I bet you do..!! It’s a known fact that when it comes to email marketing, our conventional mind would picture Mailchimp as the staple option. I mean, why wouldn’t you? Mailchimp was founded way back in 2001 and since then, it has managed to acquire more than 20 million global customers. Not only it has the most experience in the field of email marketing but it also has a good set of features. But it doesn’t mean that it is the best. Other marketing suites like Sendinblue are blazing its way through to the top as well and catching a lot of attention from other email marketing services users. But then again, how good it is in comparison to Mailchimp. To answer this question and several others, I am going to compare Sendinblue vs Mailchimp and help you figure out which among the two software will be best for your marketing needs. Here’s an overview of the key comparison points –
Introducing Sendinblue & Mailchimp
To give this Mailchimp vs Sendinblue comparison article a fitting start, allow me to introduce you to both the software. I know that you are already familiar with both of them. After all, you’ve come to this blog post for a reason. But it doesn’t hurt to know what’s new with both the software.
What Is Sendinblue?
Sendinblue is a European company that started in 2007 and headquartered in Paris, France. Since its launch, it has been catering to more than 90,000 users, spread across 160 countries. Some of the notable clients of Sendinblue include Maison Berger Paris, Le Figaro, Tissot, CodeInWP, etc. It has grown from just an email marketing platform to a full-fledged marketing suite. Speaking in simpler terms, Sendinblue now offers several other marketing features like SMS marketing, CRM, live chat, landing page builder, Facebook ads, etc. right from a single dashboard. And, we all know how awesome it is when it comes to email marketing and sending transactional emails via its SMTP servers.
What Is Mailchimp?
Arguably, when it comes to email marketing, Mailchimp has dominated this sector for more than a decade now. As said earlier, it was founded in 2001 and based out of Atlanta, Georgia, USA. As time progressed, Mailchimp has also grown from an email marketing software to an all-in-one marketing suite. The set of new marketing modules include social media posting & advertising, landing page builder, CRM, etc. And, because of its good reputation in the digital world, it has managed to attract a diverse customer base that comprises startups, small to medium-sized businesses, eCommerce, bloggers, and more. To date, Mailchimp claims to cater to almost 20 million customers. To date, Mailchimp claims to cater to almost 20 million customers. That being said, I can clearly understand your confusion to choose the best among Sendinblue vs Mailchimp. I mean, at the one end you have a software that has the most experience in email marketing. And, on the other hand, you have a relatively new suite that is catching a lot of attention in recent times. Don’t worry, after reading this comparison review of both the software, you’ll be able to decide which one is ideal for you.
Sendinblue Vs MailChimp Free Plan: Who Offers More
If I would like to try a new software, instead of directly purchasing its premium plans, I would rather sign up on its free plan to evaluate its working, efficiency, and overall value. Similarly, it would be logical to compare the free plan package value of Sendinblue and Mailchimp. Believe it or not, one of the prime reasons behind their respective high conversion rate is that both the service offers a generous free plan. Therefore, let’s not waste any time and get right in the free plan comparison…
Quick Comparison Between The Forever Free Plan
Sendinblue Free Plan
Sendinblue allows you to kick start your marketing efforts by offering you more than enough features and values in its free plan. To your surprise, Sendinblue enables you to send 9,000 emails in a month for free but with 300 emails/day sending limits. However, when it comes to the number of subscribers or contacts, Sendinblue leaves no stones unturned and allows you to import unlimited contacts. The Sendinblue pricing model is built on the number of emails sent rather than the number of contacts imported. In addition to this, the Sendinblue free plan also grants you access to basic features like –
Drag & drop editorBulk email sending and schedulingEmail list managementRSS to email newsletter sendingSign up forms
Apart from these basic amenities, Sendinblue also includes a plethora of advanced features and modules too –
CRM (managed unlimited contacts)Transactional emailing via SMTP serversLive chat widgetMarketing automation with custom workflows (for 2,000 contacts only)Advanced contact segmentation70+ readymade email templates
For now, I have just mentioned them so that you can get an idea of the amount of value available in the free plan of Sendinblue. I’ll discuss them in detail as we move along.
