AWeber vs Mailchimp: Which Email Marketing Platform Should You Actually Use?

Both AWeber and Mailchimp have been around for over two decades. AWeber launched in 1998 and is credited with inventing the email autoresponder. Mailchimp came along in 2001 and now dominates the market in terms of brand recognition. But which one should you actually use?

Here's the short answer: Mailchimp wins for most users thanks to better automation features, a more intuitive interface, and more advanced marketing tools. But AWeber has some real advantages-particularly for affiliate marketers, anyone who values customer support, and businesses with 500-50,000 subscribers where pricing can work out cheaper.

Let's break down exactly where each platform excels and where they fall short.

Quick Pricing Comparison

Before diving into features, here's what you'll actually pay:

AWeber Pricing

AWeber offers three paid tiers: Free, Lite, and Plus. The Lite plan starts at $15/month for up to 500 subscribers, but it restricts you to just 1 email list, 1 custom segment, 3 automations, and 3 landing pages. The Plus plan starts at $30/month for 500 subscribers and gives you unlimited automations, landing pages, and list segments.

The free plan limits you to 500 subscribers and 3,000 emails per month. Note that AWeber charges based on total subscriber count, not email sends-so your costs scale with list size.

Big caveat: AWeber recently increased prices significantly for grandfathered customers. Some users reported price hikes of 50-150%, which has pushed many to look elsewhere.

For the Lite plan, you can send up to 10 times your subscriber count per month in emails. The Plus plan allows 12 times your subscriber count. If you exceed these limits during your billing cycle, AWeber will automatically upgrade you to accommodate your needs.

AWeber also offers an Unlimited plan at $899/month with no subscriber caps and fixed pricing regardless of list size. This plan includes personalized account management and dedicated support, making it suitable for enterprise-level operations.

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Mailchimp Pricing

Mailchimp has four tiers: Free, Essentials ($13/month for 500 contacts), Standard ($20/month for 500 contacts), and Premium ($350/month for 10,000 contacts).

The free plan has been significantly reduced in recent years. It now includes up to 500 contacts and 1,000 email sends per month, with a daily send limit of 500. But here's the catch-Mailchimp's free plan no longer includes email scheduling or automation. You can build and preview automation workflows, but you need a paid plan to actually use them.

Mailchimp also counts unsubscribed contacts and people who haven't confirmed opt-in toward your total. This can push up costs significantly if you're not regularly cleaning your list. The platform uses a tiered pricing structure where your monthly cost depends on both your plan type and your contact count.

The Essentials plan provides up to 10x your contact count in monthly sends. The Standard plan increases this to 12x your contact limit, while Premium offers 15x your contact count in emails per month. For example, with 10,000 contacts on the Premium plan, you can send up to 150,000 emails monthly.

Mailchimp offers annual billing discounts for Standard and Premium plans with 10,000+ contacts. They also provide a 15% discount for eligible nonprofit organizations across all paid plans.

Pricing Verdict

For small lists under 500 subscribers, both free plans are usable but limited. Once you need real features, AWeber's Plus plan at $30/month gets you unlimited automations, while Mailchimp's Standard plan at $20/month has better automation capabilities but charges you for unsubscribed contacts. At scale (10,000+ subscribers), Mailchimp tends to be pricier, especially if you need the Premium tier.

The pricing gap widens significantly as your list grows. For 25,000 subscribers, AWeber charges around $145/month, while Mailchimp's equivalent tier can cost more depending on which plan features you need. However, Mailchimp's Standard plan offers more sophisticated features at comparable price points for mid-size lists.

Ease of Use: Mailchimp Wins

Mailchimp's platform is easier to navigate than AWeber's. The interface is more intuitive, and most users can create their first campaign without watching tutorials. The dashboard is well-organized, with clear navigation menus and a modern design that makes finding features straightforward.

AWeber has some quirks that frustrate users. The naming conventions are confusing-they call regular newsletters "Broadcasts" and use "Campaigns" when they mean email automations. Some common options feel hidden, like reusing a campaign or selecting a sender address. The backend navigation feels more tedious, requiring more clicks to move between campaign steps.

