There really isn’t much of a comparison here.
I’ve used both and I’ll tell you that MailChimp is limited but gets the job done. After you’ve built your list to 2,000 and if you want to send more than 6 emails (6 x 2,000) 12,000 emails per month. You will be required to pay. ConvertKit pricing shouldn’t be a deterrent. This is where I think MailChimp isn’t really worth it. At this intersection, and honestly far before if you have any budget at all, ConvertKit is an easy to use alternative that will make your company come of clean and professional while allowing you to sort and categorize your contacts easily.
And as you saw in this post, for me bootstrapping isn’t a valuable approach to building a business.
Additionally, the use of intelligent tags and funnels is more than necessary as you get more sophisticated with how you handle each contact that joins your mailing lists.
Free 99
The age old question is that of price. Although I agree with this notion, I also understand its inherent flaws when building a business that stands out amongst the growing field of competitors. Really, I’m even considering creating an ebook about bootstrapping and the numerous SASS decisions that us newbies are forced to make early on with limited understanding. What that’s code for is, we make a ton of decisions and ultimately, the easiest decision to make is one of using a free product or a paid product. I’ll let you ponder on which one most people start with.
MailChimp was Initiation
This is coming from a Mailchimp user that built that up to 2000+ contacts in one year. The big issue with MailChimp was in creating automated sequences. As far as sending a single email (abandon cart, broadcasts, or sign-up) it is perfectly fine. But, there are a few issues that come up when you take a closer look:
Sequences – When you tag and attempt to send contacts to different funnels based on behavior, it can be quite cumbersome. The lack of a visual mode that allows you to connect the contacts to different sequences.
Branding – Maybe it’s me, but I don’t like having the software company’s branding on my emails
Cartoon Look – Although it’s more nit picky than anything, I don’t think the MailChimp aesthetic is appropriate for most businesses emails.
ConvertKit Solves
Sequences – The “visual automation” allows you to easily connect emails and tags to contacts as they proceed through the funnel.
No Branding – Clean and straightforward
Minimal Look – A blank slate makes the email look more personal and geared towards getting information across. It’s not like Squarespace that has templates that can really make your brand look modern and sleek. It’s super basic and I decided this would be the best option for a clean and simple interaction for BHT and other businesses I have.
Level Up
Eventually, you will find better and need to have money budgeted so you can get more from your tools, interact more efficiently, or just clean up the customer experience in general. I know it’s a hard sale, but if you haven’t already experienced the difference between leveling up your software stack from what you started with, the difference is profound.
I’m hoping you will heed the warning. Bootstrapping isn’t for everyone. You will slow your progress and even make it unnecessarily hard especially as you don’t know what you’re doing starting out.
Recommended Tools
This is a crucial part of starting out. What to spend and what not to spend on. I know, we’ll get into that in the coming posts. For now, I suggest you check out this post I compiled after much blood sweat and tears in regard to trying to build for almost 2 years on a shoestring budget.
ConvertKit Pricing
The best email marketing platform I’ve used.
Now before you get bent outta shape and mention some obscure software that doesn’t integrate with any of the apps. I want you to know that I’ve considered and weighed the possibility that I haven’t found the absolute best bar none. It’s worth mentioning however, that my software stack asks that I have a certain level of easy integration in order for me to then recommend it to you.
That said. ConverKit is the easiest to build on, sort, integrate, and justify in terms of cost.
ConvertKit Review
I’ve used ConvertKit for a month now and have a couple things to say about it.
First there’s a competition they just started that I highly recommend you sign up for because you’ll get the tool for FREE for the whole month of April. Obviously I’m going to have you sign-up for the BHT newsletter in order to do so.
This is also an opportunity for you to see the assets that ConvertKit has available now. Essentially they are using the contest for promotion which isn’t a half-bad idea. They make landing pages!! This is huge and a great asset to include alongside their email marketing platform. So for $30/month I’d say that it’s worth it, even moreso the fact that you can sign up as an affiliate and get your service for free after signing on 5 accounts at that tier.