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Not sure which email marketing service provider to use for your business? Two major players, Mad Mimi and MailChimp, are among the most affordable services out there — and they both offer a free plan (not a common occurrence for email marketing services).
So, how do they compare in pricing, ease of use and features? First, we’ll give you an overall review of each service and then delve into some of the most important features to see who wins the battle of Mad Mimi vs MailChimp.
Visit Mad Mimi’s Website | Visit MailChimp’s Website
| Mad Mimi | MailChimp | |
|---|---|---|
| Customer Support |  |
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| Design Tools | |
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| Deliverability | |
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| Automation | |
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| Tracking & Analytics | |
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| Pricing | |
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| Features | |
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| Overall Winner | |
Customer Support
Customer support for both Mad Mimi and MailChimp somewhat lack compared to many other email marketing service providers. While both services have email support, good online tutorials, FAQ’s and other resources, neither service offers 24/7 customer support hours — or even weekend hours.
MailChimp has live chat and email support with their paid plans. Unfortunately we’ve frequently gotten a message that their live chat volume was high, so there would be a significant wait time. Mad Mimi offers live chat that customers say is very responsive. And they say they’ll schedule a phone appointment with you if needed.
Winner: Mad Mimi
Design Tools
Both Mad Mimi and MailChimp offer responsive templates, meaning they’ll automatically look good on any device — a must in email marketing these days. And they both have intuitive, easy-to-use drag-and-drop editors. But that’s all they have in common.
Mad Mimi only has one template that you choose color themes around, and there’s very limited customization. On the other hand, Mail Chimp has several hundred ready-made templates that are easily customizable with many more design tools. MailChimp even provides you with raw code to help you build your own email templates.
Winner: MailChimp
Deliverability
Mad Mimi and MailChimp both get high marks from customers on their deliverability rates — well into the 90th percentile. It’s harder to integrate unsubscribes into Mad Mimi than it is with MailChimp, but otherwise, it’s dead even.
Winner: Mad Mimi & MailChimp (Tie)
Automation
Both services offer basic autoresponders, but if you’re running an email campaign and want to send follow-up emails to certain customers based on their response to your previous emails (i.e. thanking them for signing up on your website, or making a purchase), MailChimp is the way to go.
MailChimp’s advanced autoresponder functionality far suprpasses Mad Mimi’s tools. MailChimp also makes it easier to target a subset of your email list with its autoresponder interface. You also get autoresponders with MailChimp’s free plan.
Winner: MailChimp
Tracking & Analytics
Both Mad Mimi and MailChimp provide detailed email tracking and analytical tools to help you gauge who’s opening and clicking through your emails. You can monitor subscriber activity, bounces, unsubscribes, click-throughs and generate revenue reports.
MailChimp, however, gets the nod in this category. MailChimp provides Google Analytics integration and more sophisticated reporting, tracking and analytics than Mad Mimi. They also have social sharing tracking, which Mad Mimi lacks.
Winner: MailChimp
Pricing
| Mad Mimi | MailChimp | |
|---|---|---|
| Free Plan | Up to 100 contacts/month Unlimited emails/month |
Up to 500 contacts/month 2,500 emails/month |
| Lowest Price Plan/Month (500 Contacts) | $10 | $13 |
| Up To 2,500 Contacts | $16 | $39.50 |
| Up To 5,000 Contacts | $27 | $69 |
| Up to 10,000 Contacts | $42 | $100 |
| Up To 25,000 Contacts | $89 | $260 |
MailChimp used to be the winner in this category but their pricing has increased significantly. As you can see by the chart above, mad Mimi is now the better deal in most scenarios, the exception being the free plan.
Winner: Mad Mimi
Features
| Mad Mimi | MailChimp | |
|---|---|---|
| Mad Mimi | MailChimp | |
| Template Selection | Few | Hundreds |
| Template Editor | WYSIWYG & HTML | WYSIWYG & HTML |
| Responsive Design | |
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| Image Hosting | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Contact Manager/Import | |
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| Newsletter Archiving | |
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| Social Media Marketing | |
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| RSS Feed Integration | |
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| Autoresponder | |
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| SMS (Texting) | Integration Only | |
| Surveys | Integration Only | |
| List Segmentation | |
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| Allows Attachments | ||
| Google Analytics | |
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| Spam Score (Checking) | |
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| Reporting/Stats | |
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| Private (Dedicated) IP Address | |
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| Split A/B Testing | |
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| Trigger Based Messaging | |
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| Developer API | |
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| Customer Support | Live Chat, Email, Phone | Live Chat, Email |
While Mad Mimi offers a solid set of basic features for an unbeatable price, you’re limited in what you can do. MailChimp, on the other hand, has nearly every feature you’ll ever need.
Winner: MailChimp
How Can You Benefit From Email Marketing Integrations?
One of MailChimp’s biggest strengths is the ability to integrate with 800+ third-party apps (Mad Mimi offers 85+ apps). But how do integrations work? And would you really use them? This video by BigCommerce shows you just how easy it is to integrate with MailChimp.
Our Overall Winner
Both Mad Mimi and MailChimp will get good-looking emails where you want them to go with little hassle on your end. The difference comes down to pricing versus more advanced functionality. MailChimp gives you a better free plan, but MadMimi is half the cost of MailChimp when you have higher volume subscriber numbers.
On the other hand, if you need more advanced features like A/B testing or trigger messaging, MailChimp is an excellent choice. Mad Mimi is basic, which is their niche, but you just can’t do as much with your email campaigns.
Overall Winner: MailChimp
What About Other Email Marketing Providers?
Both Mad Mimi and MailChimp are reliable options, but there are a ton of fantastic email marketing provider options. Be sure to check out our email marketing provider showdown for an in-depth analysis of 20+ major email marketing services.
Which provider are you leaning towards? Let us know in the comments!
Tagged With: Email Marketing, VS
