Choosing the right email marketing platform is a crucial decision for any business owner. Mad Mimi and Mailchimp are two of the most popular options, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.
In this comprehensive Mad Mimi vs Mailchimp comparison, we’ll look at the key factors you need to evaluate when deciding between these two platforms.
We’ll compare the two email marketing service providers across several criteria that are most important for business owners, including market position, ease of use, design customization, features, performance, customer support, pricing, and reviews. by the end, you’ll be able to make a confident, informed decision as to which one is best for your business.
1. Understanding the Basics
Mad Mimi was founded in 2008 by Gary Levitt. It has over 350,000 users. Mailchimp was founded in 2001 by Ben Chestnut and Mark Armstrong. It has over 14 million users worldwide.
Mad Mimi has a smaller market share compared to Mailchimp. However, it offers email marketing specifically for small businesses. Mailchimp is one of the top email service providers globally. It caters to both small businesses and larger companies.
Both platforms have active social media presence and online communities. TheMad Mimi page has over 16,000 likes on Facebook. The Mailchimp User Group has 13,800 members.
In terms of market position, Mailchimp is one of the top email marketing platforms. Mad Mimi serves a smaller but loyal customer base of small business owners. Both have helpful online communities to support users.
2. Features and Functionality
Automation
Mad Mimi
Mad Mimi offers a range of automation features to help streamline your email campaigns. You can create autoresponders to automatically send emails when users sign up for your list or trigger emails based on user actions.
Some key automation features include welcome emails to send automatic welcome messages to new subscribers, RSS-to-Email to automatically send new blog posts or content to subscribers, birthday emails to trigger customized messages on subscribers’ birthdays, and abandoned cart emails to remind customers about items left in their carts.
You also get activity-based emails to send emails when a subscriber clicks a link, opens an email, shares content, etc., RSS forms to populate forms automatically based on RSS feeds to capture leads, and segmentation to target groups based on criteria like location, interests, purchase history, etc.
While Mad Mimi has robust automation options, the platform lacks more advanced features like multi-step workflows. The options focus mostly on basic subscriber triggers.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp provides extensive automation and segmentation capabilities for sending timed and targeted emails.
Key features include signup forms to send welcome emails, series, or post-signup automation, purchase-based triggers to send cart abandonment, shipping confirmation, and other purchase-related emails, behavior-based emails to trigger emails when a contact clicks a link, forward an email, etc., RSS-to-email to turn blog posts into campaigns automatically, and birthday and anniversary triggers to set messages to send on important dates.
Multi-step campaigns allow you to create detailed follow-up sequences with multiple emails, and you also get segmentation to break contacts into groups based on behavior, demographics, purchase history, and more, as well as AI tools to use machine learning to optimize timing and targeting.
Mailchimp provides significantly more advanced automation and segmentation capabilities than Mad Mimi. The workflows are easy to set up with drag-and-drop builders.
Winner: Mailchimp
Mailchimp is the clear winner when it comes to marketing automation. The platform makes it easy to create multi-channel, multi-step campaigns tailored to customer journeys. Mad Mimi has automation capabilities but lacks robust segmentation options and advanced workflows. For powerful automated email marketing, Mailchimp is the better choice.
Email Templates
Mad Mimi
Mad Mimi provides a template library with over 100 responsive email template designs to choose from. The templates are organized into categories like Welcome Emails, Promotions, Holidays, and more.
Some key features of Mad Mimi’s templates include professionally designed templates created by designers, customizable headers, fonts, colors, and images that can be modified, mobile-optimized templates that are responsive for mobile devices, the ability to modify the HTML/CSS or use your own code, access to photo libraries to enhance templates, and a variety of layouts like newsletters, promos, announcements, etc.
While the template library is decent, it is smaller than some competitors. You have less control over custom CSS styling with Mad Mimi templates.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp offers over 600 professionally designed email templates to make campaign creation easy.
Key features include responsive templates optimized for any device, customizable colors, fonts, content blocks, and more, categorized templates to browse by industry, campaign type, etc., and design styles to choose template styles like minimal, bold, retro, and fun.
