8 Best Mailchimp Alternatives in 2022: Save Money by Switching

Mailchimp has been a dominant player in email marketing solutions for some time now. However, market conditions are changing, and there has never been a better time than now to consider Mailchimp alternatives.

This article considers why you might want to consider switching to a different email marketing solution. What’s more, it will suggest several hand-picked alternatives for you to consider.

Why Consider Mailchimp Alternatives?

Mailchimp has been around for over two decades and, during that time, grew to become the ‘go to’ name for email marketing software.

Unfortunately, back in 2019, Mailchimp decided to transition from being essentially an email marketing platform and become a full-service marketing platform.

While that might be good news for larger corporates and businesses with large budgets to burn, the increasing subscriptions (the most recent being February 2022) are a real kick in the face for the countless smaller business and nonprofits that relied on – and supported – Mailchimp for their email marketing.

Furthermore, while Mailchimp does offer a free plan, it has fewer features and more restrictions than many competitors, lacking decent A/B testing, reporting, and analytics. Even the email support ceases after thirty days, so you will eventually be forced to upgrade to a paid plan.

Therefore, never before has looking for an alternative made so much sense.

Top 8 Best Mailchimp Alternatives

Fortunately, there are tons of suitable Mailchimp alternatives out there, and I’m now going to show you some of the best available. And don’t fret if your funds are tight, as most of the solutions on the list have good free options to get you started.

Please note, this list is not in any particular order of preference.

Sendinblue

Screenshot of Sendinblue homepage

Sendinblue is a Mailchimp alternative that, unlike most of its competitors, has pricing based on monthly email volume rather than subscribers or reach.

Article Continues Below

A free version of Sendinblue is available. Of course, that has a thinned-down feature list, plus you can only send up to 300 emails per day. However, it allows you to send transactional emails, chat with one user at a time, plus it has some useful marketing automation tools. Perfect for small businesses.

Two premium plans are available. ‘Lite’ adds A/B testing, more advanced statistics, no Sendinblue logo, and email support. ‘Premium’ adds detailed reporting, unlimited marketing workflows, a landing page builder, Facebook ads, multi-user access, and telephone support. Both remove the daily email sending limit

All Sendinblue plans come with unlimited contact storage, including the free one.

For further information on Sendinblue, please look at the WPLift article ‘Campaign Monitor vs. Mailchimp vs. SendinBlue: Which Email Marketing Service Wins?‘ Additionally, you can read about the Sendinblue plugin for WordPress here.

Pricing

The core version of Sendinblue is free.

The two premium Sendinblue plans – Lite and Premium – are priced on a tiered system based on email volume. For example, up to 20k emails per month, Lite costs $25 per month, and Premium costs $65. For 100k emails, those prices increase to $65 and $124 per month, respectively.

Get Sendinblue

Campaign Monitor

Screenshot of Campaign Monitor homepage

Next on my list of best Mailchimp alternatives is Campaign Monitor, a fully-featured solution to help you with your email marketing campaigns and grow your contacts list.

While a free version of Campaign Monitor is available, you can only use it to send a campaign to five subscribers, so it’s rather pointless. However, the paid plans offer good value, starting at $9 per month for ‘Basic,’ which despite the name, is not actually that basic.

For example, the Basic plan includes plenty of email features, including a drag-and-drop builder, a library of customizable templates, A/B testing, segmentation tools, analytics, etc. Also included are automated and transactional emails, plus tons of integrations.

Upgrading to the ‘Unlimited’ plan brings extra tools like unlimited email sends, countdown timers, and time zone sending (great for sending emails at the optimum time). ‘Premier’ is the most expensive plan. That includes advanced segmentation, advanced link tracking, and telephone support.

For further information on Campaign Monitor, please see WPLift’s article ‘Campaign Monitor vs. Mailchimp vs. SendinBlue: Which Email Marketing Service Wins?

Pricing

As already mentioned, a free version of Campaign Monitor is available, but it is too restricted to be of use to anyone.

