Mailchimp vs. Campaign Monitor [Ultimate Comparison]

You’ve probably spent some time researching email marketing tools that would correlate with your business without costing you an arm and a leg.

If you narrowed down your choices to Mailchimp and Campaign Monitor, we might be able to help you make the final cut.

Research is an endless process; this is why we are focusing on features performance, specifically automation and unique features in both tools. So, what tool features advanced automation for the best price?

After in-depth research and testing, we’ll compare Mailchimp vs. Campaign Monitor based on the following criteria:

• Ease of use – How effortless is it to enroll with the email marketing tool and use it, regardless of your previous experience with email marketing platforms?
• Features – How feature-rich are these tools, and do they have a “unique” selling point? 
• Customer support responsiveness – How efficient and hands-on are they?
• Landing pages and templates – How easy is it to create and convert landing pages?
• Pricing – Who offers the best deal based on the available features?  

Additionally, we took the liberty and compared both Mailchimp and Campaign Monitor with GetResponse to fill in the blanks in the email marketing tools features.

TL;DR

Choose Mailchimp if:

• You need a simplified tool to create an email marketing campaign.
• You need to simplify marketing processes. 
• You need a responsive partner.
• You need a cost-effective platform with simple features.

Choose Campaign Monitor if:

• You need a simple drag and drop platform to build your campaign quickly.
• You need an email marketing tool with decent insights and analytics.
• You are an email marketer in a look for a clutter-free interface.

Choose GetResponse if:

• You are looking for a complete email marketing solution to set you up for the future.
• You are looking for a tool that supports your entire sales funnel – from landing pages, over lead magnets, popups, to webinars, marketing automation, and robust email marketing features.
• You need a cost-effective platform with advanced features offered at all levels.
• You’re looking to create webinars.
• You need a highly customizable landing page builder.
• You are looking for complete automation for sales funnels.

Start a free 30-day trial of GetResponse now. No credit card required.

If you are in a rush, we’ve got you! Here’s a quick comparison table of the features and prices of these three email marketing tools.

Curious to learn more? Read ahead.

Table Of Contents

Mailchimp – small business’ and start-ups’ choice

Mailchimp is one of the most popular email marketing platforms in the world. Founded in 2001, they primarily support SMBs by offering uniquely sophisticated yet straightforward email marketing solutions, including automated messages, landing pages, and ad campaigns.

Of course, there’s a lot to mention, but we’ll try to keep this short and actionable.

Reasons to opt for Mailchimp

• Clean interface – Navigation throughout the platform is as simple as their template and landing pages builder. 
• Free plan – It is an excellent option to minimize expenses right from the start.
• Integration with popular apps – Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and many other apps are supported by Mailchimp. As a result, it is more convenient to share your content and promote your business while gaining trust amongst your customers.
• Customer support – Available 24/7 support.

 What we don’t like in Mailchimp

• Automations are not intuitive – Without the workflow editor to manage your actions in automation, everyone will feel clumsy in a setup attempt.
• Affiliate marketing is not allowed –  If you are into affiliate marketing, you should stay away as the Terms of use prohibit this action.
• Custom domain posting – Businesses that prefer their own tracking domain or are looking for powerful automation should look for alternatives.

Mailchimp pricing

Mailchimp offers four plans. The pricing is based on the list size and availability of features. 

Essentials plan is priced at $9/mo for up to 2000 contacts. However, this plan is intended for email sending only, and none of the advanced features are included. 

The Standard plan is an upgraded version of the Essentials plan, but if you want to utilize all the integrations, automation, and extensive contact lists, you will have to pay $299/mo.

Campaign Monitor – friendly interface for non-tech savvy users

Campaign Monitor’s UI and UX platform design is user-friendly. In addition, the interface allows easy navigation throughout the email marketing features making it ideal for beginners and new marketers without specialized tech skills or previous experience in email marketing. 

Reasons to Opt for Campaign Monitor

• Interface and Analytics – These are genuinely star features in Campaign Monitor. The interface is responsive and well designed to accommodate new users. Individual user’s stats on open email rate, a new subscription, and click throughout can be downloaded in PDF. This is suitable for sending reports to clients in a coherent form.
• Data segmentation – Campaign Monitor and GetResponse went above and beyond to disassemble complex data requirements into flexible data segmentation. As a result, emails can be sent to multiple lists and segments in a flash. 
• Easy to use – Clutter-free and stress-free platform opt for building templates with a simple drag and drop feature.

