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.
Tomasz WierzbickiData & Market Research
Niels Abrahamsen
Sebastiaan SmitsVendors can pay for visibility on this site; it never changes what we say about a product. How that works.
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 | Country | Pricing | Our rank | Switch if |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MailerLite | Lithuania | Free to 250 subscribers; paid per subscriber, published | #2 | you send newsletters and simple sequences and want the same job for less |
| Brevo | France | Free tier; paid plans by monthly send volume, published | #1 | you have a large list that you mail infrequently |
| Klaviyo | United States | Free tier to 250 active profiles; paid per active profile, published | #10 | your list belongs to a Shopify or WooCommerce store doing meaningful revenue |
| ActiveCampaign | United States | Per contact band per month, published; 14-day trial | #3 | someone on the team will own and build multi-step lifecycle automation |
| Kit | United States | Free to 10,000 subscribers; paid per subscriber, published | #7 | you are a writer, creator or coach selling directly to your list |
| Omnisend | United Kingdom | Free tier to 250 contacts; paid per contact, published | #4 | you run a small online shop and want the standard flows without building them |
| Mailjet | France | Free to 6,000 emails a month; paid by send volume, published | #8 | product email and campaigns should sit on one volume-based bill |
| Constant Contact | United States | Per plan and contact tier per month, published | #11 | there is no marketer in the business and you want someone to call |
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 · 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 · 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 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; 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 →
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.
