Mailchimp vs MailerLite

Mailchimp was founded in Atlanta in 2001 by Ben Chestnut, Mark Armstrong, and Dan Kurzius. Headquarters in Atlanta, GA. Was acquired by Intuit in 2021.

MailerLite was founded in 2005 as a web design agency but then switched to email marketing. The company is remote-first, with employees in 40 countries.

Creating emails doesn’t require design or coding skills. However, the interface can be confusing to novices.

No coding or design skills are required to create emails and web pages. The platform also offers an extensive knowledge base with tutorials, which makes it beginner-friendly.

Small to medium e-commerce companies that want email marketing together with their website hosting.

E-commerce, freelancers, small businesses

Has a free plan for up to 500 subscribers and 1,000 emails a month and a daily send limit of 500. It has a lot fewer features than paid plans, fewer available templates, and customer support for 30 days only.

A generous forever free plan with a limit of 1 user, 1,000 contacts, and 12,000 monthly emails. The free plan includes:

• Email editor and automation builder
• Website builder and 10 templates for landing pages
• Sign-up forms and pop-ups
• 24/7 email and chat support for the first 30 days

For up to 500 contacts, billed monthly:

• Essentials $13
• Standard $20
• Premium $350

Other pricing features:

• 1-month free trial for Essentials and Standard
• A Pay As You Go plan
• Two possible pauses of the account’s billing every 12 months
• 15% discount for nonprofit organizations

Growing business:

• $9-205/month billed yearly, depending on the number of subscribers, with a limit of 50k contacts at the highest price
• Unlimited emails and 24/7 support
• Includes extra features like dynamic emails, selling digital products, blogs, and an unsubscribe page builder
• 3 users available

Advanced:

• $19-1,600/month billed yearly, with a limit of 500k contacts at the highest price
• An email limit if you have more than 50k subscribers, up to 6 million, depending on the number
• Includes features like custom HTML editor, AI writing assistant, Facebook integration, promotion pop-ups, and more
• Unlimited users

Entreprise:

• Depends on the scope of work
• Only available for businesses with 100k and more subscribers
• Includes the services of a dedicated success manager, onboarding, account audit, and dedicated IP and deliverability consultation

• Email support on paid plans and 30-day only on a Free plan
• 24/7 chat support on paid plans
• Support phone line for the Premium plan: Mon-Fri 6:30 am — 6:00 pm ET (UTC-5)

Customer support is available 24/7 via email and live chat — however, it’s only available for 30 days on the free plan. Users can also hire experts in email marketing, copywriting, no code development, and more.

MailerLite also offers an extensive Customer Self-Service Center. It includes:

• A large categorized knowledge base, that includes articles about troubleshooting most common issues
• Video tutorials
• A Circle community where users can communicate with each other
• A free ML Academy with 5 free online courses about MailerLite and email marketing

• Email automation with pre-made customer journeys
• Hosting, websites, and landing pages builder
• Online store creator
• Marketing CRM
• Integrations with popular services
• Drag-and-drop email builder and pre-made templates
• A mobile app for iOS and Android to create and send emails, add clients, check analytics, etc.

• Email marketing automation
• Sign-up forms
• Landing pages
• Website builder
• Blog builder
• Email verifier
• Transactional emails
• Click maps
• The ability to sell digital products like e-books and online courses
• Setting up a paid subscription for emails

100+ templates for emails and landing pages
AI assistant for designing
The free plan has a limited number of pre-built templates

Templates for:

• Welcome messages
• Sales
• Newsletter
• Events
• Announcements
• Win-back

70+ templates for newsletters:

• Blog digests
• Events
• Holiday emails
• Featured product
• Notifications
• Surveys and quizzes
• Deals and offers
• Emails for creative professionals

40+ templates for landing pages:

• For bloggers
• For creative professionals
• Events
• Surveys and quizzes
• Coming soon
• Celebrations
• Books
• Non-profits

18 website templates for different industries and purposes:

• Business
• E-commerce
• Education
• Events
• Food and drinks
• Portfolio
• Wellness

315 integrations including WordPress, Shopify, Facebook, Stripe, LiveChat, Canva, Unsplash, and more.

139 integrations with services for CRM, loyalty programs, e-commerce, project management, surveys, and more.

• Website
• A mobile app for iOS and Android to create and send emails, add clients, check analytics, etc.

No installable solution.

MailerLite has a web app, an iOS app, and an iPad app only for subscribing leads on offline events.

English Spanish Portuguese

English

Many pre-built automations (called customer journeys):

• Welcome series
• Abandoned cart
• Product retargeting
• Lead generation
• Order notifications, and more

• 15 automation recipes for welcome emails, abandoned cart, membership renewal, online courses, and more.
• Paid versions include an AI writing assistant powered by OpenAI that allows users to write marketing copies faster.
• Automated A/B testing for up to 3 workflow variations.

• Essential features for small businesses
• 315 integrations
• Website hosting
• A mobile app
• Stylish design and built reputation
• Landing page builder

• A very simple and minimalist product that is good for beginners
• Many unique features like paid newsletters and selling digital goods
• Great customer support
• A lot of integrations available
• Easy migrations from other services
• Extensive video tutorial library for new users

• Relatively high prices
• Free and Standard plans are very limited
• Limited customization
• Customer support is hard to reach and isn’t very helpful
• Many people find the interface not user-friendly
• Unsubscribed and inactive accounts are still included in sending limits

• May come off as too simple for experienced marketers
• You need to get approval to start working with the service
• 2FA requires a third-party app instead of a phone number
• Stripe integration can be troublesome
• Confusing categories in the interface
• Outdated documentation at times