That said, if you just need basic email sends and autoresponders, AWeber is simple enough. It's when you want to do anything more complex that Mailchimp's UX advantage becomes clear. Mailchimp provides helpful navigation tools, like progress bars when setting up campaigns, that guide beginners through the process.

One area where AWeber shines is its straightforward approach to list management. You can send the same broadcast to multiple lists simultaneously, which Mailchimp makes more complicated. However, this simplicity comes at the cost of sophisticated segmentation options that Mailchimp offers.

Email Templates: AWeber Has More, Mailchimp Looks Better

AWeber offers over 700 email templates, which sounds impressive until you realize many look dated. The company claims over 600 distinct templates (the rest being variants), covering a wide range of categories from business to nonprofit to e-commerce. While the quantity is there, the quality can be hit-or-miss, with some templates feeling stuck in the early 2000s.

Mailchimp has around 100 templates, but they're cleaner and more modern. Each template is professionally designed with contemporary aesthetics that look good across devices. The templates feel more polished and on-trend, which matters when you're trying to make a professional impression.

Both platforms have drag-and-drop email builders. Mailchimp's editor looks more polished and is easier to use, with an intuitive interface that makes customization straightforward. AWeber has a "Smart Designer" feature that analyzes your website or social media and automatically builds custom email templates with your branding-which is actually pretty useful for getting started quickly. However, the results can be inconsistent depending on how your website is structured.

AWeber includes some unique template features like global text styling (theme settings) that let you set fonts and colors once across your entire template, saving time on formatting each paragraph individually. This is a genuinely useful feature that Mailchimp lacks in the same form.

Mailchimp offers dynamic content features that AWeber doesn't have, letting you show different content to different subscribers within the same email based on their attributes or behavior. This is powerful for personalization-you can show product recommendations based on past purchases, or display different messaging based on subscriber location.

Both platforms provide responsive templates that automatically adjust for mobile devices, which is essential since over half of all emails are opened on smartphones. AWeber makes it easy to preview mobile versions with a simple toggle switch, while Mailchimp lets you simulate how emails will look on dozens of specific phone and tablet models.

Automation: Mailchimp Is More Powerful

This is where Mailchimp pulls ahead significantly.

Mailchimp offers advanced automation including customer journey builders (formerly called Customer Journeys, now Marketing Automation Flows), abandoned cart sequences, product retargeting, and complex multi-step workflows with conditional logic. These work particularly well for e-commerce businesses thanks to strong integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce, and other platforms.

The Customer Journey Builder allows you to create visual automation maps with multiple triggers, up to 200 steps, and split paths. You can automate based on contact behavior, purchase history, email engagement, and dozens of other triggers. Pre-built journey templates help you get started quickly with proven workflows for welcome series, abandoned cart recovery, post-purchase follow-ups, and re-engagement campaigns.

On the Essentials plan, you're limited to single-trigger flows with up to 3 steps. The Standard and Premium plans unlock the full power with up to 3 triggers per flow, unlimited steps, and sophisticated branching logic. This allows you to create truly personalized customer experiences that adapt based on individual actions.

AWeber's automation is more straightforward. You get autoresponders, tag-based automations, and basic sequences. AWeber invented the autoresponder back in 1998, but the platform hasn't innovated much beyond that foundation. It's easier to set up simple automations, but you'll hit limitations faster if you want sophisticated customer journeys.

AWeber's Plus plan includes unlimited automations, but they're simpler in structure. You can create time-based sequences, tag-based triggers, and basic conditional logic. For many small businesses, this is sufficient-welcome sequences, post-purchase follow-ups, and basic drip campaigns work well. But if you need complex behavioral triggers, advanced segmentation, or multi-channel workflows, Mailchimp is the clear winner.

One advantage AWeber has is simplicity. Setting up a basic autoresponder series is more intuitive, and the learning curve is gentler for complete beginners. You can get a welcome sequence running in minutes without feeling overwhelmed by options.

