When it comes to email marketing, Mailchimp is still the name most people reach for first. But since Intuit acquired Mailchimp in 2021 for roughly $12 billion, the platform has undergone many changes.
Intuit has poured investment into AI capabilities, rebranding and reshaping features under its "Intuit Assist" umbrella. The result is a more powerful and automation-heavy platform than the Mailchimp many users first signed up for.
That evolution has come with tradeoffs. The free plan has been pared back repeatedly over the years, with the most recent cuts in January 2026 reducing it to just 250 contacts and 500 emails per month. Automation workflows, once a free plan staple, are now exclusively for paying customers. For businesses that rely on Mailchimp's entry-level tier, the math has changed considerably.
Still, for teams ready to invest in a paid plan, the platform now offers a compelling mix of email marketing, automation, AI-powered content creation, and analytics. In this review, we break down what's new, what's changed, and whether Mailchimp is still worth your money in 2026.
MailChimp: Plans and pricing
|
Plan |
Starting Rate (Paid Annually) |
Starting Rate (Paid Monthly) |
|---|---|---|
|
Free |
$0 |
$0 |
|
Essentials |
~$11/month* |
$13/month |
|
Standard |
~$17/month* |
$20/month |
|
Premium |
~$297/month* |
$350/month |
Mailchimp offers four plans: Free, Essentials, Standard, and Premium. The free tier now supports just 250 contacts and 500 email sends per month, a significant reduction from earlier limits, following the most recent cutback in January 2026.
The Essentials plan starts at $13/month (billed monthly) for up to 500 contacts and 5,000 monthly email sends. Standard, which unlocks generative AI tools and advanced automation, starts at $20/month for 500 contacts. Premium (designed for larger teams and advanced marketers) starts at $350/month and requires a minimum of 10,000 contacts, with unlimited users and priority phone support included.
Mailchimp also offers a pay-as-you-go email credits option, useful for occasional senders. Annual billing is available on paid plans and can bring meaningful savings. Verified nonprofits and charities are eligible for a 15% discount.
MailChimp: AI tools
Since Intuit's 2021 acquisition, AI has become central to Mailchimp's roadmap. The flagship feature is Intuit Assist, an AI-powered layer that touches everything from content creation to campaign automation. Rather than a standalone AI add-on, it's built directly into the Mailchimp interface, which makes the experience feel cohesive rather than bolted on.
The most practical tool for day-to-day use is Write with AI, which lets you generate email body copy based on your campaign goals, audience type, and brand voice. You give the AI a brief prompt and it produces multiple draft options you can refine in the editor. A related feature, the AI subject line generator, analyzes your email content and past performance data to suggest up to five subject line variations per campaign. Both tools are available on Standard and Premium plans only.
On the automation side, Marketing Automation Flows (formerly the Customer Journey Builder, rebranded in June 2025) uses AI to generate multi-step campaign workflows based on your brand profile and previous campaign performance. You can launch flows like "Welcome New Contacts" or "Abandoned Cart" with a single click, and the AI pre-populates email content for each touchpoint. This replaces Mailchimp's Classic Automation Builder, which was discontinued in June 2025.
Rounding things out are more established AI features that have matured considerably: Send-Time Optimization predicts the best delivery window for each individual contact, Predictive Segmentation identifies your highest-value subscribers using engagement and purchase behavior, and Content Optimizer scores your campaigns against industry benchmarks across readability, tone, imagery, and calls-to-action. Together, these tools give Mailchimp a meaningful AI edge over similarly priced competitors.
MailChimp: Features
Mailchimp's paid plans are genuinely feature-rich, covering the full lifecycle of email marketing from list-building and campaign design through to analytics and testing. For small and mid-sized businesses, the breadth of tools on offer is hard to match at this price point.
Audience-building tools are a clear strength. You get custom sign-up forms, landing pages, digital advertising integrations, and a lookalike audience finder to help grow your contact list. Dynamic content blocks let you personalize emails per segment and the subject line helper offers AI-powered suggestions to improve open rates, though this is limited to Standard and Premium subscribers.
When it comes to campaign creation, Mailchimp's drag-and-drop email builder remains one of the most accessible in the market. The Creative Assistant generates on-brand templates using your logo and color palette, while multivariate testing tools let you run controlled experiments to optimize your campaigns. These testing features are reserved for Premium users, but A/B testing is available on Standard as well.
Mailchimp has also expanded its platform scope beyond email marketing. A built-in website builder with marketing tools and a transactional email add-on (Mailchimp Transactional, formerly Mandrill) position it as more than just an email tool. That said, some competitors, particularly ActiveCampaign and Klaviyo, offer deeper CRM functionality and more granular segmentation without requiring a jump to higher pricing tiers. For teams that need those capabilities, Mailchimp's value proposition weakens as contact lists scale up.
MailChimp: Interface and In Use
Just like most other email marketing services, Mailchimp is a web-based platform or SaaS. With your account created, the next step is to log in on any device for immediate access to all of your Mailchimp campaigns, analytics, and other tools.
Configuration for role-based access is reserved for the highest pricing plan. For those not familiar, this means that different members of your team will log in using their own Mailchimp credentials, but then will only be able to access features and data relevant to their position. Think about role-based access as a powerful feature, making Mailchimp ideal for a medium or large-sized business, or for a business with a strong need for customer privacy.
MailChimp: Support
Mailchimp offers direct customer support through email, live chat, and telephone, but the ones available to you depend on the plan you pay for. Users on the free plan have access to email support for the first 30 days of their use. Users on the Essentials and Standard plans have access to 24/7 email and live chat support, while only users on the Premium plan can access phone support.
Apart from direct support, Mailchimp offers many other support resources that every customer can access. There's the official Help Center where you can find articles and tutorials concerning all the platform's features. If you're having an issue with any feature, you’ll likely find an article or a step-by-step video tutorial that’ll help you solve it.
Mailchimp offers a separate Marketing Library, which contains articles, podcasts, and videos that teach users how to market effectively. If you need help with your marketing efforts, you can also hire a vetted expert from the company’s directory.
MailChimp: The competition
Sendinblue and MailerLite are two popular alternatives to Mailchimp. Sendinblue is a much more affordable email marketing platform and offers more automation and list management features, but Mailchimp is way easier to use.
MailerLite is also a more affordable tool than Mailchimp. However, Mailchimp offers more sophisticated analytical and reporting features and a broader selection of email templates.
MailChimp: Final verdict
In our analysis, we think that Mailchimp is simply one of the best email marketing services available.
The choice of four tiered plans means that there is a digital marketing solution for businesses of all shapes and sizes. With Mailchimp’s large range of features, it almost guarantees your business will thrive when empowered by Mailchimp’s email marketing tools.
Also factoring in the comprehensive support options, and the robust data security framework makes us even more confident in our recommendation of Mailchimp for businesses of all sizes.
