Who else is abandoning Mailchimp?

[antares]

The title says it all.

[TimothyEllis]

Why would you?

[Gerri Attrick]

This blog post by David Gaughran explains:
https://davidgaughran.com/2019/05/16/mailchimp-alternatives-criticism-changes-pricing-plans/

[angela]

What Happened With Mailchimp?

Mailchimp announced its pivot towards a full-service marketing platform on Monday. But it wasn’t until Wednesday that Mailchimp Legal began emailing existing users about changes to the Terms of Use that were kicking in immediately that day.

These changes included entirely new pricing tiers and policies, and a revamping of associated feature sets, with some pretty radical differences. Mailchimp’s emails weren’t clear on what was changing or who was affected, Help pages weren’t updated properly, and Support was giving out conflicting information.

When the dust settled, it wasn’t pretty.

The biggest change of all is that Mailchimp no longer determines monthly charges based on total subscriber count — as has historically been the case, and as is standard among email services. Instead, Mailchimp now bases monthly charges on a new metric which it calls Audiences, which some users may have noticed appearing in their accounts recently.

Key here is that Audiences also includes unsubscribed emails, meaning that users will be charged for unsubscribed emails as well as subscribed ones. Naturally, this announcement was received very negatively by Mailchimp users, as some would be facing increases of over 100% in their monthly charges (myself included). The situation was compounded with a lot of confusion, as the Help pages at Mailchimp weren’t yet fully updated to account for these changes, and Support seemed confused about whether existing users would be grandfathered in under the old terms.

https://davidgaughran.com/2019/05/16/mailchimp-alternatives-criticism-changes-pricing-plans/

[TimothyEllis]

It's only going to be a problem for people near the limit.

The new limit is 2000, so for me, its actually put off how soon I have to start paying for it.

I just checked, and my unsubscribes are so minimal, there isn't any reason for deleting them any time soon.

Actually, if my audience reaches the 2000, I'll be over the moon.

[angela]

My current pen name's Mailchimp account has been active for about 5 years, and because I switched from contemporary to paranormal, I've had my readership change over a lot. I regularly purge inactive people, so I have a high # of unsubscribes. Having to pay every month for those people is not something I'd ever ask for in a mailing list provider.

I'm sure this move will pump a whole bunch of money into Mailchimp's coffers, though. Rapidly. I understand why they're doing it. Most people are not sophisticated about technology and will stick with it even when the price goes up. Mailchimp will probably profit from this, no matter how much a small % of us protest.

It's just the way of things.

Let's work together and find an alternate provider to switch to for as many years as it stays beneficial.

[TimothyEllis]

I regularly purge inactive people, so I have a high # of unsubscribes.

It was mentioned somewhere you can manually delete all of those.

I haven't tried, but its worth someone with a high number of unsubscribes trying to do so, and reporting back.

In theory, all unsubscribes should be deleted for GDPR.

[Bill Hiatt]

I regularly purge inactive people, so I have a high # of unsubscribes.

It was mentioned somewhere you can manually delete all of those.

I haven't tried, but its worth someone with a high number of unsubscribes trying to do so, and reporting back.

In theory, all unsubscribes should be deleted for GDPR.

Yes, the process is more simple than I thought.

It used to be that you couldn't delete unsubscribes, I think for record keeping purposes, and when archiving rolled out, it could only be used on people who'd been inactive for a year. Now, you can delete or archive unsubscribers, whichever you prefer.

I forget who suggested this in another thread, but someone else thought of it before me. Just create a segment composed of unsubscribed and nonsubscribed people. Then select them all, hit delete or archive, and you're done. Keep the segment, and you can eliminate anyone else who gets sorted into it.

So no, you don't have to be charged for all those people. You can get all of them off your list, and it only takes a few minutes at most.

[Bill Hiatt]

Having read David's article, it sounds as if archiving is safer. That enables you to keep the data of their earlier consent, etc., in case someone questions it. David sounds as if he's nervous about that, but I'm not sure I see why. The only way to add an archived person back onto the list (short of unarchiving them and changing their subscription status) would be if they re-subscribed. I'm not sure, but I've never before heard that someone who unsubscribed from a list wasn't allowed to resubscribe under GDPR. The new subscription would have all the same proof of consent that the earlier one had.