Mailchimp Free Plan
I think you’d believe me when I’d say that all the new businesses, startups, new bloggers, etc. opt for Mailchimp for their initial marketing strategy. All thanks to its set of features and most importantly to its free plan. Just like Sendinblue, Mailchimp has a similar free email sending quota of 10,000 emails in a month. And, a higher daily sending limit of 2,000 emails/day. However, the prime distinguishable factor in Mailchimp vs Sendinblue free plan is that Mailchimp allows only 2,000 contacts to import. As you can tell by now, the Mailchimp pricing model is based on the number of contacts imported or added. And, alarmingly, if you have the same contact in two different email lists, it will be counted as 2 contacts. On the other hand, you don’t have to worry about this kind of restriction in Sendinblue as it can import and manage unlimited contacts. Nevertheless, the 2,000 contacts limit in the free plan is more than enough when used with Mailchimp’s other features –
Drag & drop visual editor5 readymade email templatesEditable sign-up formsLanding page builderFacebook & Instagram adsCRMBasic contacts segmentation
At the first look, it may seem that Mailchimp offers more features but as you grow, these features become unusable due to its restrictions. If you haven’t noticed it yet, Mailchimp does not have an HTML custom code email editor. To further decrease the value, Mailchimp only provides 5 pre-built templates. When it comes to marketing automation, Mailchimp restricts you to use only one-click basic automation. You know the ones that send an email on someone’s birthday. Moreover, the CRM will only allow you to manage 2,000 contacts in the free plan. If you can work with certain restrictions, MailChimp offers more features than Sendinblue.
Free Plan Package Value Verdict
While Mailchimp offers a lot more features, Sendinblue does not impose any kinds of restrictions on its features. To me, Sendinblue is a clear winner..!! The reason being that if you are just starting out, you may need a lot more time to invest in the premium plans despite your contact growth. Sendinblue’s forever free plan allows you to take your time, set your business feet firmly, and then subscribe to its premium plans. On the other hand, Mailchimp prompts you to upgrade to its premium plans as soon as you cross your contacts limit. Moreover, if you want to utilize some of its advanced features, you’d have to upgrade nonetheless.
Mailchimp vs Sendinblue – Premium Features Comparison
Since both the software are built around the email marketing module, there are plenty of common features. And, obviously, there are some different sets of features too that make them unique. Hence, it would be illogical to skip the comparison of features between Sendinblue and Mailchimp. To start things off, let’s compare –
1. Drag & Drop Email Builder
The essence of email marketing services heavily relies on how easily you can create beautiful email templates. To facilitate you with this email creation process, both the software offers a sleek email editor that works on the principle of dragging and dropping email blocks in the template. This, for sure, negates you from getting tangled in the codes (HTML & CSS) for designing.
Sendinblue’s Email Editor
When it comes to drag & drop email designing, Sendinblue offers one of the easiest and fluent builders in the email marketing sector. The builder is divided into three sections –
Email blocks/elements libraryLive editor or preview areaBlock or element editor
The idea behind this builder is simple. Just select the email block that you need, drag & drop it at the required position in your template. You can further customize all the blocks such as font size, color, style, etc. by clicking on the respective block. The corresponding block settings will be either available at the live editor itself or at the extreme right hand side column. Once you are happy with the email template design, you can Save and move to the email scheduling step. Apart from the drag & drop email builder, Sendinblue also provides a couple of email editing options i.e. Rich Text Editor and Custom Code Editor. The best part of Sendinblue when it comes to email designing is that it provides 70+ readymade email templates for free. So if you are lacking email designing ideas or if you do not want to waste time designing email from scratch, you can use the pre-built templates. With that being said, let’s explore the email designer of Mailchimp.
Mailchimp’s Email Editor
Mailchimp on the other hand also provides a drag and drop email builder that is divided into two sections –
Live preview or editorElements customizer and global settings
Unlike Sendinblue’s three-column email editor layout, Mailchimp is using the two-column layout. This means that the first column is dedicated to the live editing and previewing while the second column is used for customizing, adding text, changing font style, etc. Keeping the same technique, Mailchimp’s individual blocks can be edited by clicking on it. As soon as you click on the respective block, the right-hand side section automatically transforms into a customizer. Moreover, if you don’t want to use the drag & drop editor, Mailchimp also offers similar email editors like Sendinblue. They are –
Plain text editorCustom code editor
Lastly, if we are talking about the readymade email templates, Mailchimp only offers 5 email template layouts in the free version. Although, Mailchimp compensates for this by providing several themes according to email niche or category.
