive	Extensive
Supported marketing channels	Email, SMS, Social	Email, SMS, Social
Pricing	Based on emails, starts at $279	Based on contacts, starts at $26

If you’re looking for an email marketing platform that boasts five-star deliverability and wallet-friendly pricing, it’s time to meet Campaign Refinery!

---

Campaign Refinery 

Imagine having to pay hundreds, maybe even thousands, of dollars every month for a dedicated deliverability manager that you might not even need. 

That’s part of the deal with Maropost. But what if you could get even better email results at a fraction of the cost?

That’s exactly what we promise at Campaign Refinery — sky-high deliverability without the eye-watering price tag.

Why Choose Campaign Refinery Over Maropost and Mailchimp 

Want to know why we’re better than Maropost and Mailchimp when it comes to email marketing?

Is Campaign Refinery Affordable?

Our pricing is completely transparent and revolves around the emails you send, not the number of contacts you have. So, you won’t see us charging extra for your contact list or limiting its size. With us, your costs are based on the emails you send out and maintaining a tidy list.

For those who send a lot of emails, Campaign Refinery could help you cut your costs by up to 60% every month!

Skeptical? Take a look and see the difference for yourself:

Number of sends	Campaign Refinery	Maropost — Professional	Mailchimp — Standard
50,000	$99	$764	$230
200,000	$299	$764	$450
1,000,000	$1000	$1642	$1600

Is Moving to Campaign Refinery Complicated?

It all starts with you filling out our admission form and having a chat with one of our experts. We’ll take a close look at your unique situation and figure out the best way to transfer your data over to us.

How tricky this move will be can vary, depending on the size of your list and which email marketing service you’re coming from, among other factors.

Don’t stress, though. Our team will be right there with you, helping you join our community of trusted senders.

Ready to take your email marketing to the next level? Apply now to begin your journey with us!