Mailchimp Review

Why We Chose Mailchimp as Best for Beginners

We selected Mailchimp as our top choice for beginners because it removes the technical barriers that often prevent small business owners from launching effective email marketing campaigns. The platform’s visual email builder allows anyone to create professional-looking emails without touching a single line of code, while pre-designed templates provide a solid starting point for those lacking design experience.

What truly sets Mailchimp apart for newcomers is its educational approach. We appreciated the helpful tooltips and guided setup process that walks users through each step of creating their first campaign. The platform includes a comprehensive knowledge base with video tutorials, step-by-step guides and best practice recommendations specifically tailored to email marketing beginners.

The free plan deserves special mention as it provides genuine value rather than serving as a limited trial. With support for up to 1,000 monthly email sends (or 500 per day), new businesses can build their subscriber list and learn email marketing fundamentals without financial commitment. This is particularly valuable compared to platforms like Constant Contact, which only offer a free trial after which a paid plan is required.

We also found that Mailchimp strikes an excellent balance between simplicity and sophistication. As your business grows and your email marketing becomes more advanced, the platform scales with you, offering automation workflows, audience segmentation and detailed analytics without requiring you to migrate to a new platform. So, while it’s a great choice for beginners, Mailchimp won’t limit you as you progress.

Ease of Use

During our testing, we found Mailchimp’s interface remarkably intuitive, even for team members with no prior email marketing experience. The dashboard presents a clean, organized layout where key functions are clearly labeled and logically positioned. You can easily navigate from creating an initial audience list to launching a complete email campaign in under 30 minutes.

The drag-and-drop email builder stands out as one of Mailchimp’s strongest features. We simply selected content blocks like text, images, buttons or social media links and dragged them into our email layout. Real-time preview functionality showed exactly how our emails would appear on desktop and mobile devices, eliminating the guesswork that often comes with email design.

We appreciated that Mailchimp organizes its features into clear categories like Campaigns, Automations, Audience and Analytics. This structure makes it easy to find what you need without digging through complex menus. The platform also includes a helpful search function that quickly directs you to specific features or settings.

The learning curve for basic email marketing tasks is minimal. We found that most users can master fundamental features like creating campaigns, managing subscriber lists and viewing basic reports within their first few hours of use. For comparison, platforms like HubSpot offer more advanced capabilities but require significantly more time to learn the basics.

However, we did notice that some advanced features, particularly the automation builder, require more time to master. The customer journey mapping tool offers powerful capabilities but presents a steeper learning curve than basic campaign creation. Still, Mailchimp provides extensive documentation and video tutorials to help users navigate these more complex features.

Mailchimp Features

Email Campaign Builder

The Mailchimp email campaign builder serves as the foundation of the platform, and we found it exceptionally well-designed for users at all skill levels. The builder offers three creation options: using pre-designed templates, starting from scratch or importing your own HTML code.

We tested dozens of templates across various categories including newsletters, product announcements, event invitations and seasonal promotions. Each template is mobile-responsive and can be customized with your brand colors, fonts and imagery. The content studio feature allows you to store brand assets like logos and images in one centralized location, making it easy to maintain consistent branding across all campaigns.

What impressed us most was the intelligent design assistance. When we added content blocks, Mailchimp automatically adjusted spacing and alignment to maintain professional-looking layouts. The platform also suggests optimal image sizes and provides warnings if elements might not display correctly on mobile devices.

Marketing Automation

Mailchimp’s automation capabilities transform how businesses engage with their audience by sending targeted messages based on subscriber behavior and preferences. We built several automation workflows, including a welcome series for new subscribers, abandoned cart reminders and post-purchase follow-ups.

The visual automation builder displays your entire workflow as a flowchart, making it easy to understand how subscribers move through your customer journey. We could set triggers based on specific actions like email opens, link clicks, website visits or purchase behavior. This level of behavioral targeting helps businesses deliver the right message at the right time.

Compared to ActiveCampaign, which offers more advanced automation split testing, Mailchimp provides a more accessible entry point to marketing automation. While power users might find some limitations, we found the automation features more than adequate for small to medium-sized businesses just beginning to implement automated marketing strategies.

Audience Management and Segmentation

Managing and organizing your email contact list is crucial for effective email marketing, and Mailchimp excels in this area. We found the audience management tools comprehensive yet straightforward to use. The platform allows you to import contacts from various sources, including CSV files, existing email platforms or direct integrations with your e-commerce store or customer relationship management (CRM) system.

Segmentation capabilities enable you to divide your audience based on virtually any criteria. We created segments using demographic information, purchase history, email engagement levels and custom fields we defined ourselves. For example, we easily isolated subscribers who opened our last three emails but haven’t made a purchase in 60 days, allowing us to send targeted re-engagement campaigns.