Concerning premium plans, prices are on a sliding scale depending on the number of contacts. The monthly base price of each plan is as follows:

  • Basic: $9 for up to 509 contacts
  • Premium: $29 for up to 509 contacts
  • Premier: $149 for up to 5009 contacts

Nonprofits can get a 15% discount on subscriptions.

A pay per campaign is also available ($5 for each campaign and $0.01 per recipient.)

Get Campaign Monitor

Moosend

Screenshot of Moosend homepage

Like Mailchimp, Moosend sees itself as an all-in-one marketing platform. That means it has a feature set extending well beyond basic email marketing. For example, it includes integrations with eCommerce platforms such as WooCommerce, a landing page builder, signup forms, marketing automations, and much more.

Unlike Mailchimp, Moosend does not offer a free plan per se. However, it does offer free forever access to all features of its campaign editor for up to 1k unique subscribers by signing up for a free account. What’s more, a 30-day free trial that includes most of the Pro plan features is available for you to try.

Pricing

Moosend’s Pro plan has no limits on email sends, and pricing is subscriber number-based.

For example, for up to 500 subscribers, Moosend costs $9 per month ($7 per month if you pay annually). That is considerably cheaper than both Mailchimp’s most affordable ($11) and feature-comparable ($17) plans. For up to 25k subscribers, the price difference between Moosend Pro and Mailchimp Standard equates to a massive $1,188.

Get Moosend

AWeber

Ending my list of Mailchimp alternatives is AWeber, a popular platform for growing and engaging your audience.

AWeber offers a free plan, although that does fall short on the maximum number of subscribers compared to Mailchimp’s free offering (500 in AWeber versus 2k provided by Mailchimp).

Where AWeber excels over Mailchimp is with its paid ‘Pro’ plan. Being the developer’s only paid plan, pricing is transparent and simple, and it includes everything a complete marketing platform should. Therefore, expect to find an extensive email template library, a drag-and-drop editor, free stock images, automation and segmentation tools, analytics, and more.

If you run an eCommerce store, you’ll be pleased to know that AWeber integrates with WooCommerce, Shopify, Etsy, PayPal, and many more.

Pricing

GetWeber has a limited free plan which I have already covered above.

The Pro plan works on a sliding scale based on the number of subscribers you have. For example, for up to 500 subscribers, Pro costs $19.99 per month, rising to $69.99 for up to 10k. Significant savings are available for quarterly or annual commitments.

Get AWeber

HubSpot

Screenshot of Hubspot homepage

HubSpot is a highly respected complete CRM platform that comprises several ‘hubs.’ One of those is the Marketing Hub which includes tools for lead generation, marketing, and, of course, email marketing.

While the HubSpot platform and its hubs are freemium, all the free versions include sufficient tools and features to actually make them useful. For example, the free email marketing tools include an email builder and templates, list segmentation for targeted campaigns, an online form builder, and much more.

Various premium plans and bundles are available. All remove the HubSpot branding, and depending on the plan or bundle you purchase, expect to get additional features like A/B testing, collaboration tools, marketing automation, and much more.

Furthermore, the HubSpot Academy offers a superb range of free online courses. Not only can you learn about HubSpot’s products, you can also study CRM, marketing, sales, and much more. Best of all, several courses come with a recognized certification.

Pricing

The core HubSpot CRM and the associated hubs are free. However, with the Marketing Hub, you are limited to 2,000 emails each month, although the number of subscribers is unlimited. That would be plenty for most small businesses.

Examples of prices for Marketing Hub premium plans (which are based on the number of marketing contacts) are:

  • ‘Starter’ plan: $45 per month (billed annually) for up to 1k marketing contacts or $216 for 5k
  • ‘Professional’ plan, $800 for up to 2k marketing contacts or $1,025 per month for up to 7k

While HubSpot’s premium plans look pricey on paper, you must remember that you get much more than just email marketing tools. Overall, the platform is an excellent way to help automate and promote your online business.

Get HubSpot

Screenshot of Constant Contact homepage

Constant Contact is a popular Mailchimp alternative that offers two plans: ‘Core’ and ‘Plus.’

