Feeling overwhelmed by all the different email marketing options? Mailchimp and Flodesk are two popular platforms, but how do you know which one to pick? This post is here to simplify your decision! I’ll compare Mailchimp vs. Flodesk head-to-head, exploring their features, pricing, and ideal use cases.
Table of Contents
Mailchimp vs. Flodesk: Which Email Marketing Software Should You Choose?
While both Mailchimp and Flodesk can help you craft beautiful emails and nurture your audience, they excel in different areas. Mailchimp boasts a robust set of features, including advanced automation and in-depth analytics, making it ideal for established businesses with complex marketing needs. Flodesk, on the other hand, shines with its simple and user-friendly interface and stunning design templates, perfect for entrepreneurs and creators who prioritize ease of use and a strong visual aesthetic.
I started with Mailchimp way back in the day because they offered a free level up to the first 2,000 subscribers, but a few years ago I switched over to Flodesk. But which one is right for your business?
Overview of Mailchimp: Features and Benefits
Mailchimp has established itself as a heavyweight in the email marketing world, offering a comprehensive set of features that benefit businesses of all sizes. Here’s a closer look at what Mailchimp brings to the table:
- Drag-and-Drop Email Builder: This intuitive builder empowers you to create visually stunning emails without any coding knowledge. Simply drag and drop design elements, personalize content, and hit send – no technical expertise required. This translates to a user-friendly experience that lets you focus on crafting engaging messages that resonate with your audience.
- Marketing Automation: Say goodbye to repetitive tasks! Mailchimp’s marketing automation features allow you to set up automated email sequences like welcome messages, abandoned cart reminders, and even birthday greetings. This frees up your valuable time and ensures your audience receives relevant messages at the perfect moments in their customer journey, ultimately boosting engagement and conversions.
- Audience Segmentation: Mailchimp understands that a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work in email marketing. That’s why it offers powerful audience segmentation tools. This allows you to divide your email list into specific groups based on demographics, interests, or purchase history. By tailoring your emails to these segments, you can deliver highly personalized content that resonates with each recipient, leading to higher open rates and click-through rates.
- Powerful Analytics: Data is king in the marketing world, and Mailchimp equips you with the tools to track and analyze your email marketing performance. Gain valuable insights into open rates, click-through rates, and other key metrics. This data allows you to see what’s working and what’s not, empowering you to optimize your campaigns for continuous improvement and better results.
Overview of Flodesk: Features and Benefits
Flodesk takes a design-centric approach to email marketing, making it a perfect fit for creators, entrepreneurs, and small businesses looking to leave a lasting impression. Here’s how Flodesk’s features translate into benefits for you:
Get 50% off Flodesk with referral code KATIEHARP
- Stunning Design Templates: Flodesk boasts a library of beautiful, pre-designed email templates that cater to a wide range of industries and aesthetics. This eliminates the need for design expertise and allows you to customize these templates with your brand colors, fonts, and images in just a few clicks. The result? Professional-looking emails that grab your audience’s attention and elevate your brand image.
- Intuitive Drag-and-Drop Builder: Building beautiful emails doesn’t require complex coding with Flodesk. The user-friendly drag-and-drop builder allows you to easily add text, images, buttons, and other design elements to your emails. This visual approach empowers even those with limited technical experience to create engaging and on-brand email campaigns.
- Landing Page & Sales Funnels: Flodesk goes beyond just emails. It allows you to design beautiful landing pages and build sales funnels directly within the platform. This eliminates the need for additional tools and streamlines your marketing workflow. Landing pages help capture leads and promote specific offers, while sales funnels guide your audience through a pre-defined journey towards conversion.
- Ecommerce Functionality (For Paid Plans): If you’re selling digital products or services, Flodesk’s paid plans offer built-in ecommerce functionality. This allows you to showcase your products directly within your emails and landing pages, making the buying process seamless for your audience. This feature is a powerful tool for creators and solopreneurs looking to monetize their online presence.
Functionality and Features
While both Mailchimp and Flodesk can elevate your email marketing, they cater to different needs. Here’s a breakdown of their core functionalities:
Email Builder:
- Mailchimp: Offers a drag-and-drop builder for flexibility, but may require some design knowledge to achieve polished results.