There’s a drag-and-drop editor to easily customize templates without coding, free images with access to free stock photos, the ability to modify template code or use your own HTML/CSS, and new templates added weekly.
With abundant email template options and easy drag-and-drop editing, Mailchimp makes it fast and simple to create stylish, effective email designs.
Winner: Mailchimp
Mailchimp wins for email templates. With over 600 professionally designed, mobile-friendly templates that can be easily customized with no coding required, Mailchimp offers abundant options for creating emails that reflect your brand. Mad Mimi has a smaller template selection with less control over customization. For beautiful email templates made easy, Mailchimp is the winner.
Segmentation
Mad Mimi
Mad Mimi allows you to segment your contacts based on certain criteria to target your email campaigns.
You can create segments based on the email address to target specific email domains, location to segment by country, region, or city, interests to create segments based on categories or interests, purchase history to target groups based on past purchases, engagement to segment by opens, clicks, etc., signup date to message new vs existing contacts differently.
Segmentation helps personalize messaging and increase relevancy. But Mad Mimi has limited options compared to an email marketing service provider like Mailchimp. You cannot combine multiple criteria to make highly-targeted segments.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp provides powerful segmentation capabilities to target contacts.
Key options include demographics like age, gender, location, language, etc., interests to build segments based on preferences, purchase history like customers who bought X but not Y, engagement such as clicks, opens, sales, activity, and signup date to tailor messaging for new vs loyal contacts, campaign activity to send re-engagement emails to non-openers, and combinations for complex multi-criteria segments.
Advanced features like AI-powered predictive segments make it easy to create hyper-targeted campaigns in Mailchimp.
Winner: Mailchimp
For sophisticated segmentation, Mailchimp is the clear winner. Mailchimp offers significantly more flexibility to combine criteria and build complex, multi-faceted segments to deliver highly personalized, relevant messaging. Mad Mimi has basic segmentation but lacks robust options. Mailchimp’s segmentation powers hyper-targeted, effective email campaigns.
Analytics
Mad Mimi
Mad Mimi provides basic email campaign analytics to view opens, clicks, unsubscribes, spam reports, and more.
Key analytics features include tracking opens to see total and unique opens, tracking clicks per link and clicks over time, viewing unsubscribe rates, checking hard and soft bounce rates, identifying spam complaints, seeing top email clients, and charting opens and clicks over time.
While Mad Mimi covers the essential metrics, advanced features like geo-tracking, personalized reports, and predictive analytics are lacking compared to other platforms. The reporting is fairly basic.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp offers powerful analytics both within campaigns and across your audience.
Key features include tracking opens, clicks, unsubscribes, spam reports, location tracking to see opens by country and city, link analytics to track individual link performance, and email activity monitoring to monitor engagement over time.
You also get campaign reports to review performance for each campaign, compare reports to benchmark campaigns against each other, audience insights for analysis on list growth, engagement, etc., and automated reports to schedule and export reports.
With robust analytics and intuitive reports, Mailchimp provides excellent visibility into email performance beyond basic metrics.
Winner: Mailchimp
For email marketing analytics and reporting, Mailchimp is the winner. It’s one of the best email marketing services that goes far beyond basic metrics to provide detailed campaign performance insights and audience analytics. The intuitive dashboard simplifies data analysis. With Mad Mimi’s basic reporting, it lacks the depth of Mailchimp’s analytics capabilities.
Unique Features
Mad Mimi
Some unique features that Mad Mimi offers include a drag-and-drop editor to build and customize emails visually, SMS marketing to send SMS campaigns and notifications, popup forms to embed pop-up forms on your site, and web activity tracking to see visitor web activity to trigger emails.
Account profiles allow you to manage multiple accounts from one dashboard. Use email surveys to create and send simple surveys, and duplicate prevention to avoid sending subscribers duplicate emails.
While these unique options add value, Mad Mimi lacks the more advanced capabilities of top ESPs like Mailchimp. The features focus mostly on core email marketing.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp provides unique features like automation to create multi-step drip campaigns with branching logic, built-in e-commerce features, CRM integrations, and landing pages to design customizable landing pages.
