Mailchimp is a popular marketing solution known for its generous free email marketing plan. It’s also extendable to SMS marketing. Whether you’re a small business owner or a growing enterprise, the tool offers a range of pricing plans. 

In this post, we will explore  MailChimp's pricing plans, find out if they’re right for your business, and identify if there’s any better alternative for your business. 

How much does Mailchimp cost?

Mailchimp has four different pricing plans:

• Free - up to a limit of 500 contacts
• Essentials - $13 per month for up to 500 contacts
• Standard - $20 per month for up to 500 contacts
• Premium - $350 per month for up to 10,000 contacts 

Mailchimp also offers SMS marketing as an add-on to  US, UK, Canada, and Australia users. However, you have to purchase additional monthly credits to send SMSes.

Mailchimp costs explained

Free

Mailchimp offers a decent free plan for independent business owners and solopreneurs who are just starting their email journey. In the Mailchimp free tier plan, you can:

• Add up to 500 contacts
• Send a max of 1,000 emails/month or 500 emails/day 
• Get initial email support for the first 30 days
• Run limited reporting and analytics

This free plan is limited to one user and does not allow segmentation. You can consider it the most basic plan perfect for beginners, enthusiasts, or hobbyists. 

Essentials

The Essentials plan is a notch above the Free plan, providing the following additional features:

• 24*7 email and chat support
• Option to create automated journeys
• Supports three users
• Set up to three unique audiences with custom tags, segments, and profiles   
• Supports custom branding
• Allows monthly email limit of up to 10x of your contacts for catering to a larger audience 

This plan is currently priced at $13 per month for up to 500 contacts.

Standard

Standard plans are still a better choice for small or medium-sized businesses, providing the following features that are better than the  Essentials plan:

• Allows five users
• Set up to five unique audiences with custom tags, segments, and profiles 
• Provides generative AI features to help you optimize campaigns and deliver more relevant content, faster  
• Allows dynamic content
• Supports behavioral targeting for campaigns

This plan is currently priced at $20 per month for up to 500 contacts.

Premium

The Premium plan, Mailchimp’s top-tier plan, is a fit for enterprise businesses as it allows unlimited users and sophisticated marketing tools and features.  Some of the best features of the Premium plan are:

• Unlimited users and unlimited audiences
• Migration support
• Dedicated onboarding
• Priority phone support

Mailchimp charges $350 per month for their Premium plan for up to 10,000 contacts.

Pay-as-you-go

Mailchimp also has a flexible pay-as-you-go plan where you can buy email credits if your email marketing usage is infrequent and you currently do not want to commit to a monthly plan. 

It comes with the same set of features as the Essentials plan. Each email you send costs one credit, so an email sent to 100 contacts costs 100 credits. However, there’s a catch — these credits expire after 12 months.

SMS marketing is also a pay-as-you-go option in Mailchimp where you have to buy additional credits to send SMS. 

Is Mailchimp the right solution for you?

Mailchimp is ideal for small businesses, marketers, and e-commerce websites that want to focus mainly on email marketing. 

However, for businesses seeking a  comprehensive AI-driven omnichannel platform to engage with their customers  across SMS, MMS, WhatsApp, and email, while driving customer acquisition and explosive revenue growth, Mailchimp may not be the right fit.

Plivo CX: Advanced omnichannel marketing done right

Plivo CX is an advanced omnichannel marketing solution that enables you to send marketing messages to your customers on their preferred communication channels: SMS and MMS, email , and WhatsApp. It works end to end with Shopify stores tracking marketing and customer service. 

The tool can triple your revenue and ensure seamless customer engagement through powerful, end-to-end email marketing.

Let’s look at the key features of Plivo CX Engage:

• Supported marketing channels: The platform helps you reach your customers across all channels — SMS/MMS, email,  and WhatsApp.
• Premium carrier network: Plivo CX leverages a premium carrier network by Plivo that lets you send personalized messages to 220+ countries and territories. These networks can effortlessly handle large volumes of messages, offering better SMS deliverability.With Plivo CX Engage, you can reduce your SMS marketing costs by up to 70%.

