Overview

Spently (now UpOrder) and Mailchimp serve different email purposes. See our Spently comparison and Mailchimp comparison for individual breakdowns.

Spently customizes Shopify notification emails. Mailchimp sends marketing campaigns. They do not compete and many stores use a marketing platform alongside Spently.

Pricing Comparison

• Spently: Free for 25 orders/month, ~$100/month at 500 orders
• Mailchimp Standard: $100/month at 10,000 contacts
• Both together: ~$200/month
• Sequenzy: $29/month for 60,000 emails

See our pricing page for details.

Where Spently Wins

Notification email optimization

Spently customizes 25+ Shopify notification templates with branded designs, upsells, discount codes, and product recommendations. Mailchimp has no ability to modify Shopify notification emails.

Revenue from receipts

Notification emails have 60-80% open rates. Spently turns these into revenue opportunities with minimal ongoing effort.

Where Mailchimp Wins

Full marketing platform

Mailchimp offers email campaigns, automation journeys, A/B testing, audience management, landing pages, and social posting. Spently has none of these marketing capabilities.

Works with any platform

Mailchimp integrates with virtually every platform and business type. Spently works exclusively with Shopify notification emails.

Free tier

Mailchimp's free plan includes 500 contacts and 1,000 emails per month. Spently's free tier covers 25 orders per month. For starting out, Mailchimp provides more free marketing capability.

Why Sequenzy Is the Budget Marketing Alternative

At $29/month, Sequenzy offers AI-generated email sequences, advanced automation, transactional email, and Shopify integration at 71% less than Mailchimp. It does not have landing pages or social posting, but covers email marketing with AI power. Pair with Spently for notification optimization and you have a complete email stack for under $130/month.

The Mailchimp-Shopify Integration Problem

Mailchimp's relationship with Shopify has been rocky since they ended their direct partnership. The current integration works through third-party connectors, which means data sync can be delayed and some features that depend on real-time Shopify data may not work as smoothly as Shopify-native tools.

This matters if you are evaluating Mailchimp specifically for a Shopify store. Platforms like Klaviyo, Omnisend, or Sequenzy have direct Shopify integrations that provide real-time customer and order data without third-party bridges.

Transactional Email: The Hidden Cost

Mailchimp charges separately for transactional email through its Mandrill add-on. Spently only customizes the notification emails Shopify already sends. Neither provides a clean unified solution for marketing plus transactional email.

Sequenzy handles both marketing and transactional email in one platform at $29/month, which simplifies the stack for stores that need both capabilities without paying for Mailchimp plus Mandrill plus Spently.

When General-Purpose Works Against You

Mailchimp serves everyone from bloggers to enterprise retailers, which means its e-commerce features are good but not specialized. Shopify-specific features like product recommendation blocks, abandoned cart flows, and customer lifecycle automation work but lack the depth of e-commerce-focused platforms.

For Shopify stores that want deep e-commerce integration, a Shopify-native marketing platform may serve better than Mailchimp. The trade-off is that Mailchimp's massive integration ecosystem and general-purpose features work well for businesses that operate across multiple channels beyond just Shopify.