MailChimp vs ConvertKit Review: What is best?

Converkit

In the first few years of business, MailChimp was my favoured email marketing software. I didn’t have a big list and I wanted to keep costs to a minimum. MailChimp was free, did everything I wanted it to and came highly recommended from many of my peers.

However, as my business and list grew, I needed a tool that had a little more functionality. With so many email marketing providers on the market, it can be a nightmare to find the right one for you.

After a lot of comparing, testing and review-reading, I decided to switch all our email marketing efforts from MailChimp to ConvertKit and in this article I’m going to cover some of the main reasons I made that move.

The ability to send emails to unopens

One of ConvertKits great features is the ability to resend emails to the people on your list that didn’t open the first broadcast.

For example, if you send an email to 1,000 people and 500 people open that email. There’s still 500 people who you could have reached.

With ConvertKit, you can go in and re-send the same email to the 500 people who didn’t open it. You’re able to change your email subject line too, which is a great way to try and peak the interest of people who maybe didn’t care for the initial one. More eyes on your content = happy days

Ability to create different forms

The form functionality in ConvertKit was definitely one of the main factors for me when deciding whether to move from MailChimp or not. MailChimp has very limited form functionality and they don’t look very good either. With ConvertKit, you’re able to create multiple types of forms. You can even create your own landing pages, exit pop-ups and slide ins.

ConvertKit also gives you some nice data on how many people have seen the form and how many people have signed up, giving you your conversion rate.

With MailChimp, you were only able to have one form per list and so it was difficult to split test different forms. With ConvertKit, there are no limits.

Email funnels & autoresponders

The main reason I love ConvertKit is because it makes it so easy for me to create automated email funnels.

If someone downloads my Blueprint, they get certain emails. I can then automatically place them into different email sequences based on their actions. People who buy one of my courses get different emails to people who don’t, for example.

MailChimp does have this functionality but I found it tricky to navigate. With ConvertKit, the sequence function makes it all so much easier. You’re able to see all the emails in your flow and the ability to drag them around makes it a quick and easy process.

Switching from MailChimp to ConvertKit

Switching from MailChimp to ConvertKit and moving all our subscribers was much more painless than I had expected. It’s literally a case of:

  1. Exporting your MailChimp list(s)
  2. Create a tag in ConvertKit
  3. Import your CSV file into ConvertKit, choosing the tag you just created

And there you have it, your subscribers are now in ConvertKit. If you had an automation workflow in MailChimp, I think it’s just a case of copying and pasting all those emails into a sequence, but that shouldn’t take too long. They’ve made this handy little guide for you if you want to switch over, explaining it in more detail than me!

Overall, I think MailChimp is a great choice for people that are starting our with their email marketing. You can get a free account if you have under 2,000 subscribers and the basic functionality is there. However, I’m really glad we made the move over the ConvertKit. The extra functionality in the points I’ve mentioned above have made it a worthwhile investment. Good job, Nathan Barry (ConvertKit founder).

Gavin

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