Mailchimp has been the industry standard for an email marketing service provider for some time now, but the recent changes in Mailchimp, most notably no longer working with Shopify, have meant that many users are looking for alternatives.
More notably, Mailchimp has been twisting their words when it comes to their commitment to their ‘forever free’ pricing strategy. Some recent changes to their pricing model meant that businesses were being charged for unsubscribed users, which understandably leaves a bad taste in many users’ mouths.
While Mailchimp will still get the job done in terms of email marketing, we can’t help but to share some of the best Mailchimp alternatives that could be more viable for your business.
After all, for many years prior to this, Mailchimp was most likely the first name that comes to mind when it comes to email marketing. This meant that many other options that were not nearly as well recognized as they should have been considering the features they offer.
In this article, we’ll cover 10 Mailchimp alternatives for eCommerce so that you can find the perfect option to use yourself.
1. Constant Contact
Constant Contact is one of the most straight-forward Mailchimp alternatives that can be recommended for almost any type of business. It covers the essentials of an email service provider such as marketing automation, analytics, a drag-and-drop editor, but packs a few nifty tricks that you don’t see often.
Constant Contact comes with interactive features in their emails, namely surveys and a donation landing page, which you never get with Mailchimp. While you can easily build this yourself, Constant Contact makes this a breeze by having it natively integrated in the email.
This way, you can save yourself the hassle of building these pages elsewhere, and your email subscribers don’t have to exit the email to engage with your content.
As for monetization options, Constant Contact also has you covered with fantastic email automation features that make it easy for you to nurture your email subscribers.
Constant Contact is supported for most popular eCommerce platforms, be it Shopify to WordPress plugins and more. In fact, their website currently lists over 400 services that Constant Contact can be integrated with, so whatever you’re using should be covered here.
As far as pricing goes, Constant Contact costs between $20 – $45 per month, though the prices do scale with the number of subscribers you have.
2. Sendinblue
Sendinblue is for those of you who want to venture beyond email marketing, but still want an email service provider to be the core platform for your business.
Other than the essentials of email marketing, Sendinblue offers SMS campaigns, live chat functionality, and even the ability to create Facebook ads right from their platform. While we don’t imagine everyone taking advantage of all of these features, having the option to do so is definitely a bonus.
In other areas, Sendinblue is just as intuitive to use as Mailchimp, with a beginner friendly drag-and-drop editor and powerful marketing automation flows that can be set up easily.
As far as integration goes, Sendinblue has you covered for most popular eCommerce platforms and plugins.
One area where Sendinblue makes their case for being a great Mailchimp alternative is their pricing. Sendinblue only charges you for the number of emails you send out, which means it doesn’t matter how many subscribers you have on your list.
This form of pricing can save you a ton of money if you’ve been only occasionally blasting out emails to cold leads in the past.
Sendinblue’s pricing is also extremely affordable for what you’re getting, the Lite plan only costs $25 per month, which allows you to send 40,000 emails per month. That’s most likely plenty for most people, and their higher tiers are fairly priced as well.
3. ConvertKit
ConvertKit has always been an easy recommendation for email marketing software, and it certainly is a great Mailchimp alternative.
With a focus on simplicity, ConvertKit offers an intuitive user experience to mundane tasks a walk in the park. Be it creating automated email flows, crafting your email content, publishing an embedded opt-in form, ConvertKit offers by far the most hassle free setup experience to do these tasks.
This emphasis on making Convertkit the most hassle-free email marketing software also shows in how they approach integrations. Not only does ConvertKit offer integrations with almost every platform out there, they also offer a free migration service if you have an email list of more than 5,000 subscribers.
This migration service includes marketing automation, forms and subscribers, which is something unheard of in this space. Most businesses put off switching email service providers because of the daunting task of moving their entire email workflow, but ConvertKit clearly strives to remove this roadblock with this service.
If you want the most painless way to move from Mailchimp, ConvertKit has you covered here. They even have specific instructions to migrate from Mailchimp on their website you can follow too.
For pricing, ConvertKit does have a free plan to make it a direct alternative to Mailchimp, but it’s severely lacking in features that most businesses need. Their paid plans are reasonably priced, but aren’t the cheapest on this list; expect to pay $79 per month for a list of 5,000 subscribers.
4. AWeber
AWeber has been around for the longest time among these other options, and it’s definitely kept up with the times better than Mailchimp. AWeber covers the basics of email marketing, such as email automation flows and a highly customizable email editor, but goes beyond these core features in a meaningful way.