If automation is a priority and you need sophisticated marketing workflows, Mailchimp is the better choice. If you just need welcome sequences and basic follow-ups, AWeber gets the job done without the complexity.

Deliverability: Mixed Results

Email deliverability-whether your emails actually reach inboxes-matters more than most features. Here's where things get interesting.

Recent deliverability tests from EmailToolTester showed varying results. In their most recent test, Mailchimp achieved around 89.5% deliverability compared to AWeber's 83.1%. However, AWeber had scored 93.2% in a previous test, showing that deliverability can fluctuate based on many factors including sender reputation, list quality, and email content.

Over multiple rounds of testing, Mailchimp averaged about 91.2% deliverability while AWeber averaged 87.8%. EmailToolTester categorized Mailchimp as having "excellent deliverability" while AWeber received "acceptable deliverability" status. That said, independent testing by other sources found AWeber scoring 89 compared to Mailchimp's 87 in different conditions.

The truth is that deliverability depends heavily on your sending practices, not just your email service provider. Both platforms have strict anti-spam policies and zero tolerance for unsolicited emails, which helps maintain their sender reputations. Both promise delivery rates in the region of 99% for legitimate marketers who follow best practices.

AWeber has better deliverability tools including proper authentication setup (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), smart bounce handling, and visibility into sender health. The platform actively monitors accounts for spam compliance and enforces strict standards. AWeber also refuses to import suspicious contacts, providing an extra layer of protection for your sender reputation.

One common complaint about Mailchimp: emails tend to land in Gmail's Promotions tab more often than AWeber's. Not the spam folder, but not the primary inbox either. This can reduce open rates, though whether an email goes to Promotions vs Primary depends on many factors including recipient behavior and Gmail's algorithms.

Neither platform offers dedicated IP addresses on their standard plans, which would give you complete control over sender reputation. If deliverability is absolutely critical and you're sending high volumes, you might need to look at enterprise solutions that offer dedicated IPs (typically available at custom pricing tiers).

Both platforms take deliverability seriously, and results can vary significantly based on your sending practices, list quality, and content. Neither is dramatically better than the other in practice. Focus on building a quality list, using confirmed opt-in, keeping engagement high, and following email marketing best practices-these factors matter more than the platform you choose.

Customer Support: AWeber Wins Decisively

This is AWeber's biggest advantage. AWeber offers 24/7 chat support and phone support during business hours on all plans, including the free plan. They've won multiple awards for customer service, and the support team is consistently praised in user reviews for being responsive, helpful, and thorough.

Users report that AWeber's support team responds quickly to live chat inquiries and provides detailed, helpful answers. Phone support is particularly valuable when you need to troubleshoot complex issues or get personalized guidance on your email strategy.

Mailchimp's support is more limited. The free plan only includes email support for the first 30 days after signing up. After that, free users are largely on their own with self-service resources. Paid plans get email and chat support, but phone support is reserved for Premium plan customers ($350+/month). Most users are stuck with email and chat, which can be frustrating when you need immediate help.

The Standard plan includes 24/7 email and chat support, which is adequate for many users. Premium customers get priority phone, live chat, and email support, plus access to a dedicated success manager if you're spending at least $299/month with Mailchimp.

If you're not technical and expect to need help, this difference matters significantly. AWeber will actually pick up the phone regardless of what you're paying. For solopreneurs and small business owners who don't have technical staff, this level of support can be the deciding factor.

User reviews consistently highlight this difference. AWeber customers praise the "amazing support" and note that "customer service was very helpful when getting my account set up." Mailchimp users, especially those on lower-tier plans, often complain about limited support options and slow response times.

Landing Pages & Sign-Up Forms

Both platforms offer unlimited landing pages on free plans, which is generous and helps you build your email list without additional cost.

Mailchimp's landing page builder is easier to use and includes e-commerce features-you can sell products directly from landing pages. The builder is intuitive with drag-and-drop functionality, though there are only about 10 templates to choose from. Mailchimp also includes basic SEO tools (meta titles, descriptions, custom URLs) built into landing pages, even on the free plan, which helps with discoverability.