- Flodesk: Shines with beautiful, pre-designed templates that are easily customizable with your branding. Ideal for those who prioritize design without needing design expertise.
Marketing Automation:
- Mailchimp: Offers robust marketing automation features for setting up complex workflows and triggered email sequences. Great for established businesses with intricate marketing needs.
- Flodesk: Offers basic automation functionalities, like welcome emails and abandoned cart sequences. More suitable for simple email workflows.
Audience Segmentation:
- Mailchimp: Allows for in-depth audience segmentation based on demographics, interests, and purchase history, enabling highly targeted email campaigns.
- Flodesk: Offers basic segmentation based on tags and lists. Suitable for smaller audiences or those with less complex segmentation needs.
Analytics:
- Mailchimp: Provides detailed analytics on email performance, including open rates, click-through rates, and A/B testing capabilities. Great for data-driven marketers who want to optimize campaigns.
- Flodesk: Offers basic analytics on open rates and click-through rates. May not be sufficient for in-depth performance analysis.
Additional Features:
- Mailchimp: Integrates with a wide range of marketing and CRM tools for a more comprehensive marketing ecosystem.
- Flodesk: Offers built-in landing page creation and sales funnel building (paid plans only). Great for creators and solopreneurs who want an all-in-one solution.
- Ecommerce Functionality: Mailchimp integrates with ecommerce platforms, while Flodesk offers built-in ecommerce features for selling digital products (paid plans only).
To Summarize:
Choose Mailchimp for advanced features, powerful automation, and in-depth analytics (ideal for established businesses). Choose Flodesk for stunning design templates, a user-friendly interface, and built-in landing page/sales funnel creation (ideal for creators and small businesses).
User Interface and Ease of Use
Let’s see how Mailchimp and Flodesk stack up in terms of user interface (UI) and ease of use:
Mailchimp:
- UI: Functional and professional, with a wide range of features and options.
- Ease of Use: Learning curve can be steeper for beginners due to the breadth of features. May require some exploration to find specific functionalities.
Flodesk:
- UI: Clean, modern, and visually appealing. Prioritizes a user-friendly experience.
- Ease of Use: Very beginner-friendly. Drag-and-drop interface with clear navigation and intuitive functionalities. Ideal for those who prioritize ease of use over extensive customization.
Get 50% off Flodesk with referral code KATIEHARP
Imagine Mailchimp as a well-equipped toolbox – it has everything you need, but it might take some time to get familiar with all the tools. Flodesk, on the other hand, is like a pre-assembled furniture set – it’s incredibly easy to put together and use, but may not offer the same level of customization as individual tools.
To Summarize:
- Go with Mailchimp if: You’re comfortable with a little exploration and prioritize advanced features over immediate ease of use.
- Embrace Flodesk if: You value a beginner-friendly interface and prioritize getting started quickly with beautiful, pre-designed templates.
Email Design Capabilities
While beautiful designs aren’t strictly necessary for email marketing, they do add a little something extra to your brand, especially if you’re in an industry where that matters (such as photography, design, or anything creative). Here’s an overview of Mailchimp and Flodesk’s email design capabilities:
Mailchimp:
- Customization: Offers a drag-and-drop builder with a good degree of flexibility in design elements like layout, colors, and fonts.
- Templates: Provides a decent selection of basic templates, but they may require significant customization to achieve a truly unique look.
- Learning Curve: Some design knowledge can be helpful to create polished and visually appealing emails.
Flodesk:
- Customization: Offers a good level of customization within pre-designed templates, allowing you to modify colors, fonts, and branding elements.
- Templates: Shines with a library of beautiful, pre-designed templates that cater to a wide range of industries and aesthetics. These require minimal customization for a professional look.
- Learning Curve: Very beginner-friendly. Even those with limited design experience can create stunning emails with Flodesk’s intuitive interface.
The Verdict:
For those who prioritize complete design control and can handle some customization, Mailchimp offers flexibility. But if stunning aesthetics are your top concern, Flodesk takes the crown with its extensive library of pre-designed templates that require minimal effort to look polished and professional.