If you’ve been affected by Mailchimp’s surprising decision to no longer support Shopify, you’ll know how important it is to get a Mailchimp alternative that simply works with everything.
Since AWeber has been around for so long, the service is compatible with almost every platform out there.
AWeber also packs certain features that are not found in other Mailchimp alternatives, namely autoresponders and a fully fledged mobile app. This means you have access to AWeber at all times, should the need arise.
While there is no free plan available for AWeber, they do offer a free 30-day trial. Their plans are priced by subscriber counts; which we’re not a big fan of. Despite that, AWeber’s pricing seems rather reasonable at just $49 per month for 5,000 subscribers, which certainly beats the price you pay for Mailchimp.
5. Drip
Drip is the new kid on the block in terms of email marketing software, and their unique selling proposition is the ability to track customers in a more nuanced way to further empower your automation flows.
Drip has native support for tags, like Facebook Pixel or from Google Tag Manager. This allows you to further pinpoint where a user is on the customer journey so that you can craft the perfect email that is relevant to them.
This advanced targeting capability opens up a lot of opportunities for hyper-targeted emails. For example, you can create specific emails to be sent out based on what customers click, what page they’re on, or if they interacted with your website in a certain way.
While this requires some knowledge of setting up tags in Facebook Pixel or Google Tag Manager, most seasoned digital marketers would be able to take advantage of this integration easily. Drip also has a wide variety of supported integrations, so you’re most likely covered for your platform of choice.
Another noteworthy thing about Drip is their fantastic marketing automation flow builder. This stands out from the rest in the ability to integrate tags in the automation workflow, and further applies tags based on how users interact with the emails you sent to them. You can even do a/b testing in these flows, which allows you to optimize them further.
Drip is rather pricey at $122 for 5,000 people in your account, but if you think you’re able to take advantage of the advanced personalization capabilities in Drip, it can be well worth the price considering how much you can optimize your emails to generate more revenue.
6. GetResponse
GetResponse is a Mailchimp alternative that goes way beyond email marketing and strives to offer an all-in-one service for small businesses.
Sure, they have the usual drag-and-drop editor for emails, marketing automation, and so on, but the subscription for GetResponse offers so much more than that.
There is a fully-featured webinar service, where you can host webinars and even build the sales funnels for said webinar right from GetResponse.
To drive people to the webinar, GetResponse also provides a great landing page builder where you can quickly whip out sleek landing pages with just a drag-and-drop editor. These landing pages are feature packed as well, with a/b testing support and more.
They’ve even integrated Facebook Ads in the software as a Facebook Marketing Partner, which allows you to buy Facebook Ads directly from GetResponse.
No other Mailchimp alternative has as much vertical integration as GetResponse, and if you’re looking for a single subscription to cover multiple facets of your marketing strategy, GetResponse is the clear winner.
Considering how much you’re getting with GetResponse, the prices for their subscription are astoundingly reasonable. You won’t be paying that much more compared to Mailchimp either; they charge $79 for their Plus plan which has everything you need for a robust email marketing strategy.
7. MailerLite
MailerLite is a great Mailchimp alternative for those looking for a budget option for their email marketing service. As implied in the name, MailerLite offers a robust set of features for a relatively low price; perfect for those who don’t need the extra bells and whistles.
MailerLite has one of the cleanest and most uncluttered UI of any email marketing software, and comes with just the right amount of features to avoid creating unnecessary bloat.
You get the usual drag-and-drop editor, automation capabilities, and a landing page builder with no added fluff. This makes MailerLite incredibly easy to use, especially for small businesses that don’t have experienced staff.
The ‘Lite’ mentality certainly applies to the pricing, too. For 5,000 subscribers, the monthly fee is only $30 for unlimited email sent. That makes MailerLite one of the cheapest alternatives to Mailchimp and is a great option for those with a limited budget.
8. Moosend
Moosend is yet another alternative to Mailchimp that is contending to be one of the more affordable options out there.
They are also one of the best free Mailchimp alternatives available, allowing access to almost all features with a generous 1,000 subscriber limit. In fact, they even allow you to test the campaign designer without signing up.
Moosend comes with an intuitive campaign editor along with free newsletter templates that makes creating emails that much easier. The same applies to landing pages, where everything is very well laid out and easy to use.
They are also integrated with most platforms that you use, and they even have them categorized by industry on their website to help you get the most out of Moosend.
Moosend is priced at $24 for 5,000 email subscribers, making it one of the cheapest paid plans for an email marketing platform.
