Mailchimp Reviews

Pros
MailChimp is a very popular email marketing platform that makes it easy to send out mail campaigns. We use a great plugin for our gravity forms pushing anyone that submits a form on our website to a specific MailChimp list, group, or segment. This makes it easier than trying to regularly upload a list each time it changes. It's popular for good reasons as setting up templated emails is really simple, guided by a step-by-step process with additional coding and advanced setup features. It also allows for RSS feeds to be sent to a blog signup list. Creating automatic drip campaigns is another feature we utilize heavily and works great at increasing follow-up. The split A/B testing is a great way to test the messages of your marketing campaign. Being able to see the reports on clicks and users makes it one of the best features of MailChimp. We use it as a way to know our warm leads we should be reaching out to.

Cons
Although being easy to use, the few spots you get snagged up on are better resolved through a Google search than a chat to the support people. They stink. The other big con to MailChimp is the way it handles lists, groups, segments, and signup forms. Because MailChimp bills you for every last contact you have with your lists, creating duplicate lists can be an expensive mistake. The only way to separate contacts without getting double billed is to use segments and groups. This creates a challenge when using the signup forms, as the person will have to choose their preferred group to join. It would be better if MailChimp either made the signup forms group based or allowed for separate lists without duplicate charges. The other big downside to MailChimp is the difficulty with managing a user's email preferences. For example, if a user only wants to receive monthly emails instead of weekly emails, creating that option can be a bit tricky without some careful planning. It would be simpler if MailChimp created a frequency option as a customer profile option. This would fail-safe against sending out too many emails to someone that wanted fewer emails.

Rating breakdown

Pros
Mailchimp is very easy to use and has plugins for 99% of the other services my company uses online like our web host, G Suit, forms system, etc which is awesome and works amazingly. Their API is super smooth and simple so it is easy to import and sync all kinds of customer data from one service to another. The analytics mailchimp provides from campaigns is also super helpful, and so are their new automated tasks sending out automatic emails to customers after purchase or after abandoned carts.

Cons
My two major complaints are the price points and the flagging system. If you have a very small company the prices are pretty great, but as our customer database grew the prices jumped severally. I wish there is a way to pay less by opting out of some of the features we don't need or use, but it's a set strict pricing tier, all or nothing. Even with the higher prices my company kept on happily using MailChimp, until our account got flagged for 3 false reports. From the research, we investigated it appears that a rival company had their employees sign up for our mailing list, probably for market research keeping an eye on our sales which make sense, until those accounts reported one of our newsletters as spam causing MailChimp to immediately suspend our account. After MONTHS of being a paying customer with no issues, I feel them instantly suspending our account without first contacting us is unacceptable. The automated hoops they made as jump through we ridiculous, and the response time, once we jumped through those hoops, took DAYS - Days we had to pay for even though our account was suspended. two weeks down the road we got our account reactivated, but our request to talk to a member of their team was ignored. Mailchimp treated us guilty until proven innocent, which I would get if we didn't already have an impeccable record with them. We had over a year of 100% upstanding email campaigns using their service and feel like we were treated VERY unfairly. What happens next time that same competitor false flags us, forcing us to pay for service time we can not use? Because of that, I am actively researching other service providers, specifically ones that have actual human employees that reach out before drastic measures such as suspension.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 7/10

Pros
Let me tell you straight away without wasting much of your time, if you are looking for cheap and best solution for your email marketing campaigns then mailchimp is the answer. You can easily formulate your campaign from the predefined templates and if you are a newbie to email campaigns and have just started your career than trust me its very easy to learn and you can learn it by your own (same as i did back in days). Now lets dive into bits of its features which it has lots as per the requirement: After signup you will see a user friendly dashboard layout. just start new campaign and the process is self explaining (provided you understand whats a email campaign is), You can choose from predefined themes and layout or can make your own with simple drag and drop options and once you are done choose from email lists which you have previously uploaded (eeehh.. i should have told that before, nevermind you can save your draft and can start sending later. Now the MAIN part which we all digital marketers desires, The REPORTING of campaigns. you can almost get everything here in terms of reporting. You can see who has received your email, who has opened your email and who has clicked on the email and has taken an action on it. You can run A/B testing of your campaigns and can see which campaign is performing better than others. Bottom line: Definitely Worth the Value.

