What is Mailchimp All-in-One Marketing Platform?
Mailchimp is the #1 Email Marketing and Automations platform for growing businesses. It empower more than 12 Million customers around the world to launch, build, and grow their businesses with world-class marketing technology, award-winning customer support, inspiring content and our data-driven recommendations Mailchimp’s marketing platform allows our customers to get online and start selling, connect with and grow their audience, and confidently create effective multichannel marketing campaigns across email, social media, landing pages, ads, websites, and more—all from one place. More than 12 Million businesses including TEDTalks, Shutterstock, Boston Market, Nikon India trust Mailchimp to turn their emails into revenue. Founded in 2001 and based in Atlanta with offices in Brooklyn, Oakland, Vancouver, London, Seattle, and Santa Monica, Mailchimp has 1,200+ employees. In 2021, Mailchimp was acquired by Intuit.
MailChimp is one of the biggest names in email marketing software, right up there with Constant Contact and AWeber.
I’ve personally used all three, and they all have their strengths and weaknesses.
I’ve put together this review to help you decide if MailChimp is right for your situation. It’s broken into six sections that cover all the main areas of email marketing tools. I’ve based these on the questions that I ask when I’m looking for an email marketing tool.
Features
Platform
- Custom Reports
- User, Role, and Access Management
- Performance and Reliability
- Customization
- Notifications
Campaign Management
- Campaign Dashboard
- Campaign Optimization
- Reach
- Bulk Editing
- Batch Uploading
- Brand Safety
- Creative Optimization
- Rich Media Capabilties
Social Functionality
- Social Functionality
Targeting
- Targeting
MailChimp Plans and Pricing
The first thing you should know is that there is no free trial on MailChimp.
But there’s a good reason for that.
The Free Plan
Unlike virtually all competitors, MailChimp offers a free plan. As in permanently free.
The free plan is actually good enough for many small businesses. You can add up to 2,000 subscribers, and send up to 12,000 emails per month.
If you go over those limits, then you will have to upgrade to a paid plan.
You don’t get all of MailChimp’s features on the free plan, but you get most of them. And if you compare what you get to the lowest tier of other email marketing tools, you get more.
For example, automation (being able to set-up autoresponders, mainly) is usually a premium feature on most tools. It’s only available at additional cost. On MailChimp, it’s available on every plan, including the free one.
Additionally, the free plan offers A/B testing and reporting.
This offer is one of the biggest reasons that MailChimp rose to popularity in the first place.
The Growing Business Plan
MailChimp has two levels of paid plans. The vast majority of small businesses will be content with the “Growing Business” plan, so I’ll focus on that here.
Pricing According to List Size
The cost of this plan scales with the size of your list. Every 500 additional subscribers that you have will bump the price a little. This is a much more flexible pricing system than other competitors offer.
You can use MailChimp’s pricing calculator to get an idea of how much a paid plan would cost your business.
All plans allow you to send unlimited emails.
What Do I Get with the Growing Business Plan?
Here are 9 features that may persuade you to upgrade to the MailChimp ‘Growing Business’ paid plan.
- Unlimited Contacts
- Unlimited Emails Per Month
- Unlimited Live Chat Support
- Unlimited Live Email Support
- Custom Branding
- Multirative Testing
- Comparative Reports
- Send Time Optimization Features
- Advanced Segmentation Features
Even if your list isn’t over 2,000 subscribers yet (the free plan limit), there are a few extra features that you get with a paid plan that you might want:
- Email Support
- Live Chat Support
- Delivery by Timezone
- Multivariate Testing
- Predicted Demographics
| Premium |
$299.00
|
Our most advanced tools, unlimited contacts, and priority support; built for teams.
|
| Standard |
$17.00
|
Sell even more with personalization, optimization tools, and enhanced automations. (Mailchimp Recommends)
|
| Essentials |
$11.00
|
Send the right content at the right time with testing and scheduling features.
|
| Free |
$0.00
|
Easily create email campaigns and learn more about your customers
|
Email and Chat Support
I’ll go into this later, but the short version is that free plans do not come with email and chat support.
Delivery by Timezone
Paid plans let you set an email delivery time, and it can be adjusted for each of your subscriber’s timezone.
Multivariate Testing
This is essentially advanced split testing, although it works best on large lists.
Predicted Demographics
Somehow, MailChimp is able to estimate the gender and ages of your subscribers to allow you to create segments in your lists, which can allow you to create more specific, higher performing emails.
Keep in mind that you can always start with a free account and upgrade later. Same goes for a paid plan: you can start low and upgrade as your list grows.
Pros
- Clean, intuitive interface
- Useful tools and basic features included with the free plan
- Templates are well-designed
- Easy to import subscribers
- Paid pricing varies as needed
- A/B and multivariate testing available
Cons
- Solid reporting
- Integrates with most third-party apps and services, including Google Analytics, Eventbrite, Zendesk, LiveChat, and more
- E-commerce support, including integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce, Magneto, and Bigcommerce