• Supported languages: English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Afrikaans.  
• Segmentation: Import contacts from various sources, such as e-commerce stores, landing pages, opt-in forms, and event triggers, or through APIs. Leverage a user-friendly segment builder to create targeted audience segments based on key attributes, enabling hyper focused messaging.
• Copywriter AI:  Generate messages on the go using Plivo’s AI assistant. You only have to set objectives for the campaign, including goals, parameters, timing, urgency, and voice, to get started. Scale your content production efficiently, enabling more personalized campaigns without the need for additional resources.
• Create campaigns quickly: You can launch campaigns in four easy steps:some text
  • Select your audience 
  • Choose your audience’s preferred channel 
  • Decide when to launch your campaign so as to maximize ROI
  • Craft your message, leverage suggested templates, or use Plivo CX’s AI Assist

With the ability to segment audiences effectively, you can ensure that your messages reach the right people at the right time, utilizing multi-channel delivery for maximum engagement. 

Additionally, measure campaign effectiveness and ROI through robust performance tracking.

• Integrations: You can integrate Plivo CX with your existing eCommerce tools mainly Shopify and BigCommerce (upcoming).
• Reporting: You get dashboards to view campaign performance and customer insights. 
• Compliance: Plivo CX also complies with data protection standards like GDPR and CCPA. 
• Journeys: The Journeys feature allows you to identify crucial customer actions to personalize messages and deliver time-sensitive messages to the right audience at the perfect moment.

 For more information, download a complete guide to SMS marketing.

Mailchimp Vs. Plivo CX: Quick comparison

Choose the best tool for your business

Based on the comparison, Mailchimp is ideal for small businesses targeting only email channels. 

On the other hand, Plivo CX is a more advanced solution suited for medium to enterprise-level businesses that require comprehensive omnichannel customer engagement across multiple channels.

Plivo CX excels in omnichannel communication, cost-effectiveness, advanced user journey automation, AI-powered copywriting, CRM integrations, analytics, and enhanced support — a strong choice for businesses focused on comprehensive customer engagement strategies beyond traditional email marketing.

Sign up for a free trial to see things in action.

FAQs

1. Is Mailchimp really free?

Mailchimp has a free plan that allows adding up to 500 contacts and sending emails with a daily limit of 500 and a monthly limit of 1,000.

2. What is the cheapest Mailchimp plan?

The cheapest Mailchimp plan is its Essentials plan, which is currently priced at $13 per month for up to 500 contacts. This plan also provides 24*7 email/chat support and an option to create automated journeys. 

3. How does Mailchimp calculate pricing?

The cost of Mailchimp depends on the number of contacts you store, the number of emails sent, and the features you want to use.

4. Can I change my Mailchimp plan later?

Yes, you can always upgrade to a higher plan or downgrade to a lower plan. There’s also an option to pause your subscription at any time. 

5. Is Mailchimp's pay-as-you-go option worth it?

Yes, the Mailchimp pay-as-you-go option is good if you occasionally send emails and currently do not want to subscribe to a monthly plan.

6. What is the difference between Mailchimp Essentials and Standard plans?

Mailchimp's Standard plan includes all the features in the Essentials plan. However, Mailchimp's Standard plan provides additional AI support and behavioral targeting features on top of the Essentials plan. 

7. How does Mailchimp handle unsubscribed contacts?

Mailchimp keeps unsubscribed contacts as part of your contact list. However, these contacts will not receive any marketing emails or SMS messages as they have opted out.

8. Does Mailchimp offer non-profit discounts?

Yes, Mailchimp offers a 15% discount for non-profit organizations. You can apply for a non-profit discount on Mailchimp fees on the billing page.