Don't get me wrong--I'm unhappy with what Mailchimp is doing as well. But exporting a Mailchimp list to another provider has its own potential problems. Mailchimp preserves a lot of data to prove consent for email marketing. If they layout isn't exactly the same on the new provider, that information could be lost. (I guess one could keep the export file as proof, but the new provider wouldn't have appropriate records.)

[Bill Hiatt]

And then I read David's article more carefully. It does sound a little as if someone at Mailchimp has gone insane. Since I only have one list and don't mind archiving the unsubscribers every so often, it would probably still work for me, but all the hidden gotchas make me uneasy. I may start looking at other providers again.

[Cathleen]

I switched from MailChimp to MailerLite about a year ago. The process went very smoothly, and since I'm a bit tech-challenged, I'm a lot happier at MailerLite, where they have actual training videos on how to do all the cool stuff I want to do, like having an onboarding sequence.

It was a single click process to switch over. Mailerlite has an option to download your files directly from MailChimp. About the only downside is that the names don't come through as a single first name in the first name box. That means you can't send emails to [insert name here]. I never wanted to do that, so it didn't bother me. But you'd have to go back and manually fix that one at a time if you wanted to be able to do the name-string thing for personalizing.

[LilyBLily]

I switched to MailerLite a couple years ago, and it was easy enough, plus I made extensive use of their customer service. All my newsletter builder lists go straight to MailerLite. I left my organic signup pointing to MailChimp in my free account there. Now I'll have to change out the signup code in all my books and send people either to my website or to MailerLite. I've been putting off that dread task, but MailChimp has forced my hand. 

Meanwhile, I don't think it was a mistake to delete the unsubscribes from MailChimp; it gives me some breathing room before I redo everything.

 

[Bill Hiatt]

This apparently isn't my month. I just tried to set up a Mailerlite account and got rejected automatically by ML's algorithm. Unfortunately, no specifics were given. I emailed ML's support to plead my case--which was hard without knowing why it was rejected in the first place. Unfortunately, since it's Saturday, I doubt a live person will review it before Monday, but we'll see.

[David VanDyke]

We moved to MailerLite long ago. Cheaper and better customer service, frankly.

[JRTomlin]

I would say more 'fleeing' than 'abandoning'. I find the idea of spamming unsubscribers so repulsive that I want nothing to do with the company advocating it. Making you (or some subscribers) pay for it whether you use it or not adds insult to injury. There is also the issue that they are not guaranteeing that at some point - possibly fairly soon - it will apply to all their clients.

So bye-bye, Mailchimp.

[Bill Hiatt]

I would say more 'fleeing' than 'abandoning'. I find the idea of spamming unsubscribers so repulsive that I want nothing to do with the company advocating it. Making you (or some subscribers) pay for it whether you use it or not adds insult to injury. There is also the issue that they are not guaranteeing that at some point - possibly fairly soon - it will apply to all their clients.

So bye-bye, Mailchimp.

It's very hard to fathom the thought process involved in this change. Sure, I can see how they might have thought they'd make more money. What's harder to figure out is why they didn't realize that people would start bailing out on them. For a while, their user base may continue to grow as new people sign up without realizing the problem, but the more time that passes, the more people will hear about it. And it's not as if Mailchimp is the only company that provides email newsletter support. I've heard references to at least twenty and know that there are more than that.

[Tiffmeister]

I guess I've got to go through and look how it will affect all my lists. Luckily, I'm only at about 1,000 names. The whole culling of names from GDPR helped cut it down. But all the names added after, I would imagine we need to hold onto. But I also feel poking around and finding out more about this is necessary. David is great for getting the flags up and alerting us. But I'd hate to move everything when I have it all set up and working now. But it does make me want to start looking around and seeing if there is somewhere else I can go.

Like Mailerlite is a name to check out now. Guess this will take some exploration on what to do. Because this is the stuff that makes you throw your hands up in the air and go, not something else? Just when you got things working somewhat better...
But such is being an Indie.

[Bill Hiatt]

I guess I've got to go through and look how it will affect all my lists. Luckily, I'm only at about 1,000 names. The whole culling of names from GDPR helped cut it down. But all the names added after, I would imagine we need to hold onto. But I also feel poking around and finding out more about this is necessary. David is great for getting the flags up and alerting us. But I'd hate to move everything when I have it all set up and working now. But it does make me want to start looking around and seeing if there is somewhere else I can go.

