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It's a split decision.
Choose beehiiv if your main job is publishing and growing a newsletter: its free plan allows 2,500 subscribers and unlimited email sends, while paid plans add monetization tools. Choose Mailchimp if you need email and SMS campaigns, behavioral data and marketing automations; its paid Essentials plan is $13 per month on a 12-month promotional rate. Check the caps before switching: Mailchimp Free allows 250 contacts and 500 monthly emails. Reddit reports of beehiiv frozen payouts are a risk to weigh.
01Side by side
| beehiiv | Mailchimp | |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest paid plan | $49/mo Lite, billed yearly; monthly rate unpublished | $13/mo Essentials promo for 12 months |
| Free plan | 2,500 subscribers; unlimited email sends | 250 contacts; 500 emails monthly, 250 daily |
| Best for | Creators and publishers building newsletter businesses | Businesses running email and SMS marketing |
| Core strength | Newsletter publishing, growth and monetization tools | Email, SMS, audience data and automations |
| Learning curve | Not published on the vendor's site | Not published on the vendor's site |
| Data and integrations | MCP read on Free; write on Lite | Real-time behavioral data; integration limits unpublished |
| Team / seat costs | Lite: $49/mo yearly, 2 seats | Essentials: $13/mo promo, 3 seats |
| Support | Pro: 24/7 priority; lower-plan support unpublished | Essentials: 24/7 email and chat support |
beehiiv Choose beehiiv if
- Choose beehiiv if newsletter publishing is your main product.
- Choose beehiiv if you want built-in ad monetization.
- Choose beehiiv if 2,500 free subscribers cover your needs.
Mailchimp Choose Mailchimp if
- Choose Mailchimp if you need email and SMS campaigns.
- Choose Mailchimp if behavioral audience data matters.
- Choose Mailchimp if you need three seats on Essentials.
02Pricing compared
beehiiv’s Free plan allows up to 2,500 subscribers and unlimited email sends, compared with Mailchimp Free’s 250 contacts and 500 emails a month. For a newsletter with a larger list, that difference matters before you compare paid plans.
beehiiv Lite is $49 a month when billed yearly and supports up to 100,000 subscribers. Pro is $95 a month, billed yearly, for up to 250,000 subscribers. The pricing page says yearly billing saves up to 20%, but doesn’t publish separate month-to-month prices. Lite includes a 0% take rate on paid subscriptions; Stripe processing fees of 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction still apply.
Mailchimp Essentials is listed at $13 a month for 12 months, with a 14-day trial and sends up to 10 times your contacts. That’s a promotional rate; month-to-month pricing may be higher. Check send limits and billing terms before switching.
03Features and depth
beehiiv is built around publishing a newsletter: it bundles a drag-and-drop email editor, a no-code website builder, audience growth tools and ways to sell digital products. Its Free plan includes the website builder, while the Ad Network is available from Lite. Lite also adds automations and A/B testing; click-triggered automations are listed for Pro. The pricing page lists read access to beehiiv MCP on Free and write access on Lite.
Mailchimp is broader marketing software for businesses. Its feature set includes email and SMS campaigns, behavioral audience data, marketing automations and AI-assisted suggestions. Essentials includes up to four automation flow steps; Standard includes up to 200 automation flows and generative AI features. A/B and multivariate testing and predictive segmentation are listed for Premium, which costs $350 a month at the promotional rate shown.
The practical split: beehiiv centers on publishing and newsletter monetization; Mailchimp offers more explicit SMS and customer-marketing tools. They aren’t one-for-one replacements.
04Ease of use and learning curve
beehiiv’s no-code website builder and drag-and-drop email editor are aimed at people publishing without design skills, according to its product materials. Its plans also keep the main subscriber and publication caps visible: Free has one publication and one seat; Lite has three publications and two seats.
Mailchimp’s paid plans add more roles, audiences, automation steps and marketing options as you move up. That breadth may be useful if you need campaigns beyond a newsletter, but it also gives you more settings to manage. Our review scores ease of use at 8 for beehiiv and 6.5 for Mailchimp; those are editorial assessments, not the result of a controlled usability test.
Questions people ask
Is Mailchimp safe to use?
The materials here don’t establish Mailchimp’s security track record, so we can’t give a blanket safety verdict. The pricing page lists enterprise single sign-on on Premium, which is $350 a month at its promotional rate. Check Mailchimp’s current security documentation and plan details for requirements specific to your organization.
What is similar to Mailchimp?
beehiiv overlaps with Mailchimp on email campaigns and automations, but it is positioned around publishing and growing newsletters, with a website builder and monetization tools. Mailchimp’s listed strengths include email and SMS campaigns, behavioral audience data and marketing automations. The better fit depends on whether you publish or run broader customer marketing.
What is the difference between Mailchimp and Gmail?
The materials we have describe Mailchimp as an email and SMS marketing platform with campaigns, audience data and automations; they don’t provide details about Gmail. We can’t make a sourced feature-by-feature comparison here. For a decision, check each product’s current documentation against your sending, audience-management and business-email needs.
Which is cheaper, Mailchimp or Constant Contact?
We don’t have Constant Contact pricing in the published materials, so we can’t reliably say which costs less. Mailchimp’s listed Essentials promotional price is $13 a month for 12 months, with a 14-day trial; its page says standard month-to-month rates may be higher. Compare current quotes and contact limits before choosing.