Mailchimp: pricing, pros and cons
Mailchimp is the best-known all-rounder, with templates any marketer can use and integrations everywhere. Contact-based pricing means you pay to store people who never open anything.
- Price
- Usageestimate
- At 50 people
- Depends on usage
- Free tier
- Yes
- Website
- mailchimp.com
Specification
What Mailchimp supports
The dimensions every email platform in our catalogue is compared on.
- Billed on
- Contacts stored
- Automation
- Simple sequences
- Channels
- Email, SMS
- Ecommerce integration
- Yes
- Transactional sending
- Yes
- Marketer-usable builder
- Yes
- SAML single sign-on
- No
- SOC 2
- Yes
- EU data residency
- No
- Self-hostable
- No
- Open source
- No
- Public API
- Yes
- Native mobile apps
- No
The honest assessment
Mailchimp: pros and cons
Cost scales on total contacts, including people who never open anything.
What it does well
- Templates and a builder anyone in marketing can use immediately
- Broad integration list across ecommerce and CRM
- Reporting is clear without configuration
What it costs you
- You pay for unengaged contacts unless you prune the list yourself
- Automation is shallow next to purpose-built lifecycle tools
- Price increases at each contact tier have pushed many teams to leave
Fit
Who Mailchimp suits
Choose it if
- Small teams sending regular broadcasts with no engineering support
- Companies wanting a builder non-specialists can pick up immediately
Look elsewhere if
- Teams with large unengaged lists — you pay for every dormant contact
- Anyone needing deep lifecycle automation
Head to head
Mailchimp compared
Direct comparisons against every other email platform we cover.
4 alternatives
Other email platforms worth a look
Everything else we cover in email marketing, cheapest first.
Questions
Mailchimp, answered
What is Mailchimp best for?
Small teams sending regular broadcasts with no engineering support. Companies wanting a builder non-specialists can pick up immediately. In short: the best-known all-rounder for broadcasts and basic automation.
What are the downsides of Mailchimp?
You pay for unengaged contacts unless you prune the list yourself. Automation is shallow next to purpose-built lifecycle tools. Price increases at each contact tier have pushed many teams to leave. The trade-off in one line: Cost scales on total contacts, including people who never open anything.
How much does Mailchimp cost?
Mailchimp is not priced per seat — it is priced on usage rather than headcount, so what you pay depends on volume rather than how many people log in. Model it against your own numbers before comparing vendors.
What are the best Mailchimp alternatives?
In email marketing the credible alternatives are Brevo, Kit (ConvertKit), Klaviyo, Resend. Which fits depends on your team size, budget and non-negotiables — our questionnaire ranks all of them against your answers in about three minutes.
Is Mailchimp worth switching away from?
Only if one of its real drawbacks is costing you something concrete. Cost scales on total contacts, including people who never open anything. If none of the downsides above describe your situation, staying is almost always cheaper than moving — a migration costs weeks, and a tool that merely annoys you is not worth them.
Prices are unverified estimates — useful for comparing orders of magnitude, not for budgeting. Confirm the current figure with the vendor before you commit to anything.
Is Mailchimp still the right call for your team?
Answer about a dozen questions and we will rank Mailchimp against every alternative in email marketing — with the reasoning shown, and the cost of switching at your actual seat count.