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MailChimp now free up to 2000 subscribers

mailchimp.com

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Re: MailChimp now free up to 2000 subscribers

#11
post #7
post #4

Just curious: when they write "Unlimited", what exactly do they mean? Wouldn't this be a spammer's good investement?

I work at MailChimp. The answer is nope.

As someone who doesn't know much about MailChimp, the original question seems valid. A little more detailed answer (like the one by qeorge) would have helped me understand this better.

As you work at MailChimp, it would have helped if you would have given that detail.

Re: MailChimp now free up to 2000 subscribers

#12

Extensive list of e-mail marketing services, free and paid: http://techblog.willshouse.com/?p=522 (Constant Contact, iContact, Vertical Response, StreamSend, and many more)

wish it distinguished free from paid.

I think most feature a "free trial" at least. I'll see about adding more info to pricing, but was more concerned with coming up with maintaining a list I could share with clients.

Re: MailChimp now free up to 2000 subscribers

#13
post #10
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at MailChimp. The answer is nope.

Thanks for your answer. I imagined so. But I could also think of some legitimate heavy-duty users who could threaten your profitability. Is there any fine print for those cases?

I don't think so. The cost of running something like Mailchimp isn't in having a couple of servers and some bandwidth, I imagine; the cost is in dealing with spammers, overzealous spam-fighters and people who'd rather hit "report as spam" than unsubscribe. Number of subscribers is not a bad metric.

ETA: Also see bjonathan's comment at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2170619: Amazon, which probably offers something closer to "server and bandwidth", is much cheaper.

Re: MailChimp now free up to 2000 subscribers

#14
post #10
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at MailChimp. The answer is nope.

Thanks for your answer. I imagined so. But I could also think of some legitimate heavy-duty users who could threaten your profitability. Is there any fine print for those cases?

No fine-print. Our high volume plans for large email lists are not unlimited, but smaller lists are completely free to send as much as they want. In practice, you'll hit our anti-spam limits long before you hurt our profitability if you try to send lots of email to a smaller list.

Re: MailChimp now free up to 2000 subscribers

#15
post #9
post #2

Great for free users - my concern is that it won't scale or that they're not as profitable as they'd like to be.

I work at MailChimp. I don't worry about that.

I've often wondered why MailChimp doesn't offer more support for transactional mails. I know there is some stuff in the API but it seems bolted on (am I wrong?). I would really like to use the standard templating for email campaigns that MailChimp has, and use it for transactional mails. An API call to MailChimp with some some arguments would then send a template, the variables (dynamically) filled in, to the user.

Email campaigns are so easy in MailChimp and I'd like to maintain the look of those mails in my transactional mails. Nonetheless, you guys provide a great service!

Re: MailChimp now free up to 2000 subscribers

#16
Probably worth relinking their excellent blog post "Going Freemium: One Year Later" http://blog.mailchimp.com/going-freemium-one-year-later/

Their 'reverse freemium' approach is really interesting -- rather than de-emphasising the free and focusing on the [pre]mium side of their biz, they've been slowly expanding their free options and growing rapidly -- in terms of profit -- because of it.

Re: MailChimp now free up to 2000 subscribers

#17
post #15
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at MailChimp. I don't worry about that.

I've often wondered why MailChimp doesn't offer more support for transactional mails. I know there is some stuff in the API but it seems bolted on (am I wrong?). I would really like to use the standard templating for email campaigns that MailChimp has, and use it for transactional mails. An API call to MailChimp with some some arguments would then send a template, the variables (dynamically) filled in, to the user. E…

We do have transactional support via Amazon SES now:

http://blog.mailchimp.com/mailchimp-launches-transactional-e...

It rolled out this very week.

Re: MailChimp now free up to 2000 subscribers

#18
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for your answer. I imagined so. But I could also think of some legitimate heavy-duty users who could threaten your profitability. Is there any fine print for those cases?

No fine-print. Our high volume plans for large email lists are not unlimited, but smaller lists are completely free to send as much as they want. In practice, you'll hit our anti-spam limits long before you hurt our profitability if you try to send lots of email to a smaller list.

Thanks for the explanation. I'm glad you stopped lurking, and to have tripled your karma!

Re: MailChimp now free up to 2000 subscribers

#19
post #11
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at MailChimp. The answer is nope.

As someone who doesn't know much about MailChimp, the original question seems valid. A little more detailed answer (like the one by qeorge) would have helped me understand this better. As you work at MailChimp, it would have helped if you would have given that detail.

Ben from MailChimp here. We invested a lot in abuse prevention, well before introducing any freemium plans. The problem ESPs like us face isn't so much the "evil" spam, but the "fuzzy" spam (from clueless marketers).

Our approach to dealing with fuzzy spam is here: http://blog.mailchimp.com/project-omnivore-declassified/

an update was posted here: http://blog.mailchimp.com/update-on-omnivore-new-3-strikes-r...

Probably shoulda brought that up in my blog post (it's usually the first question techies ask), but it's something our customers are pretty familiar with, so I left it out.

Re: MailChimp now free up to 2000 subscribers

#20
post #8
post #4

Just curious: when they write "Unlimited", what exactly do they mean? Wouldn't this be a spammer's good investement?

MailChimp are very diligent about spam. If your emails get reported as spam more than %0.5 of the time you'll be banned. So "Unlimited" has a built in limit. (We use/love MailChimp, definitely recommended.)

0.1% actually. I kid you not. (This causes me a minor issue once a year. One of my autoresponders caught a flag in January for having 6 / 4000 = 0.15% spam complaints. They were quite clear in their mail: I'm on probation.)

Have I mentioned I love MailChimp? They take deliverability seriously.

(Also, they do have actual human beings who you can talk to if you get flagged unnecessarily. For example, within 24 hours of opening my account and funding it, it was closed because I used the word "bingo" in a draft email. Their filter smacked me down for promoting gambling. I mailed them and the CS department got back with "Thanks for your explanation of what your business actually does. OK, we reinstated you. Be careful.")

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