Verdict For Email Editor
For the drag & drop builder, I would honestly say that it’s a tie between Sendinblue and Mailchimp. At one end, you have Sendinblue whose usability is better and on the other hand, using Mailchimp’s editor is much easier. Although, if we are talking about readymade email templates, Sendinblue is an obvious winner. All thanks to its 70+ email templates library.
2. Contact Management & Segmentation
The second core building block of email marketing software is email list management. Not only the software should provide multiple ways to import/add contacts but it should also make it easy for you to manage them. Luckily, both the software offers all such features…
Sendinblue’s List Management & Segmentation
To import contacts into your Sendinblue account, the software allows you to either copy-paste your contacts’ data or import it via .CSV, .TXT, .XLSV files. The best part – you get to import unlimited contacts even in the free plan..!! Moving forward, the software provides a sleek interface for contact management. As soon as you open the Contact module, you will get a complete dashboard of all the contacts. You can narrow it down on the basis of email lists as well. Or you can view the email lists altogether.
If you want to know more about each of the contact then simply click the email address and Sendinblue will provide all its corresponding details. Lastly, Sendinblue also enables you to create advanced subscriber segmentation rules. The rules can be as simple as creating a segmentation from the last campaign unopened email or anything complex.
Mailchimp’s List Management & Segmentation
Mailchimp takes a little bit of a different approach by granting you access to the contact dashboard. This dashboard shows all the recent updates, changes, and growth in your overall contacts count. In addition to this, you will also have the flexibility to view all of your contacts in a single screen. But before you get to explore all your contacts, Mailchimp also allows you to import contacts. Just like Sendinblue, Mailchimp offers the option to import via file upload or through copy-paste. You should know that Mailchimp only allows you to import up to 2,000 contacts in the free plan. If you exceed this limit, you’d have to upgrade to its premium plans to continue using the software. At last, Mailchimp permits you to add tags to your contacts. But the major differentiating factor between Sendinblue & Mailchimp (in terms of segmentation) is that Mailchimp only allows basic segmentation in its free plan. And, by basic, I mean that you can segment your contacts on the basis of name, gender, email activity, etc.
Verdict For List Management & Segmentation
For the email list management section, I can agree that both the software provides identical features and similar usability. But when it comes to segmentation, Sendinblue steals the show as it facilitates advanced segmentation while Mailchimp does not.
3. Sign Up Forms
To replenish your email lists, both the software allows you to easily create and embed them on your website. Since sign up form is directly related to the contacts feature, both the software has listed it as a sub-feature in the Contacts settings.
Sendinblue’s Sign Up Form Builder
The sign-up form builder in Sendinblue works on the same principle as the email builder – drag & drop editing. Unlike the majority of email marketing services, Sendinblue provides only one readymade sign up form template. But it is fully customizable and editable. Moreover, since Sendinblue is a European company, it takes privacy very seriously. Hence it provides a GDPR label/form element so that your subscribers (EU-based) know that their data is kept safe. Later on, Sendinblue gives you different choices to form embedding. You can also use it as a pop-up.
Mailchimp’s Sign Up Form Builder
Mailchimp on the other hand elevates the sign-up form creation and embedding process better than Sendinblue. It allows you to embed it normally, as a pop-up, etc. In addition to this, Mailchimp also permits you to use the Facebook form (for your FB page) and Landing page forms to collect leads. Nevertheless, the sign-up form editing interface is the same as that of Sendinblue but with a few more form blocks.
Verdict For Sign Up Forms
This time, I feel that Mailchimp offers better sign up form features and embedding options. Although, the availability of the GDPR block in Sendinblue sign-up forms should not go unnoticed.
4. Marketing Automation
Doing business on digital platforms has taken a new turn. A few years earlier, bulk emailing or email blasts brought a lot of new sales. But it soon became obsolete as ISPs started classifying this as spam. Moreover, most often such situations could arise where you’d have to send similar email campaigns to different contacts. Either at a different time or after they perform certain actions. Doing this manually was too tedious. Therefore, the concept of marketing automation was introduced. Marketing automation allows you to send a series of emails based on your subscriber’s actions. All of this is fully automated. And, because of this, it soon became the basic necessity in email marketing software. To your surprise, both Sendinblue and Mailchimp provide automation features but in a completely different way.
