Mailchimp vs. Salesforce: Which Is Better For You? (2024)

Mailchimp is a popular, cloud-based email marketing solution that helps businesses manage communication with their clients and launch marketing campaigns across various channels. On the other hand, Salesforce is a powerful CRM software that lets you build, track, and manage your marketing campaigns and enjoy enhanced marketing functionality through its marketing cloud. Although Salesforce has various offerings, the focus here is on comparing Salesforce as an email marketing software with Mailchimp. It would be best to look at the following features and capabilities, similarities and differences, and pricing of the two software to know which is better for your business.

Main differences between Mailchimp and Salesforce

	Mailchimp	Salesforce Email Studio
Pricing	Cheaper	More expensive
Features	Email Beamer and Lead Management	Absent
Subscription	Includes Pay As You Go	Doesn’t
Support and training	Great	Better
Plans	Free plan	No free plan
Usage and setup	Easier to use and set up	Quite complex

Mailchimp vs. Salesforce: Features and capabilities

Features and capabilities of Mailchimp

Email management: You can create and design your emails using the highly-customizable pre-built email templates on Mailchimp. Other features include Email Beamer, Email Designer, Classic Builder, and many more. You can even preview your emails using the Email Client Testing feature.
Automations: Mailchimp offers pre-built marketing automations such as welcome emails, automatic product recommendations, reminders about cart items, and lots more. You can enjoy date-based automation, behavior-based automation, and RSS email.
Email segmentation: Email segmentation is easy with Mailchimp as you can send emails to your entire list or a target segment. You can create as many details as possible and add contacts to multiple parts. Mailchimp also offers pre-built components.
Reports and analytics: Mailchimp allows users generate custom reports to view their success rate, clicks, subscribers’ activities, and track emails. These reports are mobile-friendly and can be exported and shared.

Features and capabilities of Salesforce

Automations: Salesforce offers lots of email automations. You can schedule emails and trigger workflows based on users’ actions, such as signing up and subscribing. Salesforce also auto-generates newly segmented mailing lists based on new user data.
A/B Testing: This feature helps you determine your target audience’s most effective marketing parameters to optimize your email campaigns. It lets you send two versions of the same email to 2 different groups of subscribers on the same mailing list.
Email management: Salesforce makes it easy for you to create, design, and manage your emails with its tools and features such as customizable email templates, email guardrails, email scheduling, and email delivery schedule, among others.
Reports: Salesforce lets you track the progress of your marketing campaigns and emails through its accounts. It offers real-time tracking and graphical information.

Mailchimp vs. Salesforce: Pricing

Mailchimp pricing

Mailchimp has 4 categories

Marketing Platforms category

Free Plan
Essentials ( $11/month)
Standard ($17/month)
Premium ($299/month)

Websites & Commerce category

Free Plan
Core ($10/month)
Plus ($29/month)

Transactional Email category

Free Plan
Block Plans (Varies according to the number of blocks, with each block containing 25,000 emails.)

Pay As You Go category.

Here, you buy and use Mailchimp credits: 100 credits equal 100 sends.

Salesforce pricing

Salesforce Email Studio has 4 plans.

Basic ($400)
Professional ($1250)
Corporate ($3,750)
Enterprise (Available on demand)

Reasons to choose Mailchimp over Salesforce

Mailchimp offers cheaper pricing packages compared to Salesforce Email Studio and even has a free plan, unlike Salesforce Email Studio, which doesn’t.

Mailchimp is the better option for small businesses.

Mailchimp is easier to use and set up than Salesforce. Although both software have great UI, Mailchimp’s UI is more user-friendly and easier to navigate than Salesforce’s.

Mailchimp is the better option for infrequent senders because they can use the Mailchimp Pay As You Go plan; Salesforce doesn’t have such provisions.

Mailchimp offers more email marketing tools and features than Salesforce Email Studio.

>>More: Hubspot Vs. Mailchimp | Best Mailchimp Alternatives | Mailchimp Pricing: Ultimate Cost Guide | Can Hubspot Replace Mailchimp?

Reasons to choose Salesforce over Mailchimp.

Salesforce is the better option for mid-sized and large enterprises. Large businesses will find Mailchimp inadequate to meet their needs as it doesn’t offer advanced segmentations and automations suitable for large-scale email marketing.

Although both software have multiple support channels, including 24/7 Live support, Salesforce generally provides much better customer support than Mailchimp.

Salesforce is an overall better software than Mailchimp in terms of versatility and use cases.

Salesforce provides better user training with more training options and channels, including in-person training.

Salesforce offers Email Guardrails, a feature missing in Mailchimp.

Similarities between Mailchimp and Salesforce

They both offer automations and functionalities such as list segmentation, email scheduling, and real-time email editors, among others.

They both offer A/B testing feature.

Both software let you launch targeted campaigns.

Both software can be used as CRMs.

Both software offer mobile-optimized emails with reports and analytics.

Mailchimp and Salesforce alternatives

Constant Contact: Constant Contact has numerous pre-built and customizable templates for your emails, landing pages, and sales forms. It also offers automations, email segmentation, and integrations.
HubSpot: HubSpot is an easy-to-use email marketing software that offers pre-built email templates, A/B Testing and Analytics, customization, and personalization. It also supports integrations.
Sender: Unlike Mailchimp, Sender doesn’t charge you for inactive, unsubscribed, and duplicate subscribers. You enjoy complex automations, pre-built templates, and integrations.
Aweber: Aweber lets you create more effective email campaigns. It offers pre-built email templates, a drag-and-drop editor, and end-to-end control.

Mailchimp vs. Salesforce: Final verdict

As an email marketing software, Mailchimp seems to have more features, functionalities, and tools; however, in terms of versatility and use cases, Salesforce appears to have the edge over Mailchimp. Also, even though both software are excellent email marketing software, small businesses may find Mailchimp more appealing and affordable. In contrast, larger establishments may find Salesforce more reliable for their large-scale marketing needs. In addition, while Mailchimp is relatively easier to use, Salesforce provides better support and training. Hence, you should factor in your marketing needs, business size, and budget, among others, in making a pick.

FAQ

Why are my Mailchimp emails going to spam?

There are a couple of reasons why your Mailchimp emails end up in your recipients’ spam folder. These include incorrect set-up of your SPF/DKIM records, poor domain reputation, using spam-trigger words, grammar and spelling errors, and low email marketing engagement.

Can I integrate Salesforce to Mailchimp?

Yes, you can. To connect your Salesforce account to Mailchimp, you need to install the Salesforce Integration to your Salesforce account to sync the data with Mailchimp. You can also use software such as Zapier and SyncApps to do this.

Can I use Mailchimp for free?

Yes, you can. Mailchimp offers a free plan on all its pricing categories; however, to enjoy more features and increased limits, you’d need to subscribe to a paid plan.

Can Salesforce do what Mailchimp does?

Yes, it can. Just like Mailchimp, Salesforce is an excellent email marketing software with amazing features.

How many free emails can I send with Mailchimp?

You can enjoy up to 10,000 free monthly sends with a daily limit of 2,000.

Can I do email blasts with Salesforce?

Yes, you can. With Salesforce, you can build and send mass emails to multiple recipients and mailing lists.