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Mailchimp's pricing
- eibrahim 13y agoA much cheaper alternative is streamsend http://www.streamsend.com/291.html http://www.streamsend.com/291.html (affiliate link). I maintain an unlimited list and pricing is very reasonable. Also their affiliate program is very good.
- jabo 13y agoA slider for email volume vs price would have been nice.
- idProQuo 13y agoEither that or just expose the formula for calculating cost. The plans are too exact to really be "plans". Is anyone thinking "I have exactly 52000 users right now"? I feel like bigger brackets or a sliding scale would be more appropriate.
- grey-area 13y agoSome clients of mine left mailchimp for this very reason (and because the web style editor wasn't great, but mostly pricing). You start on a free plan, and get 2000 users, you hit that limit, and are considering moving up, then realise that their lowest plan is actually below the number of users on the free plan - you have to go up to the 5th plan to actually get over 2000 users again. The limits are pretty low and the costs mount steeply, but the worst thing was not having a clear first step up from the free plan. They also have an insane number of plans.
- jabo 13y agoYeah, Mailchimp can get crazy expensive as you scale up. One nice thing I found is that you also get a substantial amount of credits in Mandrill as you keep upgrading plans in Mailchimp.
- yeukhon 13y agoThis is crazy. The first impression is "oh shit I have so many option" but in the end, seriously, how do we keep track of the pricing? Is the average worthy? Is this really that cheap? I like their service but this is crazily complicated. Whoever did the pricing must have some innovation in marketing - this is like calculating EC2 cost (it's getting better but still hard).
- sathishmanohar 13y ago> Some clients of mine left mailchimp for this very reason left in favor of? Mind sharing them?
- grey-area 13y agoSendgrid, they have a far more sensible pricing structure based on no. of emails sent, which doesn't get expensive till you're truly at a larger scale. Sending 2000 mails a month should not cost $30 in my opinion. There are plenty of options though.
- oneeyedpigeon 13y agoSounds like the trade-off depends on the frequency of sending. We have ~ 700-1,500 subscribers (still in flux due to recent migration) but send to them ~ 20 times a month. Mailchimp's 'unlimited sends' plans are a big plus for us, although I DO admit their pricing is a little 'idiosyncratic' to say the least (what's up with the really narrow bands every one in a while?)
- aquadrop 13y agoBut they are a bit different. MailChimp is about marketing emails, that's why 2000 - it's the number of subscribers, not emails. On paying accounts they have no limit to the number of emails sent. SendGrid gravitate more to transactional emails, and they limit number of emails sent per month. So choosing between them isn't that trivial.
- grey-area 13y agoUnless you have a tiny number of subscribers, I think someone charging by emails sent is better value, but even without that, the step between 2000 on a list free, and 500 on a list paid for, seems somewhat bizarre, they should eliminate that.
- aquadrop 13y agoNot tiny number of subscribers but large emails/subscribers ratio. If you have 1000 subscribers and some daily news, you'll end up with much less price at MailChimp than SendGrid. And main thing about step from free account is unlimited number of emails vs 12000 limit. In the end, it's just a matter of thinking and finding the best tool for your specific situation.
- dwwoelfel 13y agoyou have to go up to the 5th plan to actually get over 2000 users again. Sure, but it's only $30/month.
- jontro 13y agoWhat are we expected to discuss here? I do not see anything wrong with this page.
- stefanve 13y agoI thought that there was a strange bug on this page, look at the ridicules price hikes. 501 - 1,000 $15 1,001 - 1,050 $20 5$ for 50 mails ..... 10 cent per email wow, I think you could get a better deal at the post office :)
- Axsuul 13y agoThat's the number of subscribers, number of emails you can send is unlimited. But regardless, this is a pretty stupid way to list out your pricing scheme.
- mattsfrey 13y agoMailchimp is ideal for sending a high volume of emails to a small amount of users. I couldn't imagine using them with a large volume of users, it's literally $0.005 per user, imagine if you only need to send a monthly or even weekly email to 1mil+ users, total rape on the per email basis
- lylemckeany 13y agoTheir main pricing page, http://mailchimp.com/pricing/ http://mailchimp.com/pricing/, is much better from a marketing and sales standpoint. I'm surprised they even provide a link to the "all" page since it probably doesn't apply to 99% of their potential customers.