Sendinblue’s Automation & Workflows
Believe it or not, Sendinblue offers one of the best and highly advanced marketing automation modules in the email marketing industry. The automation is built by creating workflows. Yes, you’ve guessed it right..!! You’d have to start with an entry point, connect actions using workflows, and lastly, choose an endpoint. To get things started, Sendinblue allows you to create automation for –
EngagementTrafficRevenueBuilding relations
And, if you have some other needs, you can always create a custom automation. There are plenty of readymade automation templates with different goals available for you to choose from. As always, you can create highly complex and elaborate custom workflows as well.
Mailchimp’s Automation & Workflows
Now, when we head towards Mailchimp, we may face a bit of a disappointment as Mailchimp only provides one-click, basic automation. Although, just like Sendinblue’s automation, Mailchimp also provides a set of pre-built automation templates. But they are extremely basic. Some of them include sending emails to subscribers on their birthday, cart abandonment, etc.
Verdict For Automation
Without any doubt, I would consider Sendinblue’s marketing automation to be superior to Mailchimp. Not only do you have complete flexibility to create complex workflows but you also get a lot of readymade templates to speed up your automation process.
5. Reporting & Analytics
In email marketing, it is very important to gauge your performance regularly. If you are a hardcore marketer, you would do it after every campaign. After all, we must know what’s working and what’s not working for us. Also, knowing how many sales a single campaign brings is important. That’s why both the software provides an in-depth analytics and reporting section.
Sendinblue’s Reporting
The best characteristic of Sendinblue is that it provides reporting for campaigns as well as for a particular time period. If a particular time frame is chosen, you’d get to know how many emails you’ve sent, how many were clicked, how many bounced, and how many subscribers have unsubscribed you. You could very well notice that all the statistics are graphically represented with different colors assigned to different metrics. Moreover, Sendinblue also handles logs of all the email activities.
Mailchimp’s Reporting
In the case of Mailchimp, it only provides campaign-wise reports. Don’t be mistaken as this isn’t a simple report. Rather, Mailchimp provides all kinds of insights such as – Basic statistics – Campaign Benchmarking – And, also 24-hour performance – That’s not all..!! Mailchimp will also educate you about the top links that have been clicked in your campaign along with open based on geographic locations.
Verdict For Reporting & Analytics
I would have to go with Mailchimp in this comparison factor. Simply because it offers far more elaborate reports than Sendinblue. That being said, Sendinblue’s reporting isn’t bad either. It’s just that you get to know more about your performance in Mailchimp.
6. Similar Features But With Different Usability
Sendinblue and Mailchimp, both being complete marketing suites for all kinds of businesses offer some similar features as well. All the similar features with the same usability have been discussed and compared by now. But there are some similar features that either provide different usability or access rights, altogether.
SMTP Servers – Sendinblue offers an SMTP server that is inclusive of your plan package. Meaning, you don’t have to pay anything extra other than the chosen plan. While in the case of Mailchimp, its SMTP server is called Mandrill and it is available as an add-on at the price of $20/month for 25K emails/month.CRM – Sendinblue provides a dedicated CRM module that allows you to import, manage, and communicate with your leads. On the other hand, there is no separate CRM module available in Mailchimp. Rather, Mailchimp wants you to consider and use it as a CRM.SMS Marketing – Within Sendinblue, you can carry out SMS marketing campaigns as well. But in Mailchimp, you’d have to rely on an external Text Marketing plugin.Social Media Ads – Due to the recent development, Sendinblue now enables you to launch a Facebook ad campaign from your dashboard. Similarly, Mailchimp also allows this but in a better way. Mailchimp facilitates Facebook and Instagram ad creation along with social media posting.
Sendinblue vs Mailchimp – Deliverability Comparison
In all honesty, comparing the deliverability of both the software is difficult for us. We neither have the right tools & testing environment or a respectable sample size to perform the tests. Therefore, we chose to follow the February 2020 deliverability report by EmailToolTester for Sendinblue & Mailchimp. The team behind emailtooltester.com performs the deliverability tests for all the major email marketing services on a bi-annual basis. Here’s an overview of the deliverability report for –
Email Deliverability Of Sendinblue
Overall Deliverability Rate – 86.7%Primary Inbox – 81.3%Spam – 11.4%Undelivered – 1.9%Sender Score – 94.3%
Email Deliverability Of Mailchimp
Overall Deliverability Rate – 87.7%Primary Inbox – 79.5%Spam – 11.1%Undelivered – 1%Sender Score – 97.7%
With the given statistics, it’s safe to say that both Sendinblue and Mailchimp have similar deliverability. Although one must not ignore the statistical fact, Sendinblue will deliver your emails right to the subscriber’s primary inbox better than Mailchimp.
