Every company will have some element of email marketing. At the very least, you will use emails to give customers updates about online orders and shipping information. You will also likely extend your email marketing to include your loyalty program, new products, promotions, and more.
When most people think of email for business, Mailchimp is the first company to come to mind, but that is changing. Whether you are starting from scratch or wanting to switch which company you use, it is worth considering Mailchimp alternatives for your email marketing.
What is Mailchimp?
Mailchimp began business in 2001 and expanded from just offering email marketing to acting as an “all-in-one marketing platform.” Mailchimp is still mostly known for its emailing abilities, especially marketing automation. It includes audience management, insights and analytics, and various creative email marketing tools.
Why it’s worth considering Mailchimp alternatives?
The bottom line with Mailchimp is that it is no longer the only option for email marketing – it is far from it. When the platform rose to fame, it was among a handful of programs that offered features people wanted, and it did so for free.
However, there are many other options, including Mailchimp alternatives, free and paid ones.
There are also a handful of very important cons of Mailchimp that encourage people to look for alternatives for email marketing.
- Costs can add up quickly depending on your plan and services
- You have to pay for unsubscribed users
- You can’t bulk delete subscribers
- It only offers basic marketing automation, not advanced automation
- All of your mailing lists are entirely isolated, limited precision and creativity (i.e., If the same person is on two separate lists, the program won’t tell you and will treat each iteration of them separately)
- You can’t A/B test dynamic landing pages
- Other options offer better data security
- The available CRM features are minimal
- Reviews for their customer support have been declining
Those factors don’t mean that you should completely rule out Mailchimp. After all, it still excels at detailed reporting, and it has an easy-to-use editor to create stunning emails in a matter of minutes with minimal knowledge or experience.
If you have very small targeted lists of contacts, they still may make sense for your email marketing needs.
Nevertheless, everyone should at least think about some of the Mailchimp alternatives.
Alternative email marketing software
As mentioned, there is no shortage of alternatives to Mailchimp. Additionally, a lot of email marketing software also has an email marketing automation component, one of the most popular features of Mailchimp. You will also want to pay attention to other key features that go beyond basic email marketing, such as a sales CRM, the ability to create landing pages, marketing automation features, and an intuitive account manager.
Some alternatives include:
- Moosend
- Klaviyo
- HubSpot
- Emma
- Sendinblue
- Omnisend
- Constant Contact
We’ll take a closer look at each of these.
1. Moosend
Like Mailchimp, Moosend offers a Free Forever plan for email marketing, but it is also somewhat limited in terms of capacities. However, that free plan includes many of the features you want, making it appealing for smaller businesses. Specifically, the free plan includes unlimited emails, templates, ad-free emails, and the workflow editor.
Pros:
- More affordable than Mailchimp
- Free Forever plan, subscription, or pay as you go
- Numerous responsive templates
- Advanced segmentation
- Landing pages for paid users
Cons:
- You will likely want more campaign performance data
- Other platforms have more marketing automation
2. Klaviyo
Klaviyo is a popular Mailchimp alternative that offers email marketing, text message marketing, and social media advertising.
Pros:
- Multi-channel approach
- Easy to personalize emails and offers
- Integrates with major e-commerce platforms
- ROI reporting
- Segmentation
- Custom Facebook audiences
- Advanced marketing automation workflows
Cons:
- No free version
- Not the cheapest either
3. HubSpot
HubSpot has one main thing in common with Mailchimp. They both call themselves all-in-one marketing platforms instead of limiting themselves to email marketing. However, HubSpot email marketing has a longer list of features and functions than Mailchimp, making it a good option for someone who truly wants an all-in-one platform.
It supports email marketing campaigns, sales tools, an operation hub, a website builder, marketing automation workflows, and CRM. HubSpot stands out with its more advanced features and email marketing tools, but you also pay more to get these features.
Pros:
- A/B testing
- Drip email campaigns
- Autoresponders
- Integrates with HubSpot CRM
- Simple integration
Cons:
- Higher starting price
4. Emma
Emma calls itself your “best friend” as an email marketing solution. It has all the basic features you need, from marketing automation to analytics to segmentation and A/B testing.