The platform also has A/B testing to split test email content and design, social to manage and schedule social posts, website and event tracking to track website visits and event signups, surveys with a robust survey builder with advanced options, predictive content powered by AI for content recommendations, and international capabilities for localized sending to global audiences.
Mailchimp stands out by blending robust core email marketing with advanced capabilities like automation, e-commerce, and predictive content in one platform.
Winner: Mailchimp
For unique features, Mailchimp emerges as the winner. Mailchimp offers an extensive suite of both essential and advanced capabilities for sophisticated marketing campaigns. From robust automation to integrated e-commerce and social tools, Mailchimp provides more unique features than Mad Mimi’s focus on everyday email marketing needs.
3. Ease of Use
Mad Mimi
Mad Mimi offers a simple, easy-to-use interface designed for small business owners. The dashboard has a clean layout that allows you to quickly access key features like creating campaigns, viewing reports, managing lists, and more.
The editor for designing emails is intuitive with drag-and-drop functionality for inserting content blocks, images, buttons, and other elements. It’s easy to customize the template fonts, colors, and layout without any code.
For beginners, Mad Mimi is relatively easy to get started with. The platform guides you through the initial setup. Common tasks like creating signup forms, sending broadcasts, importing contacts, and segmenting your list have simple workflows.
However, those with more advanced email marketing needs may find Mad Mimi lacking in sophistication. Automation workflows, analytics, and some marketing tools take more work compared to other ESPs.
Overall, the interface focuses on simplicity and ease of use for small business owners over complex functionality. The basic email marketing features have an easy learning curve.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp provides a clean, modern interface that is intuitive for most users. The dashboard allows you to quickly access reports, campaigns, lists, and key features.
Building emails, signup forms, and landing pages is easy with drag-and-drop editing and hundreds of customizable templates. Advanced users can tweak HTML and CSS code.
For beginners, Mailchimp offers thorough guides and video tutorials to get started. The platform makes common tasks like sending broadcasts, importing contacts, and segmenting your audience simple.
With more advanced tools, the learning curve is steeper compared to Mad Mimi. Setting up automation, e-commerce features, and sophisticated analytics takes more time. But the interface remains clean and unintimidating.
Winner: Tie
This Mailchimp Mad Mimi comparison shows that for ease of use and learning curve, both email marketing providers are tied. Both have intuitive interfaces that make picking up the basics fairly easy for new users. Mad Mimi remains simpler for those who only need core email marketing features. But Mailchimp also offers an easy-to-use experience across its more sophisticated tools.
4. Email Deliverability
Mad Mimi
Mad Mimi has decent email deliverability rates for a small platform. They use methods like sender authentication, domain whitelists, and feedback loops with major ISPs to maximize inbox placement.
Some key deliverability features include dedicated IP addresses for consistent sender identity and reputation, domain authentication with DKIM and SPF, relationships with ISPs for feedback loops to improve sender reputation, spam testing to check messages against spam filters, deliverability monitoring that tracks opens, clicks, bounces, suppression lists to exclude risky email domains.
However, deliverability rates tend to be lower compared to top competitors. Mad Mimi lacks some more advanced deliverability capabilities.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is known for excellent email deliverability with rates above industry standards.
Key features include high-volume dedicated IPs to maintain positive sender reputation, domain authentication with DKIM, SPF, and DMARC for security, ISP feedback loops as Mailchimp works closely with ISPs, address verification to check for invalid addresses, spam filter analysis to test messages against filters, deliverability monitoring for real-time tracking of email engagement, targeted deliverability tools to improve problem campaigns.
With premium dedicated IPs and strong authentication, Mailchimp delivers email reliably to the inbox.
Winner: Mailchimp
For superior email deliverability, Mailchimp is the winner. Mailchimp’s deliverability rates consistently surpass industry averages, with a strong sender reputation and advanced authentication. Mad Mimi has decent deliverability for a smaller platform, but cannot match Mailchimp’s expertise and tools for inbox placement.