Like Mailerlite is a name to check out now. Guess this will take some exploration on what to do. Because this is the stuff that makes you throw your hands up in the air and go, not something else? Just when you got things working somewhat better...
But such is being an Indie.

If it helps at all, that was exactly what my thinking was. I'd been through all kinds of issues with my website, and just when I got them straightened out, the Mailchimp problem surfaced. However, I made the time to switch to Mailerlite and am happy I did. It takes a little time, even if everything goes smoothly, but it's well worth it. Mailerlite has more responsive support people, a more powerful editor, and no weird ideas about counting unsubscribers as if they were subscribers. Also, Mailerlite has been around long enough and has a big enough base that it's generally supported. All the places I've used Mailchimp integrations support Mailerlite--and there are some that don't support too many other providers. And with the various EU complications, working with a company based in the EU could have its advantages.

[Doglover]

Me!!!

I have about 1700 subscribers, so still free, and I have five lists. I tried to set up a new list this week and couldn't make head nor tail of the bloody thing. Then someone on another group told me it would only allow me one list with a free subscription. Since I already have 5, I don't know how this works, but I really don't have an entire morning to pee around trying to find out where I'm going. And if you're free, customer service doesn't exist.

Mailerlite won't accept a generic email address; they insist on one attached to my website which I don't have and don't need, and it costs me money. I settled for Aweber in the end, which I didn't really want because they are expensive, but my brain was about to explode by then.

I always did find Mailchimp confusing, even before they changed their format and everything. Now it is impossible. Not sure what I'll do with my other 1700 subscribers; we shall see.

[Bill Hiatt]

Me!!!

I have about 1700 subscribers, so still free, and I have five lists. I tried to set up a new list this week and couldn't make head nor tail of the bloody thing. Then someone on another group told me it would only allow me one list with a free subscription. Since I already have 5, I don't know how this works, but I really don't have an entire morning to pee around trying to find out where I'm going. And if you're free, customer service doesn't exist.

Mailerlite won't accept a generic email address; they insist on one attached to my website which I don't have and don't need, and it costs me money. I settled for Aweber in the end, which I didn't really want because they are expensive, but my brain was about to explode by then.

I always did find Mailchimp confusing, even before they changed their format and everything. Now it is impossible. Not sure what I'll do with my other 1700 subscribers; we shall see.

You should be able to export the 1700 from Mailchimp to AWeber. When I was researching, I ran across an article indicating that this is doable. (They didn't allow mass imports until recently.) Anyway, check with their support folks, but I believe they'll do it, and exporting from MailChimp is easy.

With regard to the email address issue, even if a service takes you without a domain-based email, it will be harder to get your newsletter delivered that way. Mailchimp works around that by creating something that looks like a domain-based name to list as the sender on your email, but I don't think most other services do that. It looks to me as if Zoho email hosting offers a free plan that would require only the licensing of a domain. The domain itself if you went for something be basic would be around $10-$15 a year. (And if you wanted a free website to go with it, Wordpress.com would work with Zoho email.) So yes, that's an extra expense, but not a large one. If you think you get more than that in sales from your newsletter, then it might be worth considering. If you don't think your newsletter brings in $10 worth of sales, then it's not worth worrying about.

[Doglover]

Me!!!

I have about 1700 subscribers, so still free, and I have five lists. I tried to set up a new list this week and couldn't make head nor tail of the bloody thing. Then someone on another group told me it would only allow me one list with a free subscription. Since I already have 5, I don't know how this works, but I really don't have an entire morning to pee around trying to find out where I'm going. And if you're free, customer service doesn't exist.

Mailerlite won't accept a generic email address; they insist on one attached to my website which I don't have and don't need, and it costs me money. I settled for Aweber in the end, which I didn't really want because they are expensive, but my brain was about to explode by then.

I always did find Mailchimp confusing, even before they changed their format and everything. Now it is impossible. Not sure what I'll do with my other 1700 subscribers; we shall see.

You should be able to export the 1700 from Mailchimp to AWeber. When I was researching, I ran across an article indicating that this is doable. (They didn't allow mass imports until recently.) Anyway, check with their support folks, but I believe they'll do it, and exporting from MailChimp is easy.

