Believe it or not, Email Marketing should still be a priority for your business. Why is that? Because it still works.
Now that we have that out of the way, we get to the next question: How to choose the best email marketing service for your business?
Choosing the best email marketing service for your business can make a huge difference in the results of your marketing campaign.
MailChimp and SendinBlue are two of the most popular and successful email marketing solutions you can find today. To help you make a choice, we are going to compare the following aspects of both solutions:
- Functionalities and Features (Marketing Automation, Auto Responders, A/B Testing, Email Builder Tool)
- Integrations
- Pricing
- Support
But first, let’s get to know the two solutions:
MailChimp:
MailChimp is the king of email marketing solutions. It’s the most widely-used solution thanks to its ease of use and low cost, making it ideal for start-ups and small businesses.
MailChimp has many features that allow users to create, execute, and analyze ad and email campaigns. You can also manage subscribers, generate customer reports, track emails, and view click-through and customer rates from the software’s platform.
SendinBlue:
SendinBlue is an email marketing service designed to suit businesses of all sizes. It’s well-known for having a full-featured WordPress plugin that makes working with WordPress a pleasant experience.
SendinBlue allows users to manage all email marketing-related tasks directly inside the dashboard with their integration. SendinBlue is relatively easy to use and costs less than most competitors, making it a good choice for small businesses.
Marketing Automation
MailChimp:
MailChimp is famous for its user-friendly automation tool. The feature comes with all the pre-made automation triggers you can implement easily into your site.
That pre-designed marketing automation will eliminate manual tasks and free your time to focus more on your strategies and engage customers.
SendinBlue:
SendinBlue’s automation tools are a strong point for the software. With SendinBlue’s WordPress plugin, you can easily add marketing automation to WordPress with the click of a button.
Winner: MailChimp
SendinBlue’s automation tools are good, but it’s hard to beat the overall excellent marketing automation tools of Mailchimp with their efficiency and ease of use.
AutoResponders
MailChimp:
MailChimp doesn’t offer autoresponders.
SendinBlue:
SendinBlue does come with Autoresponders. However, some users have reported facing issues with the feature and that it’s not as easy to use as it could be.
Winner: SendinBlue – sort of.
A/B Testing
MailChimp:
With MailChimp, you get full A/B testing functionality. This means you can split-test the different aspects of your campaigns to see what could use some improvements.
SendinBlue:
Unfortunately, Sendin Blue doesn’t offer A/B testing.
Winner: MailChimp.
Email Templates & Builder Tool
MailChimp:
You don’t need to be a professional designer to create beautiful emails as MailChimp comes preloaded with many email templates that can be used to create aesthetically-pleasing emails.
Those themes – that’s what their templates are called – include different categories so you can find the right design for your campaign quickly.
The Builder tool allows you to create your own template if you can’t find a theme you like.
SendinBlue:
SendinBlue offers email templates and a WYSIWYG editor that you can use to create your own emails. However, the number of email templates offered here is not as many as those offered by MailChimp, and the email builder is okay but could use some improvements regarding ease of use.
Winner: MailChimp
Integration
MailChimp:
MailChimp offers integrations with many 3rd party apps and services, including Slack, Google Analytics, Mandrill, Shopify, Drupal, WordPress, Stripe, Squarespace, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, ZenDesk, Facebook, and Twitter.
SendinBlue:
SendinBlue also offers integrations with many 3rd party apps and services, including Drupal, Wix, Shopify, Salesforce, WooCommerce, Magneto, and PrestaShop.
Delivering Emails
MailChimp: 96-99% Deliverability Rate
MailChimp has a strict policy regarding Spam. Users reported noticing a decrease in bounce and un-subscribers rates after switching to using MailChimp.
MailChimp enjoys a 96-99% deliverability rate.
SendinBlue – unknown
SendinBlue also claims to have a zero-tolerance policy concerning spam. However, they have not officially published any numbers regarding their deliverability rate, and users have reported mixed experiences.
Winner: MailChimp
Pricing
MailChimp Pricing:
MailChimp offers three pricing Plans:
- New Business Plan – Free Forever
It has the basic features and functionalities a small business needs to create professional-looking and aesthetically-pleasing campaigns.
- Growing Business Plan – $10/mo. + Taxes
It has the basic features plus unlimited sending, advanced testing tools, email delivery by time zone, access to the support team, and predicted demographics.
- Pro Marketer Plan – $199/mo. + Taxes
Offers enterprise-level functionalities and features such as comparative reports and multivariate testers. Aimed at high-volume senders.
SendinBlue Pricing:
SendinBlue offers 5 pricing plans:
- Free Plan: Costs nothing and comes with unlimited contacts
- Micro – $25: has no limit on the number of emails sent
- Essential – $39: Comes with advanced analytics
- Premium – $66: Offers unlimited marketing automation
- Enterprise – Contact vendor for pricing – includes premium features such as a dedicated account manager.
Winner: MailChimp – Simply-laid plans and a freemium plan wins MailChimp in this category. The free plan of MailChimp is favored by many entrepreneurs and startups, and their plans cost less, speaking in General.
Devices Supported
MailChimp:
MailChimp is supported on the following operating systems:
- Windows
- Mac OS
- Android
- iOS
SendinBlue:
- Windows
- Android
- iOS
- Mac OS
Support
MailChimp: Not as expected
Customer support is not one of MailChimp’s strongest points. In fact, it’s the one area that they really need to work on.
MailChimp offers only e-mail support – which is also not that good.
The not-as-good customer support should not, however, be the main reason you make your decision on. The self-help topics MailChimp offers are indeed useful, and most customers have reported they rarely faced an issue that couldn’t be solved by those topics. Also, the software is intuitive enough to go along without having someone on the phone telling you what to do.
SendinBlue
The Customer support of SendinBlue is not the best in the business ( a title that is held by Constant Contact), but it is still better than what MailChimp offers.
They offer a phone no to call, and while it’s not officially a customer support line, they are reachable via the phone.
A Ticket system for submitting issues and questions and a resources page are available. A Facebook page and blog cover email marketing topics and alert users to new updates.
Winner: SendinBlue. MailChimp seriously needs to work on its customer support.
I hope this comparison has helped you make a decision. If it did, feel free to share it with friends.
If you have any questions or comments, leave them below, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.