9. Omnisend
If your business is a primarily direct-to-consumer eCommerce store, then Omnisend might just be the ideal Mailchimp alternative. With a focus on eCommerce stores, Omnisend packs nifty features beyond the essentials that are optimized to drive more conversions.
Omnisend’s email builder is the usual drag-and-drop editor with support for automated emails, but has native integration with their additional eCommerce features.
These include a ‘wheel of fortune’ email opt-in box, dynamic product recommendations and interactive gifts; all of which could complement almost any eCommerce store. They also have email templates built with eCommerce in mind, even on their free plan.
Omnisend does have a free plan, though it is limited in terms of how many emails you can send out per month. Our recommendation would be the Standard plan which comes in at $60 per month for 5,000 subscribers.
While their higher tier plans do offer some useful additional features, we think the price jump of the other paid plans is simply too expensive as an email marketing software.
10. Mailjet
If you operate multiple stores or if you manage email marketing for clients, Mailjet has a focus on consolidating accounts into a seamless interface that you definitely don’t get with Mailchimp.
Even if you’re working for your own business, Mailjet’s interface is built with collaboration in mind, featuring Trello-style update cards right within their sleek campaign builder. This also applies for their automated flow builder, so that everyone is on the same page on what changes were made, or if attention is needed by certain team members.
In fact, you can even work together in real time, similarly to Google Docs, where updates can be seen live as team members make changes.
This approach of allowing sub accounts and emphasis on collaboration makes Mailjet a unique alternative to Mailchimp that solves a pain point most businesses face : going back and forth regarding decisions in their email marketing strategy.
With Mailjet, not only can your business manage multiple stores or brands at once, but also expedite the process of finalizing nuanced details regarding email marketing.
If your business revolves around working with others a lot, or if you have multiple brands or stores, Mailjet is one of the best Mailchimp alternatives.
Mailjet is priced based on the numbers of emails sent; their Basic plan costs just $68 per month for 150,000 emails, which is a decent price considering their unique selling proposition.
Conclusion
Now that we’ve gone through some of the best MailChimp alternatives, you might be wondering which is best for you.
Here’s an overview for each of the Mailchimp alternatives that we went through in this article.
| Name | Best Features | Price (5,000 subscribers) |
| Constant Contact | Interactive email features such as polls, surveys, and more | $65 |
| Sendinblue | SMS campaigns, live chat functionality | $25 |
| ConvertKit | Free migration service, intuitive UX for email editor and landing page builder | $79 |
| AWeber | Highly customizable flows, email autoresponder, mobile app | $49 |
| Drip | Sophisticated tag integration with Facebook Pixel and Google Tag Manager | $122 |
| GetResponse | Vertical integration to a comprehensive software suite | $79 |
| MailerLite | Bloat free software that is easy to use | $30 |
| Moosend | Generous free plan, intuitive interface for core features | $24 |
| Omnisend | Add ons for eCommerce stores like product recommendations, wheel of fortune opt in widget | $60 |
| MailJet | Collaborative Trello-like timeline feature, support for sub accounts | $68 |
If you’re looking for a no-frills option for the most affordable prices, Constant Contact, Sendinblue and MailerLite would be your best bet. These options offer a robust set of features for your email marketing needs akin to Mailchimp for a far cheaper price.
For those of you who can take advantage of more sophisticated automation features, ConvertKit and Drip would be up your alley with their advanced segmentation capabilities. AWeber is also a great option with their focus on autoresponder functionalities.
As for those of you with eCommerce stores that sell directly to consumers on your website, Omnisend and Moosend are the best Mailchimp alternatives.
If your store has a ton of features and you want to consolidate them, GetResponse would be the best pick for their incredible vertical integration that is unmatched by Mailchimp.
Lastly, if you operate an agency or run multiple stores, Mailjet would be very helpful in facilitating more effective collaboration in terms of implementing your email marketing strategy. This is one of the best Mailchimp alternatives for large teams as well, making it easy to use for huge marketing teams.
With these options, you should have no issues in choosing the right Mailchimp alternative that’s exactly tailored to your preferences. With such a wide variety of options, competition in this space means that you’ll be getting the most value out of your dollar no matter what option you go for.
Bernard currently works full-time as a growth hacker and content researcher for HUSTLR. When he was studying in the US 2 years ago, he flipped Yeezys on eBay as a side hustle to fund his degree and living expenses. He’s currently working on his Amazon FBA business & dropshipping on the side.