To Summarize:
- Pick Mailchimp if: You have design experience and want the flexibility to create a completely unique email from scratch.
- Embrace Flodesk if: You prioritize a user-friendly interface and want beautiful, pre-designed templates that are easy to customize with your branding.
Automation and Workflow Comparison
Automation can take repetitive tasks off your plate and personalize the customer journey. Let’s see how Mailchimp and Flodesk stack up in the automation department:
Mailchimp:
- Features: Offers robust marketing automation functionalities. You can design complex workflows with multiple triggers, actions, and conditional splits. Great for sending targeted email sequences based on behavior, abandoned carts, or website visits.
- Complexity: Steeper learning curve due to the wide range of options. May require some time to set up intricate automation workflows.
Flodesk:
- Features: Offers basic automation functionalities, like welcome email series and abandoned cart reminders.
- Complexity: Very user-friendly. Simple drag-and-drop interface for setting up basic automated email sequences.
To Summarize:
- Pick Mailchimp if: You need to create complex email workflows with multiple triggers and actions for highly targeted campaigns.
- Go with Flodesk if: Your needs are simpler, and you prioritize user-friendly automation for basic email sequences like welcomes and abandoned carts.
Pricing Comparison
Mailchimp:
At the time of writing, Mailchimp offers a free plan that allows you to send up basic emails to a list of up to 500 contacts. However, the free plan has limited features, including no segmentation or A/B testing.
Paid plans start at $13/month for basic features like email marketing automation and A/B testing for up to 5,000 monthly email sends. Pricing scales based on list size and additional features offered in higher tiers.
- Free: $0 a month
- Essentials: Starting at $13 a month
- Standard: Starting at $20 a month
- Premium: $350 a month
The more subscribers you have, the more you’ll pay. For example, if you have 5,000 subscribers on the Essentials plan, you’d pay $75 a month.
Flodesk:
At the time of writing, Flodesk offers no free email plan (except for their link in bio feature) and instead has two paid options. All plans come with unlimited emails.
- Email marketing for unlimited subscribers: $38 a month
- Email marketing plus ecommerce: $64 a month
Get 50% off Flodesk with referral code KATIEHARP
Integrations and Compatibility with Other Tools
A strong email marketing platform plays well with others. Let’s see how Mailchimp and Flodesk fare when it comes to integrations and compatibility. This area is, unfortunately, one of the main areas where Flodesk falls flat given its enticing price point.
Mailchimp:
- Integrations: Boasts a wide range of integrations with popular marketing, CRM, and ecommerce platforms. This allows you to connect Mailchimp to your existing tools and streamline your workflow. Examples include Shopify, WooCommerce, Google Analytics, and many more.
- Compatibility: Generally compatible with most major email clients and devices.
Flodesk:
- Integrations: Offers a more limited selection of integrations compared to Mailchimp. However, it does integrate with some popular tools like Zapier, allowing you to connect Flodesk to other services indirectly. Ecommerce functionality is built-in for the top paid plan (no separate integrations needed).
- Compatibility: Generally compatible with major email clients and devices.
To Summarize:
- Pick Mailchimp if: You have a complex marketing ecosystem with multiple tools and require seamless integration for a streamlined workflow.
- Embrace Flodesk if: Your integration needs are less complex, and you prioritize a standalone email marketing platform with optional add-on ecommerce features.
If you rely heavily on a specific set of marketing tools or an ecommerce platform, Mailchimp’s extensive integrations might be a deciding factor. Flodesk, however, keeps things simple with built-in ecommerce features (paid plans) and focuses on core email marketing functionality.
Ultimately, the choice between Mailchimp and Flodesk boils down to your specific needs and priorities.
Mailchimp is the established powerhouse, ideal for businesses seeking advanced features, automation capabilities, and in-depth analytics for large-scale email marketing campaigns. Flodesk, on the other hand, is the design darling, perfect for creators and entrepreneurs who prioritize a user-friendly interface, beautiful pre-made templates, and the ability to build landing pages and sales funnels directly within the platform.
Consider your budget, technical expertise, and desired level of design control to pick the champion that will elevate your email marketing game and help you forge stronger connections with your audience.