When starting a blog or an online business, your web presence is something anyone needs to consider. If you don’t pay attention to this aspect of your business, you’re missing out on a whole bunch of marketing opportunities. One important aspect of this is an email marketing strategy.
Much of any businesses marketing can happen via email. This is usually a highly cost-effective way to reach customers and often has hugely positive results. However, manually sending these emails is a waste of time and resources. Luckily, certain companies have stepped up to the plate, offering email marketing automation for small businesses. These service providers take the work out of your email lists and can help you find and maintain customers.
The problem? There are a lot of different email marketing platforms to choose from. While many offer similarities in terms of their marketing service, there will be subtle differences which tailor them to a specific need. Finding the best fitting email marketing platform for your business is key to your satisfaction – and to achieving the results you want.
Luckily for you, our Convertkit vs Mailchimp review is here to help. We’re comparing many different aspects of both of these platforms to help you get a clearer picture as to which is the better fit for you. We’re also looking at specific, verified customer reviews, to help you better understand the true user experience. With our guide, choosing your mail automation service is easy. Want to know more? Read on.
Table of Contents
Convertkit vs Mailchimp: Target Audience
Both Convertkit and Mailchimp are designed for small, startup businesses, such as an e-commerce store or blog. They’re designed to help businesses build their subscriber count – and thus, their customer count. They’re both designed to be the first stage in an email marketing campaign, growing small businesses and helping them to get to the next stage.
Nonetheless, there are some differences between these two platforms, and understanding them can help you decide which is better for you. Mailchimp is more focused on e-commerce, and is very image focused. It connects well with Facebook and Instagram ads. Convertkit is list based, rather than subscriber based. These two different forms can make a difference to their pricing, too. Thinking specifically about what your want from your email marketing software is the best way to ensure you find one that’s the best fit for you.
Convertkit vs Mailchimp: Automation
Convertkit’s automation features are more visual. You build your campaigns in a more visual way. The drag and drop feature helps you see clearly how your customers are moving through your drip campaigns, helping you properly visualize your conversion rate. It’s also easier to specify dates and times for particular emails or offers to hit your subscribers’ inboxes.
Mailchimp automation is something the company are very well known for. It refers not only to automatic email marketing campaigns, but specified campaigns for subscribers. It also automates ads on different social media platforms. The information gathered from these types of ads can also help you personalize your content and build better e-commerce automation.
Convertkit vs Mailchimp: Emails
Put simply, Mailchimp’s emails are more visual, while Convertkit’s are more text-based.
Convertkit believes emails shouldn’t look too much like ads, because people have a tendency to skim over and not really engage. It sounds obvious, but having people actually read the emails you sent is absolutely essential to their success. Having a lot of recipients is useless if no one is actually engaging with the content.
Even though this means the company offers less in terms of fancy email templates, you can still make your messages look appealing and professional. They also offer a handy tool which helps you see the click-through rates of various links, and assess what aspects of your strategy are working the best.
If you’s rather build and send pretty, visual emails, Mailchimp may be more up your street. They give customizable templating where you can drag and drop a range of design elements and pictures. If you’re more tech-savvy, you can design your own templates, too.
It’s really a matter of preference. If you think simplistic and clean emails are a better fit for your business, Convertkit will likely be your better choice. However, if you want to get creative and have more fun with it, Mailchimp offers much more inf the way of visual email options.
Convertkit vs Mailchimp: Landing Pages
ConvertKit landing pages are clean and intuitive. They’re easy to set up, too – simply embed them onto your site using the WordPress plugin, then add the link directly to your email campaigns.
Mailchimp is a little more restricted, with two different landing page templates. Of course, these can be customized to make them seem more different from one another. They can be embedded on your site using a simple HTML code, or via a link for social media and email.
Convertkit vs Mailchimp: Opt-In Forms
ConvertKit has an excellent builder for all types of forms. Every aspect of the forms is customizable, from the content to the way they look. This means you can offer different options for single opt-in and double opt-in, plus sign-up forms. There is a variety of different ways to build and embed these forms, too.
MailChimp offers three templates for forms, a builder, and embedded option, and a pop-up. Each of these have a distinct tab in the form builder, which makes creating the forms far easier. You can design your forms in a highly customized way.
Convertkit vs Mailchimp: Analytics
A hugely important aspect of any email marketing service is being able to track and understand the results.
Convertkit has a fairly straightforward overview of what you can see in terms of results. There’s a form graph and a subscriber graph you can see on your dashboard, which show the changes in number over time. There are also some more specific numbers available, which can help you make connections between particular campaigns and any changes in subscriber or customer count. There are also handy filters you can apply to the graphs to help you get the best understanding possible of what’s working – and what isn’t.
