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Best Mailchimp alternatives (2026)
Mailchimp's Standard plan starts at roughly $20/mo and scales fast — past 5,000 contacts you're paying $100+/mo, and the price grows with list size whether or not you actually send.
The alternatives below cover three escape hatches: developer-first transactional + marketing (Loops, Resend), classic newsletter platforms with simpler pricing (Beehiiv, ConvertKit), and self-hosted (Listmonk + Amazon SES) for teams comfortable owning deliverability.
Pricing comparison
| Tool | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Mailchimp Standard (5k contacts) | $100/mo | Price scales with contacts, not sends. Includes A/B testing and journeys. |
| Loops | $49/mo (10k contacts) | Built for SaaS — transactional + marketing in one. Generous free tier (1k contacts). |
| Beehiiv Scale | $84/mo (10k subs) | Newsletter-first with ad network and referral tools built in. |
| ConvertKit Creator Pro | $59/mo (5k subs) | Sequences and automations geared to creators. |
| Resend (transactional) + Buttondown | ~$9 + $9/mo | Combine transactional email and a simple newsletter tool. Indie-friendly. |
| Listmonk (self-hosted) + Amazon SES | ~$5/mo VPS + $0.10 per 1k emails | You own deliverability. ~93% cheaper at 20k emails/mo. |
Who should switch
- ✓You pay Mailchimp more than ~$50/mo and rarely use automations or audience insights.
- ✓Your contact list is bigger than your actual engaged audience (you're paying for dead weight).
- ✓You're a SaaS team and need transactional + marketing in one stack.
- ✓You publish a newsletter and want a built-in referral program or ad revenue.
Who should not switch
- ·You rely heavily on Mailchimp's Customer Journeys with multi-branch logic.
- ·Your team is non-technical and you don't have anyone to handle migration or DNS records.
- ·You run an ecommerce store deeply integrated with Mailchimp's Shopify or Magento connectors.
Savings math
- Mailchimp Standard at 5k contacts ≈ $100/mo = $1,200/yr.
- Loops at 10k contacts = $49/mo = $588/yr. Saving: $612/yr (51%).
- Listmonk + SES sending 20k emails/mo ≈ $7/mo = $84/yr. Saving: $1,116/yr (93%).
- Break-even on self-hosting: roughly 30 minutes of setup per month of savings — pays back week one for most teams.
Caveats
- !Deliverability is portable but never identical — warm up new sending domains for 2–4 weeks.
- !Mailchimp's segmentation UI is genuinely good. Loops and Buttondown are simpler by design.
- !Self-hosted means you own SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and bounce handling.
Final verdict
If you're under 10k contacts and want less to think about, Loops. If you publish a newsletter, Beehiiv. If you have an engineer, Listmonk + SES is unbeatable on cost.
Pricing checked June 15, 2026. We re-verify every comparison page on a rolling basis.
Sources
Related guides
Prices change often — verify on the vendor's site before switching.