What we don’t like in Campaign Monitor:

• RSS-powered emails – This automation for email broadcast would be great if you could use available templates with it. Your campaign will be off-brand if you have to create a new template from scratch without copyrights for the images.
• Adding data to a subscriber journey is complex – To import new data and emails to an existing journey is either impossible, or the entire journey has to be paused. However, these functions are available in both Mailchimp and GetResponse with encouragement to add new data into existing journeys. 
• Email-only support – If you need additional support, you won’t get it in the Basic and Unlimited plan. Instead, you would have to purchase a Premier plan, which leads us to another considerable downside of Campaign Monitor – its price.
• Pricing – Basic plan pricing varies from $9 to $299 with no additional features that can be found in Unlimited or Premier plan.

Campaign Monitor Pricing

Campaign Monitor offers three paid plans.

For 1000 contacts, your monthly cost will vary from $29 for the Basic plan up to $149 for the Premier plan.

We already pointed out that the pricing is entirely based on the number of contacts, regardless of your chosen plan. 

Let’s see what happens with prices if you have 5000 contacts.

The Basic plan remains limited in features, but the price keeps going up.

Note: GetResponse Basic plan is $15/mo for 1000 contacts with unlimited automation templates, unlimited landing pages, unlimited lead funnels, Facebook and Google Ads, email marketing, autoresponders, and chats.

Campaign Monitor is not a cost-effective platform. The Basic plan for 1000 contacts is $29/mo for an unlimited image gallery, marketing automation for your list, and email marketing.

Now we know the pros and cons of Mailchimp and Campaign Monitor. To further analyze and determine the winner in this duel, let’s dive deeper to see what all the fuss is about. 

Mailchimp vs. Campaign Monitor: Face to Face

Mailchimp vs. Campaign Monitor: Template and Landing Page builder

Both of the email marketing tools take pride in their simple,drag-and-drop template builder. 

We wanted to create a couple of different templates and landing pages in Campaign Monitor for our imaginary Pet Store and Marketing and Advertising agency.

We couldn’t find pre-built templates for these, but we selected a random template to rebuild it.

Integration with Unsplash is excellent. The image quality and versatility should be sufficient for most businesses.

However, Unsplash is a free image gallery available off the platform. Campaign Monitor offers simple file upload, so you could use the images anyways. What would be fascinating is to integrate with otherwise unavailable image galleries.

On the other hand, we wanted to create a template for a Shoe store in Mailchimp.

Adding new boxes for different purposes, such as logo box, image box, product description box, was very easy.

Their Creative assistant didn’t do much for us. Images had to be uploaded from our device. The only available visual content was Giphy.

It’s hard to name the winner in a template and landing pages builder category because both are limited in pre-build options.

Campaign Monitor gets a slight advantage due to the integration with Unsplash. 

Note: If you are looking for a platform that integrates with photo galleries, has more to offer in its template base for the entire sales funnel, and has complete marketing automation choose GetResponse.

In addition to the simple drag and drop feature, GetResponse’s fast interface and easy setup for email automation will get your email marketing campaign ready in minutes.

The visual aspect of every email campaign is one of the first most important steps, but what happens after will determine your success rates. To sell your products or services, you will need a partner who will support you along your entire journey.

GetResponse is an all-in-one email marketing Software packed with all necessary features for a complete sales funnel:

• Signup forms to capture leads
• Email marketing solution to nurture and retain leads
• Paid ads creator to increase traffic
• Abandoned cart emails/upsells
• Popups
• Everything you need to gain new customers 

Test GetResponse for 30 days, for free. No credit card required.

Mailchimp vs. Campaign Monitor: Email marketing features

Mailchimp and Campaign Monitor are primarily email marketing platforms. For a successful campaign, you will need more than simple drag and drop design tools. Email automation, building customer journeys, and A/B testing should ensure deliverability, help you gain trust with your customers, and provide precise analytics.

So, which is better?

Customers journey creator

To build customers’ journey with Mailchimp, you can start from scratch or explore pre-built options.

Unfortunately, this advanced automation is only available for purchased plans.

Campaign Monitor’s pre-built journey selection is relatively narrow. Anniversary offers, first purchase feedback, and educational series are your only choices next to welcoming emails.

The process of creating a customer’s journey on both platforms appears convoluted; these are available only in purchased plans.

The customer’s journey creator feature is available on other platforms with an ease of use generator, plus paid ad campaigns are included in the Standard package.

Note: GetResponse assists you with the customer journey map by running paid ad campaigns. The engine will collect your customers’ emails and nurture them with messages and automated replies based on specific triggers and actions they take.

