Mailchimp
Mailchimp is an email marketing platform owned by Intuit: forms and landing pages to grow a contact list, campaigns built from templates, and automation flows that react to sign-ups and purchases, with SMS as a paid add-on.
It suits founders selling through an online store on Shopify, WooCommerce or Square who want email tied to what customers buy.
It is free up to 250 contacts; paid plans start at $13 a month for 500 contacts on Essentials and rise with the list, as checked on 30 October 2026.
Reviewed by the IndieHacked team
- What it does
- Send email campaigns and automated flows to a contact list, with forms, landing pages, store integrations such as Shopify, and SMS as an add-on.
- Our take
- Founders running an online store who want email tied to what customers buy. Mailchimp connects to Shopify, WooCommerce and Square, sends welcome and abandoned-cart flows, and starts at $13 a month for 500 contacts.
- Pricing
- FreemiumLow priceFree up to 250 contacts and 500 emails a month, 250 a day, with one seat, Mailchimp's branding and a single automation; sending pauses at either limit. Paid plans are priced by contacts, billed monthly: Essentials starts at $13 a month for 500 contacts, Standard at $20, and Premium at $350 for 10,000, as checked on 30 October 2026. The price follows the list: Essentials is $26.50 at 1,500 contacts, $45 at 2,500, $75 at 5,000 and $110 at 10,000; Standard is $45, $60, $100 and $135. Unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts count toward the total; archived ones do not. Each plan sends 10, 12 or 15 times its contact limit a month, and going over adds a charge to the bill. Lists of 10,000 contacts or more save 15% for the first 12 months, and yearly billing goes through sales. Pay As You Go sells email credits instead of a monthly plan.
The IndieHacked breakdown
What it does
Mailchimp sends marketing email to a contact list. Forms, pop-ups and landing pages collect contacts, campaigns start from pre-built templates and go out on a schedule, and marketing automation flows send welcome emails, abandoned-cart reminders and other messages from more than 45 behavioural triggers. Essentials allows up to 4 steps in a flow; Standard and Premium allow up to 200 flows.
It connects to more than 300 apps, Shopify, WooCommerce, Square and Stripe among them, so a store's orders and customers feed segments and flows. SMS is a paid add-on in some countries, and Mailchimp Transactional (Mandrill) sends product email as an add-on to Standard and Premium, at $20 for each block of 25,000 emails.
Who it suits
Founders selling through an online store who want email that reacts to what customers buy or leave in the cart. The store integrations bring order data into segments and flows, and Standard adds predictive segments and an onboarding session in the first 90 days.
It also fits a small list on a small budget. Essentials starts at $13 a month for 500 contacts, with 5,000 sends and 3 seats, and Pay As You Go buys email credits instead of a plan, which Mailchimp calls best for infrequent senders.
Not the right fit for
Creators who plan to charge for their newsletter or sell digital downloads to their list. Kit, reviewed here, runs paid newsletters and digital products on every plan, and its free plan holds 10,000 subscribers to Mailchimp's 250 contacts.
Founders whose app needs to send sign-up links, password resets and receipts. Mailchimp Transactional is bought on top of a Standard or Premium marketing plan; Postmark, reviewed here, sends product email on a plan of its own.
Also on the shortlist
- KitEmail and messagingFree up to 10,000 subscribers, with paid newsletters and digital products sold to the same list.Free up to 10,000 subscribers, paid plans from $39 a month, as checked on 30 October 2026
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