The platform also includes tags and groups for organizing contacts. Tags function as flexible labels you can apply to any subscriber, while groups allow subscribers to self-select their interests and preferences. We appreciated this dual approach, as it provides both administrative control and subscriber autonomy over the content they receive.

Analytics and Reporting

Data-driven decision making is essential for email marketing success, and Mailchimp provides robust reporting tools to track campaign performance. We found the analytics dashboard clear and actionable, displaying key metrics like open rates, click-through rates, unsubscribe rates and revenue generated from email campaigns.

The platform tracks industry-standard benchmarks, allowing you to compare your performance against businesses in your sector. Seeing how your campaigns measure up helps identify areas for improvement.

We particularly valued the click maps feature, which visually displays where subscribers clicked within your emails. This insight reveals which content and calls-to-action resonate most with your audience, informing future campaign strategies. Geographic and device-specific reporting also helps optimize send times and design for your particular audience.

While Mailchimp’s reporting is comprehensive for most small businesses, we noticed it lacks some of the advanced attribution modeling found in platforms like Klaviyo. Businesses requiring detailed, multi-touch attribution across multiple marketing channels may need to supplement Mailchimp with additional analytics tools.

Landing Pages and Signup Forms

Beyond email campaigns, Mailchimp offers tools to grow your subscriber list through landing pages and signup forms. We created multiple landing pages for different lead magnets and found the process as straightforward as building email campaigns. The same drag-and-drop builder applies, with templates designed specifically for conversions.

The signup form builder provides several options, including embedded forms, pop-ups and standalone landing pages. We appreciated the customization options that allowed us to match forms to our brand identity while maintaining best practices for conversion optimization. Forms can be configured with single or double opt-in processes, depending on your preference and compliance requirements.

Integration between forms and audience management is seamless. When subscribers join through a form, they’re automatically added to the correct audience and tagged appropriately. We could also trigger automation workflows immediately upon form submission, creating a smooth experience from first contact to ongoing engagement.

Integrations

Mailchimp connects with more than 300 third-party applications, making it easy to incorporate email marketing into your broader business ecosystem. We tested integrations with popular platforms including Shopify, WordPress, QuickBooks and Salesforce, finding the connection process straightforward in each case.

E-commerce integrations deserve special mention. When connected to platforms like Shopify or WooCommerce, Mailchimp automatically syncs customer data, purchase history and product information. This enables powerful automation like abandoned cart emails, product recommendations based on browsing history and post-purchase follow-up sequences.

For businesses using accounting software, the QuickBooks integration allows you to incorporate financial data into your email marketing strategy. We could segment audiences based on customer lifetime value or send targeted campaigns to customers with outstanding invoices.

Mailchimp Pricing

Mailchimp’s pricing structure is based primarily on the number of contacts in your audience, with multiple tiers offering progressively more features. We found the pricing transparent and predictable, though costs can escalate quickly as your subscriber list grows.

The free plan provides genuine value for businesses just starting with email marketing. With 500 contacts and 1,000 monthly sends, it supports meaningful list building and basic campaign execution. However, we noticed that Mailchimp branding appears on emails sent from free accounts, which may not align with every business’s professional image.

As your contact list grows, pricing increases across all tiers. For example, the Essentials plan jumps to $26.50 per month for 1,500 contacts and $75 per month for 5,000 contacts. This scaling structure means Mailchimp becomes relatively expensive compared to competitors like MailerLite or Brevo, which offer more competitive pricing for larger lists.

We appreciated that Mailchimp allows you to upgrade or downgrade plans at any time, with changes taking effect immediately. For businesses with seasonal fluctuations in email volume, the pay-as-you-go credits option allows purchasing email sends without committing to a monthly plan.

The Premium plan, starting at $350 per month for 10,000 contacts, targets larger businesses requiring advanced features and dedicated support. We found this tier well-suited for established companies but potentially cost-prohibitive for small businesses. For comparison, Constant Contact offers similar features at a lower price point for businesses with large contact lists.

Implementation and Setup

Getting started with Mailchimp requires minimal technical expertise, and we found the onboarding process well-designed for beginners. Account creation takes less than five minutes, requiring only basic business information and email verification. The platform immediately launches a setup wizard that guides you through essential initial steps.

During our setup, Mailchimp asked relevant questions about our business type, industry and marketing goals. These responses help the platform customize its recommendations and suggest appropriate templates and features. We appreciated this personalized approach, as it eliminated the overwhelming feeling that sometimes accompanies feature-rich platforms.

Importing contacts is straightforward, with multiple options to suit different scenarios. We like how you easily can import subscriber lists from CSV files, connect existing email platforms and integrate with e-commerce stores. The platform automatically checks for duplicate contacts and validates email addresses, helping maintain list hygiene from the start.