Cons
Perfection is a MYTH, and so its quite fortunate that mailchimp also seems to have few flaws (or lets say need improvement). Once my boss asked me to do multivariate testing (for non techie peoples its a on step above than A/B testing) of campaigns we are running on mailchimp. So for this i have to run same campaign again and again with slight modifications in each drafted campaign. And we decided to do this at the same time and all versions of the emails will be sent at the same moment. However we kept few dummy emails, which we use to do with every campaign, so when we recieved campaigns which we have sent firstly within few hours and the later versions were recieved next day, so the process which was to be learned in single day is now distributed in two days and the results were not useful as the campaign was based on single day event. And with all this process i realized that for it may be easy for starters to learn but if you need to deep dive into it then you have to refer some other platforms too and see which you are more comfortable with.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
After the painful process of developing multiple websites (as a layman) on my own, I was relieved to run across Mailchimp. In short, it was awesome to find such a simple way to launch a "website" (land page) with little hassle for an collaborative webinar. Seriously, the landing page and email campaign were launched in less than 2 hours which included developing the content. Based on my past experience with designing websites, deploying this landing page was a walk in the park. Ok, what I liked most? Well, I really liked the ease of use, user friendly and intuitive interface. Seriously, it was so simple that even a caveman could do it. Connecting my pay gate was also a breeze. There are other add-ons (aside from the email campaigns), but I've not gotten around to using any of them just yet.

Cons
The variation of templates are lacking a bit which is offset by the customizable/DIY function. And, what templates are available look pretty good... Obviously, I am a fan of Mailchimp, right? Well, I was a bit confused when they shut down my latest landing page siting that it was in violation of their terms of service. To this day, I still have no idea why they shut it down, because they just directed me back to their terms page. Anyway, I am not deterred from using it. It's that awesome!

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
We primarily use MailChimp for email campaigns, sending more than 5 million emails a year to more than 350,000 constituents. MailChimp has been consistent in its reliability and send data, with reporting tools that are helpful and timely as we plan for follow-up activities. It also provides comparative data so we can see how we are trending in relation to similar organizations.

Cons
The recent change in their pricing structure puts our organization at a disadvantage. We use the "pay as you go" model due to our large list size, and these credits now expire, limiting our ability to purchase the larger bulk credits that are more fiscally responsible for our university. The other sticking point for us is customer service -- there is no phone number associated and all trouble-shooting must be done via email which can significantly lengthen the time between a reported issue and its fix.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10

Pros
We used to send out marketing emails manually, batch by batch, divide and conquer among our staff. Using MailChimp saved us a lot of time and effort by allowing us to automate the sending of emails, and even track the effectiveness of the content and automate some scripted replies. Another thing I liked the most is that MailChimp provides 15 templates to start with (instead of having to build from scratch). For beginners and those who are hesistant, the Forever Free Plan allows you to have up to 2,500 subscribers and to send out up to 12,000 emails/month. That's quite a lot already especially for small businesses. To reach out to a bigger audience, you may want to consider the paid plans. Sales and Marketing team will love its reporting tool to see the effectiveness of your campaign and email interaction from your target audience. It is also integrable to third-party apps and e-commerce platforms.

Cons
The template automations are great, but for more complex marketing workflows, we really had a difficult time (maybe because our correspondence is rather too complex and multi-step). Keep in mind also that you'll have to clean up your list of subscribers since duplicate entries will still be charged to the subscriber count.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
I liked the ability to be creative with the fonts, display settings, choose from numerous, different templates that are available, and can even put GIPHY's in there too! I use this to send out weekly newsletters to members of a presbyterian church so that they can stay in touch with everything that is going on in the church. Announcements, sermon titles, pictures, and meeting location/dates/times are all uploaded and displayed in any way I want. I also like how I can put links to PDF files, websites, e-mail addresses, etc.

