If you’re stuck comparing mailerlite vs mailchimp, you’re probably not asking “which is best?”—you’re asking “which one will stop fighting me while I grow my list and ship campaigns?” In 2026, both tools can send newsletters and automations. The difference is how quickly you can get to a clean setup, how much you’ll pay as your list scales, and how much complexity you actually want.
1) UX and setup: speed vs depth
MailerLite is built around a simple workflow: create forms, collect subscribers, send campaigns, and add automation when you need it. The UI is opinionated in a good way—fewer knobs, fewer places to get lost.
Mailchimp is more powerful and more “platform-y.” That’s helpful when you’re managing multiple audiences, deeper reporting, and lots of integrations—but it can feel heavy for small teams. You’ll also spend more time learning where things live (audiences, segments, tags, journeys).
My take:
- If you want to launch in a day with minimal setup debt, MailerLite usually wins.
- If you need fine-grained control (and you’ll actually use it), Mailchimp can justify the overhead.
2) Automation and segmentation: the real differentiator
Most people choose an email tool based on templates. That’s a mistake. Automations and segmentation determine whether your email program becomes a revenue engine or a weekly newsletter chore.
MailerLite automations cover the core needs: welcome sequences, lead magnet delivery, basic branching, and time delays. Segmentation is solid, but you’ll hit edges when you want advanced conditional logic across many events.
Mailchimp’s automation (Customer Journeys) is more mature in terms of branching and reporting, especially when you have a complex funnel. Still, it can be overkill if your funnel is “subscribe → welcome → weekly content.”
If you’re already thinking “I need behavior-based automation across multiple products,” you should also look beyond both: activecampaign is often the jump when teams want CRM-like automation and deep segmentation logic without duct tape.
3) Pricing and scaling: watch the cliffs
Pricing changes more than features do. The practical question is: what happens when you go from 1,000 to 10,000 subscribers?
General patterns you’ll notice:
- MailerLite tends to stay cost-effective as you grow, especially if your needs are straightforward.
- Mailchimp can become expensive as subscriber counts rise and you need additional features.
Two gotchas regardless of tool:
- List hygiene costs money. If you keep cold subscribers forever, you pay for them forever.
- Multiple audiences can inflate counts. Some setups effectively “double count” subscribers if you split lists incorrectly.
A pragmatic approach: pick the tool that makes it easiest to keep one clean audience with tags/segments, then enforce pruning.
4) Deliverability and templates: less magic than you think
Deliverability is not a “brand guarantee.” It’s mostly your practices: authentication (SPF/DKIM/DMARC), complaint rates, engagement, and sending consistency.
What does matter in practice:
- How easily the tool lets you set up authentication
- Whether the editor encourages spammy design patterns
- How you handle cold subscribers
On templates:
- Mailchimp’s template ecosystem is big, and the editor is flexible.
- MailerLite’s editor is fast, modern, and usually enough.
Opinionated rule: if your conversion relies on complex visual templates, you’re probably compensating for weak targeting. Plain-ish emails with good segmentation often outperform.
Actionable example: “inactive subscriber cleanup” segment
Here’s a simple, tool-agnostic way to reduce costs and improve deliverability: tag subscribers when they click, then segment anyone who hasn’t clicked in 60 days.
Automation idea:
1) Trigger: Any link click in any campaign
2) Action: Set custom field last_click_date = today
Segment (for re-engagement or suppression):
- last_click_date is before today - 60 days
OR last_click_date is empty AND subscribed_date before today - 60 days
Workflow:
A) Send a short re-engagement email
B) If no click in 7 days → suppress or unsubscribe
You can implement this in MailerLite or Mailchimp using custom fields/tags and basic automations. The point isn’t the exact UI clicks—the point is making engagement a first-class piece of your data model.
5) Choosing between them (and when to consider alternatives)
Pick MailerLite if you want a clean, low-friction email marketing setup and you’re optimizing for speed, simplicity, and predictable operations.
Pick Mailchimp if your team needs a broader marketing platform feel, deeper reporting, and you’re comfortable paying for that breadth as you scale.
Also consider alternatives when your constraints are specific:
- If you want newsletter + creator-centric flows and straightforward monetization patterns, convertkit is often a better fit than trying to bend a general tool.
- If you’re price-sensitive but still want solid automation and transactional options under one roof, brevo is worth evaluating.
Soft recommendation: if you’re early-stage or migrating from a messy setup, start with the tool that will keep your audience structure simple. You can always “graduate” later, but cleaning up a tangled list architecture is the kind of work nobody budgets time for.
