Overview

Emma (by Marigold) and Mailchimp both handle email marketing, but Emma targets a specific niche: mid-market companies needing brand control across distributed teams. Mailchimp serves everyone with a broader, more accessible platform. For our take on each, see our Emma comparison and Mailchimp comparison.

Emma's Niche: Brand Governance

Emma exists for a specific use case: organizations with multiple locations, departments, or franchisees who all need to send email while staying on brand. Locked templates, approval workflows, sub-accounts — this is Emma's competitive advantage. If brand governance across 10+ locations is your problem, Emma solves it well.

Mailchimp's Broader Appeal

Mailchimp does more for less. Better automation, more integrations, e-commerce tools, landing pages, social posting, and a free tier to start. For single-location businesses, marketing teams, and growing companies, Mailchimp offers more value.

The Honest Assessment

Unless you specifically need multi-location brand governance, Mailchimp (or an alternative like ActiveCampaign or Brevo) gives you more features at a better price. Emma's niche is real but narrow.

The Sequenzy Alternative

For SaaS founders, neither platform is ideal. Sequenzy combines transactional email and marketing campaigns with native Stripe integration at $49/month.