Substack Vs Mailchimp Vs DirectIQ@2x

ConvertKit Vs Mailchimp: Which Is the Best in 2023?

ConvertKit vs Mailchimp vs DirectIQ – which is best? While all three platforms offer similar features, each has its own strengths and weaknesses.

If you’re just getting started with email marketing, you may be wondering which platform is best for you. This guide will compare ConvertKit, Mailchimp, and DirectIQ to help you in choosing email marketing software that fits your needs precisely.

Both email marketing tools offer great basic functionality, an easy to use email editor with basic performance reports, and some forms of phone, email and chat support to sort out migrations and any possible issues.

Let’s examine the differences in Convertkit vs Mailchimp, and, most importantly, find out which email marketing tool will suit your business the best.

Table of contents

 

ConvertKit vs Mailchimp: Overview

Overview of ConvertKit

convertkit automation templates for newsletter, product pitch, product launch

ConvertKit was designed specifically for bloggers and online course creators. As a “creator marketing” platform, it offers a wide range of marketing tools, including an email designer, to help you grow and monetize your audience.

ConvertKit’s email editor only has a few email templates, and the reason for this is so a novice email marketer can easily set up their marketing automation, and not be overwhelmed by too many options.

In that way, ConvertKit maximized the value of creators’ time, allowing them to put their efforts into the content that they output, instead of spending time creating campaigns, choosing among templates, creating forms and so forth.

Overview of Mailchimp

Mailchimp is one of the most popular email marketing platforms. It’s easy to use and offers a variety of features, making it a good option for businesses of all sizes.

Mailchimp’s marketing automation tools make it easy to send targeted emails to your customers. You can also use Mailchimp to create landing pages, contact forms, and pop-ups.

Mailchimp’s interface is really easy to use, and it fits well for small and mid-size businesses looking for an email marketing tool that will help them with email outreach while keeping the marketing budget down.

At the same time, Mailchimp has 100s of premade templates, allowing for great customization and variety of email campaigns.

mailchimp's impressive list of templates

 

ConvertKit vs Mailchimp: Pricing

ConvertKit pricing structure

For new creators building their email lists, ConvertKit is free for up to 1000 subscribers.

Convertkit offers a very solid free plan structure for those still testing the waters, as 1000 subscriber limit is twice that of Mailchimp’s free plan.

 

ConvertKit’s free plan boasts the following features:

  • Unlimited forms
  • Unlimited landing pages
  • Unlimited broadcasts
  • Audience tagging and segmentation
  • Sell digital products & subscriptions
  • Community support

convertkit's free account features

So in regards to the free plan, Convertkit beats Mailchimp in terms of functionality for creators, while giving twice the amount of max subscribers (1000 vs Mailchimp’s 500).

For small and mid-size creators who are looking to get access to automated email sequences and visual automation builders, the price will be a very modest $25/month (for the same 1000 susbcribers).

And for those who are looking to obtain the plan’s most advanced features, namely:

  • Newsletter referral system
  • Subscriber scoring
  • Advanced reporting

They will need to pay $50/month for that same 1000 subscriber figure. Overall, considering the general prices of email marketing platforms, Convertkit pricing seems pretty solid.

Mailchimp pricing structure

Mailchimp free plan features

Mailchimp’s free plan offers all the standard features you would expect from an email marketing platform, including an email designer and a marketing CRM.

Of course, the free plan is still missing the majority of the features that make Mailchimp really worth it. Mailchimp’s paid plans enable access to more sophisticated features, including original email templates and behavioral targeting.

The pricing attached to these plans depends on how many contacts you have.

Paid Plans

In their Essentials plan, they are charging only $26.50 for 1,500 contacts and 15,000 email sends. I chose 1500 contacts compared to Convertkit’s 1000 because there’s no 1000 subscriber plan in Mailchimp – only up to 500, or 1500.

Unfortunately, that plan is missing several of Mailchimp’s key features, such as Multivariate Testing, Advanced Segmentation, Campaign Manager and Comparative Reporting.

So it might not be the best option for niches and industries where segmentation and analytics are a big priority.

For 1,500 contacts you would need to pay either $60/month for the Standard plan, or $350/month for the Premium plan.

It’s also worth noting that Mailchimp offers the first month free of charge to its users.

