Intro
Unless you have been working on your business from the lost city of Atlantis you would’ve heard about Email Marketing. If not you can check out our guide to it.
Either way, Email Marketing is a rigorous channel. It requires all hands on the deck. If your perception of it is that an Email Marketer is a person who sits behind a desk copying and pasting text into Gmail and pressing the send button, you couldn’t be any far from the truth.
In order to successfully run an Email Campaign a lot of effort is required. From building forms and landing pages to segmentation and automation of contact lists in order to have perfect shot, there is far too much going on, and far too much to be done by a human.
“So Email Marketing is done by Aliens?”
Of course not, although I would love to see that, what I meant was to have things running around smoothly ESPs – Email Marketing Service Providers are used by the business. Today there are more than 200 options available in the market, but you don’t care about them, huh?
All you want is a fair comparison of MailChimp and ConvertKit. That’s alright, down below, we have put the two of the most popular ESPs against one another to see which one comes out at the top.
Let’s go…
Mailchimp: Lucid Branding
Before we delve deep into the attractive yellow company you should know one thing. MailChimp is all-in-one Marketing software. It is not confined to the boundaries of Email Marketing. So if your business goals are aligned with the vision of this powerful tool capable to do the heavy lifting, perhaps it won’t be a mistake to keep it in mind.
However, it is far too early, and we have a lot to dissect and discuss. Nonetheless, there is no denying, in spite of its extravagant promises to handle the ordeal of different sections of marketing, MailChimp is better known for electronic mail handling.
Founded more than 14 years ago MailChimp isn’t the new player on the scenes. Although, it is considered an ideal alternative for small-medium size businesses hoping to try Email Marketing.
ConvertKit: Meaning In Sobriety
Unlike the fancy monkey company that drives customers with aesthetics and functionality ConvertKit is a sober option in the playground. It is not anything more than Email Marketing software made to make connivance convergent.
So if you are a blogger with big dreams to transform your website into a media publisher or an owner of an e-commerce store with a spark in your eyes and glow in your heart ConvertKit being your choice wouldn’t be questionable. It is marketed to be for the amateurs of the Email Marketing industry (Something I don’t think is okay and they could do better). You won’t need to spend hours or days learning the platform. It’s all very easy.
Formed in 2015 ConvertKit has 25 member team around the globe working on the platform to ensure a high rate of satisfaction and deliverability.
Mailchimp Vs ConvertKit: Design over Simplicity?
If you have come across so far with us I’ll assume you are more than determined to make up your mind today. Hence I’ll make sure to remain as unbiased as I can be throughout the process.
Having used both of them I do have my opinions regarding the subject matter. For now, let’s put them aside and view them from an analytical sight free from judgments and friends of facts.
It’s time for MailChimp Vs ConvertKit!!!
Affordable Pricing – Tied
Let’s be honest the most inflectional factor for most of us is pricing. Unless you are with a big firm or are big firm budget might not be a thorn in your side, but for many it isn’t the same.
MailChimp\’s pricing policy is list-centric. In other words, it means they charge you for number of contacts in your list. So if you would have a person that happens to be in two lists MailChimp would consider it as a separate entity and the price would go up accordingly.
Now, this where I think it could’ve been better, or as we’ll see with ConvertKit (More Below). The redeeming factor is you have a forever-free plan. Surely it is limited in capacity, you are only allowed to have 2000 contacts and 10,000 email sends per month, for a beginner it is more than enough.
Apart from Forever Free plan, there is Essential and Standard plan too with both priced quite fine by industry standards (Essential – $10 and Standard – $15). There is also a Premium plan with a price starting at $300/month. Personally, I wouldn’t go for it, if I’d have a budget it is much better to go for commercial email marketing software.
For a long time, ConvertKit didn’t have a free plan. It is here now, it’s not much improvement. So what was happening was people were using MailChimp, to begin with and once they were reaching the limit there, they’d shift to ConvertKit.
However, if you’d compare based on pricing policy ConvertKit doesn’t charge extra on duplicate contacts regardless of segmentation. Its policy is more subscriber-based. Although in the grand scheme it might not be sufficient, on average ConvertKit does charge more than Mailchimp based on their different plans.
- 0-1k Subscriber – $29/month
- 1k-3k Subscriber – $49/month
- 3k-5k Subscriber – $79/ month
MailChimp seems to better option here.
Ease of Use – ConvertKit
Email Marketing is a nuanced channel. It requires automation, segmentation, testing, analysis, strategic planning, and whatnot. Hence it is always recommendable to remain in command and have a keen grasp of different technicalities.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t always happen, some ESPs are far too complicated to be used by a beginner or someone with little to no knowledge.