Sendinblue vs MailChimp – Pricing Comparison
We have come down to the final and the most important factor for comparison – pricing. Before we go any further, you should know that Sendinblue charges you on the basis of the number of emails sent. While Mailchimp charges you on the number of contacts imported and also on the number of emails sent. This makes the side-by-side comparison even harder. Nevertheless, I will try to paint a clearer picture of both the software.
Free Plan
As we have discussed earlier, Sendinblue allows you to send 9,000 emails in a month with a 300 email/day sending limit. Know that there is no limit on the number of subscribers i.e. you can import unlimited contacts in any plan. While Mailchimp allows you to import/add only 2,000 contacts and send them 10,000 emails in a month.
Subscription Plans Of Sendinblue
Sendinblue provides three subscription plans out of which the starting two plans are extremely flexible. Meaning, you can decide the number of emails you’d want to send in a month. The differentiating factor among these two plans would also be a set of features.
Lite – This plan starts at $25/month for 10,000 emails in a month. In addition to this, this plan also provides custom branding, advanced statistics, A/B testing, etc.$25/month for 10,000 emails/month$39/month for 20,000 emails/month$54/month for 40,000 emails/month$69/month for 60,000 emails/month$99/month for 100,000 emails/monthPremium – If you either have higher email needs or require advanced features like landing page builder, Facebook ads, marketing automation, retargeting ads, etc. then you can sign up on this plan.$65/month for 20,000 emails/month$79/month for 40,000 emails/month$94/month for 60,000 emails/month$124/month for 100,000 emails/month$169/month for 150,000 emails/month$229/month for 250,000 emails/month $379/month for 500,000 emails/month$449/month for 750,000 emails/month$599/month for 1,000,000 emails/monthEnterprise – If you want to send 1M+ emails in a month and require other advanced features, you’d have to then contact the Sendinblue team for custom pricing.
Subscription Plans Of Mailchimp
Just like Sendinblue, Mailchimp also provides 3 subscription plans and each of them is very flexible. Although one alarming thing to notice here is that if you are on the free plan tier and as soon as you cross the 2,000 contacts threshold, you would have to upgrade to a $30.99/month plan (due to 2,000+ subscribers). While the first plan starts at $9.99/month. Nevertheless, here’s how MailChimp pricing looks –
Essentials – This plan is applicable for up to 50,000 contacts and a maximum of 500,000 monthly email sends. Other features available in this plan are custom branding, A/B testing, etc.$10.41/month for 500 contacts$31.08/month for 2,500 contacts$133.80/month for 15,000 contacts$229.75/month for 30,000 contacts$270/month for 50,000 contactsStandard – Similarly, you can add up to 100,000 contacts and send up to 1.2 million emails in a month. You’d also unlock advanced features like behavioral targeting, dynamic content, send-time optimization, etc.$15.54/month for 500 contacts$164.88/month for 15,000 contacts$263/month for 30,000 contacts$418.96/month for 75,000 contacts$520.32/month for 100,000 contactsPremium – For 200,000 contacts+ and 3M+ email sending in a month, you can opt for this plan. Additional features available in this plan are advanced segmentation, multivariate testing, unlimited seats, etc.$310.84/month for 10,000 contacts$621.68/month for 50,000 contacts$729.80/month for 100,000 contacts$932.52/month for 150,000 contacts$1,142/month for 200,000 contacts
Pricing Verdict
Clearly, you can see that Mailchimp is significantly more expensive than Sendinblue. You should also be able to see that as your needs increase, the monthly expense increases exponentially in the case of Mailchimp. So if you have medium to high emailing needs, Sendinblue is the cheaper option.
Final Verdict
Now that we have compared Sendinblue vs Mailchimp in a very detailed manner, I hope you would be able to see that Sendinblue is a much better option. If this comparison was made a few years ago, Mailchimp would have won very easily. But with the recent updates and introduction of new features, Sendinblue is all set to dethrone Mailchimp as the best email marketing service. I hope that this comparison guide on Sendinblue & Mailchimp has provided you enough insights for you to choose the best among them. Lastly, if you have any queries, feel free to drop them in the comments section.
Sendinblue vs SendGridSendinblue Integration With Elementor Forms
