What is ConvertKit?

ConvertKit is an email marketing company that offers premium email services, founded by Nathan Barry. It has witnessed a very rapid development in the world since its inception, due to its ease of use and provision of many features to users. ConvertKit helps create subscription forms in quick ways for you to add to your website. It enables you to create a large number of forms. The program has a number of subscription plans that suit each company or person according to their budget and the number of participants. It has three landing page templates, strengthened by the ability to add and edit text, modify the colors and the menu easily.

What is Mailchimp?

MailChimp is one of the most popular email services in the industry, with an excellent reputation, providing users with plans especially suited for bloggers and small business owners. In addition, it provides its services to a large number of large companies around the world. It supplies its customers with everything necessary for startups to develop and improve their businesses, facilitate communication with their customers, target new clients, promote their services and products, and achieve desired sales. It offers many plans that you can choose from, from a free plan to less than 2,000 subscribers and covers most of the features such as creating advertising campaigns, determining the automation workflow. And for more than 2,000 subscribers, it offers paid subscription plans according to the number of subscribers in the company.

ConvertKit vs Mailchimp: Which Email Marketing Service is Better?

Companies and individuals, such as bloggers, online store owners or any other working field still use email marketing tools to reach the largest customer base possible.

Probably that is because the number of email users in the USA has reached 254.7 million people in 2020, this is about 78% of the entire population of the USA!

“Customers are not really so hard to attract over the Internet you just need to know how to do it”

The use of email marketing tools is a bit old and seems like a grandpa advice, but surprisingly it is still one the most powerful marketing approaches, how? Let’s talk with numbers.

In 2020, about 105 billion emails are sent daily and this number is expected to double in 2021! In the United States, every dollar spent on email marketing has a ROI (Return on Investment) of $44.

Email marketing especially helps those who depend on blogs to publish their products by increasing the site traffic to their websites, this is done using email automation technology.

In this article, we'll discuss two of the most popular email marketing tools: ConvertKit vs MailChimp, and make a detailed comparison that is enough to clear all your doubts.

ConvertKit vs Mailchimp Comparison: Which Email Marketing Service Wins?

ConvertKit has a decent set of features that you can easily see. It is designed with premium marketing automation service and is especially suitable for professional bloggers.

It allows you to create automation slides that have the ability to send various customizable messages to your target customers on your list. In order to easily communicate with clients on your mailing list, you can rely on creating email sequences or alternatively sending individual “broadcast” emails.

ConvertKit meticulously designed its marketing automation service to prevent duplicate payment of subscribers to your list which made the process much easier.

Now, you may have already made up your mind, but wait, Convertkit is not suitable for those who want to create visually appealing emails. It provides few options in terms of templates, it has a very basic email editor and has no attractive design at all.

This feature is available in its competitor MailChimp. The least really shines in terms of editing and templates. It offers dozens of templates to choose from and also has an attractive and creative editor.

In terms of learning and use, we find that ConvertKit is more complicated and difficult to learn than MailChimp, since creating an email using it takes longer time.

Convertkit also does not have most of the necessary features that can help you verify that your emails are written in a correct sentence and do not contain spelling mistakes.

ConvertKit seeks through its vision to help its customers create an effective and professional email, no focus on design and aesthetics, meaning content is more important than design according to their philosophy. Thus, this helps you to create a successful email advertising campaign.

On the other hand, we find that its direct competitor, Mailchimp, provides its users with advanced email marketing functions, with the distinction of being easy to use and navigate between its pages. Its interface is easy to use and not as complicated as ConvertKit.

It has a service that personalizes emails further for individuals who receive your messages, which helps you increase the chances of them becoming a paying customer.

Mailchimp's philosophy is based on creating an attractively designed email that includes creative content, all according to the customer you target.

But the more important question here is, what are the key differences between ConvertKit and Mailchimp? And which one is best for your business?

In what follows, we will highlight the most important features and services provided by each program in details .. much details!

Let’s go a little bit deeper!

ConvertKit vs Mailchimp: Ease of Use

If you are developing an email marketing tool, what do you think the first thing you will take care of? Of course, an easy-to-use site.

Although both companies took good care of this, there is still a slight difference between the two of them.

Mailchimp is the smoothest option out there

Mailchimp will give you the enthusiasm you need as a beginner, how? an easy-to-use interface. The main page of the site contains all the buttons necessary to browse the site and set up tasks to organize the workflow.

The site has very, let us say “obvious” features within the main page, but this is not all. If you go deep inside the site, you can easily find some hidden features on the internal pages.