 

ConvertKit vs Mailchimp: Best Features

Best features of ConvertKit

Some of the main selling points of ConvertKit include:

  • An easy to use editor: their email editor is uncomplicated, with few templates to choose from.
  • Convertkit offers unlimited sign up forms, which are very easy to customize to the creator’s needs.
  • There’s no issue with multiple lists unlike in Mailchimp’s list management system. meaning duplication of contacts in different lists leading to a reduction in the amount of maximum contacts.

And finally, we can’t forget that Convertkit offers great features for bloggers, authors and creators of any sort, making it easy to streamline sales of paid content and set up registration forms.

Best features of Mailchimp

mailchimp's detailed email reporting and campaign analytics

Mailchimp, on the other hand, boasts an impressive number of integrations with different CRMs, sales tools and marketing programs, as well as impressive email deliverability.

If integration with a specific platform is crucial for your decision, most likely Mailchimp wins in that regard. To go into detail: You can connect all of your existing data to the platform using the multitude of marketing CRM solutions offered by Mailchimp.

Mailchimp provides pre-made segments to make contact management simple. Furthermore, Mailchimp’s email editor can satisfy both beginners and professionals. with its high levels of customization. And the segmentation system seems to beat Convertkit, as you can segment through contact tags and many other options.

You can also identify patterns in your data and decide how to proceed with your email campaigns with the easy-to-use audience dashboard.

 

ConvertKit vs Mailchimp: Segmentation

Let’s talk about segmentation now as it’s a very important point in email marketing. The two tools have very different segmentation approaches.

ConvertKit’s segmentation

ConvertKit, unlike many other email marketing platforms, is a platform that bases segmentation (and their whole system of approach) on subscribers instead of lists.

Since ConvertKit was specifically designed with enhanced customization in mind, this approach makes more sense for them.

This system leads to more personalized segmentation and overall a greater control over what types of emails each of your subscribers will receive.

Obviously, more personalization leads to better engagement and more clicks, so we consider ConvertKit to be a winner in this regard.

convertkit list based segmentation options tagging

In ConvertKit, you can assign tags to people and then build up segments from these tags. So if someone subscribed to you from reading a specific article, you can tag them as a person who’s interested in that topic, and design an approach for them.

The more you learn about your subscribers through additional data, the better segmentation will ultimately become for you.

Mailchimp’s segmentation

Mailchimp, on the other hand, uses the common approach of dividing email subscribers into lists. It has the basic segmentation options that any email marketing platform should have, but not much more than that. As Mailchimp is really designed for mass marketing, personalization and tagging are not its strong suits.

mailchimp list based segmentation options

Ultimately, Mailchimp can give your subscribers a feel of personalization if you set up the lists correctly and appropriately.

But if a personalized approach is crucial for your business and you’re looking for true segmentation, where a subscriber really finds each (or almost each) email useful, relevant and engaging, you should probably go with another email marketing app.

 

ConvertKit vs Mailchimp: A/B testing

A/B testing is another one of those parameters which all email platforms claim to have, but upon further examination cracks begin to show. Let’s take a look at how both ConvertKit and Mailchimp manage their A/B testing.

ConvertKit’s A/B testing

Unfortunately, despite the app’s claims to be an extremely customizable email platform, ConvertKit only allows A/B testing for subject lines.

Broadly speaking, you can send two emails with identical contents and different subject lines to a part of your audience, and then the version which got opened the most frequently will be sent to the rest.

ConvertKit tests each subject line on 15% of the email list subscribers, and then sends the winning subject line to the remaining 70%.

convertkit ab testing subject lines

However, there’s a caveat: the “winning” subject line is only determined by open rate, not the click-through rate. So you might get more opens with something “clickbaity”, and then not get any engagement, so ultimately Convertkit’s approach to A/B testing is a bit simplified.

Mailchimp’s A/B testing

Surprisingly, Mailchimp beats Convertkit in A/B testing by a huge margin. Apart from subject line testing, you can also test which name the email will get sent from, time of the day when it will be sent, as well as content of the email itself. So it gives you a lot of options to play with.

mailchimp 4 options for ab testing

What’s more, Mailchimp has a more advanced approach to how it chooses the winner. It gives you an option to set up your own criteria based on your parameters of choice, and it can also automatically choose the winning email based on things like open rate and click rate.

If you have an online store connected to the platform, it can also choose a winner based on total revenue from the email, which is pretty neat for eCommerce business owners.

 

ConvertKit vs Mailchimp: Reviews

ConvertKit reviews section

What people are saying about ConvertKit

As of the writing date, ConvertKit has 4.7 out of 5 stars and 165 reviews on Capterra.

