Why I Switched From MailChimp to MailerLite

Email marketing without a doubt is the most effective tool in online business. Comparing to social media, email is 40 times more effective says McKinsey & Co. survey.

When building Despreneur I knew that email newsletter is going to be one of the ways to connect and keep in touch with people interested in design, development and entrepreneurship. After one year of existence, there are over 4,400 Despreneur Newsletter subscribers.

MailChimp is great for fresh projects

To get started with I set up MailChimp which is an amazing company and allows you to have up to 2,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails every month for free. That’s a no-brainer and many individuals as well as organisations I learn from use this platform. MailChimp has many templates to choose from, easy campaign editor as well as handy stats.

Return on investment

Time passes, I put some freebies on Despreneur and ask people to get on the email list to download those freebies. Suddenly email list grows to over 4,400+ people and I am not allowed to use free MailChimp account.

Having so many subscribers must make some profit you may think. Why can’t I just monetize it and pay for the growing mailing list? I am a cheap ass and always look for the best deal so I get the best ROI (return on investment).

After a research and simple math I found out that MailerLite is a hidden gem and quick comparison helped me to choose the new email marketing platform for Despreneur.

I’ve compared 4 email marketing services taking into consideration current list size (4,400+ subscribers) and expected mailing list in a year (10,000+ subscribers). I’ve also included comparison of free plans, where MailChimp is a clear winner.

Data taken from MailChimp, Campaign Monitor, AWeber, MailerLite.

What is important when choosing email marketing provider?

Personally for me, price, easy editor and analytics are the most important factors as I am more of a DIY (do it yourself) guy so I rarely contact customer support or have trouble creating my own templates.

• Price of service, this is crucial, especially if you’re just starting up.
• Variety of templates, so you can choose a good fit for your project.
• Easy editor, so you can easily create and edit your email campaigns.
• Analytics, so you can analyse and test your marketing campaigns.
• Customer support, so you can get help when you’re stuck.

Conclusion

If you run a blog, website, startup or anything online I highly recommend you setting up a mailing list so you can start collecting emails and have more personal connections with your subscribers.

For the very beginning MailChimp is incredibly useful tool that will do the job for free (up to 2,000 subscribers). When your project grows, make some research and figure out what works best for you so you get the best return on investment, in my case it is switching to MailerLite.