Mailchimp

Mailchimp is an email marketing and automation platform owned by Intuit and one of the most widely used tools for sending newsletters and promotional campaigns to a subscriber list. It bundles a drag-and-drop email builder, signup forms and pop-ups, landing pages, a Customer Journey Builder for automated flows, audience segmentation, A/B testing and reporting, with SMS in supported countries and generative AI features on higher plans. Small businesses, ecommerce stores and nonprofits make up most of its user base.

Pricing is based on contact count and plan tier. The Free plan covers 500 contacts and 1,000 sends per month with Mailchimp branding and a single audience. Standard's standing rate is $20 per month at 0-500 contacts, advertised at $10 for the first 12 months. Essentials sits below it, but Mailchimp publishes only its promotional figure and not the rate that follows. Premium is advertised at $350 per month. Costs climb quickly as a list grows, and multi-step journeys and advanced segmentation are held back to Standard or Premium.

What stands out is breadth: native connections to Shopify, WooCommerce, Salesforce, QuickBooks and Canva, mobile apps and a large template library. Weigh that against a per-contact model many users find expensive at scale and an interface that has grown busier as features were added.

Mailchimp remains a reasonable default for a small business that wants email, automation, forms and landing pages in one familiar account, with the integrations to match — particularly on Shopify or WooCommerce.

The reason to think twice is the pricing model. You pay by contact count, so the bill grows with the list whether or not you send more, the free plan stops at 500 contacts and 1,000 monthly sends, and multi-step automation needs Standard or above. If your list is growing faster than your revenue, this is the wrong shape of pricing.