Top Mailchimp Alternative Services in 2023 (Better Features & Cheaper to Use)

Why people are switching from Mailchimp

Mailchimp was among the first brands ​​to introduce email builders. They offered an easy-to-use drag & drop editor and a wide variety of templates to get started quickly. But in recent years dozens of new up-to-date email marketing services emerged, and Mailchimp failed to keep up with innovations. They have ​​very basic ready-made templates for subscription forms, lack autoresponders, and the list management is poor — for example, you can’t tag contacts based on their actions.

Their famous forever-free plan was one of the most attractive options. But the monthly limit of 1,000 emails sent is way less than in other providers’ free plans, campaign reports are very basic, there’s only one subscriber list available, and automation is unlocked only on the Essentials plan. Even worse, the pricing plan has changed, and they started charging even for unsubscribed users on the list. And if you’re using the Free plan, considering these changes, it might become unavailable for you due to the limit of 1,000 contacts — including unsubscribed users!

Mailchimp “live chat support 24/7” seems to be nominal –– it’s offline most of the time, even on workdays.

Instead, Mailchimp offers to contact their Helpbot. It understands only simple sentences and you’ll need to try a few different variations of one phrase each time.

Let’s sum it up with a table of Mailchimp’s pros and cons as an email marketing service.

Luckily, there are lots of modern Mailchimp competitors, with far better features and options, which offer quality service at affordable prices.

What makes a good Mailchimp alternative

Let’s see what to look out for, when seeking a reliable Mailchimp competitor.

Automation

Complex automation services help to improve email marketing efficiency. They help you target the right people at the right time –– and do all that with a minimum manual effort.

In Mailchimp, you can trigger email messages and personalize them based on specific actions customers take. But some options lack flexibility. For example, in this tool, email lists are separated from each other, and if one user belongs to two different lists, they appear as a subscriber twice. In some situations that’s inappropriate.

Create multiple lists in: Selzy, Brevo, Omnisend.

Email analytics

With analytics, you are able to evaluate your marketing efforts and see what works for your customers best.

Mailchimp offers an opportunity to analyze your campaigns, but it looks a bit basic and lacks some advanced features like email surveys, opens by location, etc.

The following services are better: MailerLite, GetResponse.

Diverse channels

It’s nice when your email provider not only allows you to send emails, but also create SMS campaigns and push notifications. Even better, when it has options for managing clients and deals: keeping all this in one place saves tons of your time.

The problem is, Mailchimp claims to offer CRM services but they don’t include pipeline management features — it’s mostly for organizing contacts. You can save the day using integrations with other CRM services like Pipedrive — but why would you need Mailchimp in the first place then?

Competitors with built-in CRMs: EngageBay, ActiveCampaign, Zoho.

Send SMS via: Brevo, ActiveCampaign.

Segmentation & Personalization

To make your customers more personalized offers, you’ll need to segment the audience. All modern email marketing services offer this option both in paid and free plans. Flexible segmentation features are important for the success of your email marketing campaign.

Mailchimp allows you to divide subscribers into segments, but the flexibility of this option depends on your pricing plan.

Mailchimp alternatives with advanced segmentation features: Omnisend, AWeber, Hubspot.

Support

Customer support helps to solve your issues with email marketing service, so that’s very important to choose the service with prompt managers available 24/7.

As we mentioned above, Mailchimp claims to have round-the-clock live support, but in fact, live chat is unavailable most of the time, and communication with the bot is not always helpful. Also, the quality of support depends a lot on the pricing plan — for example, priority support and phone support is only available for Premium users. And on basic pricing plans, it is hardly possible to get a reply earlier than one-two weeks of expectation. Let alone the fact that support is only available via email and for the first 30 days on the free plan!

The services with fast & friendly support: Selzy, MailerLite, Brevo.

Mobile app

Mobile apps help get access to all features anywhere, anytime. Unfortunately, many email marketing services lack this option. Mailchimp has a mobile app to create beautiful user-friendly emails on the go.

Email tools with convenient mobile apps: AWeber, HubSpot, MailerLite.

Affordable pricing

At first glance, Mailchimp offers quite generous payment options. They offer an in-built CRM, nice free pre-designed templates to create the best newsletters. But if you read the conditions till the end, an unwelcome surprise awaits you.

The thing is, as we’ve already mentioned, that you pay for a total number of customers, not just for subscribed ones. So, the final cost is not so straightforward.

Cheaper alternatives: Selzy, Brevo, MailerLite.

Top-rated Mailchimp competitors offering a free plan

We have hand-picked the best Mailchimp alternatives among hundreds of other services. They are definitely appealing for small businesses, e-commerce, non-profit organizations, startups, etc.

Here are Mailchimp competitors with a free plan available.

Selzy

The first comes Selzy –– a simple and very email marketing-focused tool. It has a convenient email builder with different blocks for the most sophisticated designs. You can add a countdown timer, a menu, or an image carousel to your emails.

