Most people hunting for a Mailchimp replacement have just seen a renewal price driven by a list that grew faster than its engagement, or have hit a feature removed from the cheaper tiers. They move to tools that charge by sends or charge less per subscriber, or to a specialist built for stores or creators.
Sebastiaan SmitsFounderShort answer: The first three alternatives to Mailchimp in our email marketing ranking are MailerLite, Brevo and ActiveCampaign. Places 1 to 3 go to challengers, vendors outside the best-known brands in a category, wherever the category has them; the established names follow from place 4 in their ranked order. Choose MailerLite if you send newsletters and simple sequences and want the same job for less. All 11 alternatives below are ranked products from Best Email Marketing Software in 2026, and each says where it differs from Mailchimp.
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Mailchimp prices per contact per month, and a contact counts whether or not it has opened anything in three years. The bill therefore grows with the inactive part of the list. For a large list that is mailed only occasionally, that is the expensive way to be charged.
There is a free tier and the prices are published, but the lower tiers strip out features most senders want within a month. The plan that looks comparable to a rival's entry price is often not the plan a team ends up paying for.
Mailchimp is built to be handed to a non-specialist who needs a decent newsletter out tomorrow. A store wanting order and browse data in its segments, or a team building multi-branch lifecycle automation, is asking for something purpose-built tools do with more depth.
| Alternative | Headquarters | Free option | Pricing | Key difference | Switch if | Our rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MailerLite | Lithuania | Yes | Free to 250 subscribers; paid per subscriber, published | Low-priced fundamentals for a growing list | you send newsletters and simple sequences and want the same job for less | #2 |
| Brevo | France | Yes | Free tier; paid plans by monthly send volume, published | Send-volume pricing instead of per-contact pricing | you have a large list that you mail infrequently | #1 |
| ActiveCampaign | United States | No free tier | Per contact band per month, published; 14-day trial | Automation depth closer to a marketing suite | someone on the team will own and build multi-step lifecycle automation | #3 |
| Klaviyo | United States | Yes | Free tier to 250 active profiles; paid per active profile, published | Built for ecommerce, priced for it too | your list belongs to a Shopify or WooCommerce store doing meaningful revenue | #10 |
| Kit | United States | Yes | Free to 10,000 subscribers; paid per subscriber, published | Built for people who sell what they write | you are a writer, creator or coach selling directly to your list | #6 |
| Omnisend | United Kingdom | Yes | Free tier to 250 contacts; paid per contact, published | Ecommerce automations without the Klaviyo bill | you run a small online shop and want the standard flows without building them | #4 |
| Mailjet | France | Yes | Free to 6,000 emails a month (200 a day); paid by send volume, published | Marketing email and transactional sending on one API | product email and campaigns should sit on one volume-based bill | #8 |
| Constant Contact | United States | No free tier | Per plan and contact tier per month, published | Aimed at small businesses that want a phone number to call | there is no marketer in the business and you want someone to call | #11 |
| Campaign Monitor | United States | No free tier | Per month by subscriber count, published | Design-led email for brand teams | several people need logins and you want transactional email next to campaigns | #5 |
| GetResponse | Poland | No free tier | 14-day trial only; paid per contact per month, published | Email plus landing pages and webinars in one subscription | you want webinars, funnels and email under one subscription | #7 |
| HubSpot Marketing Hub | United States | Yes | Free tier; Starter per seat, higher tiers per month with marketing-contact tiers, published | Email as one part of a suite you are meant to standardise on | marketing and sales should share one contact database | #12 |
Lithuania · Free to 250 subscribers; paid per subscriber, published
Covers the fundamentals in a cleaner interface at roughly half what the incumbents charge, with landing pages and forms included. It is free to 1,000 subscribers. New accounts wait for manual approval, and automation stops short of complex branching.
Switch from Mailchimp if you send newsletters and simple sequences and want the same job for less.
France · Free tier; paid plans by monthly send volume, published
Bills by monthly send volume instead of stored contacts, the reverse of Mailchimp's meter, and runs transactional email on the same account. Reporting is its weakest part, and the shared sending pool needs warming up before a first large campaign.
Switch from Mailchimp if you have a large list that you mail infrequently.
United States · Per contact band per month, published; 14-day trial
Goes much deeper on automation than a newsletter-first tool like Mailchimp, with multi-branch logic, conditional content and a CRM attached. Pricing is also per contact, so this is a move for capability, not savings, and the builder needs real setup time.
Switch from Mailchimp if someone on the team will own and build multi-step lifecycle automation.
United States · Free tier to 250 active profiles; paid per active profile, published
Treats the list as an extension of the store: product, order and browse data are native to segmentation and revenue is reported per message. It is per-contact like Mailchimp and priced for ecommerce, so it only pays where the list is attached to a shop.