MailChimp – sadly – happens to be one of them.
To master the platform, the learning curve is quite steeper. There are far too many features that might not be needed by an amateur Email Marketer.
Even when we take into consideration the visual side of Yellow software it doesn’t hold up well. Despite the aesthetic aid, there is still a lot to learn. So when ConvertKit offers a solution not far from the tech-savvy nuance of MailChimp it makes sense for a beginner to have it as their first choice.
Yes, features are not at the same level, or might not be there at all, when you have just started I don’t think you’d need to need all of them.
The second round goes to ConvertKit
Better Features – MailChimp
By now you’d have developed enough understanding to know MailChimp has indeed more to offer. That doesn’t mean ConvertKit is not compatible, it is. It’s safe to say it’s just not on the same level.
How so you might ask?
Well, you can design designed Email bodies with MailChimp. This is something that is not possible with ConvertKit. Its sober philosophy to remain true to simplicity kind of takes it to ground here. Because all it has to offer in terms of Email content is a text-based model. Yes, you have the liberty to add images and stuff. Overall it might not be the same experience. It’s more like an old WordPress editor with improved UI.
And that’s not all.
MailChimp is also much better when it comes to A/B testing complete Email content, segmentation of contacts lists, creating landing pages and forms, modifying 100+ available templates based on different activities, using a drag-and-drop editor to maximize creative liberty, and integrating with other applications.
So ConvertKit doesn’t do all of that?
It does, ConvertKit can do a lot of it too. There are limitations to its ability even on paid campaigns. So if more is what you seek ConvertKit might not be the one for you.
MailChimp takes Round Three.
Landing Pages, Templates & Forms – MailChimp
Long gone are those days when you’d have to run after Dev to create and implement forms and landing pages to the website for you to begin working on Email Campaigns. Today with any other ESPs you get the functionality to do it all by yourself, and yes MailChimp and ConvertKit both offer the solution too.
But which one does better?
Well, MailChimp is known for its lucrative design and branding, so it is not a surprise with you get 100+ pre-made templates to work your way up to the professional-appearing body.
As for ConvertKit since it likes to be grounded, you get three options when designing an Email body: text-only, classic, and modern. While classic and modern do grant more freedom than text-only version formatting a copy in the ConvertKit does leave a whole lot to be desired.
Although, if ease is what you seek to have in your endeavors ConvertKit might be more suitable to your need. After all, it is much easier to create forms and landing pages on it than anywhere else. I have tried both, and yes both of them are perfectly capable to bring to life your vision. In MailChimp there is far too much complexity involved.
You get three different appearing editors for each activity. One for Landing Pages. One for Forms. One for Email Body. I don’t know why it is like this, it confused me so much, I had to go to YouTube to tell the difference and learn basics. I loved the basic idea of ConvertKit to have it all in one place and same manner.
Again, maybe your creative freedom might take a hit if your business isn’t reliant on heavy branding. Perhaps it is better to go for the easy option.
Likewise, ConvertKit allows you to host Landing Pages on your domain if you are WordPress User or have it on their domain. Whereas with MailChimp you’d have to pay $99/month to host the page.
ConvertKit seems a better option here.
Email Automation – ConvertKit
This right here is what ConvertKit is best known for in the Industry: Automation. Apart from providing simplicity with functionality if there is one thing they truly excel it is defiantly Email Automation.
Using its if-then-else logic you can easily set up distinct flows of operation for your Email Campaigns. There is almost little to no learning curve here. Everything is visualized.
You’d see how automation is working with a flowchart depicting different cases and how each one would lead to a different outcome. It’s kinda like mapping the whole thing on paper but instead, ConvertKit is doing all the heavy lifting on the backend to give meaning to that map.
MailChimp has also automation, and it is just as useful and relevant, it’s not easy to set it up there. On my first try, it took me good two hours to have a basic flow set up. Perhaps I am too dumb and you might learn quickly. Either way for anyone who doesn’t know a lot I wouldn’t prefer choosing MailChimp for automation. They have added the visual map as well, yes, it is still far too drenched with classic MailChimp complexities.
Or at least to begin with it.
A point: You would need paid plans for both ConvertKit and MailChimp to have Automation work for you. There is no way around it. It’s a premium feature for paid customers.
However, just because of its utter simplicity I’d go for ConvertKit here.
Reporting and Testing – MailChimp
If Email Automation is where ConvertKit shines the brightest in terms of reporting and testing there is no one better than MailChimp for small businesses.
It’s not on the same level as HubSpot CRM or Oracle Eloqua. MailChimp has a lot to show. If you are someone who loves to deal with data and make plans accordingly you have to have MailChimp.
