If you are familiar with email marketing, then you must have heard of the Convertkit vs. Mailchimp debate. Both platforms are arguably among the most popular in the world in the email marketing space.
While one is building a reputation for itself as an all-around content creator’s emailing software, the other is the most popular of all email marketing platforms.
When you consider both platforms at a glance, making a choice becomes pretty difficult. This is because both offer similar features such as contact tagging, automations, and landing pages to mention a few. Let’s dive into some of these features to see which of these platforms is better in 2022.
Convertkit vs. Mailchimp: Quick Comparison
| Convertkit | Mailchimp | |
| Subscribers | Doesn’t charge for unsubscribers in your list. | Charges for unsubscribers. |
| Automation | Presents the user with visual automation. This workflow allows you to visualize email sequences and “if else” features. Several sequences already exist on the platform for you to choose from, customize, and use. | It comes with an array of automation capabilities. Regardless, the editor is a little too rigid for customization. |
| Reporting | This platform only presents basic reporting. | Among the best in the industry in terms of reporting. |
| Delivery | Presents an overall deliverability rate of about 86.8%. | Presents an overall deliverability rate of about 84.9%. |
| Integrations | Comes with an array of integrations, even though it doesn’t integrate with top CRMs in the market. As such, users have to settle for ZBS CRM. | Integrates seamlessly with over 227 platforms. However, its search functionality is quite limited making it difficult to find the platforms you need. |
| Pricing | The free plan allows the user to send unlimited emails to 1000 subscribers monthly. Paying $49 monthly allows you to send emails to 3000 subscribers while $79 will allow you to send emails to 5000 subscribers. | The free plan allows you to send 2500 emails to a maximum of 500 subscribers, even though this is with limited features. To use all the features, you pay $10.80 monthly and it allows you to send emails to 500 subscribers. With $31.67 monthly, you can send emails to 2500 subscribers, and with $59, you can send to 5000 subscribers. |
Convertkit vs. Mailchimp: In-Depth Comparison Looking at Specific Features
In this section, we will take a closer look at the Convertkit vs. Mailchimp debate by considering some important email marketing platform features.
Editor and ease of use
Both Convertkit and Mailchimp are very easy to use. Mailchimp makes navigation easy and allows the user to build emails through a flexible, step-based approach.
You can decide to choose your recipients and include your details first or start designing the email, it depends on your preference.
The editor is quite intuitive when it comes to adding and removing elements (one of the best drag-and-drop editors out there). There is also an “undo” button, even though it only functions when editing text.
Convertkit presents a platform that is easy to navigate as well. The downside is that its platform is not as exciting as Mailchimp’s.
You’ll also have to specify your details and the recipients before designing your email. Generally, the platform is easy to use, but you don’t enjoy a drag-and-drop editor. Instead, there are email templates with limited editing options.
Verdict: For this factor, we consider it a tie for both platforms.
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Flexibility and Design
This is where you will see marked differences between both platforms because of their different philosophies. With Mailchimp, you get over 100 themed templates for different types of content including event invites, newsletters, holiday emails, and e-commerce promotions. There are also 14 blank layouts for you to customize.
Convertkit, on the other hand, only offers 3 email design options (classic, modern, and text only). With the first two, you can add images and apply text formatting, but you’d never get the customization that comes with Mailchimp.
Verdict: In this case, Mailchimp is the clear winner because it is more flexible and offers more design options.
Automation
Without a doubt, automation is one of the most important email marketing software features. It is one area where Convertkit can beat its chest, especially because of its “visual automations” feature. There is a “sequences” feature at the heart of their system that allows you to build an email sequence. For example, you can create a sequence of onboarding or welcome emails for new subscribers or customers. The best part is that this feature allows you to craft and edit emails as you build the sequence.
Mailchimp is also highly recognized for its marketing automation. Asides from a load of automations available, there is also a visual editor, even though it took them ages to update this. What Mailchimp does better than Convertkit is that it presents the user with a wider array of automated campaigns.
Verdict: In the end, there isn’t much difference between both platforms in terms of automation. We declare it a tie for this factor.
Pricing
The Convertkit vs. Mailchimp debate is not complete without a discussion on their pricing. Both tools are great but imperfect, and the good news is that both offer free plans.
With Mailchimp, you can send as many as 2,500 emails to 500 subscribers on the free plan monthly. However, it doesn’t allow you to schedule emails.
Convertkit, on the other hand, allows you to send emails to 1000 subscribers but you don’t get any automations or reports. The table below compares the prices of both plans:
| Convertkit | Mailchimp | |
| Free plan | Unlimited emails to up to 1000 subscribers monthly. | About 2500 emails to 500 subscribers monthly. |
| 5,000 subscribers | $79 | $59 |
| 10000 subscribers | $119 | $87 |
| 50,000 subscribers | $379 | $299 |
Verdict: Both platforms are great, but Mailchimp is obviously more affordable so we declare it the winner of this round.
Convertkit vs. Mailchimp: Which one to Choose in 2022
There can only be one winner of the Convertkit vs. Mailchimp battle. Based on our comparisons above, Mailchimp is the clear winner of this debate. Do you have any questions on how to get started? Drop them in the comments section and we will help you.