- reneherse 13y agoIf an infinite number of monkeys type on an infinite number of keyboards, eventually one of them will write an infinitely scrolling, infinitely minute & obtuse pricing list. Pardon the snark; This week I have to move a client off of MC because their WYSIWYG style editor is practically useless. Anyone with a recommended service?
- hkmurakami 13y agoOh. So that's why this crashes safari on my iPad after scrolling a ton.
- neya 13y agoI think I would much rather roll out my own solution using Mailgun/Amazon's API with a basic RoR/Golang prototype than use these shady monkeys. It's their business and they have every right to price it the way they see it fit, but when there's something deceptive going on, as an end user I think I have every reason to point it out. For example, when you start with a free plan and you decide to upgrade to a paid plan, you actually need to go about 5 levels to actually get over 2000 users! And it's not pretty cheap either. I mean $100k to send just emails? (Keep scrolling down) I once used them when Feedburner bailed out on us, only to never look back at these monkeys (that's their trademarked mascot) and I rolled out my own basic solution on my VPS in just good old PHP (with Wordpress) and it worked well. And I definitely didn't spend $5 for 50 emails, just $20 for my basic Linode.
- patio11 13y agoIf you're capable of banging out basic RoR/Golang prototypes which can be used by non-technical email marketers, this skill alone can get you $20k+ engagements to build them with a bit of company-specific secret sauce in them. The sauce doesn't have to be that complicated at all -- for example, "I wish there was a way to send people an email on day N of their trial if their account had less than X objects in it... and I want N, X, and the object type to be editable without having to talk to Engineering" justifies $X0k at a lot of places. (That's sort of software-firm specific because that's who I typically sold that to. Let's see, what's a more prosaic option. Oh, OK: consider a small insurance company in Kansas which collects a meagre $20 million in premium income per year. There exists a non-technical marketing manager within that company who wishes that there was a way to email business customers a solicitation in December to pre-pay their premiums for the following year to book a current-year expense for tax purposes. She calculates that getting an extra 6 months of float on 20% of their $12 million in business policies is worth approximately $100,000. Can you imagine what you could sell her for $40,000?) In related news: businesses pay serious money for things which make them money. Consider adapting one's behavior to optimize for this. You can use the resulting money to buy lots of fun things, including stupefyingly large amounts of MailChimp credits if that floats your boat.
- neya 13y ago
- dhimant 13y agoI started out using mailchimp when I had less than 2000 subscribers. It worked great! But now that my mail list is growing, I find it increasingly expensive. Any recommendations on alternative providers?
- nej 13y agoRedcappi.com, though I do have connections with them. Worth a try, free to start.
- dhimant 13y agoThanks! Will check it out.
- aquadrop 13y agoIf you have many subscribers and a few emails sent to them, you can look at SendGrid, they have unlimited subscribers but limited send volume.
- dhimant 13y agoThanks! I actually make use of the RSS to mail feature of Mailchimp (found that service very easy to use). I do have many subscribers with 3~4 mails a week going out to them. Will check out SendGrid.
- lingben 13y agoaweber postmark mailgun sendgrid
- orliesaurus 13y agomailjet
- dhimant 13y agoThanks! This is great!
- 13y ago
- eof 13y agoI think the real thing here is: 0 - 500 $10 unlimited 501 - 1,000 $15 1,001 - 1,050 $20 // $5 = 50 emails 1,051 - 1,150 $25 //$5 = 100 emails 1,151 - 2,500 $30 //$5 = 1350 emails 2,501 - 2,600 $35 // $5 = 100 emails
- icebraining 13y agoSubscribers, not emails.
- estel 13y agoSure, but the intervals are still bizarre.
- poissonpie 13y agoThat is the mother of all pricing tables. It almost looks like a parody.
- alextingle 13y agoMailChimp are just spam enablers. The vast majority of e-mail I get from them is to e-mail addresses that definitely never ever signed up for anything. They claim they use double opt in, but that's just a damn dirty lie. Furthermore, they are past masters at helping their spammers craft their spam to defeat SpamAssassin and baysian filters, so the spam that actually makes it to my inbox is disproportionately from them. It's got so bad that I've got special mail server rules that focus on just them.