With regard to the email address issue, even if a service takes you without a domain-based email, it will be harder to get your newsletter delivered that way. Mailchimp works around that by creating something that looks like a domain-based name to list as the sender on your email, but I don't think most other services do that. It looks to me as if Zoho email hosting offers a free plan that would require only the licensing of a domain. The domain itself if you went for something be basic would be around $10-$15 a year. (And if you wanted a free website to go with it, Wordpress.com would work with Zoho email.) So yes, that's an extra expense, but not a large one. If you think you get more than that in sales from your newsletter, then it might be worth considering. If you don't think your newsletter brings in $10 worth of sales, then it's not worth worrying about.

Thanks. I've already got a website so I might just take the plunge and attach and email address. I've been having another look at Mailerlite and I think I might cancel Aweber and go with them instead, move all my subscribers to them if I can. I know I haven't been happy with Mailchimp for a while. A couple of years ago, when I was advertising for subscribers and giving away a free book, they didn't send the newsletters with the free books, just had an exclamation mark beside the automaton. When I queried it, they gave no explanation as to why they hadn't sent them or what the exclamation mark meant. That sort of thing just gives me a bad name.

When they started doing landing pages, I spent ages designing one, only to find right at the end that they were only available to paying customers. Definitely need to go somewhere else.

[Bill Hiatt]

Me!!!

I have about 1700 subscribers, so still free, and I have five lists. I tried to set up a new list this week and couldn't make head nor tail of the bloody thing. Then someone on another group told me it would only allow me one list with a free subscription. Since I already have 5, I don't know how this works, but I really don't have an entire morning to pee around trying to find out where I'm going. And if you're free, customer service doesn't exist.

Mailerlite won't accept a generic email address; they insist on one attached to my website which I don't have and don't need, and it costs me money. I settled for Aweber in the end, which I didn't really want because they are expensive, but my brain was about to explode by then.

I always did find Mailchimp confusing, even before they changed their format and everything. Now it is impossible. Not sure what I'll do with my other 1700 subscribers; we shall see.

You should be able to export the 1700 from Mailchimp to AWeber. When I was researching, I ran across an article indicating that this is doable. (They didn't allow mass imports until recently.) Anyway, check with their support folks, but I believe they'll do it, and exporting from MailChimp is easy.

With regard to the email address issue, even if a service takes you without a domain-based email, it will be harder to get your newsletter delivered that way. Mailchimp works around that by creating something that looks like a domain-based name to list as the sender on your email, but I don't think most other services do that. It looks to me as if Zoho email hosting offers a free plan that would require only the licensing of a domain. The domain itself if you went for something be basic would be around $10-$15 a year. (And if you wanted a free website to go with it, Wordpress.com would work with Zoho email.) So yes, that's an extra expense, but not a large one. If you think you get more than that in sales from your newsletter, then it might be worth considering. If you don't think your newsletter brings in $10 worth of sales, then it's not worth worrying about.

Thanks. I've already got a website so I might just take the plunge and attach and email address. I've been having another look at Mailerlite and I think I might cancel Aweber and go with them instead, move all my subscribers to them if I can. I know I haven't been happy with Mailchimp for a while. A couple of years ago, when I was advertising for subscribers and giving away a free book, they didn't send the newsletters with the free books, just had an exclamation mark beside the automaton. When I queried it, they gave no explanation as to why they hadn't sent them or what the exclamation mark meant. That sort of thing just gives me a bad name.

When they started doing landing pages, I spent ages designing one, only to find right at the end that they were only available to paying customers. Definitely need to go somewhere else.

Mailerlite has two different ways to import from Mailchimp. It's the only provider I know of that offers to hook up directly to Mailchimp and download the data directly. It can also import from a Mailchimp CSV export. I'd actually be inclined to recommend the second method because it gives more control over which field imports where in the event that the names aren't exactly the same.

Their customer service is excellent. Someone is available for 24/7 email response, and that response is usually rapid. They may not be able to resolve a problem instantly, but in my experience, they work on it until it gets worked out.

[TimothyEllis]

Whats the link to Mailerlite?

[Bill Hiatt]

Whats the link to Mailerlite?

https://www.mailerlite.com/

[She-la-te-da]

I'm moving to Mailerlite. I have a tiny list, and no unsubscribes so far, but why wait? Easier to move now, than get things added back, or end up paying for stuff I don't need just because. 

I was stumped a bit about the email thing, but figured out how to do it through Google Domains, using email forwarding. Some day I hope to have the money to do more, but this works for me right now, and it's $12 a year.