Selzy is more flexible when compared to Mailchimp: you can finely tune the parameters of each block. Also, it is possible to create another version of your email for mobile devices. There is an option of adding other buttons or text to your mobile newsletters.

As for email marketing options available in Selzy, it has:

• Standard features like automation, segmentation, personalization, and A/B testing.
• A variety of tools to make newsletters better. “Recommendations” gives tips on how to correct a newsletter to avoid getting spammed. “Marketing checkup” evaluates email marketing and helps to improve your campaign’s results.
• Unlimited subscriber lists. As for Mailchimp, it allows you to create up to 3 lists on the Essentials plan and 5 on the Standard plan.
• Detailed reports. Selzy reports not only include basic indicators and click maps, but also represent the dynamics of monthly openings and analysis of devices.
• Great list management and an activity-based list cleaning feature.
• Live chat and email support is 24/7 ready to solve all issues with your campaigns.
• A free-forever plan includes a limit of 15,000 monthly emails, which is far more flexible than Mailchimp’s 1,000 emails per month.

Pricing: $7/month (billed yearly) for 1,000 subscribers.

HubSpot

Same as Mailchimp, HubSpot is an all-in-one marketing platform that includes email marketing, landing pages builder, automation, sales tools, and many other features. They have an advanced CRM system integrated with email marketing, which allows you to make personalized offers to your customers.

Also, the platform lets you do A/B testing, create autoresponders, and drip email campaigns. They have friendly live chat support ready to answer your questions 24/7.

If you are looking for an all-inclusive marketing solution, try out HubSpot. It is suitable both for small businesses and enterprise companies.

Pricing: $18/month (billed yearly) for 1,000 subscribers.

Mailjet

In Mailjet, tracking real-time analytics becomes easier than ever. You’ll see how the customers respond to your emails and manage your mailing lists.

Customizable drag & drop editor allows you to create good-looking emails, which makes the service a very popular choice among beginners. It also has a gallery of cute pre-designed templates for any case.

Mailjet offers not only classic email features like email automation and analytics but also an opportunity to track user behavior and compare campaigns results. It also provides users with SMS marketing.

The platform also has a free-forever access with unlimited contacts and a monthly limit of 6,000 emails. The free plan provides a fully functional bulk email service but the campaign analytics are limited and there are no advanced features like email verification service and A/B testing. Mailerjet’s dynamic pricing depends on the amount of emails sent per month instead of the contact list volume.

Pricing: $13.5/month (billed yearly) with a limit of 15,000 emails/month.

Moosend

Moosend allows creating personalized campaigns due to unlimited customer segmentation even for free users. The automation builder is also available for any pricing plan. Moosend is on average 30% cheaper than Mailchimp, which makes it a good alternative for companies with a limited budget.

It also provides users with email templates and numerous marketing tools: automation, landing pages, integrations with popular apps and services, AI-powered recommendations for e-commerce, and customizable reports on metrics.

Moosend doesn’t have a forever-free plan but it offers a feature-rich free trial for 30 days. The free trial allows users to send unlimited emails, build one landing page and one automation workflow. 

Pricing: $13/month (billed yearly) for up to 1000 subscribers

Brevo (ex-Sendinblue)

Brevo (ex-Sendinblue) is a tool that, same as Mailchimp, encompasses many aspects of marketing. They offer a wide range of services: from SMS campaigns to CRM tools, chat bots, and cross-platform live chat management. A forever-free plan is available, but it limits you to 300 emails per day, and analytics are available only on the Starter plan

Paid plans include basic and advanced statistics, social media ads, landing page builder, multi-user access, and plenty of other options. Also, the users can have a live chat with support to solve any issues quickly — and the custom plan offers tailored onboarding.

Pricing: $22/month (billed yearly) for 20000 emails/month

Omnisend

Omnisend makes a perfect tool for e-commerce: it has conversion-focused automation and convenient segmentation options. It integrates well with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, and PrestaShop.

Omnisend has a wide range of features for online stores like the ability to browse abandonment and cart recovery. It also goes beyond with some advanced options like unique signup forms, automated product recommendations, interactive gift boxes, and web push notifications.

Omnisend offers a fully functional free plan with a limit of 250 contacts, 500 monthly emails, 60 SMS messages, and 500 web push notifications.

Another Omnisend’s advantage is a beautiful gallery of templates for landing pages.

Pricing: $20/month (billed monthly) for 1000 contacts.

AWeber

Same as Mailchimp, AWeber has plenty of integrations and features. It allows users to build long-lasting relationships with their customers to boost conversion rates.

AWeber is great for e-commerce, as it can be easily integrated with shopping platforms like Magento, Shopify, and Etsy.

As for the other benefits and perks:

• AWeber allows the usage of autoresponders, which maximizes user engagement.
• A tool has a wide template library and offers detailed analytics for every email.
• You can use AWeber’s mobile app and access all the features at any time.
• AWeber is a nice Mailchimp alternative, when it comes to bulk emailing and segmentation options.