- mpclark 13y agoWell, good for you. I see a company that tries very hard to educate its customers and keep them on the straight and narrow.
- oneeyedpigeon 13y agoIf you saw it from the other end, in the eyes of a legitimate customer, you'd realise how laughable that is. MailChimp discourages spam to the extent that it's actually difficult to send email to your own customers! I can assure you that they use double opt-in, unless a customer has imported a list which they are trusted to only do legitimately. FWIW, I cannot remember having ever received any spam from MailChimp.
- FooBarWidget 13y agoI second this. It's almost like they discourage me from sending any email at all. Even when I need to send an important security announcement to my customers I still get chills.
- alextingle 13y agoI honestly think they use legitimate customers as cover for their spam operation. I'm seeing dozens of e-mails a week from them to addresses that were plainly stolen from LinkedIn during their recent break-in.
- sachingulaya 13y agoDouble opt-in exists...but their API, rightfully, allows for some rule bending. Mailchimp trusts at least one of its integrations to confirm the subscription. One thing that is hugely bothersome is that it's not possible for us to collect email lists at conventions and send to then through mailchimp. Bad handwriting and/or fake email addresses resulted in a warning from mailchimp about a 22% bounce rate from a list we collected by hand. I'm not impressed with the mailchimp WYSIWYG either. It's buggy with their templates and the plaintext is always absurd. The A/B testing is nice, though.
- CD1212 13y agoSorry for the shameless plug: I have been developing my own email marketing platform, primarily because I felt that the editor to create emails of some large providers was not easy enough for many people to use. I haven't posted it to HN before, and so far have only shown it to friends and clients. Please sign up (free trial) and see what you think? https://emailhamster.com/ https://emailhamster.com/
- orliesaurus 13y agoYou're using mailgun right? I just registered but the email arrived from mailgun's servers :O
- CD1212 13y agoYes, for a new project setting up a custom delivery infrastructure seemed pointless. This is something I would like to remedy in the future though. Thank you for signing up! I hope you find it useful.
- nemesisj 13y agoA few things here that I think most are missing: 1. Mailchimp is targeted (and priced for) the small business. Most small businesses aren't going to have lists more than a few thousand, which means most of Mailchimp's customers are going to be paying less than 50ish bucks a month. 2. If you've got thousands and thousands of emails to send, and are paying multiple thousands of dollars to mailchimp each month, you're probably just going to use mandrill and hire a dev to help you out there. 3. For those customers that are spending larger amounrd (500-1000 bucks a month?), they're going to marketing managers at midsize businesses who would never get IT love and can easily justify the purchase against conversions to sales. 4. Lastly, most people who use mailchimp send more than 1 email a month, therefore, most of the commentary surrounding the pricing divided by one send a month isn't really accurate.
- grey-area 13y agoA few things here that I think most are missing: We left mailchimp after trying them out, and didn't miss any of these points, they're all quite obvious if you have priced out email. 1. Small startups definitely will 2. If you've got thousands of emails to send, you can send them for $10 with competitors 3. For customers spending a larger amount, again they could be spending a lot less with competitors, email is not expensive, particularly in bulk. 4. If you're sending a few emails a month, that's not going to affect many of the calculations. Sure daily emails would affect these calculations, but that is very unusual for small businesses in my experience - around 1 or 2 a month is the norm for many, or customers get annoyed. I'm sure Mailchimp will suit some customers with no tech team, small subscriber list, or daily emails to send, but they should sort out their pricing scheme - they are far too fine-grained, far too high at the top end, and with too big from free to the lowest level IMO.