You can choose what to do so smoothly. You can go to the designing section immediately upon entering the site, or specify the recipients and add the sender's details before even writing the email.

Thanks to the drag-and-drop editor of the site, you can easily add or remove elements, modify text, and change images and styles with few clicks.

The interface of Mailchimp comes with a top navigation menu explaining the various functions of the site, and it includes familiar words that are easy to understand by anyone, even a novice, such as: campaigns, which are the main place where all kinds of marketing assets live, templates that include the forms and the audience, etc.

“In Mailchimp, you can create a landing page in the Audience or Campaign tabs.”

ConvertKit is also a joy to use but there are some things you may want to know

Although ConvertKit has a less interesting interface (not boring, yet not super fun), you can still easily navigate it. Among broadcasts, the interface is available on the Email Builder, which is a very time-saver option.

We also want to note that you must specify your subscribers and details first in order to create your email. Organizing the work seems like ConvertKit’s first priority, fortunately.

ConvertKit has an easy to use editor, very similar to MailChimp, except that the site does not have a drag-and-drop feature. Your options during the editing process are limited to formatting text.

ConvertKit includes its own vocabulary as well, but it is a bit difficult for a new user to understand. Not hieroglyphic, but yeah, it can be a bit hard for our beginners.

Our Winner: It’s A Draw

From the aforementioned, regarding website design, ease of use and browsing, we do not find that there is a big difference between using Mailchimp or ConvertKit. Both get a point here, maybe we can highlight some differences later on.

ConvertKit vs Mailchimp: Email Creation, Email Design, Email Templates, and Flexibility

Templates & Design Options

ConvertKit email templates are a little basic and simple in both performance and design, they do not contain many graphics, which makes them more reliable for businesses.

ConvertKit - Create new email templates without touching HTML

This is of course alongside that these templates do not appear as commercial advertisements to users, and this is the main factor that increases the chances of opening them by subscribers in your email list.

Unlike Mailchimp, which seeks to provide more tools and templates enabling you to send emails with more details, graphics and figures. Mailchimp pays great attention to design and flexibility.

Add any text, images, video or more with just a click of a button with Mailchimp, you will also find blocks of templates ready to go. So, it is the first option for many people who have just started their business to send their first messages.

You only need to send an email, define your target audience, write the topic, design your email as you want, and then send.

Email Templates

MailChimp is “artistically” more reliable than ConvertKit. It provides about 100 template email messages from holidays, to newsletters, event offers and promotions related to e-commerce.

When composing your email, you will not waste more than a few seconds to choose a template, as they are designed and categorized by function. You will find the template you need just before you blink twice.

As for ConvertKit, it offers 3 classic and modern email templates. This is according to their opinion, not to distract you with a lot of designs, and it encourages you to pay more attention to the content.

With the limited number of templates that ConvertKit provides, you can only add text and images. However, studies have proven the effectiveness of simple email messages a bit more than those complicated ones. As the deliverability rate of simple plain emails is literally 100%!

The Editing Process, Formatting and HTML customization

If you like ConvertKit but want more customization and formatting on your emails, you should switch to using HTML and coding yourself. If you are not HTML proficient, the awesome site provides ready-made templates for you to write code on as you like.

The new ConvertKit editor offers a better interface, with the + sign that shows you formatting options when you click on it, as well as an option that allows you to insert a button, HTML block, or splitter.

It gives you the freedom to choose between 14 pre-set templates so you can quickly add your content, layout text, images, address blocks, and customize images, colors and fonts. What more do you need?

You can also choose from more than 80 themes, filled and precisely designed templates with colors, fonts, and background images, you just need to add your own version, or let me say your unique touch.

Now let’s talk a little about Mailchimp's drag-and-drop editor. Whether you want a ready-made template or want to create your own email from scratch, this editor is a life saver! Because it is based on blocks.

These are custom blocks for any image or group of images, text or comment, and more. This is useful for non-design professionals to make any changes to the layout or make the look of the page more personalized. So do not worry, you will not need to learn Photoshop!

In addition to all of the above, Mailchimp makes it too easy to collect comments on all of your emails. Feedbacks are the only thing that really pushes you to improve, and Mailchimp is very aware of that.

Send an email test form to any of your colleagues, and see how Mailchimp will automatically collect their notes in the comments section within the email editor.

In terms of formatting and content, ConvertKit includes them all through WYSIWYG. As for the customization options, they are very limited and restricted, you can only adjust the color, font size, alignment or embedding files and images.