 

“ConvertKit does a great job at making things simple. The UI is easy to navigate, and templates are easy to set up and implement. Automations are also very easy to set up with a visual interface. Ultimately, what ConvertKit does better than any other app I’ve used is: they make it easy to create and send an email to subscribers.”

 

Click here to read more reviews.

Mailchimp review section

What people are saying about Mailchimp

As of the writing date, Mailchimp has 4.5 out of 5 stars and 15,500 reviews on Capterra.

 

“We still have a positive perception of Mailchimp. It served us well over a long period and was low-stress and reasonably priced. However, as they changed direction with the software (and pricing) it no longer became appropriate for email newsletters only. There is probably tremendous value for those who want to take advantage of segments and the more CRM-like features!”

 

Click here to read more reviews.

 

ConvertKit vs Mailchimp: Which One Should You Choose

Who would benefit more from ConvertKit

Convertkit's benefits for bloggers and creators, authors

ConvertKit is a better option if you’re specifically looking for an email marketing platform for bloggers and online course creators. Although it doesn’t have as many integrations and advanced reporting tools as Mailchimp, the fact that the software was created with the aim to ease sales and email outreach for content creator is a compelling reason to give ConvertKit a try.

Also, if you need all the advanced features, most likely ConvertKit’s subscription will work out to be much more affordable for you.

Even their most premium package comes at only $50/month for 1000 subscribers, beating Mailchimp by a huge margin. Another thing to consider is that their free plan offers a huge amount of volume – 1000 contacts will let you test the software’s full capacity for your small business. Their free plan is really high capacity.

Who would benefit more from Mailchimp

list of mailchimp's main app integrations

You might choose working with Mailchimp if you already have an email list that you have no idea how to segment and you believe that targeting based on location, demographics, and other particular criteria won’t yield results that are worthwhile of the effort.

It’s really simple to use, and you can rapidly produce attractive email newsletters to stay in touch with your customer base thanks to the drag and drop feature and a variety of preloaded themes.

At the same time, experienced email marketers might also prefer Mailchimp due to its large number of features and advanced reporting, especially in the highest-tier plans. If you can use that data well, then you should definitely consider Mailchimp more closely. Of course, the superior approach to A/B testing is also something you should take into account.

The multitude of integrations with other software is also a factor to consider.

In any case, these two aren’t the only choices available.

I strongly encourage you to investigate the features that DirectIQ provides to small and mid-size businesses in need of a personal touch to their email marketing efforts if personalization, segmentation, and A/B testing are essential components of your email marketing campaign and you’re not looking to keep paying too much for a brand each month.

How Is DirectIQ Superior To Other Email Automation Tools

What are DirectIQ’s best features?

DirectIQ is well-equipped to satisfy the needs of marketers. This email marketing platform is brimming with all of the required elements to facilitate great email campaigns. Whether you are a little business or a huge enterprise, we can help.

DirectIQ is an extremely handy email marketing platform that comes with available responsive email templates for modern campaigns, which makes it perfect for businesses of all sizes.

Our Drag and Drop email editor is very user-friendly and extremely powerful, allowing you to design like a professional. You can choose from a diverse selection of adaptable email templates that are suitable with smartphones and tablets.

DirectIQ offers everything required to immediately begin operations.

Creating an email marketing campaign in DirectIQ

The software provides extensive email marketing analytics to aid in performance tracking.

Whether you want to publish a brief promotion of a product or a service, our Landing Pages feature allows you to build and publish a landing page in minutes, In addition, DirectIQ offers automated email sequences, A/B testing, Segmentation and detailed reporting.

Despite offering an extensive suite of features, this email marketing platform is remarkably user-friendly.

DirectIQ is equipped to support your ambitious campaigns.

To get started with modern email marketing campaigns, you can select one of our responsive email templates.

Premium features, such as Inbox Preview, Spam Doctor, Landing pages, and Social Sharing, are included, allowing you to utilize cutting-edge email marketing technology.

A drag-and-drop editor for rapidly designing campaigns.

With the assistance of the drag-and-drop email builder, you can easily create amazing email layouts with a single click. The entire procedure is flawless.

If you are in the business of creating email sequences with high conversion rates, you need DirectIQ on your side. This platform will provide you with everything necessary to maximize the effectiveness of email marketing.

Nobody codes email marketing campaigns from scratch using HTML anymore. An efficient drag-and-drop email builder can accelerate your email marketing efforts and allow you to generate actionable templates.

