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Mailchimp
The newsletter tool that made email marketing friendly and still has a place.
Mailchimp is the easiest way to send a good-looking email to a list of customers, and it always has been. If you are a bakery, a small agency, a solo consultant or a membership running a weekly update, you can sign up, import a list and send something presentable in an afternoon. That is still genuinely valuable, and the free plan up to 500 contacts covers a lot of small operations.
The honest problem is that Mailchimp has been slowly passed by everyone else. Automations are fine for a welcome email, but feel clunky for anything with branching. Ecommerce features exist, but a serious Shopify brand will be happier on Klaviyo within a year. B2B teams running lead nurture will outgrow it faster than they expect. The Intuit acquisition brought a lot of roadmap promises and a lot of price rises, not all of which have landed well.
Pricing is the other conversation. The $13 Essentials plan sounds fair until you cross 2,500 contacts, and every tier above has climbed in the last two years. At 10,000 contacts on the Standard plan, you are looking at roughly $100 a month, which puts you in ActiveCampaign and Brevo territory with more capable tools.
The verdict: if you send a newsletter and value zero friction, Mailchimp is still a defensible choice in 2026. If you are running real lifecycle marketing, it is probably time to plan the migration. Export your list, pick the right replacement, and do not renew out of inertia.
What works
- Easiest drag-and-drop email builder on the market
- Free plan genuinely useful for tiny lists
- Huge template library for quick sends
- Brand and content studio tools are handy for solo operators
- Stable deliverability for simple newsletter sends
- Very broad integration directory
Watch out for
- Automations feel thin next to ActiveCampaign or Klaviyo
- Price has climbed steeply at mid-list sizes
- Ecommerce features trail Klaviyo for Shopify brands
- Support on free and cheap plans is email-only and slow
- Some useful features gated behind the pricier tiers
Pricing in 2026.
- ◆ 1,000 sends per month
- ◆ Single audience, basic templates
- ◆ Mailchimp branding on emails
- ◆ Email support for 30 days only
- ◆ Limited automations
- ◆ 3 audiences, A/B testing
- ◆ Basic automations and journeys
- ◆ Remove Mailchimp branding
- ◆ 24/7 email and chat support
- ◆ Send time optimisation
- ◆ Customer journeys with branching
- ◆ Retargeting ads and advanced segmentation
- ◆ Predicted demographics
- ◆ 5 audiences, behavioural targeting
- ◆ Dynamic content
Prices in USD at the 500-contact base. Each plan scales with contacts quickly; check the calculator at mailchimp.com/pricing with your real list size. Top-tier Premium reaches $350/mo. Verified April 2026.
Who it is for.
A good fit if
- Small businesses sending weekly or monthly newsletters
- Solo operators and consultants on tight budgets
- Non-profits and member orgs with simple needs
- Teams where nobody wants to learn a complicated tool
- Lists under 2,500 contacts with simple automation needs
Probably not for you if
- Shopify brands past 2,000 contacts (Klaviyo wins)
- B2B lifecycle marketing teams (ActiveCampaign wins)
- Anyone running serious behavioural automation
- Teams who want deep attribution and revenue reporting
Getting it live.
Three days is very achievable for a small team migrating a simple list. Bigger, dirtier lists with lots of custom fields can take a week to clean up properly.
- ◆ Create an account and pick a plan based on real list size
- ◆ Authenticate your domain with DKIM and SPF
- ◆ Import your list with clear tags or segments
- ◆ Build or pick one brand-safe template
- ◆ Send a small test campaign to an engaged segment first
- ◆ Turn on the welcome automation with one or two emails
- ◆ Add a signup form to your site and confirm opt-ins fire
- ◆ Wire up your store or CRM if you have one
- ◆ Set up send time optimisation if on Essentials or above
- ◆ Agree a simple weekly or monthly send cadence
- ◆ Add one A/B test to your next campaign, not ten
- ◆ Pin the one or two reports you will actually read