MailerLite vs MailChimp – Features, Plans & More

Marketing is one of the most important functional areas of a business, and getting it wrong can have dire consequences. A company must adequately decide what it is going to put in place to get the word out about its offerings, promotions, etc., to existing and potential stakeholders.

Email marketing has been one of the standout marketing methods when businesses manage to get it right. The main thing that this process aims to achieve is to take existing sales leads and to drive them to the closure stage of the sales process. The ability to gain new customers while keeping the current crop interested indicates a good email marketing system. That’s one of the growth measures, and it also helps to point out what changes, if any, are necessary for better marketing results.

It’s no surprise then that your choice of email marketing software has a big part in the margin of success you can achieve. Not only do you need to be able to create the kind of email campaigns that are relevant to your business, but the system you choose needs to be able to scale with your growth adequately. Not all small businesses are intended to remain little forever, so what happens when you grow? To what extent can go platform adjust?

MailChimp and MailerLite are two of the top email marketing platforms on the market. The latter may not be as popular as the former, but MailerLite makes an excellent MailChimp alternative in several use cases. Below is a MailerLite and MailChimp comparison that should give you all the information you need to decide which of the two can take your business to the next level. 

In general, small businesses that want to remain within budget with a lightweight tool that offers great customer support choose MailerLite. MailChimp is generally used by larger companies that want more than email in a marketing platform, including high speed, CRM, and advanced reporting. 

Pricing and Free Plan

MailChimp

Mailchimp’s first offering is it’s free plan. It’s not a trial, so you can use it indefinitely, so long as you don’t need features that are only available with paid plans. MailChimp offers you marketing CRM, access to the creative assistant, a website builder, a MailChimp domain, and forms/landing pages under this subscription. With this plan, there is one included audience, and you can use it with up to 2,000 contacts. 

The first tier of MailChimp pricing comes in the form of its essential plan, which is perfect for email-only senders who require chat or email support around the clock. The cost is a minimum of $9.99 monthly for up to 500 contacts and a maximum of $270 monthly for up to 50,000 contacts. Under the essentials package, you get everything that the free plan includes, plus access to all email templates, custom branding, multi-step journeys, A/B testing, and 24/7 email and chat support. Note that you get three audiences with this plan. 

The next step up is the standard subscription, which is the one that MailChimp recommends. If your business requires optimization and data-driven automation tools for quicker growth, then this is the plan for you. Of course, you are granted everything that the essentials plan includes. Additionally, you get five audiences with up to 100,000 Contacts, the customer journey builder with branching points, send-time optimization, custom templates, dynamic content, and behavioral targeting. The pricing starts at $14.99 monthly for up to 500 contacts. At its maximum of 100,000 contacts, the subscription attracts a price of $540 monthly. 

The premium plan is MailChimp’s most feature-rich, and it includes a host of advanced features for the professionals who need a more customized experience. This subscription gives you unlimited audiences and 200,000 or more contacts, if required. Everything in the standard subscription is included, plus multivariate testing, phone support, limitless seats, role-based access, comparative reporting, and advanced segmentation. The plan starts at $299 monthly for up to 500 contacts, and it ranges up to $1,190 for 200,000 contacts.

If you have over 200,000 contacts, you can reach out to the MailChimp support team for a custom plan design. Note that MailChimp does not restrict you from going beyond your plan’s maximum contacts or from a choice to send email beyond your send limits. However, it does charge you for these overages.

MailerLite

According to its website, MailerLite offers straightforward, affordable, and fair pricing to all businesses. The pricing you receive is based on the number of subscribers and emails you plan to send monthly. 

If you have between one and 1,000 subscribers and you wish to send up to 12,000 emails monthly, MailerLite does not charge you. Under this free agreement, you can access MailerLite’s support features, including the knowledge base, video tutorials, and email support. You also get access to most of the email campaign tools, including the drag and drop e editor and file manager, most of the subscriber growth tools, most of the delivery tools, half of the result tracking tools, all account management tools, all connection tools, and most landing page tools. If you want unlimited websites and landing pages, it attracts a cost of $10 monthly. 

Once you go beyond 1,000 subscribers or 12,000 emails monthly, that’s when the paid plans come into the mix. With one to 1,000 subscribers and unlimited emails, the monthly charge is $10. With 1,001 to 2,500 subscribers and endless emails, the monthly cost is $15. These two paid ranges cost $84 and 126 dollars, respectively, on an annual billing plan. Monthly emails are unlimited, up to 50,000 subscribers. 

With a subscriber range of 45,001 to 50,000 subscribers and unlimited monthly emails, the monthly charge is $210, and the annual cost is 1,764 dollars. 

Beyond 50,000 subscribers, email sending becomes limited again. It begins with a monthly cost of $260 for a range of 50,001 to 60,000 subscribers with 720,000 emails monthly. The annual charge at this stage is $2,184. This trend continues up to 600,000 subscribers. At a range of 580,001 to 600,000 subscribers with 7,200,000 emails monthly, the monthly charge is $1,915. There is no annual billing option beyond 100,000 subscribers. 

In terms of features, the paid options include all support features, all email campaign features, all subscriber growth features, all delivery features, all result tracking features, all account management features, all connection tools, and all landing page features. 

Using unlimited websites and landing pages feature still attracts an additional $10 charge monthly, and the MailerPro add-on, which is only available with paid plans, costs an additional $100 a month. MailerPro gives you access to priority support and a dedicated MailerLite manager for campaign creation, subscriber growth, GDPR compliance assistance, etc. 

Available Platforms

Both MailChimp and MailerLite have user friendly web-based platforms, which means they are accessible on any device with internet access and a web browser. Both platforms also have an iOS app that is available from Apple’s storefront. However, while MailerLite does not have an Android application, MailChimp does. 

Features

MailChimp

• Intuitive setup
• Professional templates
• Diverse forms with native integrations
• Simple and complex automation workflows
• High deliverability
• Phone, chat, and email support in English

MailerLite

• Comprehensive list management
• Simple templates
• Pop-up sign-up forms
• Simple automation workflows
• High deliverability
• Email and chat support with an interface that supports English, Spanish, French, and many more languages

Integrations

MailChimp

MailChimp offers an extensive collection of integrations commands grouped under categories, such as social media, productivity, content, customer service, e-commerce, etc. Some of the integrations are: 

• Stripe
• WooCommerce
• LiveChat
• Adobe Photoshop
• Magento
• Calendly
• Zapier 
• Grow

MailerLite

MailerLite offers 120 integrations across categories, such as CRM, Facebook, automation, project management, etc. Some of the automations are:

• Gleam
• Gravity Forms
• Zendesk
• Stripe
• Magento
• Slack
• MailChimp 
• Basecamp
• GitHub 
• Google Docs