Mailchimp free vs. paid

Let’s dive into the ever-evolving world of email marketing, where choosing the right tools can make all the difference. Today, we’re peeling back the layers of Mailchimp’s offerings, exploring whether the free version suffices or if it’s worth springing for the paid plan.

Whether you’re a budding small business or a well-established brand, understanding the nuances between these options will help guide your decision. So, buckle up as we navigate through the features, benefits, and considerations of Mailchimp’s plans, ensuring you make the most informed choice for your marketing needs.

Ready? Let’s get started!

Key free features of Mailchimp

Mailchimp’s free plan packs a powerful punch for newcomers and budget-conscious marketers. It offers essential tools that help kickstart your email marketing efforts without costing a dime. Here’s what you can expect:

• Email Contacts: Add up to 500 contacts into your email database.
• Email Campaigns: Send up to 1,000 emails per month and 500 per day.
• Marketing CRM: Manage your contacts, segment audiences, and use insights to build better relationships.
• Forms and Landing Pages: Create custom signup forms and landing pages to grow your audience and promote products.

These features are your stepping stones to greater audience engagement. They provide a solid foundation for communicating effectively with your audience and measuring the impact of your efforts.

Advantages of paying for Mailchimp

If you love Mailchimp and want to take things to the next level, upgrading to one of Mailchimp’s paid plans might just be the power move you’re looking for. With several tiers to choose from, you can find the perfect fit that scales with your business.

Here are some of the features you can only get with paid plans.

• Increased Sends and Audiences: Send more emails to more people. As your audience grows, so can your sends and segmentation without skipping a beat.
• Email Scheduling: Want to prepare your emails ahead of time? A paid account will let you preschedule your emails to send out later.
• All Mailchimp Email Templates: Make your email campaigns stand out with access to all of the email templates.
• A/B Testing: Play around with different email versions to discover what really clicks with your audience.
• Enhanced Automation: Craft complex sequences that react in real-time to how your subscribers interact with your emails, including AI-powered journeys.
• Priority Support: Got a question? Get it answered quicker with priority customer support.
• Multivariate Testing: Experiment with several variables at once for insights that tweak and perfect every campaign.
• Time Zone Delivery: Schedule sends for the local time that makes the most sense for each recipient—hello, increased open rates!
• Predicted Demographics: Get a sneak peek into your audience’s demographics to better tailor your strategies.
• Advanced Reporting Features: Go beyond basics with deep dives into how your campaigns are performing, helping you make smarter marketing decisions.
• More Audience Insights: Understand more about who’s on the other end of your emails with enhanced insights.

These tools can help you market more strategically. Combined with a great strategy and consistent execution, they can turbocharge your organization’s email marketing efforts.

Comparison of key features

Okay, let’s do a direct comparison of the key features of Mailchimp and see what the difference is. Mailchimp separates their plans into the following tiers:

• Free
• Essentials – Starts at $13/month
• Standard – Starts at $20/month
• Premium – Starts at $350/month

The prices go up from there based on the number of contacts you have. You can start on the lowest level, and then Mailchimp will raise the price for your plan as your number of contacts hits the next level.

For this comparison, we’ll mostly group all the paid options into one bucket. Note that Premium is the only level with phone support, and it has no contact limit, unlimited audiences, and unlimited seats (users that can access the account).

Email Contacts

Email contacts include both people who are subscribed and people who used to be but have opted out (unsubscribed).

• Free plans get up to 500 contacts.
• Paid plans start at 500 contacts, and each tier increases your plan’s price.

Email Campaigns

Emails sent are measured as a total. So, if you have 100 subscribers and in one calendar month, you send them an email each week for four weeks, that’s a total of 400 emails per month and just 100 per day.

• Free plans can send up to 1,000 emails per month and 500 per day.
• Paid plans start at 500,000 emails per month and have no daily limit.

Forms and Landing Pages

Great news! All tiers of Mailchimp include the ability to create signup forms, landing pages, and popup forms to add to your website.

Marketing CRM

While Mailchimp touts itself as a CRM, there are other options that are much more robust and do a better job of helping with marketing and sales alignment.

• Free plans can manage contact information and tags.
• The Essentials plan has the same limits as the free plan, but you can divide your contacts into three audiences instead of just one.
• The other paid plans include more audiences, predicted demographics, a mailing address finder, and a few more features.

As you can see, each step up in Mailchimp’s plan structure increases your capacity for contacts and campaigns and enhances your ability to engage effectively with your audience. Choosing the right plan depends on your current needs and future aspirations—Mailchimp is ready to grow with you every step of the way.

Impact on audience engagement

So now, the million-dollar question: Does a paid Mailchimp plan get you better results?

With email marketing, you tend to measure results by measuring engagement. A big part of that is open rates and click rates. You can improve those over time by testing email changes, measuring the results, and adjusting appropriately.

Investing in Mailchimp’s paid plans gives you access to robust testing capabilities, letting marketers tweak everything from subject lines to the overall layout of their emails. This means you can pinpoint what works best and tailor your approach based on solid, actionable data.

While the Free and Essentials plans provide a good starting point with basic reporting, stepping up to the Standard and Premium plans introduces a whole new level of detailed analytics. These enhanced reporting tools allow you to dive deep into campaign metrics, uncovering trends and tracking how well your messages resonate with your audience. With this kind of insight, you can adjust your strategies on the fly, ensuring that your communications are not only reaching your audience but truly engaging them.

So, the capabilities that come with the paid Mailchimp plans can get you better results, but only if you use them.

How to decide which plan suits your needs

Picking the right Mailchimp plan boils down to what you want to achieve with your email marketing. If you’re just getting your feet wet or if your current marketing needs are pretty straightforward, the free plan might just do the trick. It comes packed with all the essentials you need for straightforward email campaigns and managing up to 500 contacts.

However, if you’re looking to really ramp up your results or if you’re teaming up with marketing pros, then stepping up to a paid plan could be a smart move. Especially the Standard plan—it’s much better than the slightly less expensive Essentials plan. It offers in-depth analytics and sophisticated testing tools that can take your campaigns from good to great by fine-tuning your strategies based on real data.

Always remember, though, that it’s crucial your investment pays off. If your email marketing isn’t earning its keep at least to cover the cost of the Standard plan, it might be time to market more strategically.

Need our help?

If you’re considering getting more strategic with your email marketing or simply want to learn the ropes of Mailchimp, we’re here to help. We offer customized training and consulting tailored to your specific needs. And if you’re ready for us to take over creating your email content and managing Mailchimp on an ongoing basis, we can do that, too!

Reach out today to see if we’re a good fit for you. Let’s maximize your Mailchimp ROI together!