Convertkit - Email Designer helps you write simple, beautiful emails

For further customization or formatting, you must enter the HTML code for the email and change the code by yourself. Even if you don't have HTML experience, ConvertKit also provides you with three basic templates to support you in the planning process.

Our winner: Mailchimp

Regarding the last three points, both companies are providing some impressive features, but we might give Mailchimp a point here just for the drag-and-drop editor, yeah, it’s that important.

ConvertKit vs Mailchimp: Opt-in Forms and Landing Pages

Hosting & Form Creation

When it comes to forms and landing pages, ConvertKit offers easy and quick ways to create them. You can combine some of the best web hosting services or even shared hosting services with Convertkit with a few simple steps.

You have several options, including the ability to host the landing pages in ConvertKit using WordPress, or you can add the forms to your website or blog, or you can even host the landing page yourself.

Convertkit - Landing Page templates for your next big idea

You can choose the display format, whether embedded, sliding or modal, copy customization, select templates, success message, font, fields, colors, and button.

Then copy the embed code into JavaScript or HTML or get a shareable link, you can also resort to WordPress or Unbounce. You will experience much freedom in this regard.

Forms in email marketing are the first impression that a customer gets on a visit to your website, and they allow you to communicate with your target audience and your visitors more effectively and professionally.

On the other hand, creating a form on Mailchimp is a bit more difficult, as you need to go to the form builder on another page to edit this form. But do not worry champ, it is still a very smooth process.

First of all, if you want to create an embedded form, you have to click on the forms included in the form creation process, which will take you to another page of code that you will paste on your website.

The pop-up forms have their own separate editing interface, through which you can customize your design and form fields, as well as create icons.

Creating a landing page is less complicated, you can choose from eight landing page templates, then customize it in the drag-and-drop editor. If you choose a layout template that comes with a form, the landing page editor can edit the form and form fields together.

Fields & Values

With the development of ConvertKit, it now allows you to insert new fields through its visual editor, after it was, in the old method, done through code.

You can now also add dropdown or checkbox field values as tags, which are seamlessly linked to the list management system. These new updates from Convertkit were astonishing to be honest.

ConvertKit also gives you the option to add any of your templates as an online template, and tweak some design-related elements like colors, images, and custom CSS.

MailChimp offers you similar options for creating a pop-up form. And it has that extra advantage of showing a different editor depending on the type of form you want to create.

With the drag and drop feature, you will be able to create many additional fields, and edit field values as well. You get to customize the design with colors and fonts just like its competitor ConvertKit, never forget they are like a twin in the first place.

MailChimp has a completely different pop-up form editor than all the other editors. Here, we find that MailChimp provides you with a lot of options in creating the form you want, unlike ConvertKit, which has one simple and easy-to-use editor.

Versions You Should Work With

The new ConvertKit 4 provides you with an editor that is the same as the form builder, and even a beginner will find it simple enough to use. You can also get reports on the number of visits, subscribers and conversion rate.

Other than changing colors or adding CSS, it doesn't provide much styling options, but its best plus is the ability to host your landing page on a website, if you prefer not to use the ConvertKit domain.

The new release of MailChimp 8 offers templates, and some layouts with which you can apply your own design. It provides you with great flexibility in design, with the ability to use the feature to drag and drop blocks of content.

Adding more fields there is an additional step, which you have to do separately in the form builder for your list, and this is an easy process. You may not even notice a big difference.

MailChimp 8, like ConvertKit, gives you reports on visitors, subscriptions, clicks, and conversion rates. However, hosting landing pages on your domain requires you to pay an additional $99 per year.

Our winner: Convertkit

The best competitor here would be Convertkit, for the easier and more diverse options it provides

ConvertKit vs Mailchimp: List Management and Segmentation

List Management

“Having a small precise list gets much better response and attention than having a large list of subscribers who do not open your emails”

MailChimp lets you create lists so when you upload your contacts, they all go to the same place. But if you want to include contacts into a form, tag, or sequence, MailChimp doesn't give you that option, nothing is complete, you know.

Alternatively, you can create segments of contacts that have similar characteristics, even if they do not belong to the same model, tag, or sequence.

For its part, ConvertKit does not provide you with multiple lists, but it does provide another simpler way to manage contacts.

ConvertKit gives you the ability to group these flags into slices to help you send the right mailing message at the right time. In addition to categorizing subscribers based on activity, interests, and others.

To have a feature you must dispense with another, that’s your call!

