Email marketing is one of the best ways for businesses to reach their audience and develop richer relationships. Mailchimp has been the dominant email marketing tool for a while now, but it has no lack of contenders for the throne. Among them is Omnisend, which aims to expand their customers’ marketing channels with a heavy focus on ecommerce related features. Here’s how to decide between Omnisend vs Mailchimp for your business.
Omnisend vs Mailchimp Email Marketing Tool Comparison Chart
| Name | Omnisend | Mailchimp |
 |  | |
| Price | Check Price at Omnisend.com | Check Price at Mailchimp.com |
| Email Sends per Month | Free: 15,000 Standard: 12x List Pro: 15x List Enterprise: 60x List | Free: 10,000 Essentials: 10x List Standard: 12x List Premium: 15x List |
| Contacts | Free: Up to 200,000 Standard: Up to 200,000 Pro: Up to 200,000 Enterprise: 200,000+ | Free: 2,000 Essentials: 500 – 50k Standard: 500 – 100k Premium: 10k – 200k |
| Drag and Drop Builder | Yes | Yes |
| Testing Options | A/B testing | A/B, Multivariate testing |
| Segmentation | Yes | Yes |
| Behavioral Targeting | Yes | Yes |
| Automation | Single and multi-step series | Visual workflow, conditional |
| Forms and Landing Pages | Yes | Yes |
| Website Builder | No | Yes |
| Social Media Posting | No | Yes |
| SMS Marketing | Yes | No |
| Push Notifications | Yes | No |
| Facebook Messenger | Yes | No |
| Print Postcards | No | Yes |
| Mobile App | No | Yes |
| Integrations | 10+ | 200+ |
Email Campaigns
Omnisend lets you send out more emails per month than Mailchimp.
Here’s a look at Omnisend’s drag-and-drop email builder.For pure email volume, Omnisend has a clear numbers advantage over Mailchimp. You’ll be able to send out more emails per month through Omnisend compared to Mailchimp at every tier. Most notably, Omnisend’s Free plan lets you send 15,000 emails compared to Mailchimp’s 10,000. Moreover, at the highest tiers, Omnisend’s Enterprise plan offers practically unlimited emails, though it’s subject to their fair use policy which roughly translates to 60 times your subscriber list. Mailchimp tops out at 15 times your max contact count on the Premium plan, though you can get a custom plan if you need more.
The other important figures to compare here is subscriber count limits. Mailchimp has straightforward contact counts per tier, which steadily increases from 2,000 to 200,000 max. In contrast, Omnisend does it a bit differently, and it’s not explicitly stated in their pricing. You’re essentially allowed any number of contacts even on the Free plan, but going over 200,000 contacts will require a custom plan. Note that the size of your subscriber/contact list is a significant factor in the actual costs for both email marketing tools, which we’ll go over in the last section of this comparison.
Email Building and Testing
Mailchimp pretty much set the standard for visual email builders with drag-and-drop functionality. There are numerous pre-built templates for every industry that you can start off with, and you can find options for every type of email you might send. The email builder lets you add content blocks easily, so you can shape what the final result looks like and preview it with test sends.
Omnisend’s visual composer lets you do pretty much the same things, with a few additional features for ecommerce applications. You can pull products straight from your online shop and even use smart product recommendations based on what that customer has recently viewed in your site. You’ll also be able to add discount codes automatically and save content blocks for reuse later on.
A/B testing is possible on the non-free plans of both tools, but Mailchimp lets you play with double the variables with multivariate testing. However, it’s only available on the Premium plan. Both also allow you to remove their branding if you’re on a paid plan.
Other Marketing Channels
Omnisend and Mailchimp cover different marketing channels.
If you don’t have a website yet, Mailchimp lets you build one for free.Here’s where Omnisend and Mailchimp take different paths. In addition to email marketing and retargeting ads, both provide tools for different marketing channels, which should help you decide which suits your needs better. Omnisend offers SMS marketing, web push notifications and Facebook Messenger automation, while Mailchimp includes social media posting and actual physical postcards along with a free website and domain.
