Last January I opened my Mailchimp invoice and nearly choked. The bill had jumped from $60 to $146 in a single month. Same list size. Same sending volume. When I asked support why, I got a boilerplate answer about “audience-based billing.”
Sound familiar?
So I did what you’re probably doing right now: I went to Reddit. I spent a week buried in r/emailmarketing, r/smallbusiness, and r/Entrepreneur threads. Then I actually tested the tools Redditors kept recommending, using my own lists, because reading opinions is one thing and paying invoices is another.
We test every tool hands-on at BriskPick before recommending it, so what follows comes from real use. Real pricing. Real annoyances.
## Key Takeaways (TL;DR)
– **Best overall: MailerLite**. Clean, cheap, generous free plan.
– **Best pay-per-email pricing: Brevo**. You pay for emails sent, not contacts stored.
– **Best for creators: Kit (formerly ConvertKit)**. Free up to 10,000 subscribers.
– **Best budget pick: Moosend**. Real automation from around $10/month.
– **Best for e-commerce: Klaviyo**. Expensive, but built for Shopify stores.
– **Best for WordPress: MailPoet**. Lives inside your dashboard.
– **Best all-in-one: GetResponse**. Webinars, funnels, and email together.
Short on time? Start with MailerLite. It’s the tool Reddit recommends most, and it does roughly 90% of what Mailchimp does for about half the price. [Try MailerLite free here.](#)
## Why Everyone on Reddit Is Dumping Mailchimp
Search “Mailchimp alternatives” on Reddit and you’ll see the same complaints repeated for years. These aren’t edge cases. It’s a pattern.
– **Retroactive pricing changes.** Mailchimp switched to audience-based billing, so you now pay for unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts too. Your bill can double overnight without sending a single extra email. Mine did.
– **Account suspensions.** Countless threads describe accounts frozen with little explanation. Support takes days to reply, and appeals usually go nowhere.
– **Feature gating.** Tools that used to be included got bumped to higher tiers. Advanced testing now sits behind Premium plans.
– **Deliverability gripes.** Plenty of Redditors report unexplained spam-folder placement after the platform’s later updates.
None of this makes Mailchimp evil. It just means the product is now built for enterprise budgets, not small lists. If you’ve got 50,000 engaged subscribers and a dedicated account manager, fine. The rest of us have options.
## Quick Comparison: Mailchimp Competitors at a Glance
| Tool | Free Plan | Paid Starts At | Best For |
|—|—|—|—|
| MailerLite | 1,000 subs / 12,000 emails | ~$10/mo | Most small businesses |
| Brevo | 300 emails/day | ~$25/mo | Big lists, light sending |
| Kit (ConvertKit) | 10,000 subs | ~$29/mo | Creators and newsletters |
| Moosend | 30-day trial | ~$10/mo | Budget automation |
| Klaviyo | 250 contacts | ~$45/mo | E-commerce stores |
| MailPoet | 1,000 subs | ~$10/mo | WordPress sites |
| GetResponse | 500 contacts | ~$19/mo | All-in-one marketing |
Prices were checked recently. Most tools offer the cheapest rates with annual billing.
Now the individual breakdowns.
## 1. MailerLite: The Reddit Favorite
If Reddit held a vote for one Mailchimp replacement, MailerLite would win in a landslide. It shows up in nearly every thread, and complaints are rare.
I moved a 6,000-subscriber list over in an afternoon. The drag-and-drop editor is cleaner than Mailchimp’s, and the automation flows handle welcome sequences, abandoned carts, and tagging logic without requiring a PhD in flowcharts.
**What I liked:**
– Free plan covers 1,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails a month
– Landing pages and a basic website builder included
– 24/7 chat support, even on the free plan
– Deliverability held up well in my tests
**What I didn’t:**
– No phone support
– Reporting is solid but shallower than Klaviyo’s
– The mobile app is a bit clunky. I mostly use the web version anyway.
**Pricing:** Free for up to 1,000 subscribers. The Growing Business plan runs around $10/month for up to 2,500 subscribers and scales gently from there.
**Best for:** Small businesses, bloggers, anyone tired of surprise Mailchimp invoices.
[Check MailerLite pricing here.](#)
## 2. Brevo (Formerly Sendinblue): Pay for Emails, Not Contacts
Brevo’s pricing model is the reason Reddit loves it. You pay based on emails sent, not contacts stored.
If you have 20,000 subscribers but only email twice a month, that changes everything. I ran a client’s list here (15,000 contacts, two sends a month) for a fraction of what Mailchimp quoted.
