Mailchimp Alternatives That Do More Than Just Email

Mailchimp is an email marketing system that made its mark in the industry with its simple interface. It’s often used by those just starting out in business who want to take advantage of its free basic package.

However, many entrepreneurs find themselves outgrowing Mailchimp due to its limited features and lack of personalized customer service for all but the most expensive plan.

Growing small businesses can now choose from many easy-to-use software solutions that do much more than just email broadcasting. Businesses looking for Mailchimp alternatives should consider sales and marketing automation software that can replace multiple tools and streamline operations.

Sales & Marketing Automation (SMA) is a new type of all-in-one software that combines all the important features that entrepreneurs and their teams need to automate, communicate, and organize their marketing and sales efforts. SMA software, at a minimum, includes:

• Multi-channel communications – Sends and receives messages through multiple channels such as email, text messaging, website forms, social media, etc.
• Full automation – Allows users to set up tasks that run automatically, like sending a text message to a new lead when they fill out a web form. Automations should be fully integrated with other features.
• Personalized automatic nurturing – In addition to one-to-many broadcast communications, you can also send personalized messages to highly targeted segments of contacts—even individuals—automatically.
• All-in-one platform – Combines CRM (customer relationship management), marketing automation, sales automation, and ecommerce into a single platform. May also include other features like appointments, landing pages, sales pipeline, etc.

Although Mailchimp is attempting to catch up to the rest of the industry to provide an all-in-one solution, progress is slow and there are other software solutions that already do a much better job.

Below are the top SMA software companies that savvy entrepreneurs turn to when they’ve outgrown Mailchimp.

Mailchimp competitors comparison table

Some of the best Mailchimp alternatives for fast-growing businesses that need Sales & Marketing Automation software are:

• Keap
• ActiveCampaign
• Ontraport
• Hubspot
• SharpSpring

Best Mailchimp alternatives

Let’s take a deeper look at how each Mailchimp alternative compares, and consider the pros and cons of each.

1. Keap vs Mailchimp

Six reasons why Keap is our top choice over Mailchimp:

1. Broadcast, one-to-one, and automation all in one place. With Keap, you can send out a promo email to a targeted list of leads, automatically send follow-up emails while you sleep to anyone who fills out a form on your website, and reply to individual emails synced with your Outlook account, all inside Keap. And you can do it with text messaging too.
2. Business phone line. Keap offers a business phone line that allows small business owners to keep their work and personal calls and texts separate. It also allows you to create text messaging automation, broadcasts, and 1:1 messages all within the app.
3. Robust CRM. This isn’t just a mailing list with some tags and segmenting. You can see every communication you’ve sent to every contact, see where they are in your sales pipeline, keep track of multiple contacts per business, and more.
4. Outstanding customer support. Keap has top-quality customer service, including full phone and chat support for all plans. They also provide free migration services and strategy consulting to help you reach your goals quickly using the software.
5. User-friendly interface. Like Mailchimp, Keap has a user-friendly interface. But Keap can do more than Mailchimp. A lot more.
6. Entrepreneur community. Every software company has a knowledge base and user forums. But Keap’s users are exceptionally passionate about small business marketing automation and about helping their fellow entrepreneurs succeed. Keap also provides a lot of user training and even rolled out the Keap Academy learning platform in 2022.

See for yourself how Keap stacks up against Mailchimp:

Bottom line: Keap doesn’t just want to sell software, they want their customers to reach their goals as quickly as possible, and both their software and their service reflect this customer-results focus. They’re constantly adding new features and functionality to make the software do as much as possible, as easily as possible.

2. ActiveCampaign vs Mailchimp

Our second choice for an SMA alternative to Mailchimp is ActiveCampaign. It integrates multiple communication channels and robust automations, making it a strong choice for businesses ready to graduate from Mailchimp.

Like most of its SMA competitors, ActiveCampaign has a more advanced CRM (customer relationship management) tool than Mailchimp, and sales pipeline tools, both of which are better for B2B sales.

Like Keap, ActiveCampaign also has a user-friendly interface, so Mailchimp converts can still enjoy that clean experience they’re used to.

Take a look at how ActiveCampaign compares to Mailchimp:

Bottom line: ActiveCampaign is a good choice for SMA software, and although it doesn’t have quite as many features as Keap, it’s still a strong contender.

3. Ontraport vs Mailchimp

Ontraport is in our top 3 because, like Keap and ActiveCampaign, it offers an impressive feature set at a price in line with those competitors.