Segmentation

ConvertKit has very powerful and regular segmentation features. It provides you with 10 filters, including first name, date of subscription, distance between one city and another, and even adding a custom field.

Tags organize people - Segments organize tags — Source: ConvertKit

You can also use the “or”, “and” and “not” logic operators to combine these filters, or create a segment from those who have subscribed for several days.

You can take advantage of the tags to make your lists more visible, by creating a tag to monitor any type of subscriber's activity, whether those who clicked on a specific link or downloaded a specific file.

Through MailChimp, you can choose conditions from a drop-down list to filter contacts according to the data of your audience, but this option is limited by adding only five conditions to each section.

The segmentation of MailChimp depends on the amount of data you have on the program. But MailChimp provides advanced tools that help improve splitting options, so again, a feature for another.

Our winner: Convertkit

Another borderline! But overall and due to its simplicity, Convertkit gets another point. Still can’t decide? Keep reading.

ConvertKit vs Mailchimp: Marketing Automation

ConvertKit: Sequences

ConvertKit provides you with automatic emails and workflows. ConvertKit’s automation system is also available with a nice feature called “Sequences”, which enables you to create multiple email threads with the ability to customize when sending each message.

The mechanism of sequencing is a somewhat complicated process, but it’s all done by the system. You won’t put a finger on it. There is also a filter icon that allows you to add filters and create a list of recipients.

Convertkit: Visual automation

ConvertKit has released a new editor known as “visual automation” which relies on the workflow automation of ConvertKit.

This editor allows you to enter something into a sequence like subscribing to a form, purchasing, etc.

For example, you can automate emails that you want to record at your webinar platform as soon as someone signs up.

ConvertKit - Email Automation tool helps creators...

You can add steps based on conditions, procedures, or events. Another option is to add multiple sequences to automation, or set up some customized automation rules that allow you to add or remove any tags or contacts.

Mailchimp: A more traditional email automation

For its part, MailChimp still relies on old automation, which can be found in “Campaigns” under the “Create email” option.

Nevertheless, it provides a wider range of automated campaigns, such as setting up discarded campaigns, something not available in ConvertKit.

You can still add an email sequence to the automation workflow we talked about. For example, in order to set up an automation system, you must specify the trigger, such as filling out a form.

Then you choose what happens once you fill out this form. You also have the option to add previous people to the email thread.

Mailchimp: Better but paid options

Mailchimp provides you with a very easy experience similar to that of ConvertKit. But this requires you to upgrade your plan and choose the paid plan to link multiple automated emails.

Mailchimp: Pre-set automation

It also has several types of pre-set automation, which makes creating automated emails a simple and easy process. However, if you want to create your own emails, you have to follow the steps Mailchimp guides you through in the workflow editor.

What automation options does Mailchimp provide?

Mailchimp provides you with several types of automation based on tags or subscriber activity, or an e-commerce activity, in addition to APIs.

For example, you can set up automated email messages to welcome new subscribers or greet your existing customers on their birthday.

You have the ability to set your own automated email type, as well as add triggers such as the previous email that has not been opened. Then determine a specific time of day to send the email.

If you are a subscriber of the paid plan, you can create your own automation chain. Just link multiple automated emails together, all based on various triggers.

Our winner: Convertkit

What we talked about automation, we find that ConvertKit has the advantage in this field, they really got this well.

ConvertKit vs Mailchimp: Ability to Sell Digital Products Directly from Emails

Convertkit: Smoother display

ConvertKit provides several ways to display and sell your digital products online through ConvertKit Commerce. Our competitor here makes it a bit easier to use landing pages.

This service also enables content creators to build a large subscriber base, increase their audiences, and even sell their digital products easily with ConvertKit. You may have noticed that “Digital Products” was repeated, take notes.

ConvertKit - Sell Digital products with a commerce tool built for creators

ConvertKit Commerce allows you to use a link to promote your digital products such as e-books, PDFs, courses, etc., through social media, or by including the “Buy Now” button and placing your offers on your website, this method helps you increase Your sales.

You can review the details of the purchases made by your customers in detail, such as knowing the amounts of revenue for each subscriber separately and the list of products that they purchased.

You can use the feature of filtering subscribers according to the products that they purchased. This is a good hint and maybe a tweak to help you out.

ConvertKit Commerce as usual provides you with many editing options such as customizing images, text, and images on the product page with the ability to modify fonts and colors.

Mailchimp: e-commerce monster

Mailchimp is an email marketing tool with multiple channels. It will be of great help to reach a new audience for your business and strengthen your relationships with your existing customers.