- nemesisj 13y agoFor your second point, again, I think the point of MailChimp pricing is you may have thousands of emails to send, but you won't be sending to thousands of email addresses. This makes most of their customers start on the free plan, then graduate to something that's not a huge cost. Simplicity and familiarity are the bread and butter for most of these customers. They're not marketing to tech people. They're marketing to the flower shop on the corner who has a list of 1,500 people and ads 2 email addresses a week. So, I think maybe we're in violent agreement here :)? Lastly - the key thing about MailChimp pricing is that you move up and down on their pricing plans automatically. It's unbelievably low friction. Most of the time when you move up or down, it's because you've just imported new people and have a new email to send. So you don't care. You just get on with it and then forget about it later. I don't even know why I'm carrying so much water for MailChimp, other than I think people are missing the point of what and who they target.
- kamilszybalski 13y agoSeriously.. try https://madmimi.com/ https://madmimi.com/
- lingben 13y agotheir pricing plan is also bonkers: $10 for 500 contacts $42 for 10,000 contacts there's a lot of space between 500 and 10,000 !!
- contextual 13y agoActually, you can customize your plan (on the right). Seems pretty reasonable and flexible to me.
- lingben 13y agoyou're right, thanks I hadn't noticed that
- hristiank 13y agoIf I may add a few things: 1. I think most of the comments here concentrate on price alone. You need to remember that email marketing is a tool. If you have even 2000 subscribers and not making $30 from that list: a) It's your hobby. No problem. Hobbies sometimes can get expensive. b) There is something really not right with your list/efforts. 2. All the people outraged at Mailchimp's prices should compare them to the competition and see that most of the companies offer similar pricing. 3. Try explaining successfully to your local restaurant manager how to set up his/her own mail server. 4. After you have successfully explained #3, try explaining all the regulations and SPAM compliance. 5. Finally - Mailchimp is for small and mid-size businesses. Once you go over $1000 in email marketing costs you are in a different ball game.
- lingben 13y agowhat do you guys think of postmarkapp? I'm not a customer but curious about their rep, they have a flat(ish) pricing model at $1.5/1000 emails sent (and then lower for more)
- JonoBB 13y agoI really really dislike their pricing scheme. We have 5000 subscribers, but only send 1 email every month or two. This costs $55. Compare this to someone that has 500 subscribers, and sends each of them 10 emails per month - that only costs $10 per month. It just doesn't add up.
- bpaluzzi 13y agoI really really dislike the pricing at an "all-you-can-eat" buffet. I only eat one french fry, yet I get charged £7.99 for it. If someone orders just french fries at McDonalds, they get dozens of fries for £0.99. It just doesn't add up.
- orliesaurus 13y agoHey guys since we're in theme, can we get some feedback on our pricing https://www.mailjet.com/pricing https://www.mailjet.com/pricing - Does the price sound reasonable? - Have you tried our service before, if so what do you think of it? - Does it bother you our infrastructure is hosted in Europe?
- contextual 13y agoI may take a peek at Mailjet later today. Your pricing looks better for someone like me to grow with.
- contextual 13y agoI use Mailchimp, but I'm getting to hate it. It's too expensive, their payment options are limited and customer support is slow. That with a lot of minor idiosyncrasies that are starting to fray my nerves. Migration will no doubt be a hassle, but I'm looking to move to another service (soonish).
- qnickmans 13y agodisclaimer : I'm involved with www.mailjet.com. Mailjet is "merging" transactional and marketing email services. Transactional via API and on top of our APIs we build web interfaces for marketers to manage contact list, html and stats pages. We charge per email send, whatever its "origin". One need to know that managing marketing emails and transactional emails is not the same in daily operations. Marketing emails are send to "lists" and there is an important effort a reliable provider needs to put in place to avoid spammers come on your platform. Lists need to be double opt-in etc. and a lot of marketeers don't follow these strict rules. The provider (here Mailjet.com or Mailchimp) has to develop and invest in a lot of work to detect 'spammers' before and even during the sending process, interact with its support teams to educate customers, etc. Their job is to guarantee to ISPs only high quality, opt-in messages are send out. That's the only long term battle a provider needs to fight for.
- guyinblackshirt 13y agoI'm happy with CampaignMonitor for my email newsletters, and I find the pricing reasonable http://www.campaignmonitor.com/pricing/ http://www.campaignmonitor.com/pricing/
- tatata 13y agomaybe paid plans are 2000 (free) subscribers + X (paid) subscribers? Otherwise it's pretty flawed