Mailchimp and MailerLite are both popular freemium email marketing platforms designed to help businesses build and manage email campaigns. While both offer drag-and-drop editors and automation, they differ in pricing, free tier limits, and specialized features. This comparison will help you decide which platform best fits your business needs.
| Feature | Mailchimp | MailerLite |
|---|---|---|
| 💰 Pricing | ||
| Free Plan | ✓ | ✓ |
| Starting Price | $13/mo | $9/mo |
| Free Trial | ✓ | ✓ |
| ⚙️ Features | ||
| Email Automation | ✓ | ✓ |
| Visual Workflow Builder | ✗ | ✗ |
| Landing Pages | ✓ | ✓ |
| Built-in CRM | ✗ | ✗ |
| SMS Marketing | ✗ | ✗ |
| A/B Testing | ✓ | ✗ |
| E-commerce Integration | ✗ | ✓ |
| Transactional Email | ✗ | ✗ |
| Remove Branding | ✗ | ✗ |
| 🤖 AI Features | ||
| AI Subject Lines | ✗ | ✗ |
| AI Send-Time Optimisation | ✗ | ✗ |
| 🛎 Support | ||
| Email Support | ✓ | ✓ |
| Live Chat | ✗ | ✗ |
| Phone Support | ✗ | ✗ |
MailerLite is best for small businesses and freelancers on a budget.
Try MailerLite Free →Neither is objectively "better" — it depends on your needs. MailerLite offers superior value for budget-conscious users with lower prices, a larger free tier, and significantly higher customer satisfaction ratings (4.5 vs 1.5 on Trustpilot). Mailchimp excels for businesses needing an all-in-one platform with advanced enterprise features, though it has received more negative recent reviews.
MailerLite is cheaper overall. It starts at $9/month compared to Mailchimp's $13/month, and offers double the free subscriber limit (1,000 vs 500). For growing teams, MailerLite's pricing structure typically remains more affordable across all tiers.
Yes, both platforms support standard email list exports and imports. You can export your contacts and campaign history from MailerLite and import them into Mailchimp. Most modern email marketing tools support CSV or API-based migrations, though you may lose some automation workflows that need to be recreated.