Mailchimp vs MailerLite: Which Email Platform Is Better in 2026

Mailchimp has long been known for being one of the cheapest and simplest email marketing platforms on the market. But today, there’s a Lithuanian kind of outsider scoring higher and picking up steam – this platform is MailerLite. It’s easy to use and quite affordable, too, but there sure are some differences. Our detailed Mailchimp vs MailerLite comparison is here to help you pinpoint those.

TL;DR Mailchimp vs MailerLite at a glance

Both platforms play on the same ground – affordability and simplicity, but differ in how they go beyond these two aspects, especially for eCommerce use, automation options, and integrations with your favorite marketing tools. Here’s a super-quick look at all of this:

Quite a few of MailerLite’s capabilities are slightly more limited than Mailchimp’s. A few email templates here, a few fewer automation options there… but does that really justify the price difference? Let’s take a closer look so you can decide what platform would work best for your business needs.

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Side-by-side comparison between Mailchimp vs MailerLite

MailerLite positions itself as an easy-peasy alternative to Mailchimp, making assisted switching, round-the-clock support, and a generous free plan part of its pitch. But given that both platforms target similar audiences and overlap heavily in features, it makes sense to look past the marketing claims and focus on how they stack up in practice. For starters, let’s talk money.

Pricing and value for money

Mailchimp: 9/10 | ⭐ MailerLite: 10/10

Disclaimer: Pricing changes frequently. These figures are accurate as of February 2026. Always verify final costs on official pricing pages.

Pricing is where MailerLite hits its top score. Apart from being very affordable, the platform clearly communicates what’s included in each plan and avoids unexpected extra costs. In practical terms, MailerLite is 30% cheaper than Mailchimp in the first year of use and costs over 70% less compared to Mailchimp after month 13. Check it all for yourself:

Overall, Mailchimp is like a classic low-cost airline for email marketing. It’s cheap at first, but whenever you need what most marketers would consider basic “extras” – using the platform for more than one year at the same price or counting only active subscribers for billing – additional costs start to build up.

MailerLite doesn’t play that game – its pricing stays consistent, and you won’t be charged extra for every step you take.

That said, the pricing scores still need context. How come Mailchimp scores so high against MailerLite in this category? Its solid 9/10 reflects how it actually compares across the broader email marketing platform market. While Mailchimp is clearly more expensive than MailerLite, it remains more affordable compared to, say, Klaviyo.

Ease of use and interface

Mailchimp: 9.5/10 | ⭐ MailerLite: 10/10

Both Mailchimp and MailerLite have built interfaces that feel approachable rather than intimidating. Mailchimp’s interface has been around for years and remains intuitive for most users, even as new features have been introduced over time.

MailerLite takes a more stripped-down approach. It took everything that already worked in Mailchimp, simplified it one more notch, and then added tooltips for anything that might confuse someone.

Here’s what matters when you use Mailchimp and MailerLite daily:

Both platforms are genuinely easy to use, which is reflected in consistent user feedback. To give you an idea, here’s what users like about Mailchimp the most:

MailerLite customers echo the same sentiment, often describing the experience as clear and lightweight, while the platform itself is extremely easy to learn.

With Mailchimp, you spend the first hour thinking, “Okay, there’s a lot here, but I can figure it out.” Everything’s labeled clearly, the interface makes sense, and you can launch a campaign by the end of your first session.

With MailerLite, you spend the first hour thinking, “Oh, that’s it?” Everything feels obvious. When you hover over something, a tooltip explains it. If you look confused, a little video tutorial offers to help. You’ll probably send your first campaign in half the time.

Email builder and templates

⭐ Mailchimp: 9.4/10 | MailerLite: 8.6/10

If you’re going to spend time in one part of an email platform, it’s the template builder. MailerLite keeps things as simple as possible from the very first click – everything is designed to help you get from idea to sent email with as few decisions as possible.

Mailchimp, on the other hand, offers more room to customize, like more templates, more design controls, and more ways to fine-tune your layout. Notably, you’re not writing HTML unless you want to in either platform.

Here’s how those differences play out in practice:

Not the only difference, but a very noticeable one between Mailchimp and MailerLite is the number of templates you can choose from. But here’s the catch: if you’re on Mailchimp’s free plan, you get only seven basic templates. Pay for a mid-tier or higher plan, and suddenly you have an impressive number of options to browse through.