If you’re super interested in analytics, Mailchimp certainly offers more in this regard. You can see interactive graphs and tips for maintaining your lists within each of your reports. Also, you’re able to see which subscribers are most interactive, helping you build more targeted campaigns in the future. There’s access to more specific, information in terms of analysis with MailChimp. This can help you not only track the success of certain campaigns but actually help you to build more successful ones in the future, too.
Convertkit vs Mailchimp: Customer Service
Both companies have a fairly good reputation for customer service. Both offers 24/7 email support, and have excellent forums and help pages on their respective blogs.
Convertkit vs Mailchimp: Pricing
Of these two options, Mailchimp is the more affordable.
There’s a Mailchimp free plan, which is ideal for those curious and wanting to get started. After that, the plans range from around $30 per month, for up to 2,500 contacts, up to $475 per month, for up to 100,000 contacts.
Convertkit is a little bit pricier. There’s no Convertkit free plan, nor is there a Convertkit free trial. Prices start at around $50 per month, for up to 2,500 contacts, and range up to $680 per month, for up to 100,000 contacts.
Convertkit vs Mailchimp: Customer Reviews
While having all the facts laid out is undeniably helpful, it’s also well worth hearing from actual real life customers to get the real information about how each company works.
Convertkit Reviews: What Real People Are Saying
Convertkit has a very good online reputation. It currently has 4.4 out of 5 stars on dedicated review site g2crowd.com. People love the user-friendly interface and say it makes email affiliate marketing super easy.
Nonetheless, there are some drawbacks to the service. Some point out there are many limitations within the email builder, which can feel irritating and restrictive. The service struggles with more complex or visual automation. Customers also mentioned the higher pricing, and wish there was a truly affordable option for beginners.
ConvertKit is definitely a simplified version of something more complex like a Drip or Autopilot. It’s not going to be able to handle super complex automations. It’s also not true marketing automation (with lead scoring, etc), but that actually doesn’t bother me as much. There isn’t a way to see visitor activity (for example, if someone visits a specific page or does something on the website), so it actually makes it a lot more lean.
g2crowd.com
The only thing that stands out as a dislike is that there are a lot of limitations with their email editor. I think having to occasionally having to use html does not align with their “simplicity” business/product culture. If I have to be honest, I think they could have possibly added another price range for people starting out. Maybe something along the lines of 10-15 dollars per month for beginners with a list of 100 or less.
g2crowd.com
Mailchimp Reviews: What Real People Are Saying
Mailchimp also has a hugely popular online following. It currently has a 4.3 out of 5 star rating on g2crowd.com.
People love how easy the service is to use. They point out its successful integration with other platforms. Users also love the fact there’s an option for a free version of the service. Customers also draw attention to the high level of customer service the platform provides.
I did not have to be a great designer to learn how to use the platform and start marketing campaigns because the tools make it a professional campaigns with unique and amazing designs to attract more customers to know or keep buying new or old articles. I can see what message worked for the email sent and the ads to apply that same format or advertising strategy and make it work again with greater impact. They have live chat that fills me with confidence knowing they are always willing to help me in difficult times I need something from them
g2crowd.com
The main drawback people point to in terms of the service is the price. Even though it’s affordable compared to other providers, plus has a very basic free package, some still think it’s a little steep. Some also point out that there’s a bit of a learning curve with the service – though this likely won’t apply if you’ve ever used any sort of autoresponder before.
It is a good platform there is only one thing that I dislike at the beginning and it was the price so expensive that I had to pay to start using this platform but after having worked with all the tools that this platform allows I realized that it was worth paying this great price but at first it seemed a bit expensive
g2crowd.com
The only thing that I do not like about this company is that when you start using the platform it was very difficult to configure all the campaigns, you need to have some knowledge in the email marketing area to configure 100% all campaigns and give good result.
g2crowd.com
Convertkit vs Mailchimp: Our Verdict
Both Convertkit and Mailchimp make for excellent email marketing services in terms of features and capabilities. Mailchimp is more image focused, while Convertkit goes for cleaner, more basic templates. Mailchimp offers a ton of options in terms of customization – but they can make it more difficult to get to grips with the service. If you’re more of a design-focused business, it may be worth going for Mailchimp. But for those who don’t need to focus so much on different design elements, Convertkit may be the better option.
If you’re interested in Convertkit, you can sign up here. Perhaps Mailchimp sounds more up your street? In that case, sign up here. If you’re interested in a mail automation service but don’t fancy either of these options, we’ve got other reviews that could help you out. Check out our Drip Email review here, and our Activecampaign review here.
Have you ever used an automated email marketing service? Which is your favorite? Let us know in the comments below!