Other than Facebook retargeting, it’s hard to find much that is unique about Ontraport (and even that feature isn’t completely unique to them).

See for yourself how Ontraport compares to Mailchimp:

Bottom line: We couldn’t find anything bad to say about Ontraport, but nothing amazing either. It’s a solid SMA alternative to Mailchimp, one of the top 3.

4. Hubspot vs Mailchimp

We have to include Hubspot in the list of SMA companies since they’re one of the largest and most well-known. But along with that comes a pretty hefty price tag.

Hubspot offers some features that their competitors don’t, such as website hosting and social media management.

However, the modular way that Hubspot adds on features is confusing, and the prices, which look low at first glance, can quickly add up as you add on feature sets (hubs), making it more expensive than other competitors that do essentially the same things.

For this comparison, we wanted to price a feature set equivalent to what you’d get with Keap or ActiveCampaign, so we added up the prices for the Marketing, Sales, and CMS modules only (Hubspot also has Customer Service and Operations hubs). The lowest-paid plan, Starter, comes in at $65/month for just those three modules, and the price climbs from there if you have more contacts and users, or if you want more features. For example, to get 1-to-1 email and meeting scheduling (which is included in Keap), you’d have to add on the Service hub too. The Professional plan for the same 3 modules adds up to $1790. We got sticker shock looking at the cost of the Enterprise plan.

Hubspot also requires an annual commitment, even when you pay monthly. They do have a free plan you can test out, but we recommend making sure you can afford the full price before you go down that path.

Here’s how Hubspot stacks up against Mailchimp:

Bottom line: Hubspot is mostly for big companies with big pockets. For entrepreneurs and small businesses, there are other more affordable options. Even the best CRM system for small businesses, with SMA built in, will be more affordable and do as good or better a job than Hubspot.

5. SharpSpring vs Mailchimp

We also took a look at SharpSpring, a lesser-known SMA competitor. It’s owned by Constant Contact and offers many of the functions you can’t get with Constant Contact and Mailchimp, which are both primarily email marketing systems with a few other features added.

It offers most of the features you’d expect from SMA software, and they just added text message marketing. It also has some more unusual features like a chatbot and a sales dialer.

Let’s look at how SharpSpring compares to Mailchimp:

Bottom line: SharpSpring has a strong feature set, but is expensive compared to SMA competitors that offer nearly the same functionality. This may make sense if you need some of their more unique features, but first check to see if other competitors offer the same features as third-party integrations—it might still cost less.

That wraps up our overview of the top 5 best Mailchimp alternatives in the Sales & Marketing Automation (SMA) category.

But before you go, here’s some final advice on how to be a savvy shopper as you move forward.

Look beyond features when comparing Mailchimp competitors

As you shop for Mailchimp alternatives, don’t only compare features and base pricing. Ask:

1. Do they require an annual contract? Is it easy to back out if you don’t like it?
2. Is there a price-lock guarantee, or can the price go up after you sign up?
3. How many users do you get with the plan you have in mind?
4. Does the price go up depending on how many contacts you have?
5. Does the price go up depending on how many emails you send?
6. Do you get free migration support?
7. What kind of customer support comes with your plan?
8. Does their software integrate with the other software tools you use?
9. How many other software tools can you eliminate once you switch to the new SMA software? (Calendar tool, landing page tool, text messaging tool, etc.)
10. Is there a free trial or free plan you can test drive?
11. Do communications (email, text) allow for all 3 types of outreach?
• Broadcast (one to many)
• Individual (one to one)
• Automation (one-to-one message triggered by customer action)

All-in-one sales and marketing automation is here to stay

With Mailchimp consisting mostly of email and social media broadcasting, and very limited CRM and email automation functions, many people are switching to more robust SMA software platforms. Even Mailchimp is working to get on the “all-in-one” software bandwagon.

This is because SMA is essential for growing businesses so they don’t collapse under the strain of their own growth. It helps by:

• Consolidating multiple tools into one central system that integrates with other tools
• Automating routine tasks that are a time drain, especially for small teams
• Providing clear visibility into how marketing and sales teams are performing
• Revealing opportunities for improvements without spending a lot of extra money
• Organizing and automating processes, leading to a better customer experience

The end result:

• More opportunities for growth
• Huge time savings
• Freedom from many of the important-yet-tedious busywork that leads to long hours at the computer

If you don’t have time to waste with an in-depth analysis of every competitor, you can start a free trial right now of the #1 SMA software for entrepreneurial small businesses, Keap.