Cons
Limited fonts to choose from, and inability to make a change after you send the e-mail out. Often times, when I found a mistake in a campaign I had already sent, I couldn't update the campaign to show the correction. I would have to make another campaign and send that newer version out again, which might confuse a lot of people. Also, sometimes, it would appear differently on different e-mails (i.e. aol.com vs. gmail.com vs. work e-mail).

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 7/10

Pros
I like Mailchimp for the ease of creating newsletters. The interface is quite easy to use, even for beginners, and I like that I can see my drafts in both PC and mobile view, to make sure something doesn't get wonky on mobile. I like that Mailchimp integrates easily with Wordpress, and they make it so easy that even I can understand it. I also like the analytics. They are easy to understand and don't get overcomplicated. It takes just a quick look to see my open rates and click-throughs.

Cons
I get confused by the terminology used for the lists, or audiences as they now call them. In other similar apps, I am able to attach several different lists to one email. In Mailchimp, they want you to have one list with segments and tags, etc. and I find it time-consuming and confusing. Not enough templates to work with. And the ones they have have been there for a long time. Time to refresh! I don't like the lack of customer service available if you don't have a more premium account. No one really has the time to wait 24 hours or more for an answer to a question.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10

Pros
We needed to send our tons of emails for marketing and sales promotion of our recent international symposium. MailChimp helped us tons by handling the sending our of the emails, monitoring the receiver interaction (wherein we were able to automate certain auto-replies/categorization thereafter). Best feature for us: The Analytics Tool - very useful to see how many were reached, sent, received, clicked on a link, etc. 2nd Best feature: The Auto-responder - you can already set the script or logic of your email correspondence based on the expected replies and prepared email answers. And of course, for the small (perhaps up to medium-sized) businesses, the free plan may be workable for you. Until you decide to upgrade to a paid plan.

Cons
If you're looking at a very wide audience / number of subscribers... this service may come a bit pricey. But hey, more chances of sales success as well. So just balance it. Understandably, the reports aren't displayed in real time. You can refresh the screen, but it takes a bit of time to load (relative to this era of modern fast paced apps/tech).

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
The greatest things about MailChimp are (1) its scalability, and (2) its accessibility. When we started on MailChimp, I was the sole user and manager of the software for my team. MailChimp really helped me to shape up our emails and was very easy to access both in-office and on the go, thanks to their mobile application. As we were able to expand the department, it was also easy to add new users and more contacts to our database.

Cons
I can say that I would have liked to have more user-friendly access to the overall data from my campaigns on the home dashboard. It was difficult to determine overall trends because I didn't have an easy way of looking at our campaigns as a whole -- this is probably true of a lot of the software out there, but it is one thing that would have differentiated the experience for me. The support was a little lacking, but overall it was just fine for what we needed. We didn't have much trouble with the software itself, fortunately.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
MailChimp is entirely a beast in automating the email marketing. I have been using this software for my site. We have been using it to grow and generate leads for our business through email marketing. I love MailChimp because it's straightforward to use software unlike other email marketing software out there. One feature that can be very helpful for a complete beginner is to let the new users use the software entirely at no cost till a limit of 2000 email subscribers. It will give them a good understanding of the features and usage of the MailChimp. One can easily create fantastic email templates without knowing even a single line of code. These templates are beautiful and will help to increase the CTR and hence generate leads. The paid version is also very affordable. It provides the ability to send beautifully and targetted emails to unlimited people. Through the A split testing, one can see whether what things will work and what's not? It is an excellent way to know the impact of a campaign.

