Two veterans, two directions
Campaign Monitor and Mailchimp have both been sending campaigns for well over a decade. They have grown in different directions. Campaign Monitor, now part of Marigold alongside Emma, has stayed close to the email itself: how it looks, how it is tested, and how agencies manage it for clients. Mailchimp, owned by Intuit since 2021, has expanded into websites, ecommerce data, SMS and ads so a small business can run most of its marketing from one account.
Designing and sending
Campaign Monitor is the one designers and brand teams tend to like. Templates are clean, the builder respects brand styles, and Premier adds locked sections so a regional team cannot break a layout. Essentials and above include inbox previews, so you can check rendering across clients before sending.
Mailchimp's editor is built for speed and approachability. Its template library is larger, and a non-designer can produce a decent promotional email quickly. It offers inbox preview through credits rather than as a plan feature.
Agencies and multiple brands
This is Campaign Monitor's clearest advantage. Agencies can create client accounts, decide what each client can see and do, and bill clients for their sending. One agency login can manage many clients.
Mailchimp has no client billing. Agencies typically create a separate Mailchimp account per client or manage multiple audiences, which duplicates contacts and costs.
What 10,000 contacts costs
| Campaign Monitor | Mailchimp | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry plan | Lite, from $13 at 500 contacts, sends capped at about 5x contacts | Essentials, about $110 at 10k contacts, sends capped at 10x |
| Main plan at 10k | Essentials, about $89, unlimited sends | Standard, about $135, sends capped at 12x |
| Top self-serve plan | Premier, from $159 at 500 contacts | Premium, $350 at 10k contacts |
| Free option | 30-day trial, 500 contacts and 500 emails | Free plan, 250 contacts and 500 sends a month |
Campaign Monitor has run steep first-month discounts on Essentials, so look at month two onward when comparing. Mailchimp has offered a 15% first-year discount to accounts over 10,000 contacts. Both scale with contact count, and Mailchimp now counts unsubscribed contacts, so cleaning your list matters more there.
Pricing reality: a weekly sender at 10,000 contacts
Take a brand with 10,000 contacts that sends a weekly newsletter, a monthly promotion and two automated series. That is roughly 55,000 emails a month, and more in busy seasons.
| Plan | Monthly cost | Send allowance | Fits? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Campaign Monitor Lite | Contact-tiered | About 5x contacts, around 50,000 | Tight, busy months will hit the cap |
| Campaign Monitor Essentials | About $89 | Unlimited | Yes, with room for extra sends |
| Mailchimp Essentials | About $110 | 10x contacts, 100,000 | Yes |
| Mailchimp Standard | About $135 | 12x contacts, 120,000 | Yes, plus branching journeys |
For this sender, Campaign Monitor Essentials is the cheapest plan that removes send limits entirely. Mailchimp's plans also cover the volume, and Standard adds journeys with branching and send-time optimization, which may be worth the extra $46 a month if automation matters more than design.
The Marigold and Intuit factor
Ownership shapes both roadmaps. Campaign Monitor belongs to Marigold, which also owns Emma, and has stayed a focused email product with agency tools. Third-party trackers note that its prices moved up after a 2025 plan reshuffle, so older reviews quoting cheaper plans may be out of date.
Mailchimp has belonged to Intuit since 2021 and has grown toward a broader small-business platform, with changes such as billing for unsubscribed contacts on current plans. If you are on an older plan with either vendor, check what a plan change would do to your price before you touch it.
Automation and data
Both tools cover welcome series, birthdays and anniversaries, re-engagement and simple branching. Mailchimp goes further with ecommerce: store-connected journeys for abandoned carts, product recommendations and purchase follow-ups. Campaign Monitor's automation is simpler and fits teams whose main output is scheduled campaigns.
For a brand whose calendar is mostly planned campaigns, such as a monthly newsletter, seasonal launches and event invitations, Campaign Monitor's simpler automation is rarely a limitation. For a store that depends on cart and post-purchase revenue, Mailchimp's journeys will do more of the work.
