The main difference between Mailchimp and Sendinblue is that Sendinblue's free offer provides more value than Mailchimp's. Indeed, Sendinblue has no contact limits with its free offer while Mailchimp's free plan does not allow more than 2,000 contacts.
Mailchimp and SendinBlue are frequently the two tools we hesitate when choosing an email marketing tool. Both of them have a great reputation for being easy to use and popular.
To find the right tool, you need to select an email marketing platform that fits your needs. The following comparison of SendinBlue versus Mailchimp highlights all of the differences between these two services. By the end of this article, you will be able to determine which tool you will choose.
What is Mailchimp?
Mailchimp is a leading provider of email marketing services, and its platform enables you to create, send, and manage email campaigns from a single interface. With Mailchimp, you can easily create beautiful email newsletters, create and send transactional or engagement emails, and track your email marketing performance in real-time.
Mailchimp was founded in 2001 by Ben Chestnut and Dan Kurzuis as an email marketing tool. It was an excellent alternative to the costly email marketing software available in the early 2000s.
Today, the number one mission of its founders' service is to empower challengers. Mailchimp has evolved into an all-in-one marketing platform in response to its customers' diverse needs.
What is Sendinblue?
Sendinblue was founded in 2012 by Armand Thiberge and Kapil Sharma. The company's headquarters are in Paris. The goal of Sendinblue is to help businesses grow and maintain relationships with their customers by using advanced digital marketing tools such as automated email marketing.
Sendinblue was founded on the observation that many email marketing services are geared toward large corporations. As a result, they decided to target small and medium-sized businesses. Today, they are associated with over 50,000 businesses worldwide, proving the service's popularity...
These businesses rely on Sendinblue to send email or SMS marketing campaigns while saving time through automation.
Differences Between Mailchimp and Sendinblue
Free plan
Sendinblue has a free plan with unlimited contacts, while Mailchimp's free plan offer is only available when you have less than 2,000 contacts.
Sendinblue's free offer will give you access to advanced segmentation and transactional emails while this is not the case with Mailchimp. With a free account, the limit of email templates is 6 on Mailchimp while on Sendinblue you will have access to more than 40 email templates.
Considering all these factors, Sendinblue's free offer is more compelling than Mailchimp's.
Pricing
Mailchimp's pricing is based on the number of contacts, while Sendinblue's is based on the number of sends. Thus, the cost of MailChimp is generally higher than that of SendinBlue.
Accordingly, Mailchimp's starting price is $34 per month for 2,500 contacts, whereas Sendinblue's starting price is only $25. Now let's say you have 5,000 contacts. The Sendinblue offer remains at $25, while Mailchimp's rate will be $59 as it charges according to the number of contacts.
The main disadvantage of Mailchimp is that you will continue to pay for unsubscribed contacts and contacts who did not confirm their subscription to the newsletter. Because you pay by the number of contacts, this can get quite pricey. Sendinblue charges based on the number of emails sent, so if you have a large email list but do not send emails every day, this solution can be very advantageous.
Features
Lead scoring is not available in Mailchimp, but SendinBlue offers it. With Sendinblue, you can send SMS (SMS Marketing) while Mailchimp does not. On Mailchimp, you have to pay an extra addon to be able to send transactional emails while Sendinblue offers this option at no extra cost.
To get the automation workflow on Mailchimp, you will have to take the Standard offer (59$ per month for 2 500 contacts). If you want advanced features like advanced segmentation or multivariate testing, you will have to take the Premium offer at 299$ per month. In comparison, you will find these features at 65€ per month on Sendinblue, with the possibility to send 120 000 emails per month.
Integrations
You can integrate Sendinblue with 51 other tools. You will find the list of integrations here. Among them:
- WordPress
- Shopify
- Zapier
- Prestashop
- Magento
- Salesforce
On MailChimp, you will have many more integrations...236 in total:
- Shopify
- SalesForce
- Pipedrive
- Stripe
- Quickbooks
- Automate.io
... and many more. You will find the list of all the integrations here.
Comparison Chart: Mailchimp vs. Sendinblue
| Mailchimp | Sendinblue | |
| Ease of use | The interface is clean but there are many menus that can be confusing for the user. | The user experience is smooth and the navigation through the menus is easy. 🏆 |
| Email editor | The editor is simple and fast and uses a drag and drop system.🤝 | Fast drag and drop system for email editing. Pre-designed elements are available which makes the task easier. 🤝 |
| Can send | Newsletters, autoresponders, and transactional emails (premium add-on). | Newsletters, autoresponders, transactional email, SMS. 🏆 |
| Templates | Lots of choices. The drag and drop templates are all responsive. 🤝 | There are 65 mobile-friendly email templates.🤝 |
| Automation | Very advanced automation features but the workflow is not as intuitive as Sendinblue to set up the rules. | Sendinblue automation is very advanced but easy to use. 🏆 |
| Contact management | The interface makes managing contacts less intuitive than on Sendinblue. Segmenting contacts is possible. | You can create segments based on behaviors, data, or lead scores. 🏆 |
| Deliverability | Some of Mailchimp's emails end up in the spam or in the promotions tab of mailboxes. | Sendinblue is very strong in terms of deliverability, with higher than average deliverability percentages. 🏆 |
| Analytics | The reports aren't particularly appealing, but they go a little further than Sendinblue's. You can also have a precise follow-up of your statistics with the integration of Google Analytics. 🏆 | SendinBlue has most of the reports you might need, such as a click-map, geographic tracking, and Google Analytics integration. |
| Blacklist | No option to export blacklisted contacts. | Ability to export blacklisted contacts from Sendinblue. 🏆 |
Conclusion: Which tool to use? Mailchimp or Sendinblue?
Sendinblue has many more advantages than MailChimp. It is certainly less known internationally but has all the basic features and even more!
Mailchimp can be very expensive if you have many contacts. Sendinblue has more attractive prices because it works by the number of emails sent. Sendinblue should be more suited for bloggers or people who have small businesses. Both services are quite easy to use even if Mailchimp's interface can be a bit tricky to get used to.
