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E-Commerce · head to head

Mailchimp vs Sailthru

Mailchimp logo

Mailchimp

E-Commerce

Turn emails into revenue

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Sailthru logo

Sailthru

Email Marketing

Retail and publisher email personalisation, now one product inside the Marigold portfolio

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Mailchimp has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Mailchimp the free plan allows 250 contacts and 500 sends a month, with a 250 daily cap; Sailthru the product sits in a portfolio with several overlapping platforms under one owner, so roadmap investment is a portfolio decision rather than a product decision and is worth asking about in writing.
  • They diverge on capability: Mailchimp covers Email campaigns, Sailthru covers Interest profiles.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Mailchimp and Sailthru actually diverge.

Attributes where Mailchimp and Sailthru differ
AttributeMailchimpSailthru
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelUnknownquote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWeb, iOS, AndroidWeb, REST API
CategoryE-CommerceEmail Marketing
Founded2001Unknown

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Mailchimp

  • Email campaigns
  • Marketing automation
  • Landing pages
  • Forms & popups
  • Audience management
  • Content studio
  • Analytics
  • Social media

Only in Sailthru

  • Interest profiles
  • Personalisation engine
  • Prediction Manager
  • Site personalisation
  • Zephyr templating
  • Lifecycle optimiser

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Mailchimp

  • Email newslettersnot Sailthru
  • E-commerce marketingnot Sailthru
  • Lead generationnot Sailthru
  • Customer engagementnot Sailthru
  • Marketing automationnot Sailthru

Sailthru

  • A publisher sending a personalised daily newsletter assembled per reader from a content cataloguenot Mailchimp
  • A retailer that wants email and on-site recommendations driven by the same affinity modelnot Mailchimp
  • High-cadence sending where per-recipient content assembly matters more than journey branchingnot Mailchimp
  • Teams that want churn and lifetime value scores available as native campaign conditions rather than imported fieldsnot Mailchimp

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Mailchimp

  • The free plan allows 250 contacts and 500 sends a month, with a 250 daily cap
  • Price is driven by contact count, so the list growing raises the bill regardless of how much you send
  • Send allowances are a multiple of contacts, 10x on Essentials and 12x on Standard, so a large list with heavy sending forces a tier change
  • Essentials allows 3 seats and Standard 5; unlimited seats need Premium at $350 a month
  • The headline $13 and $20 prices are for 500 contacts, not a flat rate

Sailthru

  • The product sits in a portfolio with several overlapping platforms under one owner, so roadmap investment is a portfolio decision rather than a product decision and is worth asking about in writing.
  • Pricing counts stored profiles, so retained inactive readers keep costing money long after they stopped opening anything.
  • On-site personalisation requires a developer to implement the JavaScript and maintain the content feed, which puts the highest-value feature behind engineering time.
  • Zephyr is a proprietary templating language, so template maintenance skills are scarce compared with the Liquid syntax used by most competitors.
  • It is built for high-cadence content and retail sending, and B2B lifecycle programmes with long sales cycles sit poorly on the model.

Pricing, plan by plan

Mailchimp

Free
  • FreeFree
    • 250 contacts
    • 500 sends per month
    • Basic email campaigns
  • Essentials$13/month
    • 500+ contacts
    • Email campaigns
    • Basic automation
  • Standard$20/month
    • Advanced automation
    • Segmentation
    • Landing pages

Sailthru

On request
  • Sailthru$undefined/year
    • Priced on stored profiles and send volume
    • Site personalisation and prediction features licensed by module
    • Annual contract through Marigold

Which should you pick?

Choose Mailchimp if

  • You need email campaigns.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want marketing automation.
Mailchimp review

Choose Sailthru if

  • You need interest profiles.
  • You work on Web, REST API.
  • You also want personalisation engine.
Sailthru review

Questions people ask

Is Mailchimp or Sailthru better?
Neither clearly leads. Mailchimp starts at Free and Sailthru at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Mailchimp or Sailthru?
Mailchimp has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Mailchimp and On request for Sailthru.
Does Mailchimp or Sailthru run on more platforms?
Mailchimp runs on Web, iOS, Android. Sailthru runs on Web, REST API.
Can I use Mailchimp for free?
Yes. Mailchimp has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Sailthru starts at On request.
What is Mailchimp best used for?
Mailchimp is most often used for email newsletters, e-commerce marketing, lead generation, customer engagement. Of those, email newsletters and e-commerce marketing are not what Sailthru is typically brought in for.
What can Mailchimp do that Sailthru cannot?
Mailchimp covers Email campaigns, Marketing automation, Landing pages, Forms & popups. Sailthru covers Interest profiles, Personalisation engine, Prediction Manager, Site personalisation.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Mailchimp: Does Mailchimp offer a free plan?

Yes, Mailchimp's free plan supports up to 250 contacts and 500 sends per month with a 250-per-day cap.

Source
Sailthru: Who owns Sailthru now?

Marigold, formerly CM Group, which also owns Campaign Monitor, Emma, Selligent, Liveclicker and Cheetah Digital.

Mailchimp: What email features does Mailchimp include?

Mailchimp provides email campaign builder, automation sequences, segmentation, contact management, and A/B testing for email marketing.

Source
Sailthru: Does that affect the roadmap?

It can. Overlapping products in one portfolio compete for investment, so ask which platform is the strategic one for your segment before signing multi-year.

Mailchimp: Can Mailchimp integrate with e-commerce platforms?

Yes, Mailchimp integrates with Shopify, WooCommerce, Squarespace, and other e-commerce platforms for customer sync and abandoned cart automation.

Source
Sailthru: Is it worth it just for newsletters?

For personalised daily newsletters at publisher scale it remains one of the strongest options. For simple broadcast sending it is heavily over-specified.

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