Neither is designed for in-product events or subscription billing. You can send events through their APIs, but journeys built on "trial ends in three days" or "payment failed" take custom work.
List hygiene and deliverability
Both tools send from shared infrastructure by default and both police list quality, so the practical differences are about how much list you pay to keep.
Mailchimp counts unsubscribed and unconfirmed contacts toward your billable total on current plans. Archiving contacts you no longer email is the main way to keep the bill down, and Mailchimp automatically cleans hard bounces. If you import an old list, expect Mailchimp's compliance checks to flag high bounce or complaint rates.
Campaign Monitor also prices by contacts, so the same discipline applies: remove people who have not engaged in a long time, and suppress rather than delete unsubscribes so they never get re-imported. Its unlimited sends on Essentials make frequent sending cheaper, but frequent sending to an unengaged list is exactly what hurts inbox placement.
On both platforms, authenticate your domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, send to engaged segments first after any migration, and watch complaint rates for the first few campaigns.
Moving from one to the other
Mailchimp to Campaign Monitor often happens when an agency wants client billing, or a brand wants unlimited sends at 10,000+ contacts.
- Export each audience, including tags, merge fields, and unsubscribed and cleaned contacts.
- In Campaign Monitor, create lists and custom fields first, then import with suppressions preserved.
- Rebuild your master template in Campaign Monitor's builder and set brand styles before recreating individual campaigns.
- Recreate journeys and swap Mailchimp merge tags for Campaign Monitor personalization.
- Authenticate your domain and send to your most engaged segment first.
Campaign Monitor to Mailchimp usually happens when a business wants a website, store integrations or SMS in the same account. Collapse multiple lists into one Mailchimp audience with tags to avoid paying for duplicates.
Use-case matchups
| Situation | Better fit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Agency sending for a dozen clients | Campaign Monitor | Client accounts and rebilling |
| Retailer with cart and product emails | Mailchimp | Store journeys and product blocks |
| Brand team that locks layouts for regional marketers | Campaign Monitor | Locked sections on Premier |
| Small business that wants website and email together | Mailchimp | Website builder included |
| High-frequency sender at 10,000 contacts | Campaign Monitor | Unlimited sends on Essentials |
| SaaS product sending onboarding and billing email | Sequenzy | Stripe triggers and transactional email |
Migration checklist
| Workstream | Mailchimp to Campaign Monitor | Campaign Monitor to Mailchimp |
|---|---|---|
| Contacts | Export audiences with tags and merge fields | Export lists with custom fields |
| Structure | Create lists and custom fields first | Merge lists into one audience with tags |
| Suppressions | Import unsubscribed and cleaned contacts as suppressed | Import suppression list before first send |
| Templates | Rebuild master template, set brand styles | Recreate templates in Mailchimp's editor |
| Automations | Recreate journeys in Campaign Monitor | Rebuild as Customer Journeys |
| Clients | Set up client accounts and billing | Create separate accounts per client |
| Sending | Authenticate domain, send to engaged segment first | Authenticate domain, send to engaged segment first |
Where Sequenzy fits
Sequenzy has no agency client billing and no website builder, so it is not the right choice for an agency or a brand team focused on campaign design. It fits SaaS companies that have been using either tool and find that their most important emails are not campaigns but lifecycle messages: onboarding steps, trial reminders, failed payment notices and upgrade prompts. Sequenzy triggers those from product events and a native Stripe integration, sends transactional email from the same account, and charges by emails sent with unlimited contacts ($49/month for 60k emails (unlimited subscribers)). See the Campaign Monitor alternatives and Mailchimp alternatives.
Which to choose
- You are an agency or a design-led brand team: Campaign Monitor.
- You send often to 10,000+ contacts and want no send cap: Campaign Monitor Essentials.
- You run a store and want store-connected journeys: Mailchimp.
- You want to start free and add a website: Mailchimp.
- Your emails are driven by product and billing events: Sequenzy.
