EmailOctopus vs Mailchimp: Which Email Marketing Tool is Right for You?

I was mass deleting emails from Mailchimp last Tuesday. Notifications about hitting my subscriber limit. Warnings about my bill going up. Again. I'd been with them for three years and watched my monthly cost creep from $20 to $87. For a newsletter with 8,000 subscribers. Something had to change.

A friend mentioned EmailOctopus over coffee. "It's like Mailchimp before they got greedy," she said. I was skeptical. I'd tried other alternatives before - ConvertKit felt too complicated, Sendinblue's interface made me want to throw my laptop out the window. But I gave it a shot anyway.

That was four months ago. My email costs dropped to $30/month. Here's what I learned.

Why I Actually Switched

Let me be honest. I didn't switch because of features. I switched because Mailchimp's pricing made me angry.

They used to have a free plan up to 2,000 subscribers. Then they cut it to 500. Then they changed how they count contacts - suddenly archived and unsubscribed people counted toward my limit. My "8,000 subscriber" list was actually costing me for 11,000 contacts according to their math.

EmailOctopus counts active subscribers only. That alone saved me money before I even looked at their actual pricing.

The Real Price Difference

I pulled up both dashboards to compare. Here's what I'd pay at different list sizes:

At 5,000 subscribers:

• Mailchimp Standard: $75/month
• EmailOctopus Pro: $24/month

At 10,000 subscribers:

• Mailchimp Standard: $110/month
• EmailOctopus Pro: $36/month

I ran the numbers three times because I thought I was missing something. I wasn't.

What Mailchimp Does Better (Being Fair)

I'm not going to pretend EmailOctopus is perfect. Mailchimp genuinely does some things better.

Their automation builder is more powerful. I had a 7-step welcome sequence with branching logic based on what links people clicked. Rebuilding that in EmailOctopus meant simplifying it to 4 steps. Honestly? My open rates didn't change. Maybe I was over-engineering it.

Mailchimp also has more integrations. I use Calendly, and the native Mailchimp integration was nice. With EmailOctopus, I had to set up a Zapier connection. Took 10 minutes, works fine, but it's an extra step.

And templates. Mailchimp has hundreds. EmailOctopus has maybe 30-40. I use the same two templates for everything anyway, so this didn't matter to me. Might matter to you.

What Actually Surprised Me

The migration was easier than expected. I exported my list from Mailchimp on a Sunday night, uploaded it to EmailOctopus, and sent my first email Monday morning. The whole thing took maybe two hours, including recreating my welcome sequence.

Deliverability was my big worry. EmailOctopus uses Amazon SES for sending, which is the same infrastructure that sends billions of emails for major companies. My open rates actually went up slightly after switching - from around 42% to 45%. Could be random variation, but definitely not worse.

The interface is cleaner than I expected. Less cluttered than Mailchimp has become. I can find what I need without clicking through five menus.

The Annoying Parts

No tool is perfect. Here's what bugs me:

The reporting is basic. Mailchimp shows click maps, engagement over time, comparative campaign stats. EmailOctopus shows opens, clicks, unsubscribes. That's mostly it. I've learned to live with it, but I do miss the detailed analytics sometimes.

No built-in landing page builder. Mailchimp added this a few years ago. If you need landing pages, you'll need a separate tool or use their WordPress plugin.

Customer support is email-only. No live chat. They usually respond within a few hours, but if something breaks at 6pm on Friday, you're waiting until Monday.

Who Should Stay With Mailchimp

Don't switch if:

• You actually use complex automation with multiple branches
• You need a specific integration that only Mailchimp has
• Your company pays for it and cost isn't your problem
• You've built workflows that would take days to recreate

Seriously. If Mailchimp is working for you and money isn't tight, there's no urgent reason to switch. The grass isn't always greener.

Who Should Switch

Switch if:

• You're paying for features you don't use
• Your list is growing and costs are becoming painful
• You send straightforward newsletters and campaigns
• You're starting fresh and don't have legacy workflows

What I'd Do If I Were Starting Over

If I were launching a newsletter today, I'd start with EmailOctopus. The free tier gives you 2,500 subscribers - enough to validate whether your newsletter has legs before spending money.

The $50+/month I'm saving goes toward actual content now. Better research tools. Occasionally paying writers. Things that actually grow the newsletter instead of just maintaining it.

Four months in, I haven't looked back. My emails still go out. People still open them. The only difference is my credit card statement looks better.

That's not a revolutionary conclusion. But sometimes boring and cheaper is exactly what you need.