Cons
The pro plan which is meant for the business owners is a bit expensive. Though, I liked the pricing of the pre-plan but, the pro plan is quite costly. Another limit which I would like to mention here is the inability to delete a subscriber list. Many times, it happens that a business potential targetted list changes. And, the owner wants to remove the old subscriber list. In this case, Mailchimp will only allow you to delete it if it has not been used since the past seven days. I mean, I want the freedom to cancel or modify it anytime I want.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
I like that they offer free use for the 1st 2000 subscribers. That by itself is the #1 reason why anyone looking to start a subscription list should try MailChimp first. 2nd reason people should try it...MailChimp collecting peoples' email addresses and sending emails out from blog posts -- that just works great once you get things set up. And if you want to send out just a regular email - not something connected to a published blog post - that's even easier. The 3rd thing I love is the ability to see who opens the emails and who doesn't. And some other helpful analytics about how people behave when they receive your email. You don't have to have a degree in statistics to understand the quick stats that MailChimp offers.

Cons
For some reason, the way they set up Campaigns and lists always slows me down. I don't know why. But if I have a client who wants me to do something quick, I have to slow down my thinking and figure out what part of either the Campaign or the list does that X task belong in first. An example: a client wanted me to have MailChimp mail something new out immediately to his recipients who subscribe to rss feeds. Here's where some time was lost: trying to determine how to avoid creating a new campaign for a one-off email to go to the list that receives rss feeds. We ended up posting on his blog, setting up a new time and date for MailChimp to search the website for new content (and then to send out), waiting for the email to get sent out, and then going back to the campaign to change the time when MailChimp sends out new posts. There's something a little clunky about it. Editing of mail templates is ... trying. It's not rocket science to make your own template, but again there's a clunkiness there. I had a client who was extremely specific on the design. If I edited "blogs" template while in use for "Weds blogs" and then selected "blogs" template for a new campaign - "thurs blogs" the changes I made in the template assigned to Weds were not reflected in Thurs blogs. CONFUSING!

Rating breakdown

Pros
I have used several email campaign services over the years and Mailchimp is by far the easiest to use. It is fairly intuitive and easy to understand. Also, we've been able to build custom well branded email templates into the system so all of our emails look on brand.

Cons
They regularly make updates to the service (which is great) but it results in regularly needing to relearn where things are and what they are called. For example, mailing lists are now called Audiences and it took some getting used to.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
With Mailchimp it is easy to make the newsletter look good on different devices and it guides you through the process so you don't omit some important aspects (to be GDPR-complient etc.). When you send the email (ie. newsletter issue / campaign) you get detailed analytics that gives you a good overview how your newsletter is doing which helps a lot. The app also helps you keep your mailing list healthy (removing duplicates, inactive users, managing unsubscriptions) which really simplifies the process. Another thing that I really like is the interface with a lot of funny messages from the chimp (hence the mailchimp name) that puts some fun into the process.

Cons
We've had some issues with the email landing into the spam folder of the recepients, but it turned out that it had more to do with the domains of the organization and less with the app itself.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
MailChimp is very easy to use! I have been using it for over 3 years and I am very satisifed with the software, they are constantly improving the site, it became very easy to navigate. The support system is great, there are tutorials and help articles that explain step by step how to create lists etc. They have two factor authentication that keeps the account safe. It has a free, basic plan, after you exceed 2000 subscribers, you always know how much you need to pay and it sends you a notification when you are adding new subscribers and about to exceed your monthly plan. You can schedule newsletters based on the time zone, which is extremly useful in the US. But MailChimp can analyze your subscribers and suggest the optimal sending time if you prefer to choose that. It sends me emails every day about the campaign activities, unsubscribers that helps me keep the list up to date. The analytic tools are great, you can see how many people opened the email, how many times they clicked on certain links, If you are curious about a subscriber all their activity is available on their profile. The most useful feature, in my opinion, is that you can send automatic follow up emails to those who have not opened the first email, or have not clicked on it.