Using it you can get the data about the following metrics quite easily:
- CTR
- Open rate
- Bounce Rate
- Geo Reports
- Domain Level Analysis (Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook)
- Industry Threshold Comparisons
- Clicks Maps
- Hourly Reports
- Social Stats
- Individual Campaign Level Analysis
Whereas if you would be on ConvertKit you’d still get the data about basic things like CTR and Open Rate it would not be much more expressed.
And you might have to work extra hard to even find the reports in the first place. ConvertKit just doesn’t seem to care for reporting. Or even tests. Unlike MailChimp which can easily A/B test the complete Email Body (Subject Line, Content, Subscriber Info, Visual Display on Different Devices) ConvertKit doesn’t have much to speak here.
You can A/B test subject lines, but that’s just about it, nothing else.
So yes, MailChimp is the better option here.
Email Deliverability – ConvertKit
To make your Email Campaign a success story you need to know about Email Deliverability. Of course, if you are an experienced Email Marketer you would know already. For someone who has just entered the Industry I’d suggest reading the following to get a better grasp on the subject matter:
1) What Is Domain Reputation In Email Marketing
2) What Is IP Reputation In Email Marketing
However, if you are already familiar with both of them you’d know Email Deliverability can influence the ROI of your campaign. Hence you should follow the best practices as well as have the ESPs that give you the best shot at reaching the client inbox.
So which one is better in terms of Email Deliverability? MailChimp or ConvertKit
Well, usually you would have to test to reach a cohesive conclusion, and I couldn’t do it. Our friends at EmailToolTester have and their results show:
- MailChimp has a Deliverability rate of 84%
- ConvertKit has a Deliverability rate of 86%
Since there isn’t a lot of difference here, you could have an equal chance with either of them. It feels fair to assume this round has been tied.
Support – ConvertKit
Problems can arise at any time. Be it technical issues or human errors leading to calamity. It happens. However, what separates great companies from good companies is their support in times of problems.
So which one of MailChimp or ConvertKit excels here?
Having used both I think it’s fair to say ConvertKit is the better option here. For starters, they don’t have any policy that makes reserve a special place for paid customers. You can go to their website and there are many places to reach a person on the other side of live chat.
Surely, that’s not proof of poor experience on MailChimp\’s end, they can be equally helpful. Their ‘phone calls for paid customers’ thing kind of annoyed me.
So yes, I’ll go on the record and say ConvertKit is better here, even if it means with a small margin.
Mailchimp Vs ConvertKit: Design and Simplicity!
Wow!
We truly did it!
We have reached the end.
In the beginning, I said I’d try my best to remain unbiased, so if you could excuse the last thing I’d be glad. Anyways, I think by now it\’s been more than clear to you where each ESPs stand.
MailChimp is more intuitive. It relies on design and functionality. Yes, it is not the premium tool for Email Marketing. It is safe to say ambition is surely there and perhaps someday maybe we would be discussing the possibility of it as such.
ConvertKit is a sober reality and a grounded experience. It doesn’t try to be more than what it is: Email Marketing Tool. You can open it, do your thing and close it. There is nothing eye-catching about it. However, there is everything in place to make it work for you.
At the end which one would be better rest with your current goals and business model? I’d like to conclude with friendly advice:
At the end of the day, both of them are just tools. They shouldn’t be decisive factors in how you proceed. Work on your skills and all of them would be the same to you…
Frequently Asked Questions – FAQ
- Which one is better MailChimp or ConvertKit?
Both. It depends on your need, budget, and business model. Since MailChimp is more than an Email Marketing tool you might get more features and reporting prowess with it. For a beginner who has just started out, both of them work just fine and can get the job done.
- Who is ConvertKit good for?
Anyone who has just started to lean towards Email Marketing. It offers everything one might need for a beginning, and it is pretty easy to use and navigate, so a plus point.
- What is the best Email Marketing Tool?
That\’s an insane question, it is as if to ask \’Which Month is the best.\’ Because there is no objective THE BEST EMAIL MARKETING TOOL. Every tool has something unique to offer. ConvertKit is excellent for automation. MailChimp loves to make everything pretty. So what you should ask is which Email Marketing tool is the best for your business.
- Is MailChimp worth paying for?
Yes. MailChimp is 100% worth paying for if you know what you are doing. It offers more than Email Marketing functionality. It is a complete Marketing Tool to manage each aspect of the nitty-gritty business.
- Can I use ConvertKit without a website?
You can but it might be limited in its ability. In order to win the Email Marketing game you should have a place to capture leads/customers and usually, a website is a pretty good place to do that, but I suppose you can use Facebook Ads or Social Media Marketing to do that…