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A 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 list

A 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 ago
A 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 ago
  For 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.
  - grey-area 13y ago
    So, I think maybe we're in violent agreement here :)? I think so yes :) I suppose it comes down to which businesses you have worked with. I haven't encountered many businesses which have very few customers/prospects and send loads of mail, but there definitely will be some, which would be a better fit for mailchimp (like a florist as you say). For those who have lots of users, it's not such a good choice.

grey-area 13y ago

A 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 ago
For 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.
- grey-area 13y ago
  So, I think maybe we're in violent agreement here :)? I think so yes :) I suppose it comes down to which businesses you have worked with. I haven't encountered many businesses which have very few customers/prospects and send loads of mail, but there definitely will be some, which would be a better fit for mailchimp (like a florist as you say). For those who have lots of users, it's not such a good choice.