5. Customer Support and Community
Mad Mimi
Mad Mimi provides the following customer support options: Email support to submit support tickets by email, a knowledgebase with searchable help articles and tutorials, video tutorials as short video guides on core features, a forum which is a community forum to ask questions, and a Facebook group with an active user group.
While email support is responsive, options like live chat or phone support are not offered. The knowledge base covers basics but lacks depth compared to competitors.
The community provides valuable peer-to-peer help. But Mad Mimi’s own educational resources are limited.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp offers excellent customer support through 24/7 email support with fast response times and round-the-clock availability, phone support to get live help over the phone, and onsite chat for live chat with support agents.
The platform also has an extensive knowledge base with thousands of searchable support articles, video tutorials with hundreds of videos for training, an active community forum for user discussions and feedback, and large Facebook groups like the Mailchimp Users Group with over 13,800 members.
Mailchimp provides outstanding direct support channels augmented by in-depth self-help resources and community forums.
Winner: Mailchimp
For customer support and community, Mailchimp is the winner. Mailchimp offers more extensive official support through 24/7 live chat, phone, and email. The large knowledge base and video tutorials provide excellent self-help options. While Mad Mimi relies more on its active user community for assistance, Mailchimp excels at direct 1-on-1 support.
6. Integrations
Mad Mimi
Mad Mimi offers some basic integrations but lacks the extensive options of other ESP platforms.
Key integrations include integration with WordPress to embed forms and integrate with the WP dashboard, Shopify to sync Store contacts and product data, Zapier to connect to apps like Gmail, Facebook, Eventbrite, Salesforce to sync contacts from Salesforce, landing page builders like Instapage and Leadpages, and web activity tracking to install tracking code to capture web visits.
While these cover popular apps and websites, most advanced CRM, sales, and marketing platforms are not integrated natively with Mad Mimi. Reliance on Zapier makes more complex workflows challenging.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp integrates with thousands of applications through its API and app directory.
Key integrations include CRM platforms like Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho CRM, and Pipedrive, e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, and BigCommerce, marketing tools like Marketo, Adobe, Google Analytics integration, and Facebook, and events platforms including Eventbrite, Meetup, and Constant Contact.
You can also connect survey tools such as SurveyMonkey, Typeform, and Google Forms, landing page builders like Unbounce, Instapage, Leadpages, and webhooks to connect to internal apps. There’s also Zapier for additional app integrations.
With its extensive library of native and third-party integrations, Mailchimp connects easily with virtually any martech tool or platform.
Winner: Mailchimp
For integrations, Mail chimp is the undisputed winner. Mailchimp offers native support for connecting with thousands of apps and platforms used in marketing, e-commerce, CRM, and more. Mad Mimi has limited integrations focused primarily on email marketing needs. Mailchimp’s vast integration ecosystem far surpasses Mad Mimi’s offerings.
7. Pricing
Mad Mimi
Mad Mimi offers 4 paid plans:
- Basic – $10/month for up to 500 subscribers
- Pro – $42/month for up to 10,000 subscribers
- Silver – $199/month for up to 50,000 subscribers
- Gold – $1,049/month for up to 350,000 subscribers
Additional fees include:
- Overage charges if you go over your subscriber limit
- SMS charges for sending text messages
The plans include features like drag-and-drop editing, templates, segmentation, automation, web activity tracking, and more.
For small lists under 500 subscribers, Mad Mimi is very affordable for all the basic features you need for your autoresponder campaigns. However, the pricing jumps significantly for larger lists compared to competitors.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp has 3 pricing tiers:
- Free – Up to 2,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails/month
- Essentials – $13/month billed annually for up to 500 contacts
- Standard – $20/month billed annually for up to 2,500 contacts
- Premium – $350/month billed annually for up to 10,000 contacts
Add-ons like additional email sends, domain authentication and SMS credits cost extra.
The plans include automation, landing pages, reports, CRM integrations, and other features. Mailchimp’s free plan has a generous allowance for getting started. Paid plans offer strong value for growing email lists.
