Mailchimp and ConvertKit are two of the most popular email marketing platforms on the planet. Both are designed with small businesses and creators in mind, both offer free plans, and both are genuinely good at what they do. So how do you choose between them?
We've spent time using both platforms extensively, and in this guide we'll give you an honest, side-by-side comparison so you can pick the one that actually fits your needs — not just the one with the flashiest marketing page.
Choose Mailchimp if you want the most design flexibility and a feature-rich platform. Choose ConvertKit if you're a creator, sell digital products, or want the simplest possible automation experience.
Pricing: How They Compare
Both platforms offer free plans, but the details matter:
Mailchimp Pricing
- Free: Up to 500 contacts, 1,000 emails/month. Basic templates and single-step automations.
- Standard ($13/mo): Up to 500 contacts, 10,000 emails/month. Multi-step automations and advanced segmentation.
- Premium ($75/mo): Advanced features, multivariate testing, and priority support.
ConvertKit Pricing
- Free: Up to 500 subscribers, unlimited broadcasts. No automation sequences on this tier.
- Creator ($9/mo): Up to 500 subscribers, unlimited automation sequences, and custom domains.
- Creator Pro ($29/mo): Advanced features including newsletter referral programs and subscriber scoring.
On price alone, ConvertKit's Creator plan is noticeably cheaper than Mailchimp's Standard plan for the same list size. But the real question is whether the features at each tier match what you actually need.
Ease of Use
This is where the two platforms start to feel noticeably different from each other.
Mailchimp's Interface
Mailchimp's drag-and-drop email builder is powerful and gives you a lot of creative control. You can add images, text blocks, buttons, and even custom HTML with ease. The dashboard also shows you a lot of data upfront — open rates, click rates, and audience insights are right there when you log in.
The trade-off is that all that power can feel a little overwhelming at first. If you're not sure where to start, it's easy to get lost in the options. Mailchimp has good documentation, but the sheer number of features means there's always something new to learn.
ConvertKit's Interface
ConvertKit takes a deliberately minimal approach. The email editor is simpler — you're working with clean, text-focused templates rather than pixel-perfect design tools. For most small businesses, this is actually a feature, not a bug. Your subscribers care about what you say, not whether your email has a fancy header image.
The automation builder is where ConvertKit really shines. It uses a visual flowchart-style interface that makes it genuinely easy to see how your emails connect. You can map out an entire onboarding sequence or sales funnel in about 15 minutes.
Templates and Design
If visual design matters to you, Mailchimp wins this category. It has hundreds of templates across dozens of categories, and the editor gives you fine-grained control over colors, fonts, spacing, and layout. Your emails can look genuinely polished and branded.
ConvertKit's templates are more limited in number and design complexity. They lean toward clean, minimal aesthetics — which works beautifully for newsletters and content-driven emails. But if you need something more visually elaborate, you might feel constrained.
Automation: The Real Differentiator
Automation is where email marketing gets genuinely powerful — and where these two platforms take very different approaches.
Mailchimp's automations are robust but can feel clunky to set up. You can create multi-step sequences triggered by actions like subscribing, clicking a link, or making a purchase. The logic is there, but building complex flows requires some patience and familiarity with the platform.
ConvertKit's automations are visual and intuitive. You literally drag and drop conditions and actions onto a canvas and connect them with lines. It's arguably the best automation builder in the industry for people who aren't technical. If you want to create a welcome series, a nurture sequence, or a sales funnel, ConvertKit makes it feel almost effortless.
List Management and Segmentation
Mailchimp uses a traditional list-based approach — you create separate lists for different groups of people. This works fine for simple setups, but if you want to send the same subscriber different content based on their interests, you can end up with duplicate contacts across multiple lists, which gets messy fast.
ConvertKit uses tags instead of lists. Every subscriber is in one place, and you apply tags to them based on their behavior or interests. Want to send a specific email only to people who clicked on a particular link? Just tag them and filter by that tag. It's a much cleaner system for growing businesses.
Integrations and Ecosystem
Both platforms integrate with the tools you're probably already using, but they differ in breadth and depth.
Mailchimp has one of the largest integration ecosystems in the email marketing space. It connects natively with Shopify, WooCommerce, Squarespace, WordPress, and hundreds of other tools. If you run an e-commerce store or use a popular website builder, there's a good chance Mailchimp already has a direct integration ready to go. It also has a robust API for custom integrations if you ever need them.
ConvertKit covers the essentials well — it integrates with popular tools like Teachable, Kajabi, Shopify, and most major website builders. However, its integration library is smaller than Mailchimp's. For most creators and small businesses, this isn't a problem. But if you rely on niche or specialized software, you may need to check whether ConvertKit supports it before committing.
Customer Support: When Things Go Wrong
Every platform has issues from time to time. What matters is how quickly and effectively they help you when something goes wrong.
Mailchimp offers email and chat support on paid plans, with a knowledge base that's genuinely one of the best in the industry. Their help articles are detailed, well-written, and actually solve problems. On the free plan, support is more limited — you'll mostly be directed to self-service resources.
ConvertKit's support has a strong reputation among its users. Their team is known for being responsive and genuinely helpful, especially for creators who are new to email marketing. They also have a solid knowledge base and an active community where you can get advice from other users.
Neither platform is perfect here, but if responsive, empathetic support is important to you, ConvertKit has a slight edge in user satisfaction based on community feedback.
Switching Between Platforms: Is It Hard?
One concern people have when choosing an email platform is: "What if I pick the wrong one? How hard is it to switch later?" The good news is that switching is easier than you might think.
Both Mailchimp and ConvertKit allow you to export your subscriber list as a CSV file — a simple spreadsheet format that any platform can import. Your subscriber data (names, emails, tags) comes with you. What doesn't transfer automatically is your email templates, automation flows, and historical analytics — those you'd need to rebuild.
This is why it's worth taking a little time to choose the right platform upfront. But if you do need to switch down the road, it's not the catastrophe it might seem. Many small businesses have made the move from one platform to another without losing their audience or momentum.
Who Should Pick Which?
After all this comparison, here's our honest recommendation:
Pick Mailchimp if: You want the most design flexibility, you're running a traditional small business (retail, services, events), or you need a platform with a massive ecosystem of integrations and third-party apps.
Pick ConvertKit if: You're a blogger, course creator, consultant, or freelancer. If automation and simplicity matter more to you than design polish, ConvertKit is genuinely the better experience.
Either way, you can't go wrong. Both platforms are well-supported, reliable, and have solid free plans to get you started. The most important thing is to just pick one and start building your list — you can always switch later if needed.
Ready to get started? Our complete guide walks you through the entire process: How to Start Email Marketing (Step by Step). And if you want to see how small businesses actually use email as part of a bigger strategy, read: Email Marketing for Small Business.