No longer must many hours be spent developing HTML email templates. Our drag-and-drop editor simplifies the entire process.

Easily split-test campaign strategies

AB testing in DirectIQ

With the ability to split-test multiple campaign ideas, you can maximize the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns and optimize around key performance metrics such as open rates and click-through rates.

When you have access to the appropriate tools, you are free to experiment with email campaigns and expand your marketing inventiveness.

Any efficient email marketing automation tool allows you to split-test various email variables. Many groups split-test subject lines to determine the optimal open-rate formula.

By split-testing several versions of your emails using DirectIQ, your marketing team will be able to understand which methods are most effective with your audience.

Responsive email templates for modern campaigns

Even though many marketing teams have the skills and knowledge to develop campaigns from scratch, they enjoy using responsive email templates on DirectIQ to jumpstart the creative process and get things moving.

When you seek creative inspiration and need to set a clear direction for a campaign, we have an amazing assortment of email templates for you to choose from.

Responsive email templates ensure the right display of content regardless of the recipient’s device. For example, responsive email templates will ensure that the email content looks great on mobile and tablet devices, in addition to desktop computers.

Having access to responsive templates is crucial if you’re producing media-rich email content.

DirectIQ offers a more comprehensive collection of tools than Mailchimp, from real-time predictive analytics to sophisticated A/B testing possibilities.

The ability to design individual sign-up forms for landing pages is one of the distinctive features that Mailchimp offers, among other things.

DirectIQ’s capabilities are more extensive, though, as an all-encompassing marketing platform.

DirectIQ is unequaled when it comes to online chat assistance.

As previously indicated, Mailchimp offers 24/7 customer assistance solely to customers with paid subscriptions.

To enhance intelligent email marketing, DirectIQ also includes social media connectors.

DirectIQ provides the capabilities to integrate your marketing activities and establish scalable campaigns, whether you are sending 500 emails or 10,000.

DirectIQ is the best option if you want a platform that can expand with your company. DirectIQ has all of the capabilities and integrations you require to start sophisticated email marketing campaigns.

Both small businesses and large corporations benefit from it. DirectIQ is an obsession for marketers.

Whatever it is, we have it. DirectIQ covers all the elements, from fully customizable templates to advanced analytics.

You need to look no further than DirectIQ for a platform that will maximize your email marketing potential.

The potential of email marketing for your company can be unlocked through this platform, allowing you to accomplish important marketing goals and objectives.

 

 

 

DirectIQ Reviews

As of the writing date, DirectIQ has 4.9 out of 5 stars and 21 reviews on Capterra.

I’ve been really happy with this email marketing service, and I really like the Spam Doctor feature. It essentially offers a diagnostic report, detailing which email clients (e.g. yahoo, Gmail etc.) will analyze my messages as spam, and why…

So that I can go back and change my emails around using the advice that there reports offer. This way, I can make sure that I don’t waste time sending out emails that will never make it to my clients and potential clients… The Mailbox preview is also pretty cool, somehow it shows you how your email will look on each and every device that email can be accessed from.

For example, I can see how it compares when opened on my iPad vs. my iPhone… Another example, I can see how it will look on Microsoft Outlook (which I use at work), vs. yahoo mail which I use at home. It’s a really nice and useful feature to have. Also, great support team at DirectIQ too, very responsive, caring, and ready to help 🙂

 

Click here to read more reviews.

 

What is DirectIQ’s pricing structure?

Marketers and bootstrapped founders can begin using DirectIQ for free. The free plan can help Kick-start any Business, either just a simple idea taken to life or an established business looking to expand.

New users can add up to 250 contacts and send up to 1,000 emails per month without any fees. As you can scale up your campaigns and start seeing results, you can unlock a higher send limit with flexible per-month pricing.

ConvertKit Vs Mailchimp Vs DirectIQ

ConvertKit Vs Mailchimp Vs DirectIQ (Which Is Best?)

If you are ready to embrace email marketing automation features, you need DirectIQ in your corner. Our comprehensive email marketing solution can confidently meet your needs. With access to DirectIQ’s broad suite of features, you can unlock the full potential of your email campaigns and harness the power of this marketing channel.

 

Are you ready to get started? Sign up to DirectIQ for free today!

 

 

Want to see more comparisons ? You can check out substack-vs-mailchimp-vs-directiq or get more details about constant-contact-alternatives.