Unfortunately, no free plan is available. However, the Core plan is ideal for fledgling businesses as it offers a good range of tools to help grow your contact list and generate sales and traffic using emails. What’s more, you can push posts to LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter simultaneously. Detailed real-time reporting helps you see which of your campaigns are succeeding and which need more work.

The Plus plan costs quite a bit more than the Core plan (see below for pricing details). However, it does add many more growth tools and automations to your arsenal, including auto-generated segments (for email targeting purposes), automated emails (e.g., abandoned cart reminders, birthday and anniversary emails, etc.,) and much more.

Pricing

The Constant Contact Core plan costs $9.99 per month and Plus $45. Both of those are for a maximum of five hundred contacts: after that amount, tiered pricing applies depending on the number of contacts you have.

Furthermore, you get a 15% price reduction if you prepay for one year. For nonprofits, the discounts are more generous, being 30% for an annual or 20% for six months commitment.

If you wish to try Constant Contact’s bulk email and other capabilities before purchasing, a 60-day trial is available. Furthermore, all purchases come with a 30-day moneyback guarantee.

Get Constant Contact

Omnisend

Screenshot of Omnisend homepage

If you are strapped for cash and are looking for a free Mailchimp alternative that is upgradable via a paid version later, then Omnisend would be a good option for you.

With the free version of Omnisend, you can reach up to 250 contacts, although you can have unlimited contacts in your list. In addition, you can send up to 500 emails and 500 web push notifications per month. It is even possible to send SMS or MMS (does anyone still use those?) messages, and the limits of those are region-dependent.

Other key features of the free plan include pre-made email templates, automations and workflows, popups, signup forms, analytics, etc. Moreover, you also get segmentation and A/B testing which are often premium-only features. In fact, Omnisend’s free plan gives you the same features as their premium plans, albeit with tighter limits on reach and email sends.

Talking of premium plans, Omnisend offers two:

  • ‘Standard’ increases the email limits and contact reach, and the web notification limit is removed. It also adds live as opposed to email support.
  • ‘Pro’ removes the email limits and allows you to send more SMS messages. Pro also adds advanced reporting and priority support.

Pricing

Omnisend’s core is free. However, the price of the premium plans is tiered depending on how many people you wish to reach. For example, for a reach of 500 (the lowest tier), the prices are:

  • Standard: $16 per month (includes up to 6k emails per month)
  • Pro: $59 per month (includes 3,933 SMS messages per month)

Full details of all three plans’ features are available on Omnisend’s pricing page.

Get Omnisend

MailerLite

Screenshot of Mailerlite homepage

Despite the name, MailerLite is not scant on features. Instead, the inspiration for the name comes from the developer’s aim to make this solution as straightforward and intuitive as possible. That is something they certainly seem to have achieved.

Unusually, the free version of MailerLite has generous subscriber and monthly email limits: 1k and 12k, respectively. It contains many tools to grow your audience and your business, including drag-and-drop editing, an email automation builder, popups, signup forms, and ten landing pages. A/B email testing, and even eCommerce integration.

Two premium plans are available, ‘Growing Business’ and ‘Advanced,’ both competitively priced when pitched against Mailchimp. Depending on the plan selected, you can add enhanced automation, a custom HTML editor, multiple automation triggers, unlimited templates, dynamic emails, etc.

Pricing

As already mentioned, a free version of MailerLite is available.

With the premium plans, in common with most other Mailchimp alternatives, pricing is on a sliding scale based on the number of subscribers. Here are some monthly price examples for each plan:

  • Growing Business: $10 for 1k subscribers or $54 for 10k
  • Advanced: $21 for 1k subscribers or $87 for 10k

Committing to annual payments attracts a discount, and all paid plans are available as a free 30-day trial.

Get MailerLite

What’s Your Favorite Mailchimp Alternative?

Mailchimp is a great email marketing platform, and over the years has become one of the most popular. However, it is unfortunate that the developer has decided to systematically increase the platform’s price despite increased competition. As shown in this article, much of that competition matches or surpasses Mailchimp on features, price, or both.

Do you use Mailchimp for your email marketing campaigns, or have you opted for an alternative? If you use Mailchimp, do you think it still offers good value, or are you considering switching to something different?



Leave a Reply