Data importing in AWeber can be a bit complicated, so this feature is not its strong suit.

AWeber offers a free plan with a limit of 500 subscribers, one contact list, one automated sequence and landing page. Only basic templates are available.

Pricing: $30/month (billed yearly) for 501–2500 contacts

ConvertKit

ConvertKit is a tool that targets content creators and people who work in creative industries. It offers industry-specific features like Creator Network, which is an instrument for growing email lists without having to spend time posting more on social media. It also allows users to sell digital products like e-books. But even if you’re not a TikTok influencer, an independent newsletter writer or a musician, you can still give it a try!

ConvertKit has more flexibility in managing lists and contacts –– it allows you to create better-targeted campaigns. They also offer a convenient landing page builder: you can create an unlimited number of pages and use a custom domain name. There is also a beautiful gallery of landing page templates that can be customized to your taste.

An advanced segmentation feature allows you to make the process of targeting campaigns more accurate and create better-personalized offers for your subscribers.

The platform also integrates with popular CRM systems and e-commerce systems like WooCommerce and Shopify.

ConvertKit also offers a functional free plan with a limit of 1,000 subscribers and basic features available except for Creator Network, referral system, and tools for advanced email marketing like automation.

Pricing: $25/month (billed yearly) for 1000 subscribers.

GetResponse

GetResponse is great for automation. It lets you trigger sale conditions, do A/B tests, and remove conditions. The tool also makes it simple to move subscribers from one list to another.

The platform is available in 25 languages, which is very convenient for international teams. Also, GetResponse offers a set of unique paid features, like a landing page creator and a webinar tool. Their multimedia center, which gives you access to stock photos and generation of QR codes is also a nice addition.

GetResponse also offers a free plan with a website builder, one landing page, and an email marketing tool with a limit of 500 contacts. 

Pricing: $15.58/month (billed yearly) for 1,000 subscribers.

Constant Contact

Constant Contact is a nice choice for small businesses or non-profit organizations. It has a simple and convenient drag & drop editor, which requires no knowledge of HTML, and helps you to create professional emails. The platform also has such basic essential options as an ability to manage email lists, track email deliverability, and open rates. You can track the results of your campaign, and see how they perform using clear visual reports.

Built-in tools for e-commerce solutions help online shops reach their customers. It is easy to create surveys and polls, donation pages, or dynamic sign-up forms. Unfortunately, the free plan is not available but each pricing plan has a 14-day free trial with a full refund in case something goes wrong.

Constant Contact is perfect for WordPress and easily integrates with its most popular plugins like OptinMonster, WPForms, and others.

Pricing: $12/month (billed monthly) with a 14-day trial period and additional SMS marketing for $10/month with a limit of 500 messages.

MailerLite

This platform has a convenient beginner-friendly email builder and lots of ready-made customizable templates. You can also add polls and surveys to your campaigns to track user experience.

Besides, there are lots of other tools to capture leads like popup forms, marketing automation, and segmentation of contacts. All these options let you target the right users at the right time. As for reporting, the platform has built-in real-time reporting tools to analyze your marketing campaigns and an A/B testing feature. Mailerlite also offers unique features like selling digital products and a paid subscription for newsletters.

Mailerlite has a forever-free plan with 12,000 emails/month and 1,000 contacts. The free plan has all the basic features except for 24/7 support — it’s only available for the first 30 days.

Pricing: $13.50/month for 1000 contacts.

Campaign Monitor

The peculiarity of Campaign Monitor is two separate email marketing platforms. One of them –– CM Commerce –– is perfect for e-commerce, and the other can be used in other businesses.

CM Commerce integrates with WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Shopify, has smart customer segmentation, pre-made customer journey automation templates, and more. It also includes behavioral targeting features, pre-made customer journey automation recipes, smart customer segmentation, and reviews & user-generated content.

Campaign Monitor for other businesses provides you with marketing automation workflows, advanced analytics, A/B testing, and segmentation. You can also create SMS campaigns, but for separate pricing.

Campaign Monitor doesn’t offer a free plan but it has a free trial that allows users to create and send a campaign to 5 subscribers. The paid plans are also on the pricier side compared to other products from our list.

Pricing: $29/month (billed monthly) for 1000 subscribers.

The bottom line

Let’s sum up everything about the most successful Mailchimp alternatives:

When you are looking for a reliable Mailchimp alternative, consider more factors than just a price. Although Mailchimp is a platform with a stable reputation, that doesn’t mean it’s the best option for any business.

Nowadays, there are plenty of Mailchimp alternatives to look for. You can choose the one that suits the needs of your business –– there is no ready-made formula on what is the best email marketing service. So, learn more about all the existing alternatives, try them out, and get optimal results.

This article was originally published in November 2021 and was updated in July 2023 to make it more relevant and comprehensive.