**What I liked:**
– Free plan sends 300 emails a day, roughly 9,000 a month
– SMS marketing built into every plan
– No charge for storing contacts you rarely email
– Solid transactional email API
**What I didn’t:**
– The free plan stamps a Brevo badge on your emails
– Automation builder is decent but less intuitive than MailerLite’s
**Pricing:** Lite plans start around $25/month for 20,000 emails. Costs climb with volume, never with list size.
**Best for:** Big lists with light sending frequency.
## 3. Kit (Formerly ConvertKit): Built for Creators
Kit comes up in every creator newsletter thread, and the headline feature explains why. The free plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers. That’s absurd value if you’re starting out.
**What I liked:**
– Free tier up to 10,000 subscribers
– Visual automation builder that’s genuinely pleasant to use
– Tagging and segmentation designed around creators, not online stores
– Clean, text-style emails that feel personal
**What I didn’t:**
– Paid plans get pricey fast once you cross that threshold (around $29/month to start)
– E-commerce features are thin compared to Klaviyo
– Landing pages are basic
Honestly, the ConvertKit rebrand confused half the threads I read. People still call it ConvertKit. Same tool.
**Pricing:** Free up to 10,000 subscribers. Paid starts around $29/month.
**Best for:** Newsletter writers, YouTubers, course sellers, and other creators.
## 4. Moosend: The Budget Automation Pick
Moosend doesn’t have the name recognition of the others here, but Redditors who’ve found it tend to evangelize. The pitch is simple. Real automation, around $10/month.
**What I liked:**
– Automation workflows that punch well above the price point
– Fast, clean editor
– One of the cheapest entry prices on this list
**What I didn’t:**
– No free plan, only a 30-day trial
– Fewer third-party integrations than the bigger names
– Reporting is serviceable, not deep
**Pricing:** Around $10/month, with a 30-day free trial to test things first.
**Best for:** Anyone on a tight budget who still wants proper automation.
## 5. Klaviyo: Worth It for E-commerce, Overkill for Everyone Else
Klaviyo comes up constantly in Shopify subreddits, and for good reason. Its e-commerce data model is in a different league. Think abandoned cart flows, browse abandonment, and predictive analytics on customer lifetime value. Nothing else on this list comes close on reporting.
**What I liked:**
– Deepest e-commerce integrations of the bunch, especially with Shopify
– Segmentation and reporting that actually drive revenue
– Predictive analytics built in
**What I didn’t:**
– Expensive. Pricing starts around $45/month and climbs steeply as your list grows
– Overkill for a simple newsletter
– The interface takes real time to learn
To be frank, I wouldn’t run a plain content newsletter on Klaviyo. You’d pay for power you’ll never touch. But if email drives serious revenue for your store, the math usually works out.
**Pricing:** Free up to 250 contacts. Paid starts around $45/month.
**Best for:** E-commerce stores that treat email as a sales channel, not a side project.
## 6. MailPoet: Best for WordPress Users
MailPoet lives inside your WordPress dashboard, and that alone earns it a loyal following on r/Wordpress. No tab-switching. No exporting lists back and forth. Readers who sign up or comment get added to your audience automatically.
**What I liked:**
– Runs entirely inside WordPress
– Free plan covers 1,000 subscribers
– Auto-adds subscribers from your site
– Paid tier sits at a friendly price point
**What I didn’t:**
– Sending performance can depend on your hosting setup
– The editor is fine, not fancy
**Pricing:** Free up to 1,000 subscribers. Paid starts around $10/month.
**Best for:** WordPress sites that want email handled in the same place as everything else.
## 7. GetResponse: The All-in-One Option
GetResponse is for people who’d rather not stitch five tools together. Webinars, landing pages, funnels, and email all live under one subscription.
**What I liked:**
– Webinar hosting built in, which is rare at this price
– Conversion funnels that connect the pieces
– Free plan covers 500 contacts
**What I didn’t:**
– Parts of the interface feel dated
– Automation is good, not class-leading
– The cheapest plan limits features, so check what you actually get before paying
**Pricing:** Free up to 500 contacts. Paid starts around $19/month.
**Best for:** Marketers who want webinars, funnels, and email in one place.
## So Which Mailchimp Alternative Should You Pick?
A quick decision guide based on what I saw in testing:
– Most people: **MailerLite**. It’s cheap, it’s clean, and it just works.
– Big list, low volume: **Brevo**.
– Creator or newsletter: **Kit**.
– Tightest budget: **Moosend**.
– Online store: **Klaviyo**, and don’t overthink it.
– WordPress site: **MailPoet**.
– Want everything bundled: **GetResponse**.
Me? My list lives on MailerLite, and I haven’t dreaded opening an invoice since. The client’s big, sleepy list runs on Brevo. That’s the whole setup.
My honest advice: stop over-researching. Export your contacts, start free plans on two of these, send one campaign from each, and pick the one that annoys you less. Most of them import everything and get you sending in an afternoon. The only real mistake is staying put on a plan that doubled your bill for doing absolutely nothing different.