[JRTomlin]

I don't have an extraordinarily large list at least partially because when the whole EU legal issue came up I did some VERY major trimming of people who never opened their emails. But it is now carefully curated and growing steadily. I want to keep it something that is a positive, so moving only made sense.

[Jeff Tanyard]

It looks to me as if Zoho email hosting offers a free plan that would require only the licensing of a domain.

This is what I do.  I saw the idea posted by Gator at the other site and thought it was a good way to do a newsletter on the cheap, so I went with it.  I use Zoho and NameSilo.  I currently use TinyLetter for the newsletter, but that will probably change soon.  Nothing against TinyLetter, but it's part of the Mailchimp universe, so I feel the urge to get out while the getting is good.

[Doglover]

It seems that Mailchimp have shot themselves in the foot. 

[Lysmata Debelius]

It seems that Mailchimp have shot themselves in the foot. 

I wonder, though. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a great way to purge themselves of a lot of their non paying users. Like me! Mailerlite is pretty nice to use so far.

[Bill Hiatt]

It seems that Mailchimp have shot themselves in the foot. 

I wonder, though. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a great way to purge themselves of a lot of their non paying users. Like me! Mailerlite is pretty nice to use so far.

I'm glad you like Mailerlite. I've found them easy as well.

Mailchimp could have gotten rid of free users by phasing out the free plan. From what I've read elsewhere, it's possible that Mailchimp is aiming at small businesses looking for one-stop-promotional service. I didn't realize that was a thing, but apparently there is a market for it, which would explain MC's expansion of their core offerings. Also, their prices for that kind of service are supposed to be cheaper than a lot of other alternatives. So it probably isn't that they want to get rid of free. They want to draw in a whole bunch of new business customers who will find MC cheaper. Because most of us don't want those other services, of course, it isn't cheaper for us.

[Crystal]

MailerLite has had too many problems for me to jump to them. Until MailChimp starts applying these changes to users who are "grandfathered in," I'll stick with MailChimp. I don't mind paying more for better delivery and the assurance that my drip campaigns won't randomly be turned off.

[Bill Hiatt]

MailerLite has had too many problems for me to jump to them. Until MailChimp starts applying these changes to users who are "grandfathered in," I'll stick with MailChimp. I don't mind paying more for better delivery and the assurance that my drip campaigns won't randomly be turned off.

That's a prudent approach, as you can switch relatively quickly when the time comes.

I'd probably have stuck with Mailchimp, too had I not spotted some oddities connected with its GDPR forms. I also think its business model is shifting. That's not a sinister thing, but if its focus is on small businesses that want a complete marketing platform, it's not going to be on clients who only want email. And forcing people to pay for "audience" members who've already unsubscribed from email lists, even if those people are only using the service for email, is just not a good business practice. However, if you stay grandfathered, you won't be impacted.

I, too, was concerned about Mailerlite's earlier problems, but it appears those have been addressed. I'll report back if I notice anything going amiss.

[Denise]

I find sending postcards to someone who is in your mailing lists incredibly creepy.

To send a postcard to someone who was in our mailing list and opted out is incredible creepy times a thousand.

Mailchimp allows its clients to do just that. And yeah, it's creepy, even if you don't use the service.

Anyway, I've had Mailerlite for over a year, and I never had any problems other than an automation that it didn't execute. I wasn't happy about it, but would have continued using the service if it wasn't for the growing price.

One thing I noticed is that if you use newsletter magnets and participate in promos your list can grow incredibly fast. I  scrubbed, scrubbed, scrubbed and I have 2k now, but if I hadn't been scrubbing I could have some 4k.

For this reason I decided to change to a newsletter service that allows me to grow. I want to have a new newsletter magnet in a few months. I felt that I was trying to keep my list  under 2500 to decrease the plan, and wanting the newsletter not to grow is not a good mindset.

I got Sendy. It's complicated but I had someone set it up for me. It doesn't have pretty templates, I'll have to import them from somewhere else, and its sign-up forms are hideous. I got a plugin for pretty forms. I'll start using it in July (my current ML plan is until August) and I'll report.

So yeah, there are other alternatives. I also looked at MailOctopus and MailJet, which have positive reviews and aren't expensive for large lists either.

So people who are jumping out of Mailchimp could also look at other alternatives and consider the fact that the list is likely to grow.