Mailchimp has several e-commerce features that might be helpful to get more sales of your products or services.

Things like tracking the profits that your business makes from your own account, for example. But these features differ depending on the type of plan you choose for your business.

Mailchimp: Collecting data

The massive data that Mailchimp collects for you helps you boost the sales results of your email campaigns with your various customer segments, recommendations for your product, as well as promotional codes.

Therefore, it is essential for you to make use of this data to the maximum extent possible.

There are many ways and strategies you can use this data:

Send emails to the largest target group of your customers by dividing your contacts according to the purchase activity, or the expected demographic characteristics of the audience. Then create an email or an automation system dedicated to this group with some offers or any discounts that may attract them.
Add in your email personalized recommendations for your product, using the data that you have collected from your e-store in your e-mails.
Present the best possible offers to attract your customers by using promotional codes or discounts.

Our winner: It’s A Draw

We may not have a clear winner here as each tool is designed for a more specific use. Let’s say that Mailchimp is overall a better commerce tool but when it comes to digital products, Convertkit wins.

ConvertKit vs Mailchimp: A/B Testing

Convertkit

ConvertKit has A / B testing that is simple and clear for all subject lines. You can find A / B in the first subject line field on the right when you compose an email.

After clicking on it you will see that it has expanded further and showed another field for the second subject line.

What you need here is to enter the information in your subject lines, and ConvertKit will take care of the rest, yes just like that! Each change is submitted to 15% of recipients, and the winning version will be sent 2 hours later to 70% of recipients.

You can never control the time of the test or the percentages. To check the report, you should monitor the metrics and results of the A / B test by clicking on that email when you send it.

Some faults

ConvertKit does not have an automation and landing page splitting test, nor does it have an email content split test, or a lead time split test.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp doesn't provide A / B testing in the free plan. You can make the test only if you are on a paid plan. You can test A / B using one of the following four variables: Subject Line, Name, Content and Posting Time.

The content variable enables you to test different email templates or groups of content with Mailchimp's drag-and-drop editor (their best ever feature).

Some faults

But the choice is limited. You can only choose one variable type with the ability to create up to three shapes. However, if you choose the premium paid plan, you will be able to test many variables.

Mailchimp doesn't give you the ability to do A / B testing of automation or landing pages. In order to choose the winning email from your e-commerce campaigns, you must follow the open rate, total revenue, or click rate.

Our winner: Convertkit

With a second look to both sites, we would favor Convert kit regarding A / B testing.

ConvertKit vs Mailchimp: Email Analytics and Reporting

Convertkit: Prioritizing is the key

This is one of the most important features of ConvertKit. It provides you with reporting of open rates, clicks, and unsubscribe rates. And these are the reports you will most likely need the most.

Despite that, it does not provide some other “less important” reports such as social media reports, or e-commerce tracking, in addition to that it cannot be integrated with Google Analytics.

ConvertKit - Email Analytics and Reporting

Over time, a graph will be displayed by the “Subscribers” tab showing the number of new subscribers on your list and the total number of subscribers, along with other details including average click-through rate, average open rate, and emails sent.

Convertkit: More in-depth analysis

Going to the corresponding tabs, you'll dive deeper into specific email or landing pages metrics.

For example, by clicking on the Searches tab or clicking on each email separately to view in-depth metrics, you will easily be able to view email metrics.

By going to the Sequences tab, you can also analyze the automated email message reports.

On the other hand, if you go to another tab to see your landing page or form metrics, you'll see another new graph of your form subscriptions and landing page over time.

Mailchimp: Diversity of options

For its part, MailChimp offers you a more diverse range of reports in a very simple way. It starts with detailed information related to social statistics, as well as the performance of your industry, sales resulting from e-commerce, etc.

Ordering MailChimp reports is done better than ConvertKit. On the Reports tab there are four separate reports, giving you the ability to find key metrics at the level of your campaign.

You can see the open rate of subscribers who have the most openings, click-through rate, bounce rate, and your top performing links, and you can even see non-subscribers.

Mailchimp: The best option for your store!

If you own an online store connected to MailChimp, your report will display the number of orders, average order revenue, and also show you the total revenue earned from the email.

If you are on the paid plan, you will have more features like access to comparative reports, these reports give you the ability to group data from separate emails into a shareable report.

This helps you understand your subscribers' engagement patterns and helps you define and target the content of your campaign.

When you create landing pages in MailChimp, MailChimp provides a report detailing your subscriptions, clicks, views, revenue, orders, and conversion rates.