Mailchimp Review 2025: Is It Still Worth It For Email Marketing?

Mailchimp Overview: What You Need to Know in 2025

Mailchimp started as a simple email newsletter service but has evolved into an all-in-one marketing platform. Since being acquired by Intuit in 2021 for $12 billion, the platform has undergone significant changes—some positive, others less so.

The platform now offers email marketing, automation, landing pages, social media management, and even a website builder. However, with these expanded features have come multiple price increases and limitations to the once-generous free plan.

Mailchimp Pros and Cons: The Quick Summary

Mailchimp Pricing: How Much Does It Really Cost?

Mailchimp’s pricing structure has changed significantly in recent years. The platform now offers four main plans, with costs increasing based on your contact count. Here’s what you need to know about Mailchimp’s current pricing:

Mailchimp also offers a Pay As You Go plan where you purchase email credits instead of a monthly subscription. This can be cost-effective for infrequent senders but lacks some features available in the subscription plans.

Key Email Marketing Features

Mailchimp offers a comprehensive set of email marketing tools that have evolved significantly over the years. Let’s examine the core features that make or break an email marketing platform:

Email Editor and Templates

Mailchimp offers two email editors: the Classic and the New Builder. The New Builder provides a more modern drag-and-drop experience with undo/redo functionality and better mobile responsiveness. The editor is intuitive and offers various content blocks including text, images, buttons, social media, and product recommendations.

The platform includes over 100 pre-designed templates, though many users find them somewhat dated compared to competitors. You can also code your own templates or import HTML if you need more customization options.

Automation Capabilities

Mailchimp’s automation features are centered around their Customer Journeys tool, which allows you to create automated email sequences triggered by specific actions. The workflow editor is visual and relatively easy to use, offering various triggers, conditions, and actions.

While the automation capabilities are solid, they’re not available on the free plan, and the pre-built journey templates are somewhat basic compared to specialized automation platforms. For simple to moderate automation needs, Mailchimp is sufficient, but power users might find it limiting.

Segmentation and Personalization

Mailchimp offers robust segmentation capabilities, allowing you to group subscribers based on demographics, behavior, engagement, and custom fields. The segment builder is intuitive and offers numerous conditions to create highly targeted groups.

Personalization is handled through merge tags, which let you insert dynamic content like first name, location, or custom field data. You can also use conditional content blocks to show different content to different segments within the same email.

One limitation is that Mailchimp’s lists (called “audiences”) are siloed, making it difficult to manage contacts across multiple lists without creating duplicates—which you’ll be charged for.

Additional Marketing Features

AI and Automation Tools

Mailchimp has been investing heavily in AI capabilities, offering several tools to streamline your marketing:

• Creative Assistant: Helps generate designs based on your brand colors and styles
• Content Optimizer: Provides suggestions to improve your email content and layout
• Subject Line Helper: Suggests effective subject lines based on your content
• Send Time Optimization: Determines the best time to send emails based on past engagement
• Predictive Segmentation: Identifies likely buyers and helps target them more effectively

Email Deliverability: Will Your Emails Reach the Inbox?

Email deliverability is crucial for any email marketing platform. Based on our tests and industry reports, Mailchimp’s deliverability rates are generally good but not exceptional. In recent years, some users have reported increased deliverability issues, particularly with promotional content.

Mailchimp provides standard authentication tools like SPF and DKIM to improve deliverability. They also enforce strict compliance policies and automatically suppress bounced addresses to maintain a good sender reputation.

One drawback is that Mailchimp doesn’t offer a built-in spam testing tool. Instead, they provide a Litmus-powered “Inbox Preview” feature that requires tokens (credits) to use, with 25 tokens included in paid plans.

Ease of Use: Is Mailchimp User-Friendly?

Mailchimp has traditionally been known for its user-friendly interface, but as the platform has expanded its feature set, the navigation has become somewhat more complex.

Interface and Navigation

The main dashboard provides a clean overview of your campaigns and performance metrics. Creating new campaigns is straightforward with the prominent “Create” button. However, some features like landing pages and certain settings can be difficult to find, often hidden in unexpected places in the menu structure.

Learning Curve

For basic email marketing tasks, Mailchimp remains relatively easy to learn. New users can quickly create and send simple campaigns. However, mastering more advanced features like complex automations, segmentation, and dynamic content requires more time and effort.

The platform provides extensive documentation and tutorials to help users navigate its features, which partially compensates for the occasionally confusing interface.

Integrations: Connecting Mailchimp to Your Tech Stack

One of Mailchimp’s strongest advantages is its extensive integration ecosystem. With over 300 direct integrations, you can connect Mailchimp to virtually any other platform you’re using.

Key Integrations

For integrations not directly supported, Mailchimp connects with Zapier, allowing you to link with thousands of additional applications without coding. This extensive integration capability makes Mailchimp a versatile choice for businesses using multiple platforms.

Customer Support: Getting Help When You Need It

Customer support is an area where Mailchimp falls short compared to many competitors. The level of support you receive depends heavily on which plan you’re on:

Mailchimp does offer an extensive knowledge base with tutorials, guides, and troubleshooting articles. There’s also an AI assistant that can help with basic queries. However, many users report frustration with the quality and speed of support, particularly on lower-tier plans.

Mailchimp vs Competitors: How Does It Compare?

To help you make an informed decision, let’s compare Mailchimp to some of its most popular alternatives:

Mailchimp vs MailerLite

MailerLite offers better value for money with unlimited email sends, a more generous free plan, and a simpler interface. It’s an excellent Mailchimp alternative, especially for small to medium-sized businesses looking for straightforward email marketing without the premium price tag.

Mailchimp vs ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is more expensive than Mailchimp but offers significantly more powerful automation, CRM, and segmentation capabilities. It’s better suited for businesses that need advanced marketing automation and sales integration.

Mailchimp vs Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)

Brevo offers a unique pricing model based on email volume rather than contact count, making it potentially much more cost-effective for businesses with large contact lists. It also includes SMS marketing and transactional emails at no extra cost.

Who Should Use Mailchimp in 2025?

Recommended For:

• Small businesses with modest contact lists who need an all-in-one marketing platform
• Existing Mailchimp users who are familiar with the platform and don’t want to migrate
• Businesses that need extensive integrations with other software and platforms
• Marketing teams that value Mailchimp’s AI-powered content creation tools
• Organizations that need basic email marketing plus website and landing page capabilities in one platform

Not Recommended For:

• Budget-conscious businesses looking for the best value in email marketing
• Companies with large contact lists due to Mailchimp’s pricing structure
• Businesses that need advanced automation capabilities without a steep learning curve
• Organizations that require responsive customer support without paying for premium plans
• E-commerce businesses that need specialized features (consider Omnisend instead)
• Creators and bloggers who need simple, affordable newsletter tools (consider Beehiiv instead)

Final Verdict: Is Mailchimp Worth It in 2025?

Mailchimp remains a solid email marketing platform with a comprehensive feature set, intuitive interface, and extensive integration options. For businesses with modest contact lists that need an all-in-one marketing solution, it can still be a good choice.

However, Mailchimp is no longer the clear market leader it once was. Multiple price increases, limitations to the free plan, and the peculiar way it counts contacts have eroded its value proposition. Meanwhile, competitors have caught up in features while offering more affordable pricing and better customer support.

For most businesses starting with email marketing in 2025, platforms like MailerLite, Brevo, or Moosend offer better value and comparable features. If you need advanced automation, ActiveCampaign is worth the investment. E-commerce businesses should consider Omnisend, while creators and newsletter publishers might prefer Beehiiv.