Mailchimp vs Substack
Side-by-side plans, pricing, and feature gates for Mailchimp and Substack, verified . Both are primarily email marketing tools.
Plans side by side
Every published plan from each vendor, with the headline monthly anchor price. Some prices scale with subscriber count or seats; full detail lives on each tool's page.
Mailchimp
- Free
Up to 250 contacts, 500 sends/month
Free - Essentials
Entry paid tier with A/B testing
$13/mo - Standard
Most popular paid tier
$20/mo - Premium
For high-volume senders and bigger teams
$350/mo
Substack
- Standard
Free to publish; 10% of paid subscription revenue
Free
When Mailchimp wins
- Small businesses that want one tool with a real onboarding flow and a huge integration list
- Teams already living in Intuit (QuickBooks) products
- Operators who want a brand-name vendor for stakeholder approval
Where Mailchimp is the wrong fit
- Creators with growing newsletters; the per-contact tax compounds (Kit, beehiiv, or MailerLite tend to be cheaper at 10k+ subscribers)
- B2B sales teams; the CRM is light versus HubSpot or ActiveCampaign
- Teams needing predictive AI on a budget; you have to jump to the $350 Premium plan
When Substack wins
- New writers with no list yet who want platform-driven discovery
- Writers who would rather give 10% of revenue than pay a flat $20-100/month with no readers
Where Substack is the wrong fit
- Established creators with a paid list above ~5,000 subscribers; the 10% share exceeds what Kit, Ghost, or beehiiv would charge in flat fees at that scale
- Operators who want full control over deliverability, subscriber data, and migration optionality
- Brands needing automations, segmentation, or marketing tooling
Common questions
- Is Mailchimp cheaper than Substack?
- Both Mailchimp and Substack have free or custom entry pricing, so a direct entry-tier price comparison is not meaningful.
- Does Mailchimp or Substack have a free plan?
- Both have free plans. Mailchimp: Up to 250 contacts, 500 sends/month. Substack: Free to publish; 10% of paid subscription revenue.
Mailchimp: https://mailchimp.com/pricing/marketing/ · Substack: https://substack.com/going-paid
Last verified . Pricing changes between refreshes; confirm at the vendor before purchasing.