Pros:
- Numerous templates, with easy editing
- Affordable pricing
- Simple contact updating
- Extensive API index for integrations
- Simple A/B testing
- Landing pages
Cons:
- Editing the CSS style guide requires contacting support and extra fees
- There are sometimes distribution delays
- Basic users have a slightly worse customer support experience
- Loads slowly
5. Sendinblue
Sendinblue is based in Paris and stands out from the other email marketing software by offering plans that are among the most affordable. They focus on transactional emails, although they also offer other types.
Pros:
- Highly affordable options
- Great at list management and list building
- Great at email marketing automation
- Offers A/B testing
- Also offers SMS
Cons:
- Not as intuitive as other Mailchimp alternatives
- Sometimes slow
- The template editor has room for improvement
- Mailchimp has better social media tracking
6. Omnisend
Omnisend offers both email marketing and SMS marketing, focusing on e-commerce. It is especially great with Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, Volusion, WooCommerce, and PrestaShop. Another unique element of Omnisend is that it focuses on conversion via segmentation and marketing automation.
Pros:
- Integrates incredibly well with the most popular e-commerce platform options
- Numerous automation for online stores, including cart recovery and browse abandonment
- Interactive gift boxes
- “Wheel of fortune” sign-up incentives
- Automated product recommendations
- Website tracking with a live view
- Sufficient list segmentation options
- Modern templates for landing pages
Cons:
- If you don’t use e-commerce platforms, other Mailchimp competitors are likely better
- You have to pay for some features that are free on other platforms
- No e-commerce integrations on the free plan
- No behavioral targeting with the free plan
7. Constant Contact
Constant Contact is one of the best Mailchimp alternatives for small nonprofits or businesses. The email marketing editor makes it quick and easy to create email newsletters, and you get reports, along with all the features you need.
Pros:
- Drag and drop email editor
- Manage email lists
- View open rates, email deliverability, campaign performance, and more
- Email automation for new subscribers, user behavior, and non-openers
- Supports A/B testing
- Create polls, surveys, donation pages, and dynamic sign-up forms
- Over two decades of history
Cons:
- No free option
- It starts at $45 per month
Thinking outside the box: Why local businesses are supplementing email marketing with SMS marketing
You will notice that some of the Mailchimp alternatives mentioned above offer text marketing in addition to email marketing. Local businesses should strongly consider combining the two marketing strategies to reach their entire customer base.
By using both of these marketing strategies, you get to take advantage of the benefits of each, maximizing your marketing efforts. The combination is such a standard offering in email marketing software.
Email marketing vs. SMS marketing
As mentioned, you should not be thinking about choosing email marketing or SMS marketing. You should figure out how to combine the two for the best results. Each has its strong suits, so you need to take advantage of those.
For example, SMS messages have a 98% open rate, which is much higher than email. For reference, the open rate of email is only about 20%. That means that choosing text message marketing will boost the open rate and, therefore, the number of people who see your message.
But email marketing allows for much longer messages than SMS. SMS messages are technically limited to 160 characters, and even though MMS messages can be longer and include multimedia, email can still be longer and more versatile.
SMS messages also have a much higher deliverability rate, as many emails will end up in spam folders.
Some email marketing platforms will give you more analytics and data than SMS platforms, but this varies by platform.
The best method is to use the two strategies in harmony. For example, if you have an important sale or promotion coming up, consider sending a short text. And in the text, include a note that more information will be coming in an email. This lets you use the high open rate of SMS messages to boost your email marketing open rate.
Conclusion
Mailchimp is no longer the only option for email marketing. While it may be the right choice for some businesses, most will want to consider a Mailchimp alternative. As you choose your email marketing service, look for features like A/B testing, a free plan, email templates, a landing page builder, and other marketing tools. Think about which features you need, as small business owners are different. After all, you are unlikely to need all the tools available for your email campaigns. Nonetheless, it is still good to have options available. But this means that the best Mailchimp alternative for you may not be the right one for another business owner.
Another great choice among Mailchimp competitors is Podium, which offers email management, SMS campaigns, and other features.
