Mailchimp and Sendinblue are among the top email marketing tools across the web, and many are at a crossroads between which tool to use. In this blog, we elaborate on each key feature and which aspects need improvement.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp’s aesthetically pleasing monkey in their logo makes the platform among the top choices in email marketing tools for many people. They send about 10,000 emails per second from their clients to their subscribers across the globe!
Mailchimp offers one of the best free versions there is. This makes Mailchimp a viable option for small startups and those who mean to send emails to a reasonable number of contacts. They generously offer their freemium service for up to 2,000 contacts!
Mailchimp is very template-friendly. When creating landing pages and email templates, there are a ton of options to choose from to download or create. Every user can use this to their own liking and make the email templates seem more adherent to their organization’s brand identity.
There is also an adequate amount of data analytics users can benefit from and make use of. Growth trackers, number of opens, number of clicks, and other statistics in the reports tab certainly help keep track of how the emails are doing.
The platform’s pleasing aesthetic makes it fun to use. However, this may not necessarily correlate with its ease of use.
Some users have complained about not being able to easily find some of Mailchimp’s features and this has been detrimental to the platform’s overall user experience. So, with regard to Mailchimp’s ease of use, the best judgment would be: it could do better. But it certainly does not decrease the effectiveness of the platform, especially with its really great free version offer!
Sendinblue
Sendinblue has a bit more formal interface compared to Mailchimp, but it does not shy away from all the user experience and features it has to offer.
Sendinblue has an impressive range of automation and integrations for most of its paid plans including the free version. Its Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has some notable features worth exploring and it is good to note that all customer details are located in one place.
Sendinblue’s pricing is the most convenient when looking at it across all its plans. Sendinblue’s plans come with unlimited contacts across all tiers, and the only thing that its users have to worry about is the number of emails threshold.
A downside of Sendinblue is that its account setup is tedious. There have been times when users were already in the phase of creating the emails and templates and they have been suddenly interrupted by a notification “complete account setup.” This has caused them to leave their current progress and actually finish the account setup to be able to dive into all of Sendinblue’s features.
Data importation can be complex if users are looking into Sendinblue as a ‘transfer option.’ More often than not, data importation tends to get a bit messy, hence, it is safe to conclude that Sendinblue is not transfer-friendly. It is highly advised that users make use of Sendinblue from the very beginning.
Mailchimp vs. Sendinblue
User Interface and User Experience
Mailchimp is the type of email marketing tool that suggests and gives a lot of template options to choose from. Rather than creating one totally from scratch, what’s great about these offered templates is that they can still be edited to the user’s liking.
They have over 100 templates which have undoubtedly compensated for the quick increase and disparity in price plans. Additionally, Mailchimp has a very welcoming and interactive interface which makes it appealing to users.
Sendinblue does not have this many templates and designs to choose from. Furthermore, Sendinblue’s interface is more formal and crisp.
In this aspect, Mailchimp seems to win over Sendinblue.
Ease of use
Mailchimp can be complicated for new and veteran email marketers. The learning curve is something that must be taken into consideration.
Sendinblue, on the other hand, provides for a more pleasant user experience and a shorter learning curve.
List Management
The biggest downside to Mailchimp is that its list management is mutually exclusive. This means that purchasing for one email contact on one list does not necessarily automatically allow the same email contact on another list. Users would have to pay for multiple spaces for just one email if they were placed in multiple lists/segments.
This puts Mailchimp down in a lot of ways considering the dramatic increase in cost as the requirements go higher. If you have one subscriber in multiple lists, users will pay for as many times as they are present on other lists.
This process is better for Sendinblue where contacts can be filtered. In addition, there are not many unnecessary labels for segmenting contacts. Since Sendinblue allows for unlimited contacts, worrying about the subscribers not being mutually exclusive or being present in multiple lists is something that users of Sendinblue can forego. In the end, it’s the email send count that’s only being measured.
Email Automation
Both Mailchimp and Sendinblue provide for good triggered campaigns and automated features. This is a loss for Mailchimp considering its price range. A lot of users are impressed with Sendinblue having almost the same amount of automation features for its price, and a lot of users prefer Sendinblue over Mailchimp in this case.
Not placing the price on the table, however, it now rests upon which users prefer more with regard to email automation features because Mailchimp and Sendinblue absolutely both have something to offer.
Data Analytics
Mailchimp and Sendinblue offer both email performance, (opens, clicks, bounces, unsubscribes, etc.), geolocation, and automation reports.
Mailchimp wins in this aspect because it offers something more such as social and e-commerce data. Sendinblue does not have these reports on its side.
Integration
Mailchimp has better integration features than Sendinblue by having a more lengthy list of possible applications available. Sendinblue significantly loses on this part due to it only having a number of possible integrations present.
Price and price plans
The problem with Mailchimp is that users have to worry about both their email and contact thresholds. Whereas with Sendinblue, plans are not only significantly cheaper, it even allow for unlimited contacts and comparable email sends. Ultimately, Sendinblue users only have one side of the coin to look at and worry about – the email threshold.
Sendinblue is a lot more affordable and offers simpler-priced plans that cater to unlimited contacts. This eliminates the worry of creating multiple lists at an extra cost.
Which one?
At the end of the day, choosing one over the other would mean discrediting each of their own advantages. Indeed, both email marketing tools have something to offer. Mailchimp has significantly higher price plans, but maybe that is compensated by the way they allow users to be creative in email templates in numerous ways.
Sendinblue is hands down cheaper, but it does fall short in some parts and some aspects can definitely be improved further. For some reason, users feel better about using Mailchimp because of its friendly interface compared to Sendinblue’s more formal, corporate-like aesthetic.
What’s good about the two is that they both have free versions! The best way to go about this is for users to get a taste of both and see which email marketing tool best fits their style, brand identity, and budget. Maybe some of you rely on data analytics that would cause you to avail of Mailchimp, or maybe some of you have too many contacts that Sendinblue’s affordability and unlimited contacts definitely help.
It all comes down to your personal preference in the end and the resources and budget that you currently have.
Were you able to experience both Mailchimp and Sendinblue? Give us your feedback!