AWeber has 39+ landing page templates covering various industries and use cases. Customization options (fonts, colors, backgrounds) are more straightforward in AWeber's builder. You can also add unique features like video and audio files directly to your landing pages, which Mailchimp doesn't support as easily.

For sign-up forms, both platforms offer multiple types: pop-ups, embedded forms, slide-ins, and standalone pages. AWeber's form builder is straightforward with good customization options, while Mailchimp offers more sophisticated targeting and display rules for when and where forms appear on your site.

Mailchimp forms can be targeted based on user behavior, scroll depth, exit intent, and time on page. This behavioral targeting can significantly improve conversion rates by showing forms at the optimal moment. AWeber's forms are simpler but still effective, with basic targeting options and easy implementation.

Both platforms support A/B testing for forms (on paid plans), letting you test different headlines, designs, and calls-to-action to optimize conversions. AWeber includes split testing for sign-up forms starting on the Lite plan, while Mailchimp reserves more advanced split testing for Standard and Premium tiers.

Integrations

Mailchimp has the edge on integrations, with connections to virtually every major platform: Shopify, WooCommerce, WordPress, Salesforce, Zapier, Instagram, Facebook, and hundreds more. The e-commerce integrations are particularly strong, with deep two-way syncing that passes customer data, purchase history, and behavioral data back and forth.

The Shopify integration, for example, automatically syncs customer information, product details, order data, and cart abandonment triggers. This powers advanced automation like product recommendations based on browsing behavior, abandoned cart sequences, and post-purchase follow-ups with specific products.

Mailchimp also integrates natively with survey tools, CRM systems, advertising platforms, and analytics services. The Salesforce integration syncs leads and contact data bidirectionally, while the Facebook integration lets you create targeted ad audiences based on your email subscribers.

AWeber integrates with most popular tools too, and supports more file formats for importing contacts (XLS, TSV, CSV, TXT vs. Mailchimp's CSV-only approach). You'll find integrations with WordPress, Shopify, WooCommerce, PayPal, Stripe, and other essential services. AWeber also connects with Zapier, which opens up thousands of additional integration possibilities.

However, AWeber's overall integration ecosystem is smaller and the integrations are generally less sophisticated. The connections work fine for basic data syncing, but they lack some of the advanced features that Mailchimp's first-party integrations provide. For most small businesses, AWeber's integrations are sufficient, but e-commerce businesses and companies with complex tech stacks will benefit from Mailchimp's deeper integration capabilities.

Analytics and Reporting

Both platforms provide essential email marketing metrics: open rates, click-through rates, bounce rates, unsubscribe rates, and geographic tracking.

Mailchimp offers more comprehensive analytics capabilities, especially on higher-tier plans. You get detailed insights into campaign performance, subscriber behavior, and marketing ROI. The reports are visually appealing with charts, graphs, and heat maps that show where subscribers are clicking within your emails.

Advanced Mailchimp features include social reports that break down how your content performs across different platforms and email providers (Gmail vs Yahoo), click maps showing exactly where people click in your emails, and comparative reports that benchmark your performance against similar businesses in your industry. The Premium plan adds multivariate testing (testing up to 8 variations with multiple variables) and advanced segmentation analysis.

Mailchimp's e-commerce reporting is particularly strong if you have a connected store. You can track attributed revenue, average order value, revenue per recipient, and customer lifetime value directly within the platform. This makes it easy to calculate your email marketing ROI with precision.

AWeber's reporting is simpler but still comprehensive for most needs. You get the standard metrics plus e-commerce tracking and geo-location data. The reports provide the information you need but aren't as visually polished as Mailchimp's. Some users note that information can be harder to access and the design feels less intuitive.

One area where AWeber excels is segmentation directly from reports. You can look at a report for a specific email, see who opened or clicked, and immediately create a segment to target those engaged subscribers with a follow-up message. This is more cumbersome in Mailchimp, requiring you to export lists and re-import them with special flags.

For automation flows, Mailchimp provides detailed journey analytics showing how contacts move through your workflows, where they drop off, and which paths generate the most engagement and revenue. This visibility helps you optimize your automations over time.