This should point you right off to which tool would be more useful to how you’ll be marketing your products or services. For businesses looking to enter the digital arena, Mailchimp is slightly more attractive since you can build your website with it from scratch. They’ve added domain registration and web hosting to their all-in-one platform to position themselves better for budding small businesses. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are also excellent avenues for promotions, and with Mailchimp, you can schedule and publish posts from one location.
Meanwhile, Omnisend tackles a different approach as it focuses on ecommerce. SMS marketing and web push notifications are highly visible marketing channels with higher open and click-through rates than emails. Their Enterprise plan includes Facebook Messenger in its list of automation tools, letting you set up conversations and reminders for better visibility on a popular platform.
Marketing Automation
Omnisend has a visual and more complex automation than Mailchimp.
Omnisend provides a visual workflow so you can easily see how each automation process works.After the specific marketing channels that each tool provides, the marketing automation they offer are their next biggest difference. Omnisend lets you clearly see what each automated workflow does step-by-step, thanks to its detailed flowchart presentation and drag-and-drop interface. What’s more, you can make complex workflows that are still easy to understand at a glance.
You can create simple single path workflows or use conditional splits to hyper target your subscribers. Omnisend lets you determine what happens based on demographics or event triggers, and you can split a workflow up to ten times. Moreover, you can incorporate other marketing channels besides email into the workflow to reach customers more effectively.
In comparison, Mailchimp’s automation features are simpler and more linear. You’ll be able to create email drip campaigns as well as abandoned cart recovery, birthday greetings, and product retargeting. You can’t pull in other channels though and creating a workflow entails using a list format, not a drag-and-drop builder.
Integrations, Support and Pricing
Mailchimp has more app integrations than Omnisend.
You can connect Mailchimp with over 200 other applications such as Typeform.If you use numerous marketing tools for your business, chances are they can play along nicely with Mailchimp. Because of its longstanding dominance in email marketing, Mailchimp can be integrated with more than 200 apps and software, including Shopify, Zapier, Slack, WordPress, SimpleTexting, and even Adobe Photoshop. Plus, you can connect all of these even on a Free plan. In comparison, Omnisend only has roughly a dozen integrations developed, and most of them are only accessible with paid plans.
Both offer similar support for customers, with 24/7 email and chat support for paid subscriptions. Omnisend adds priority support for Pro plans and up, along with a dedicated account manager for those signed up on the Enterprise plan. Meanwhile, phone support is available on Mailchimp at the Premium tier. You’ll also be able to dig into their knowledge base to look up solutions by yourself.
One important reminder before signing up for any paid plan from Omnisend or Mailchimp: the actual monthly cost is highly dependent on how many subscribers or contacts you have. Indeed, the monthly fees listed on their pricing pages only show the starting price based on having 500 contacts. You’ll want to make full use of their price calculator to check how much each tier will cost you if you have a bigger subscriber list.
Verdict
Omnisend is better for ecommerce while Mailchimp is more suited for small businesses.
The strengths of Omnisend and Mailchimp make them more suitable for certain users and audiences. With its more flexible marketing automation and email builder with product integrations, Omnisend is highly recommended for online stores and businesses that sell products. You’ll be able to incorporate product info from your ecommerce site directly into your marketing campaigns, making the process easier as well as fully automated. Omnisend also lets you take advantage of frequently used channels such as SMS and Facebook Messenger, which works well for both younger and older demographics.
Mailchimp wants to be the all-in-one platform for small businesses and growing enterprises, so they’ve developed more tools on top of their popular email marketing software. New enterprises can start their online presence with Mailchimp’s website builder and take off from there. New social media posting and scheduling tools provide powerful ways to reach subscribers today, and you can even send out postcards for that personal touch. Large businesses can utilize any number of integrations with other popular tools, allowing for a more robust marketing machine.