Mailchimp’s email builder is powerful and flexible, with plenty of design controls to refine layouts, styles, and content blocks to match your brand perfectly. The trade-off is that it can feel a bit busy – great if you love tweaking details, less so if you just want to build your email and send it fast.

MailerLite gives you its entire library right away. The selection is smaller, but honestly, 108 templates cover most use cases. You’ve got options for newsletters, promotions, events, abandoned carts – all the standard basics.

MailerLite’s email builder is clean, lightweight, and hard to overcomplicate. It gives you fewer knobs to turn, but all the essential ones are right where you expect them to be. Building a good-looking email is quick and almost frictionless, which makes it especially comfortable for beginners and teams that value speed over deep customization.

Marketing automation

Mailchimp: 7.8/10 | ⭐ MailerLite: 6.5/10

Automation handles repetitive tasks so you can focus on your strategy. Both platforms keep it practical – not overwhelming – so their focus is on the workflows most businesses actually use, not on building endless branching logic trees. That makes automation accessible, but also clearly defines where each platform’s limits are.

Mailchimp does support automation, but you won’t see much of it with the free plan. Most sophisticated tools, including multi-step journeys, multi-trigger entry, and advanced branching logic and rules, are locked behind higher-tier plans. As a result, automation feels more like a premium add-on than a core feature. Once unlocked, the automation builder is clean and reliable. You get a solid set of triggers, conditions, and ready-made templates for common scenarios.

MailerLite treats automation as a basic feature and not a paid luxury. Even on the free plan, you can build real workflows – up to 100 steps long – which already puts it ahead of many email platforms. It also allows up to three triggers per automation on paid plans, so one flow can start from different entry points, like a form signup or a purchase. The result is automation that feels surprisingly flexible without becoming complicated.

This comparison also highlights a common boundary of traditional ESP automation: most workflows stop at email and, sometimes, SMS. So, if you need a broader, multi-channel approach, we’ve got you covered.

Contact management

Mailchimp: 7.5/10 | ⭐ MailerLite: 8/10

Contact management and segmentation are those things of email marketing that decide whether your work feels organized or chaotic. They affect how easy it is to find the right people, avoid mistakes, and keep costs under control as your list grows.

Here’s how Mailchimp and MailerLite compare in this area:

For most businesses, MailerLite comes out slightly ahead in contact management, and pricing is only part of the reason. They keep all subscribers in a single shared list and use groups and segments for organization. A contact can belong to multiple groups and is still counted only once toward your plan’s limit.

Mailchimp, on the other hand, relies on separate audiences. Once the same person fits into multiple categories, that structure can lead to duplicate contacts and higher costs.

To put this into perspective, imagine you have 5,000 contacts. In Mailchimp, if 2,000 of them appear in both “Customers” and “Newsletter” audiences, you’re billed for 7,000 contacts. In MailerLite, you’re billed for 5,000, regardless of how many groups they’re in.

Combined with simpler tagging, automatic segment updates, and more consistent feature availability across plans, MailerLite’s approach tends to feel easier to manage over time.

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Signup forms

⭐ Mailchimp: 8.2/10 | MailerLite: 7.6/10

Both platforms give you the tools to capture leads without using third-party solutions. Mailchimp offers more customization options and templates, but its form-building experience is a bit all over the place. MailerLite keeps things simpler, so you get the result you need faster.

Mailchimp pop-up forms look fairly simple in the editor, but many customization options are tucked away in different settings panels. You get a lot of control over content, design, and display conditions – it just takes some clicking to uncover it. Powerful, but not immediately obvious.

MailerLite pop-up forms are exactly what they look like – simple and straightforward. The builder shows you most options upfront, so there’s less guesswork and little digging through settings. You won’t find dozens of style options, but you can build and publish a clean form in minutes.

If this feels like a choice between control and speed, some platforms try to balance both.

Deliverability

Mailchimp: 9.6/10 | ⭐ MailerLite: 9.8/10

When it comes to email marketing, deliverability is key. You can write the perfect email with a brilliant subject line, but if it lands in spam, none of that matters.

The good news: Mailchimp and MailerLite score high because they both take deliverability seriously and deliver emails reliably to inboxes. Both platforms require proper authentication to prove to inbox providers that you’re actually authorized to send emails from your domain, don’t allow purchased mailing lists, and help you catch potential problems before you send.