A/B Testing Capabilities

Both platforms support A/B testing (split testing), but with different levels of sophistication.

Mailchimp's Essentials plan lets you test 3 variations of a single variable: subject line, from name, content, or send time. The Standard plan adds the ability to test multiple variables and automatically sends the winning version to the remainder of your list based on opens or clicks.

Mailchimp's Premium plan includes multivariate testing, which is significantly more powerful. You can compare up to 8 different variations testing multiple elements simultaneously (subject line + content + images). This helps you understand not just which version performs better, but which combination of elements drives the best results.

AWeber includes basic A/B testing on both the Lite and Plus plans. You can test subject lines, content, and from names, then manually or automatically send the winner to your remaining subscribers. The testing interface is straightforward and accessible to beginners.

While AWeber's testing is adequate for most small businesses, Mailchimp's more sophisticated options (especially multivariate testing) provide deeper optimization capabilities for marketers who want to systematically improve their email performance.

List Management and Segmentation

How you organize and segment your subscribers significantly impacts campaign effectiveness.

Mailchimp uses "Audiences" (formerly called Lists) and allows multiple audiences on higher-tier plans. The Standard plan limits you to 5 audiences, while Premium offers unlimited audiences. Within each audience, you can create unlimited segments using sophisticated criteria including demographics, purchase behavior, email engagement, predicted behavior, and custom fields.

Mailchimp's predictive segmentation uses machine learning to identify subscribers most likely to purchase, helping you target your most valuable prospects. Dynamic segments automatically update as subscriber behavior changes, ensuring your targeting stays current without manual updates.

The platform also uses tags extensively for organization, letting you add multiple tags to each subscriber and use them in automation triggers and segmentation conditions.

AWeber's approach is simpler. The Lite plan limits you to 1 list profile and 1 custom segment, which is quite restrictive. The Plus plan unlocks unlimited lists and custom segments, giving you the flexibility you need to organize your subscribers effectively.

AWeber's segmentation is less sophisticated than Mailchimp's but covers the essentials: demographics, signup date, custom fields, tags, and email engagement. You can create segments based on who opened specific emails, clicked certain links, or made purchases. However, you won't find predictive segmentation or the advanced behavioral criteria that Mailchimp offers.

For list management, AWeber wins points for simplicity. You can easily send broadcasts to multiple lists simultaneously. Mailchimp requires you to create combined segments or use more complex workarounds, which can be frustrating if you have audiences in different lists that you want to email together.

Mobile Apps

Both platforms offer mobile apps for iOS and Android, letting you manage your email marketing on the go.

AWeber's mobile app allows you to create campaigns, view reports, manage subscribers, and handle basic account functions from your phone. The "Campaigns on the Go" feature lets you write and send emails from anywhere, which is useful for time-sensitive communications or when inspiration strikes away from your desk.

Mailchimp's mobile app is more polished and feature-rich. You can create full campaigns using templates, view detailed analytics with visual reports, manage contacts and audiences, and even create landing pages from your phone. The app feels like a genuine mobile-first experience rather than a stripped-down version of the desktop platform.

Both apps are free and included with all plans, though functionality may be limited on free tiers. For marketers who need flexibility to work from anywhere, both apps are functional, with Mailchimp having a slight edge in design and capabilities.

E-commerce Features

If you run an online store, e-commerce integration capabilities matter significantly.

Mailchimp was built with e-commerce in mind, especially after their acquisition by Intuit. The platform offers product recommendations, abandoned cart emails, order notifications, post-purchase follow-ups, and customer lifecycle automation designed specifically for online retailers.

The Shopify and WooCommerce integrations automatically sync your product catalog, customer data, and order history. This powers sophisticated features like:

You can even sell products directly from emails, landing pages, and your Mailchimp website. The platform handles the e-commerce transaction, though you'll need a connected store or use Mailchimp's commerce features with payment processing (which includes transaction fees).

AWeber offers e-commerce features too, including abandoned cart tracking, purchase tracking, and basic product promotions. The Lite and Plus plans both include e-commerce tools with a 0.6% transaction fee on sales made through AWeber pages. However, the features aren't as comprehensive or sophisticated as Mailchimp's offerings.