Cons
Certain features (such as sending campaigns with time wrap) only available on the paid plan, which is a little pricy. The different list management tools like tags, groups and segments are confusing at first.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
Okay, that was a bad attempt at trying to parody the Geico/caveman commercials, and an insult to chimps. But I wanted to highlight how easy it was to use. I used this at an old job of mine (a 3-person office) at a non-profit organization. Because my boss was stuck in her ways for the longest time she didn't want to get with the times. She didn't utilize social media to promote our shows (I worked in theatre), she kept reaching out to the same schools and community organizations year after year. It wasn't until we had a new employee who took over fundraising and marketing that Mailchimp was implemented. Before that we kept using the same template in Outlook to send out newsletters. It was clunky to use and not very appealing to the receiver. Enter Mailchimp. It has such a simple, eye-catching, dashboard, and user interface yet it looked professional. Many theatre organizations I am on the mailing list of use Mailchimp as a standard. It's so standard we see the template all the time.

Cons
For the free version you are not able to send to more than 2000 email addresses, which worked for us because we didn't have that many (which is unfortunate for us, but that's besides the point). And as mentioned under the 'Pros' section, it's so standard that you see the same template all the time so it gets a little old and if you are trying to be unique while using the free version, then you won't get far.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 7/10

Pros
It makes a very difficult facet of growing a business fairly simple. Collecting emails. The hardest thing to do in today's society is get somebody to hand over their email. And while MailChimp doesn't automatically convince people to do so, it gives you great tools to sway their confidence. You get free landing pages that you can use with directing traffic to your site to add incentive to their email. "10% off if you join our mailing list!" You can also schedule automatic emails to follow up a purchase to request a review or offer a repeat buyers promo. They give you templates to help build these outreach options with expediency and efficiency. It's really hard to not find reason after reason to use MailChimp of you have your own business, especially an internet based business. You're not nearly as effective without it.

Cons
Very little. You have to subscribe, and the levels are tiered for number of emails so you pay more as you grow but that's also beneficial to the initial user with a small customer base. Only pay for what you need. There are myriad options to use as well, so the average user may need to really learn the system to get the most from it. Take advantage of it though and it's worth your time and money.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
I love that you can start using mailchimp within 10 minutes of signing up. It's so easy you can get an email marketing campaign designed and sent, create forms, and manage all of your users and see detailed reports. I like how many different reports and analytics are available for mailchimp users, and it gives me valuable insight into bounce rates, subscriber count, and the behavior of your subscribers. The email marketing campaigns are so easy to use, they have a drag and drop design layout, and plenty of templates to choose from. I like that mailchimp offers many different plans so you can pick what suits your needs. Mailchimp integrates with so many other platforms, and best of all google analytics. If you really want to get the best insights mailchimp and google working together will give you everything you need for managing marketing. Mailchimp can also be used to create social media posts and overall its definitely the easiest platform to get your marketing up and running as soon as possible.

Cons
The automations are not as easy to set up and use as the rest of the platform. Mailchimp also tends to use their own definitions and words that are not standard in the marketing industry, so there is a bit of a learning curve. Do your research and you shouldn't have any problems.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
This platform is very easy to use and also offers a wide variety of applications, Mailchimp has advanced automation properties, which allows us to configure activities for different compartments online, where we can adapt the emails according to the activities shown by our customers. It has been very useful to send product recommendations, promotions and notifications just by clicking on a specific link. With this system we can integrate with Zapier, which facilitates the way to automatically configure different applications on the internet, where we can program actions between different accounts on the web in a very simple way, the system can support a large number of applications. segmentation methods are excellent for the particularity they have of being able to combine up to five positive or negative applications, also has forms in pop-up windows integrated into the web page.

Cons
Mailchimp can be somewhat complicated with respect to its use especially at the beginning, however the system offers content, such as tutorials that will surely be enjoying the benefits that this wonderful platform offers us in a short time.  

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
I like that our company can design multiple campaigns all from one space. I also appreciate that I can give my login to our graphic designer and she can login remotely and add final touches to e-blasts before they get sent. I especially like that we can schedule emails with mail chimp. I really enjoy being able to set up emails on Monday and not having to worry about it the rest of the week!