Email preview

We would vote on Campaign Monitor’s simple preview test, but unfortunately, this is only available for Premier and Unlimited packages. If you are on the Basic package, you won’t be able to run preview for design and spam tests. 

On the other hand, Mailchimp email preview takes too many steps, but there are options to run preview tests on different devices and software. 

Note: If you are looking for a simple preview for your emails and messages, GetResponse’s Email Creator will run an Inbox preview test in just a few clicks.

Email automations

Mailchimp’s automation is only available in purchased plans. The only available automation in the free plan is the Single email automation. 

Campaign Monitor is a less robust and better-integrated tool for email marketing automation. However, email previews, customer journey builder, and other advanced features are limited or non-existent in the basic package.

In addition, the automation for email broadcast is a practically useless feature because otherwise available templates can’t be used for RSS-powered emails.

If we had to name the winner in this category, Campaign Monitor performed better in email deliverability, the visual aspect of forms, and welcoming emails.

Note: If you are looking into advanced analytics, a rich image gallery to design emails, forms, popups, newsletters, and shoppable emails, GetResponse is by far the better tool.

First of all, advanced features such as unlimited lead funnels, a sales funnel, unlimited automation templates, autoresponders, and email marketing automation are included in the Basic package.

Second, you can increase your revenue by connecting your online shop to your email to add products.

Third, you can boost related product recommendations to reverse abandoned carts.

And fourth, Integrations with apps, specifically with Facebook ads, will additionally engage customers.

Mailchimp vs. Campaign Monitor: Customer support

In this category, we have an obvious winner. Mailchimp offers 24/7 email and self-service customer support, while Campaign Monitor only provides support during working hours. For users in different time zones, this is time-consuming.

Note: If you require 24/7 customer support in languages other than English, GetResponse offers email support in eight languages. Live Chat with experts is also available, just like their help center. 

Mailchimp vs. Campaign Monitor: Pricing

Again, hands down to Mailchimp for the free plan and better pricing for more extensive lists. 

By saying this, don’t forget that both email marketing tool’s features are limited at lower levels.

Note: GetResponse’s Basic plan is $15/mo for 1000 contacts with unlimited automation templates, unlimited landing pages, unlimited lead funnels, Facebook and Google Ads, email marketing, autoresponders, and chats. 

Mailchimp vs. Campaign Monitor: Analytics 

Campaign Monitor has a straightforward graphic layout for analytics. Campaign results can be downloaded in PDF form and used in direct communication with clients or business associates. 

Mailchimp analytics are also easily readable; however, we couldn’t call them advanced in any way. Therefore, to have an insight into detailed and comparative reports, you will have to upgrade to the Premium account.

If your business requires advanced analytics, we wouldn’t recommend any of these tools, considering that there are better-priced platforms with superb analytics.

Note: To help you understand your audience, GetResponse’s actionable data for precise email marketing offers advanced features with a real-time tracker for your campaign.

To precisely determine your clients’ device preference and CTRs rates, GetResponse assists you with comparing campaigns in a side-by-side view.

In addition, the engine will analyze email addresses from your list to detect addresses currently used by your customers.

Mailchimp vs. Campaign Monitor vs. GetResponse Scores

Mailchimp vs. Campaign Monitor vs. GetResponse. Which Is the Perfect Tool for You?

Go with Mailchimp if:

• Your small business needs a simple email marketing campaign and newsletter builder. 
• Your marketing and advertising company can benefit from integrations with other tools relevant to your newsletter services.
• Your software company needs inbound campaigns and a CRM solution. Mailchimp is an easy-to-use tool that promotes lifetime value for assigned customers.

Go with Campaign Monitor if:

• Your information technology and services company needs flexible data segmentation. Emails can be sent to multiple lists at once. This process is not supported in most platforms (GetResponse being an exception).
• Your startup needs a clutter-free interface to navigate your actions. Campaign Monitor is user-friendly, intuitive, and appealing to newbies in email marketing.

Go with GetResponse if:

• Your Midsize or Large company needs an all-in-one marketing solution to scale and grow.
• Your IT company needs cost-effective software with an extensive range of features and capabilities – from landing pages builder to complete sales funnels, PPC promotion, lead magnets, and complete marketing automation.
• You are an entrepreneur or a product owner in need of the finest inbound marketing software. GetResponse’s integration with Google analytics and exquisite automation for emails are the perfect combo for capturing and retaining leads.
• You are an author, teacher, artist, or coach looking into a simple platform to host webinars, either live or on-demand; look no further. GetResponse hits two birds with one stone; feel free to host a webinar and get complete email marketing software in a compact package.

Start a free 30-day trial of GetResponse. No credit card required.