For serious e-commerce businesses, Mailchimp is the better choice. The depth of integration, automation possibilities, and revenue tracking capabilities are significantly more advanced. AWeber can work for simpler stores or businesses where e-commerce is a secondary revenue source, but it doesn't match Mailchimp's e-commerce focus.

Email Personalization and Dynamic Content

Personalization increases engagement and conversion rates by making emails feel relevant to individual recipients.

Both platforms support basic personalization like inserting subscriber names, custom fields, and merge tags into your emails. This is table stakes for modern email marketing.

AWeber makes personalization easy to set up in subject lines, greetings, and throughout email content. You can use custom fields to store and display information specific to each subscriber. The platform also supports dynamic content that changes based on subscriber data, though it's more limited than Mailchimp's implementation.

Mailchimp takes personalization further with robust dynamic content blocks. You can show or hide entire sections of your email based on segment conditions, subscriber attributes, or behavior. For example, show different product recommendations to customers based on past purchases, or display location-specific offers based on subscriber geography.

Mailchimp's conditional merge tags let you create sophisticated personalization logic without technical knowledge. You can set fallback values if data doesn't exist, use if/then/else statements, and reference multiple data points to create truly personalized content.

The platform's product recommendation engine (available with e-commerce integrations) uses purchase data to automatically suggest relevant products to each subscriber. This powers Amazon-style "you might also like" blocks that drive additional sales without manual work.

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Free Plan Comparison

Both platforms offer free plans, but they're quite different in what you get.

AWeber Free includes:

Mailchimp Free includes:

The verdict: AWeber's free plan is more generous with sending limits (3,000 vs 1,000 emails) and includes basic automation and ongoing support. Mailchimp's free plan has become increasingly restrictive, removing automation and scheduling features that used to be included. For users who want to genuinely use a platform for free long-term, AWeber offers better value.

Migration and Switching

If you're considering switching from one platform to the other, both offer migration tools and support.

AWeber provides free migration assistance. Their team will help you move email templates, automations, lists, and other data from your previous platform to AWeber. This is particularly helpful if you're not technical or have complex automations you want to preserve.

Mailchimp's Premium plan includes priority migration services. For lower tiers, you can use import tools to bring in contact lists and manually rebuild templates and automations. The process is more self-service unless you're paying for Premium.

Both platforms support importing subscribers via CSV files, which is the most common migration method. You'll need to export your list from your current provider, format it properly, and import it into your new platform. Both require you to verify that your subscribers were collected ethically with proper consent.

Compliance and Security

Both platforms take compliance seriously, adhering to regulations like GDPR, CAN-SPAM, and CASL.

They both provide:

Mailchimp has more detailed GDPR tools including consent forms, data processing settings for different regions, and subscriber data export functionality. As a larger company acquired by Intuit, they have more resources dedicated to compliance and security.

AWeber is also fully compliant but as a smaller, independent company has a simpler approach. Both are safe choices from a legal and security standpoint.

Terms of Service and Account Suspension

This is where real differences emerge that can seriously impact your business.

Mailchimp has become notorious for sudden account suspensions without warning or clear explanations. Multiple users report having accounts frozen or terminated with minimal notice, sometimes for violations that aren't clearly explained. Getting reinstated can be difficult, and there are numerous stories of legitimate businesses losing access to their email lists.

Mailchimp has particularly strict policies around:

AWeber is generally more forgiving and has a reputation for working with customers before taking action. Users report that AWeber typically provides warnings and opportunities to fix issues before suspending accounts. The phone support means you can actually talk to someone when there's a problem rather than dealing with automated systems.

That said, AWeber still has strict anti-spam policies and will suspend accounts that violate terms of service. But the communication and due process are generally better.

For businesses doing any kind of affiliate marketing or operating in grey areas of email marketing, AWeber is the safer choice. Mailchimp's zero-tolerance approach and sudden suspensions are significant risks.

International Considerations

Both platforms serve international customers, but there are some considerations.