Cons
I do not like that you cannot combine users. For instance, if we have clients who are a married couple, I would like to be able to create one contact for that couple and just have two email address tied to it. A primary and a secondary. I would also love to be able to send a “happy anniversary” to them both, from one account.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10

Pros
A very strong spam filter, that has factors updated regularly in accordance with their restrictive sending policies. A new version of the application is updated every month. They provide an all in one dashboard, where we can find all the tips and they don’t bombard the dashboard with all the redundant options. They provide templates, customizable according to clients and business requirements. The built-in preview feature is very helpful. You don’t need to have the much technical knowledge to build a complex design. Your information is automatically merged to your account from your websites and pages. The application is very simple to use and provides easy navigation throughout. You can set up the lists and schedule tasks quickly, and with ease. It has built-in analytics, where you can check the click and open rates. We can switch and manage multiple accounts at a time. You can test all your initiatives by the A/B testing feature.

Cons
The number of test emails is very minimal. The application is not great for serious digital marketers, it only suits the beginners. The application is very costly if you have a huge customer database. Not suitable for complicated marketing workflows. The customer service and support team aren't very responsive.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10

Pros
It is so easy to quickly make a good looking email with MailChimp. Their drag-and-drop design method is so user friendly. They give you the ability to touch some of the code if you need to, but if you have no idea how HTML works, you can still pull together a really great looking email on the first try. And it's great for small businesses just getting started b/c you can create forms to put on your website that will put contact info directly into your MailChimp list. And when you're ready to graduate to the next level, you can figure how to integrate with CRM platforms.

Cons
You do have a bit less control. As with anything that's made for first time users, they've stripped out some of the ability to code and customize in favor of their easy to use modules. This isn't a terrible thing, but if you speak HTML and want a lot of control, this might not be the way to go. And there's a little bit of a learning curve to setting up lists and segments. You really need to understand what they are and how MailChimp wants you to use them. If you don't use them they way they're intended to be used, you'll get frustrated. Ex. - MailChimp charges per "person", but if you have the same email address on two different lists, you'll get charged twice. The solution is to work the way MailChimp wants you to work, which is to have some smart segments on a master list. But if you're rigid and really want separate lists, you'll probably pay more then you expect.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
One thing I like about this software is the free version which allows me reach a good number of clients and prospective clients. The available tutorials on how to use Mailchimp which cant be found virtually everywhere makes it easier for a beginner to understand how to set it up and run different campaigns which is the major reason I recommend it to my clients. Mailchimp is one of the Email Service Providers with a good number of templates which can help users especially new users.

Cons
Mailchimp does not support Affiliate Marketing and Concurrency which is quite understandable. Mailchimp does not update campaigns that are already sent out even after I have made changes from my end.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10

Pros
Integrations, templates, automation - what's not to love. I've synced up MailChimp with my website captures, my woocommerce stores, and I love that I can create automated workflow sequences based on triggers and segments. You can totally use Mailchimp as a Customer Relationship Contact tool. I'ved helped set up robust expensive CRM tools for some of my clients and I love that Mailchimp offers the same high priced features for a fraction of the cost. I love that also include layout templates to help you get started. Someone with zero design experience and HTML skill can create attractive emails to their clients. I also appreciate the automated integrations with some popular online e-commerce tools.

Cons
What I like least about Mailchimp is collecting additional information about subscribers. For example, I wanted to collect the state of each user so I can local specific offers, and the address fields are either the entire address or nothing at all. I was able to use the text field as an alternative, but it would be nice if I didn't have to backdoor it. I'd also like to see more templates added. We're in a very visual time with social media and web design, why hasn't Mailchimp caught up and created more templates and cycle them out every month so we have fresh layouts to look at?

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
I love how user-friendly this software is...the program guides you through each step and allows you to drag/drop design options. You don't need a graphic design degree to create beautiful mailings.

Cons
It would be nice if they could provide a bit more tech help when creating mailing lists or at least some tips to maintaining accurate mailing lists.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10