Campaigner vs Mailchimp: Prices, Features and Which One Fits (2026)

Short answer: in the Campaigner vs Mailchimp decision there is no overall winner, because each tool gives more value to a different kind of business. Campaigner gives more email for the money: on October 8, 2026 its Advanced plan, with multi-path automation, cost less than Mailchimp Standard at every list size I checked, and every Campaigner plan includes phone support, A/B and multivariate testing and dynamic content. Mailchimp gives more marketing tools in one place: a free plan for up to 250 contacts, landing pages and social posting on every plan, three to five user seats on its main paid plans and more than 300 integrations. A business that wants deep email automation at a lower price gets more from Campaigner. A business that wants forms, landing pages, social posts and email in one easy tool gets more from Mailchimp.

Disclosure: SoftReviewLab is a Campaigner affiliate partner. This page contains Campaigner affiliate links, and SoftReviewLab may earn a commission if you sign up through them, at no extra cost to you. SoftReviewLab has no affiliate relationship with Mailchimp, and where Mailchimp is the better fit I say so. See our affiliate disclosure and research and scoring method.

This comparison looks at the value each tool gives a buyer, not at the companies behind them. It is research-based: Campaigner’s prices and plan features come from its pricing page, checked on October 8, 2026, and Mailchimp’s from its pricing page and plan comparison, checked in October 2026. I have not run campaigns through either tool, so I don’t report inbox placement or ease of use from my own experience.

What Each Tool Is, in Plain English

Campaigner is an email marketing platform that concentrates on email itself: campaigns, segmentation, testing and, on its Advanced plan, automation workflows with conditions and several paths. Its plans differ mainly in automation. Essentials covers newsletters, autoresponders and testing. Advanced adds workflows, purchase-based segments and conversion tracking. Custom adds landing pages, sub-accounts, a dedicated account manager and deliverability services. SMS is sold separately.

Mailchimp is a broader marketing tool. Alongside email it includes sign-up forms, landing pages and social posting on every plan, and predictive segments for online stores on its higher plans. Its plans differ in automation limits, seats and support: Essentials allows simple four-step flows, Standard adds branching and up to 200 flows, and Premium adds unlimited seats and phone support.

Campaigner vs Mailchimp Pricing

Both tools charge by the number of contacts, so the bill grows with your list even if you email it only once a month.

Campaigner Pricing

Above 100,000 contacts, or when you need landing pages, sub-accounts or an account manager, Campaigner quotes its Custom plan through sales, and setup fees may apply. Two extras can change the bill. Reputation Defender, which filters out invalid addresses to protect your sending reputation, costs 20 percent of your plan price on any plan, and SMS is priced separately.

Mailchimp Pricing

Mailchimp bills monthly and offers new-customer discounts that change often, so budget with the regular prices above. It also counts every contact in your account toward the bill, including people who unsubscribed, unless you archive them. Campaigner has a Clean Contacts tool that deletes unsubscribed and bounced contacts, but I could not confirm whether its plans count those contacts in the first place.

Like for Like: What Full Automation Costs a Year

The fair comparison is between the plans that include branching automation: Campaigner Advanced and Mailchimp Standard. Mailchimp has no 1,000-contact tier, so a list of 1,000 falls into its 1,500-contact tier.

On price alone, Campaigner Advanced is cheaper at each of these sizes. Two things narrow the gap. If you add Reputation Defender, Campaigner Advanced at 10,000 contacts rises to $1,785.60 a year, above Mailchimp Standard. And Mailchimp Standard includes five user seats, landing pages and social posting, while Campaigner keeps landing pages for its Custom plan and does not say on its pricing page how many users each plan includes. If you mainly need automated email, Campaigner gives you more for the money. If you need those extra tools, Mailchimp’s higher price buys them. If the saving matters to you and you want to see Campaigner’s workflows for yourself, you can start the 30-day Campaigner free trial.

If You Only Send Newsletters

For newsletters and simple autoresponders, compare the Essentials columns in the two pricing tables above. Campaigner Essentials is cheaper at every size from 1,000 contacts, and Mailchimp is cheaper only for lists of up to 500. The trade-off is automation: Campaigner Essentials has autoresponders but no workflows, while Mailchimp Essentials allows flows of up to four steps without branching.

Free Plan and Free Trial

Mailchimp is the only one of the two you can use without paying. Its free plan allows up to 250 contacts, 500 sends a month and one user, with Mailchimp branding and no scheduling, and its 14-day trial covers Essentials and Standard. Campaigner has no free plan, but its 30-day free trial includes every feature, which gives you time to build a real workflow before you pay. Campaigner’s pricing page also says there are no setup fees on Essentials and Advanced.

Automation

Both are enough for the workflows most small businesses build first: a welcome email series, an abandoned cart reminder, a post-purchase follow-up and a win-back sequence. Campaigner’s builder lists more kinds of triggers, including custom triggers and automatic contact field updates, and Campaigner sells workflow setup and optimisation as paid services on Advanced and Custom. Mailchimp’s advantage is that the same simple builder sits next to its forms, landing pages and newsletters, so one person can run all of it. For a B2B list, my guide to B2B email marketing automation covers the seven workflows to build first and in what order.

Email Design, Testing and Personalisation

Both tools have a drag-and-drop editor and pre-built, mobile-responsive templates. The difference is where each one puts its advanced features. Campaigner includes an HTML editor, A/B testing, multivariate testing, dynamic content, conditional content and an AI subject line generator on every plan, Essentials included. Mailchimp includes A/B testing from Essentials but keeps multivariate testing, dynamic content and custom-coded templates for Standard and Premium, and its generative AI assistant is on Standard and Premium only. One small point in Mailchimp’s favour: Campaigner adds its branding to Essentials emails, and you need Advanced to remove it.

