If you’re Googling mailerlite vs mailchimp, you’re probably not looking for “feature lists”—you want to know which tool will actually ship campaigns faster, keep deliverability stable, and not punish you with surprise pricing when your list grows.
1) The real difference: workflow simplicity vs ecosystem gravity
MailerLite and mailchimp both cover the basics: forms, automations, templates, reporting, and list management. The difference shows up in day-to-day friction.
- MailerLite tends to feel “lean”: fewer screens, fewer knobs, quicker setup. If you value clarity and speed, it’s hard to beat.
- mailchimp has more ecosystem gravity: more pre-built integrations, more legacy familiarity, and more “it probably supports that” confidence—at the cost of extra UI complexity.
Opinionated take: most teams don’t need 80% of what makes a platform feel “enterprise.” They need reliable sends, easy segmentation, and automations that don’t break when you add one condition. If you’re a small team shipping weekly, MailerLite’s simplicity is a feature, not a limitation.
2) Automations: how much logic do you actually need?
If you’re running a newsletter + a welcome sequence, both tools will do fine. If you’re building multi-branch customer journeys with scoring, deep segmentation, and sales handoffs, you’ll hit differences.
What to look for:
- Trigger options (signup, link click, tag added, purchase)
- Branching (if/else logic)
- Segmentation model (tags vs audiences/lists)
- Maintenance cost (can you understand your own flow 3 months later?)
MailerLite’s automation builder is straightforward. mailchimp can handle sophisticated flows too, but the cognitive load is higher—especially when you mix audiences, segments, and campaign-level conditions.
If your automation needs start resembling CRM territory (lead scoring, pipeline stages), you may outgrow both and end up happier with activecampaign. That’s not a knock—just an honest boundary: email platforms are great until you want CRM-grade behavioral orchestration.
3) Deliverability and list hygiene: boring stuff that matters
Deliverability is not a single “score”—it’s the outcome of your content, authentication, reputation, and list hygiene. Both platforms can perform well, but you need to do your part.
Checklist that moves the needle:
- Authenticate your domain (SPF, DKIM, ideally DMARC)
- Avoid importing cold lists (it’s the fastest way to tank reputation)
- Prune unengaged contacts (or at least segment them)
- Keep complaint rates low (clear opt-in, easy unsubscribe)
A practical approach is to segment “engaged in last 90 days” and only send heavy promos to that group. Here’s a vendor-neutral example you can adapt in either platform:
Segment: Engaged_90D
Rules:
- (Opened any campaign in last 90 days) OR (Clicked any link in last 90 days)
AND
- (Not unsubscribed)
Campaign targeting:
- Promotions -> Engaged_90D
- Winback flow -> Not Engaged_90D for 120+ days
This one change often improves deliverability more than switching tools.
4) Pricing and scaling: the “gotcha” category
Most comparisons stop at entry pricing. The real question: what happens when you go from 1,000 to 25,000 subscribers?
General patterns you’ll notice:
- mailchimp can get expensive as your list grows, and pricing tiers can feel punitive if you need specific features.
- MailerLite is frequently more cost-efficient for creators and small businesses scaling a newsletter-first strategy.
But cost isn’t just subscription:
- Time spent fighting the UI
- Time spent rebuilding automations
- Time spent cleaning list mistakes caused by confusing models
If you want a more “marketing suite” feel with webinars, funnels, and broader tooling, getresponse is often in the conversation. If you want a simpler “send + automate” tool with strong value, people also evaluate brevo.
5) Recommendations (soft): choose based on your operating style
Here’s the non-fluffy rule: pick the tool that matches how your team actually works.
- Choose MailerLite if you want a clean workflow, quick campaign creation, and solid automations without turning your email tool into a part-time job.
- Choose mailchimp if you benefit from broad integrations, want a familiar platform many contractors already know, or you’re inheriting an existing account and don’t want migration risk.
If you’re a creator selling digital products and you care about audience-first workflows, you may also find convertkit aligns with that operating style—but only if its pricing and feature set match your current stage.
Whatever you choose, do one thing before migrating: export a list of your automations and segments and estimate rebuild time. Switching platforms rarely fails on “features”—it fails on underestimating operations.
