Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mailchimp's pricing

mailchimp.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 89 posts

Re: Mailchimp's pricing

#21

Post by dwwoelfel »

grey-area wrote: post #3

Some clients of mine left mailchimp for this very reason (and because the web style editor wasn't great, but mostly pricing). You start on a free plan, and get 2000 users, you hit that limit, and are considering moving up, then realise that their lowest plan is actually below the number of users on the free plan - you have to go up to the 5th plan to actually get over 2000 users again. The limits are pretty low and t…

you have to go up to the 5th plan to actually get over 2000 users again.

Sure, but it's only $30/month.

Re: Mailchimp's pricing

#22

Post by nej »

dhimant wrote: post #14

I started out using mailchimp when I had less than 2000 subscribers. It worked great! But now that my mail list is growing, I find it increasingly expensive. Any recommendations on alternative providers?

Redcappi.com, though I do have connections with them. Worth a try, free to start.

Re: Mailchimp's pricing

#23

Post by alextingle »

MailChimp are just spam enablers. The vast majority of e-mail I get from them is to e-mail addresses that definitely never ever signed up for anything. They claim they use double opt in, but that's just a damn dirty lie.

Furthermore, they are past masters at helping their spammers craft their spam to defeat SpamAssassin and baysian filters, so the spam that actually makes it to my inbox is disproportionately from them. It's got so bad that I've got special mail server rules that focus on just them.

Re: Mailchimp's pricing

#24

Post by ibrow »

neya wrote: post #13

I think I would much rather roll out my own solution using Mailgun/Amazon's API with a basic RoR/Golang prototype than use these shady monkeys. It's their business and they have every right to price it the way they see it fit, but when there's something deceptive going on, as an end user I think I have every reason to point it out. For example, when you start with a free plan and you decide to upgrade to a paid plan,…

I use Sendy[0] for this very reason. It uses Amazon's SES and whilst it isn't as feature full as Mailchimp it does the job, costs about $60.

Note, I'm not affiliated in any way I just started to use it as I needed auto-responders and Mailchimp was too expensive for my use-case.

[0] http://sendy.co/

Re: Mailchimp's pricing

#25

Post by CD1212 »

Sorry for the shameless plug: I have been developing my own email marketing platform, primarily because I felt that the editor to create emails of some large providers was not easy enough for many people to use.

I haven't posted it to HN before, and so far have only shown it to friends and clients. Please sign up (free trial) and see what you think?

https://emailhamster.com/

Re: Mailchimp's pricing

#26

Post by grey-area »

sathishmanohar wrote: post #15
grey-area wrote: post #3

Some clients of mine left mailchimp for this very reason (and because the web style editor wasn't great, but mostly pricing). You start on a free plan, and get 2000 users, you hit that limit, and are considering moving up, then realise that their lowest plan is actually below the number of users on the free plan - you have to go up to the 5th plan to actually get over 2000 users again. The limits are pretty low and t…

> Some clients of mine left mailchimp for this very reason left in favor of? Mind sharing them?

Sendgrid, they have a far more sensible pricing structure based on no. of emails sent, which doesn't get expensive till you're truly at a larger scale. Sending 2000 mails a month should not cost $30 in my opinion. There are plenty of options though.

Re: Mailchimp's pricing

#27

Post by nemesisj »

A few things here that I think most are missing:

1. Mailchimp is targeted (and priced for) the small business. Most small businesses aren't going to have lists more than a few thousand, which means most of Mailchimp's customers are going to be paying less than 50ish bucks a month.

2. If you've got thousands and thousands of emails to send, and are paying multiple thousands of dollars to mailchimp each month, you're probably just going to use mandrill and hire a dev to help you out there.

3. For those customers that are spending larger amounrd (500-1000 bucks a month?), they're going to marketing managers at midsize businesses who would never get IT love and can easily justify the purchase against conversions to sales.

4. Lastly, most people who use mailchimp send more than 1 email a month, therefore, most of the commentary surrounding the pricing divided by one send a month isn't really accurate.

Re: Mailchimp's pricing

#28

Post by mpclark »

alextingle wrote: post #23

MailChimp are just spam enablers. The vast majority of e-mail I get from them is to e-mail addresses that definitely never ever signed up for anything. They claim they use double opt in, but that's just a damn dirty lie. Furthermore, they are past masters at helping their spammers craft their spam to defeat SpamAssassin and baysian filters, so the spam that actually makes it to my inbox is disproportionately from the…

Well, good for you.

I see a company that tries very hard to educate its customers and keep them on the straight and narrow.

Re: Mailchimp's pricing

#29

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

grey-area wrote: post #26
sathishmanohar wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some clients of mine left mailchimp for this very reason left in favor of? Mind sharing them?

Sendgrid, they have a far more sensible pricing structure based on no. of emails sent, which doesn't get expensive till you're truly at a larger scale. Sending 2000 mails a month should not cost $30 in my opinion. There are plenty of options though.

Sounds like the trade-off depends on the frequency of sending. We have ~ 700-1,500 subscribers (still in flux due to recent migration) but send to them ~ 20 times a month. Mailchimp's 'unlimited sends' plans are a big plus for us, although I DO admit their pricing is a little 'idiosyncratic' to say the least (what's up with the really narrow bands every one in a while?)

Re: Mailchimp's pricing

#30

Post by aquadrop »

grey-area wrote: post #26
sathishmanohar wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some clients of mine left mailchimp for this very reason left in favor of? Mind sharing them?

Sendgrid, they have a far more sensible pricing structure based on no. of emails sent, which doesn't get expensive till you're truly at a larger scale. Sending 2000 mails a month should not cost $30 in my opinion. There are plenty of options though.

But they are a bit different. MailChimp is about marketing emails, that's why 2000 - it's the number of subscribers, not emails. On paying accounts they have no limit to the number of emails sent. SendGrid gravitate more to transactional emails, and they limit number of emails sent per month. So choosing between them isn't that trivial.
Post reply on HN