Winner: Mailchimp
For the best value, Mailchimp wins on pricing. Mailchimp has a forever-free plan with solid capabilities for small lists. Paid plans are competitively priced, especially for larger email lists. Mad Mimi is inexpensive for tiny lists but scales poorly. For the most affordably priced plans, Mailchimp comes out ahead.
8. Reviews and Reputation
Mad Mimi
Mad Mimi earns positive reviews for its simplicity, affordability, and ease of use. Users highlight the straightforward editor, drag-and-drop functionality, and clean workflows for basic email marketing needs. The platform averages 4.3 out of 5 stars on G2.
Some drawbacks mentioned in reviews include limited features, a lack of advanced email design options, a smaller template library, and lower deliverability rates versus competitors. The platform is best suited for startups, solopreneurs, and very small lists.
Overall, Mad Mimi is well-regarded as an easy-to-use, budget-friendly email marketing solution, but may not meet the needs of larger businesses.
Mailchimp
With over 600,000 customers, Mailchimp enjoys a stellar reputation as a leading email marketing platform. The platform has 4.3 out of 5 stars on G2.
Users praise the intuitive drag-and-drop builder, extensive templates, excellent deliverability, and helpful customer support. Negative feedback is minimal, mostly around complex automation and occasional glitches.
Many reviews mention Mailchimp as the gold standard for email marketing, though advanced features like e-commerce make it overkill for simple needs. But for scalable email marketing, its reputation is unmatched.
Winner: Mailchimp
For overall brand reputation, Mailchimp emerges as the winner. With overwhelmingly positive reviews praising its ease of use, features, and deliverability, Mailchimp sets the standard for email marketing platforms. While Mad Mimi has satisfied users, it caters mostly to very small businesses, unlike the broader appeal of Mailchimp. For reputation and reliability, Mailchimp stands out.
9. FAQ’s
Mad Mimi FAQs
- What is the maximum list size on each plan?
The Basic plan supports up to 500 subscribers, Plus supports 2,500 subscribers, Professional supports 5,000 subscribers, and Elite supports up to 25,000 subscribers. - Is there a limit on emails I can send?
The number of emails you can send depends on your subscriber count for your selected plan. There are no additional email send limits. - Does Mad Mimi offer free trials?
Yes, Mad Mimi offers a 30-day free trial to test out the platform. - How do I get started with Mad Mimi?
Sign up for a free trial to begin creating signup forms, importing contacts, building emails, sending broadcasts, and exploring features. Video tutorials provide step-by-step guidance. - Does Mad Mimi integrate with WordPress?
Yes, Mad Mimi offers a WordPress plugin to easily embed forms and integrate your site with your account dashboard.
Mailchimp FAQs
- Is there a free Mailchimp plan?
Yes, Mailchimp has a free Forever Free plan for up to 2,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month. - What features come in the paid Mailchimp plans?
Paid plans add features like advanced automation, e-commerce, Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns, landing pages, and more contacts and emails. - Does Mailchimp offer phone support?
Yes, phone support is included for all paid Mailchimp plans to get live help from agents. - Can I send text messages with Mailchimp?
Yes, you can send SMS campaigns by adding credits to any Mailchimp plan as an add-on purchase. - How long does it take to create an email campaign?
With pre-designed templates and the drag-and-drop editor, you can create professional emails within minutes on Mailchimp.
Final Thoughts
Choose Mad Mimi if…
Mad Mimi is a great choice if you’re a solopreneur, startup, or small business looking for an intuitive, affordable email marketing solution.
With its simple drag-and-drop editor, template library, and automation options, Mad Mimi makes it easy to create campaigns, send broadcasts, and track engagement without a complex feature set. It’s ideal if you have a list of under 500 subscribers and want an easy-to-use platform at a low price point.
Choose Mailchimp if…
Mailchimp is the leader in advanced email marketing and automation. With its extensive templates, deliverability expertise, sophisticated segmentation, automation, and integrations, Mailchimp is ideal for growing businesses ready to scale their email marketing.
If you have a larger list and need CRM integrations, e-commerce features, advanced workflows, and robust analytics, Mailchimp has everything you need for sophisticated email campaigns.
You may also be interested in checking out some Mailchimp alternatives to help with the evaluation process.