Training resources are abundant and well-organized. We found video tutorials, written guides and interactive demos covering every aspect of the platform. Mailchimp Academy offers free courses on email marketing fundamentals, list growth strategies and automation best practices. These educational resources are particularly valuable for business owners new to email marketing services.

The platform also includes a practice mode that allows you to test campaigns before sending them to real subscribers. We used this feature extensively during our initial setup, building confidence in our email creation skills without risk of sending incomplete or incorrect messages to our audience.

Domain authentication and email deliverability setup require a few technical steps, but Mailchimp provides clear instructions for each. We recommend following the guided process to authenticate our sending domain through DNS records, which improves deliverability and allows emails to display your business name rather than “via Mailchimp.” For users without technical knowledge, the platform offers assistance through its support channels.

Customer Service

Customer support quality can make or break your experience with any software platform, and Mailchimp offers varied support options depending on your subscription tier. We tested all available support channels to evaluate responsiveness and helpfulness.

Email and chat support are available 24/7 for Essentials, Standard and Premium plan subscribers. During our testing, chat response times averaged five to 10 minutes during business hours and 15 to 20 minutes during off-peak times. Support representatives demonstrated good product knowledge and provided helpful, specific answers rather than generic responses.

We were disappointed to find that phone support is exclusively available to Premium plan subscribers. For businesses paying $350 or more monthly, this includes priority phone access with shorter wait times. However, the lack of phone support for lower-tier plans may frustrate users who prefer voice communication for complex issues.

Free plan users have access to email support and the comprehensive knowledge base, but cannot access live chat or phone support. While this may be acceptable for non-urgent questions, businesses requiring immediate assistance will need to upgrade to a paid plan.

The knowledge base deserves recognition as one of Mailchimp’s strongest support assets. We found detailed articles, video tutorials and troubleshooting guides covering virtually every platform feature and common issue. The search functionality works well, quickly surfacing relevant articles based on our queries.

Community forums provide another support avenue where users can ask questions and share solutions. We observed active participation from both Mailchimp users and company representatives. However, response times in forums can be unpredictable, and advice quality varies depending on who responds.

Compared to platforms like HubSpot, which offer phone support across all paid tiers, Mailchimp’s support structure favors self-service and written communication. This approach works well for technically proficient users but may present challenges for those preferring more hands-on assistance.

Limitations

While Mailchimp excels in many areas, we identified several limitations that business owners should consider before committing to the platform. Understanding these constraints helps set realistic expectations and determine whether Mailchimp aligns with your specific needs.

• Pricing becomes less competitive at scale: The pricing structure becomes increasingly expensive as your subscriber list grows. Competitors like Brevo and MailerLite offer significantly lower pricing for larger lists, making them more cost-effective alternatives for businesses with extensive contact databases.
• Limited automation features: Mailchimp’s automation tools are useful for beginners, but they don’t match the sophistication of dedicated automation platforms like ActiveCampaign or Drip. We noticed limitations in conditional logic complexity and the depth of behavioral tracking available. Businesses with highly complex automation requirements may outgrow Mailchimp’s capabilities as their marketing sophistication increases.
• Reporting and analytics limitations: The reporting and analytics features provide comprehensive data for most small businesses but lack advanced attribution modeling and predictive analytics found in enterprise platforms. We couldn’t track detailed customer journeys across multiple touchpoints or access machine learning-powered insights that some competitors offer. For businesses requiring deep analytical capabilities, supplementing Mailchimp with dedicated business intelligence tools may be necessary.

Methodology

To identify the best email marketing services, we first compiled a list of popular email marketing platforms based on online research. We carefully examined each service’s reputation and narrowed down our list to some finalists. We then spent several weeks researching each vendor by investigating its offerings, watching tutorials and how-to videos, testing the software (when possible), and reading user reviews. We also evaluated each service’s pricing structure and customer support. When selecting our pick for the best email marketing service for beginners, we especially focused on ease of use and setup, as well as available features at free and low-cost plans. Additionally, we looked for extensive training and tutorial resources that could help new users get started quickly. 

Bottom Line

We recommend Mailchimp for …

• Small businesses and entrepreneurs launching their first email marketing campaigns who need an intuitive platform with a minimal learning curve.
• Startups and bootstrapped businesses seeking to begin email marketing without upfront costs through the generous free plan.
• E-commerce businesses using popular platforms like Shopify or WooCommerce that can benefit from seamless integration and automated product campaigns.

We don’t recommend Mailchimp for …

• Large enterprises with extensive contact lists seeking the most cost-effective solution, as pricing becomes less competitive at scale.
• Businesses requiring highly complex automation workflows with advanced conditional logic beyond Mailchimp’s current capabilities.
• Organizations requiring deep, multi-touch attribution modeling and advanced predictive analytics are not available in Mailchimp’s reporting suite.