Landing Pages, Forms, SMS and Transactional Email

This is where Mailchimp gives more for less. A small business that wants a sign-up form, a landing page and a newsletter from one account gets all three on any Mailchimp plan, while Campaigner keeps landing pages for its Custom plan. If you need transactional emails such as receipts and password resets, Mailchimp Standard can add them, and Campaigner offers them only as a Custom add-on. For transactional email on its own, a dedicated sending service is usually simpler, and my SMTP.com review covers one.

Ecommerce and Integrations

Campaigner lists Shopify, WooCommerce and BigCommerce plugins, abandoned cart emails and back-in-stock emails on every plan, and adds purchase behaviour tracking and purchase-based segments on Advanced. It also includes a REST API, webhooks and SFTP imports and exports on every plan, which matters if a developer will connect it to your own systems. Mailchimp lists more than 300 integrations, all available on every plan including Free, builds cart reminders into its automation flows and adds predictive segments such as purchase likelihood on Standard and Premium. A long integration list matters less than whether the two or three tools you rely on are covered, so check those by name during the trial.

Seats, Support and Agency Features

Phone support on the cheapest plan is unusual at this price, and it is one of Campaigner’s clearest advantages for a small team that prefers to talk a problem through. Mailchimp’s advantage is seats: a team of three to five people can share Essentials or Standard without paying per user. Agencies that run email for several clients should look at Campaigner’s Custom plan, which adds sub-accounts, white-label branding, an admin console and IP management. Campaigner also lists SOC 2, GDPR, CASL and CCPA compliance and the option to host your data in your own country or region.

Cancellation

Both are easy to leave. Campaigner’s pricing page says you can cancel at any time by contacting support by phone, email or chat. Mailchimp bills monthly, lets you change or pause your plan from the billing page, and says it does not refund charges already billed when you downgrade. With either tool, export your contacts and reports before you cancel.

What Customers Say

Customer ratings favour Mailchimp, mostly on ease of use. Campaigner’s reviewers often praise its drag-and-drop editor, support staff, list management and automation, and complain about a dated interface, a slow editor, weak sign-up forms and limited integrations. Mailchimp’s reviewers praise ease of use, templates and integrations, and complain that the price grows with the list and that automation is limited on the lower plans.

How the Two Scored in My Reviews

In my research-based reviews, Campaigner scored 7.1 out of 10 and Mailchimp 7.2. Campaigner scored higher on pricing and support, and Mailchimp on setup, features and integrations. The reasons for each score are in my Campaigner review and my Mailchimp review.

Which One Fits Your Business

You Are Starting From Zero

Mailchimp is the easier start. Its free plan lets you build a list, a sign-up form and a landing page and send your first newsletters before you pay anything. Campaigner makes more sense once email is already part of how you sell.

You Want Automation at a Lower Price

Campaigner usually gives more for the money. Advanced cost less than Mailchimp Standard at every list size I checked, and it comes with multivariate testing, dynamic content and phone support. If that sounds like what you need and you want to try it, this is the Campaigner free trial. The offer page behind that link currently adds a further 10 percent discount on monthly payments, so check that the discounted price shows at checkout before you pay.

You Want Forms, Landing Pages, Social and Email in One Tool

Mailchimp is the better fit. Landing pages, forms and social posting are on every plan, and Standard includes five seats, so a small team can run its marketing from one account.

You Run an Online Store

Both cover the basics, including abandoned cart emails. Campaigner includes its Shopify, WooCommerce and BigCommerce plugins on every plan and purchase-based segments on Advanced. Mailchimp has the larger integration list and predictive segments on Standard. Test the connection to your own store during the trial.

You Manage Email for Clients

Campaigner’s Custom plan is built for this, with sub-accounts, white-label branding and an admin console. Ask its sales team for a quote that covers all your clients.

You Also Send Receipts and Order Emails

Mailchimp Standard can add transactional email as a paid add-on. Campaigner offers it only as a Custom add-on, so a smaller business that needs it would add a separate sending service.

Before you decide, build one real welcome email and one real automation in each tool’s trial or free plan. The one that makes those two jobs easiest for whoever will run your email is usually the right long-term choice.

Other Options to Consider

• ActiveCampaign: deeper automation and an optional sales CRM for sales-led businesses, at a higher price as the list grows. See my ActiveCampaign review and ActiveCampaign vs Mailchimp comparison.

My guide on how to choose email marketing software explains how to compare any email tool on value for your own list size.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I move my list from Mailchimp to Campaigner?

Yes. Export your audience from Mailchimp as a file and import it into Campaigner, which also supports scheduled SFTP imports. Import only contacts who opted in, authenticate your sending domain in Campaigner before the first send, and email your most engaged contacts first so mailbox providers see good engagement from the new platform. Plan to rebuild your automations by hand, since I found no tool that moves them between these two platforms.

Which one has better deliverability?

I can’t tell you from my own testing, and I found no independent test that compares the two. Inbox placement depends mostly on your list and your setup: authenticating your domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, keeping complaints low and removing addresses that bounce. Campaigner sells Reputation Defender to filter out bad addresses and offers deliverability consulting as a paid service. My email deliverability guide explains what mailbox providers now require.

References

• Campaigner. Pricing and plan comparison. Accessed October 8, 2026.
• Campaigner. SMS marketing. Accessed October 8, 2026.
• Mailchimp. Marketing pricing and plan comparison. Accessed October 2026.
• Mailchimp. Archive or unarchive contacts. Accessed October 2026.
• Mailchimp. Transactional email pricing. Accessed October 2026.
• G2 and Capterra review pages for both tools. Campaigner ratings checked September 2026, Mailchimp October 2026.
• SoftReviewLab. Campaigner review, Mailchimp review and ActiveCampaign vs Mailchimp comparison.