Switch from Mailchimp if your list belongs to a Shopify or WooCommerce store doing meaningful revenue.
United States · Free to 10,000 subscribers; paid per subscriber, published
Free to 10,000 subscribers, with tools for selling courses or subscriptions built in. Templates are plain on purpose and reporting is thin, so it suits a different sender from Mailchimp's template-led newsletter. It is deliberately not a marketing suite.
Switch from Mailchimp if you are a writer, creator or coach selling directly to your list.
United Kingdom · Free tier to 250 contacts; paid per contact, published
Ships abandoned-cart, win-back and post-purchase flows ready-made, with email and SMS in one builder, so a small store has working automation on day one. It only makes sense for ecommerce, where Mailchimp serves any kind of list.
Switch from Mailchimp if you run a small online shop and want the standard flows without building them.
France · Free to 6,000 emails a month (200 a day); paid by send volume, published
Charges for emails sent, not contacts held, with marketing and transactional sending on one API and a free allowance of 6,000 emails a month. Its automation handles a welcome series and little beyond, so the marketing side is thin.
Switch from Mailchimp if product email and campaigns should sit on one volume-based bill.
United States · Per plan and contact tier per month, published
Sells phone support as the core of the product, plus event tools and a simple editor. It is per-contact like Mailchimp, and its automation and segmentation are a generation behind, so the reason to move is help, not features or price.
Switch from Mailchimp if there is no marketer in the business and you want someone to call.
Constant Contact, #11 of 12 in our email marketing ranking →
United States · Per month by subscriber count, published
Prices by contact band, from 0-500 up to 50,001 and beyond, with a free entry plan and an enterprise tier quoted individually. Pre-built journeys, drip campaigns and transactional email arrive from the Lite plan upwards, and every plan allows unlimited users. It is the same meter as Mailchimp, so it will not shrink the bill.
Switch from Mailchimp if several people need logins and you want transactional email next to campaigns.
Poland · 14-day trial only; paid per contact per month, published
Plans are bracketed by list size, from 1,000 to 100,000 contacts, with unlimited email sends on every plan and a 14-day trial of the premium features. Webinars, a course creator and sales funnels sit in the same account, so it covers more than a newsletter. Segmentation and funnels sit on the higher plans, not the entry one.
Switch from Mailchimp if you want webinars, funnels and email under one subscription.
United States · Free tier; Starter per seat, higher tiers per month with marketing-contact tiers, published
Email is one part of a CRM-led suite, with a free tier at $0 and paid editions priced per seat, not per contact. It rewards a team that wants marketing and sales on one record, and is heavy for a newsletter-only sender.
Switch from Mailchimp if marketing and sales should share one contact database.
HubSpot Marketing Hub, #12 of 12 in our email marketing ranking →
Mailchimp still makes sense for a small list run by someone who is not a marketer. It is the easiest platform here to hand to a first-time sender, the templates are good, and its integration list is the largest, so whatever else the business runs probably connects. If the list is small and well maintained, per-contact pricing costs little and switching saves less than it appears to.
Addresses export from every email platform. Opt-in dates and sources, tags and engagement history often do not come out as cleanly. Export a full list before cancelling and open the file: the proof that you may mail someone cannot be recreated afterwards.
Inactive contacts are why the Mailchimp bill grew, and importing them elsewhere carries the problem along. Remove long-dead addresses first. On a contact-priced replacement that lowers the bill; on a send-priced one such as Brevo it protects a sending reputation you are building from zero.
Mailchimp's integration list is the largest in the category, so shop plugins and other tools are probably feeding it. Each connection needs an equivalent on the new platform, and automations must be rebuilt by hand. MailerLite approves new accounts manually, so open the account before the cutover week.
It depends on the meter. For a large list mailed rarely, Brevo and Mailjet charge by send volume, which is usually cheaper. For a small list mailed often, MailerLite costs roughly half what the incumbents charge, and Kit is free up to 10,000 subscribers.
For a store with real revenue, yes: Klaviyo puts order, product and browse data directly into segmentation and reports revenue per email. It is priced for that. A small shop that only needs abandoned-cart and win-back flows can get them prebuilt from Omnisend.
Our data records that Mailchimp counts a contact whether or not it has opened anything in three years, so inactive subscribers are billed.
It does not cover how unsubscribed addresses are treated, so check the current plan terms. Brevo avoids the question by billing on sends.
ActiveCampaign. Its builder supports multi-branch, conditional journeys and includes a CRM. That depth takes setup time, and teams that only send newsletters end up paying for a machine they never start, so it is a poor swap if automation is not the actual need.
Founder of The Knowledge Engineers and of 2 Steps Ahead, an AI search visibility agency. Editorially responsible for every page on this site; research and drafting are AI-assisted.
Written, edited and fact-checked by Sebastiaan Smits. Last reviewed 9 October 2026. How we review.