Mailchimp operates in multiple countries with localized pricing in various currencies. The interface is available in multiple languages (though customer support is primarily in English). They have data centers globally and understand international compliance requirements.

AWeber is US-based with English as the primary language for interface and support. They serve international customers but the experience is more US-centric. Support is available in English, with limited options for other languages.

Both platforms support international sending and have deliverability relationships with ISPs worldwide. Neither has significant disadvantages for international users, though Mailchimp's larger infrastructure may provide slight advantages for global operations.

The Bottom Line

For most small businesses, Mailchimp is the better choice. The automation features are stronger, the interface is cleaner, the e-commerce integrations are excellent, and the analytics are more comprehensive. You'll pay for it once your list grows, but the capabilities justify the cost for businesses that actually use them.

Choose AWeber if you need phone support, do affiliate marketing, or want something simpler without the learning curve of Mailchimp's more advanced features. AWeber is also better if you value consistent, responsive customer service over cutting-edge features.

Neither platform is perfect. Mailchimp's free plan has become increasingly restrictive-no scheduling, no automation, limited templates. Their sudden account suspension policy is a real risk. AWeber's recent price hikes have frustrated long-time customers, and the interface feels dated compared to modern alternatives. Both charge for unsubscribed contacts in ways that can inflate your bill.

Consider your specific needs:

If you're price-sensitive and want more generous free limits, check out our guide to best email marketing software for alternatives like Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) that might better fit your budget. Also see our AWeber pricing breakdown for detailed cost comparisons at different list sizes.

Ultimately, both are established, reliable platforms that will serve most small businesses well. The "right" choice depends on whether you prioritize advanced features and e-commerce capabilities (Mailchimp) or simplicity and superior support (AWeber).

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use both AWeber and Mailchimp simultaneously?

Yes, some marketers use both platforms for different purposes. You might use AWeber for affiliate marketing campaigns (where Mailchimp's policies are restrictive) and Mailchimp for e-commerce emails (where the integrations are superior). However, managing multiple platforms adds complexity and cost. Make sure the benefits justify the additional work.

Which platform is better for beginners?

AWeber is slightly easier for complete beginners due to its simpler interface and better support. However, Mailchimp isn't difficult to learn, and many beginners successfully start with Mailchimp's free plan. Both offer tutorials, documentation, and resources to help new users get started.

Do either platforms offer nonprofit discounts?

Yes, both offer nonprofit discounts. AWeber provides 3 months of free service plus a 25% ongoing discount for qualified nonprofits (requires 501(c)3 documentation or equivalent). Mailchimp offers a 15% discount on all paid plans for eligible nonprofits.

Can I send SMS marketing with these platforms?

Both platforms have added SMS marketing capabilities. Mailchimp offers SMS as an add-on for paid plans in select markets, integrated with their automation flows. AWeber also supports SMS marketing features integrated with email campaigns. However, dedicated SMS platforms may offer more sophisticated SMS-specific features.

Which has better WordPress integration?

Both integrate well with WordPress through official plugins. Mailchimp's plugin is more widely used and has more features, including automatic blog post notifications and detailed form builders. AWeber's plugin is simpler but covers the essentials. For most WordPress users, either works fine.

How long does it take to learn these platforms?

For basic email sends, you can be up and running in 30 minutes with either platform. Learning advanced automation features takes longer-expect several hours to days to master Mailchimp's customer journey builder or AWeber's tag-based automation. Both provide templates and pre-built workflows to speed up the learning process.

Can I get a refund if I'm not satisfied?

Both platforms offer free plans or trials to test before paying. AWeber offers a 14-day free trial of paid features. Neither platform typically offers refunds for paid subscriptions, so it's important to test with free options before committing to paid plans. You can cancel anytime to avoid future charges.

Which platform is better for B2B vs B2C?

For B2B: Either works well, but AWeber's simpler automation and better support may be advantageous for B2B marketers who send fewer, more targeted campaigns. For B2C, especially e-commerce: Mailchimp wins with better product integrations, abandoned cart features, and behavioral automation designed for consumer marketing.

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