Mailchimp and Mailerlite do a good job of covering the foundational deliverability requirements. You’ll find clear documentation guiding you through the authentication process, and you can count on automated handling of hard bounces and unsubscribed contacts. Besides, a dedicated deliverability expert team can help you protect your sender reputation and improve inbox placement.

Where they differ is in list cleaning. MailerLite users can clean and verify email addresses on their lists via the built-in MailerCheck tool on a pay-as-you-go basis. Mailchimp, by contrast, doesn’t offer native list cleaning and typically requires external services for comprehensive list cleaning.

Integrations

⭐ Mailchimp: 7.7/10 | MailerLite: 6.4/10

Comparing integrations comes down to one simple question: how much work will this platform add to your day? A well-connected ESP saves time, and this is where Mailchimp comes out ahead. MailerLite doesn’t match the same breadth of integrations but leverages clever marketing – its dedicated Mailchimp migration tool makes it dead simple to switch from Mailchimp to MailerLite, removing a barrier for potential switchers.

This round clearly goes to Mailchimp. It connects with far more tools out of the box, making it easier to plug into complex marketing stacks without extra workarounds. MailerLite covers the essentials and even smooths the path for switchers, but its ecosystem is still much smaller. If integrations are your priority, Mailchimp simply gives you more doors to open.

AI features

⭐ Mailchimp: 7.2/10 | MailerLite: 5/10

When it comes to AI, Mailchimp shows up fully armed. It uses AI across writing, sending time optimization, predictive insights, and pre-send checks, weaving it deeply into everyday workflows.

MailerLite took a more conservative approach: they added an AI writing assistant and called it a day. No fancy predictions, no automated workflow generation, just help with email copy when you need it.

Mailchimp’s AI is more comprehensive and more sophisticated; it’s integrated across the platform. MailerLite takes a more cautious, deliberate approach, rolling out AI features at a slower pace.

Reporting and analytics

⭐ Mailchimp: 7.8/10 | MailerLite: 6.4/10

Reports and analytics don’t get people excited about email marketing, but they determine whether you’re guessing or making informed decisions. One platform gives you layers of data to analyze and compare. The other shows you what’s working right now without burying you in numbers.

Here’s what Mailchimp and MailerLite let you analyze:

Analytics is yet another area where Mailchimp pulls ahead. It offers more report types and deeper breakdowns. Unlike MailerLite, Mailchimp filters out bot clicks so that they don’t inflate engagement metrics. MailerLite is solid for basic insights; it also offers purchase tracking, but it is limited to Shopify and WooCommerce.

Customer support

Mailchimp: 7/10 | ⭐ MailerLite: 7.3/10

Support usually stays invisible while everything works, and becomes critical the moment it doesn’t. At that point, response time and the kind of help you get matter far more than extra AI features.

Here’s how Mailchimp and MailerLite handle support when you actually need assistance:

MailerLite looks a bit stronger on paper: 24/7 live chat and priority email support on paid plans, rather quick access, and plenty of self-serve resources. However, some G2 reviews point out a catch – getting a real human can take time, as chatbots and AI often handle the first line of support.

Mailchimp offers fewer always-on options, and its customer support can be slow during peak times, but when you reach a person, the interaction feels more personal and hands-on. In general, multiple user reviews describe it as efficient and helpful.

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Your decision checklist

You’ve read all the categories of our Mailchimp vs MailerLite comparison. Now it comes down to fit. The right platform isn’t about features on paper — it’s about how well it matches your business, team, and expectations.

Use the checklist below to see which email marketing platform aligns better with how you work today and how you plan to grow.

If one column clearly feels closer to how your business operates today, that’s your answer.

Final verdict and recommendations

⚖️ Final scores: Mailchimp – 8.5/10 | MailerLite – 8.7/10

Both Mailchimp and MailerLite land comfortably in the “very good” range. They focus on simplicity and affordability, and both deliver well on those goals.

MailerLite edges slightly ahead on score, mainly because of pricing. It stays consistent over time, scales more gently as your list grows, and makes most features available across plans.

Mailchimp offers a more mature platform with broader capabilities, stronger eCommerce automation, and a wider integration catalog, but that stability comes at a higher cost.

If you find yourself making too many compromises with either platform, it may be worth stepping back and exploring solutions built around your priorities. Look into more alternatives to Mailchimp and MailerLite — you’ll find solutions with deeper automation across channels, tighter CRM integration, and more flexible pricing at scale. In some cases, those may be a better long-term fit.