On 15th May 2019, Mailchimp dropped an email to all its users, announcing the change in their pricing policy. Mailchimp has now decided to evolve into an all-in-one marketing platform from an already unique email marketing platform. However, the big question is, whether the new pricing model is Yay or Nay?
Founded in 2001, Mailchimp a popular email marketing platform, offered excellent services at affordable prices but with the new pricing model, we aren’t very sure about Mailchimp anymore. More and more marketers have already started looking for better alternatives.
So what’s changed?
Mailchimp now comes up with a four-tier pricing policy instead of three. Four of which includes free, $9.99/month, $14.99/month or $299/month (hiked from the current pricing of free, $10/month, $199/month).
Apart from the pricing change, Mailchimp also claims to add a variety of features which shall help its users to develop a better insight of their subscribers. It now provides a brand new dashboard of ‘Audiences’. If you are a new user, a new pricing policy shall be applied to your post on 15th May. Also, if you are an existing user, get ready to incorporate the latest changes, a.k.a new features onto your Mailchimp accounts.
A significant change which is causing much outrage from its users is that Mailchimp has now included unsubscribers to its audience list. For those who are new to mailchimp, Mailchimp offers 2000 free email addresses, which will also include the ones who have unsubscribed to your newsletter. Mailchimp reasons, the move is made for the users to build a better understanding of their audience. However, what we don’t understand is how the audience which has unsubscribed willingly can still be relevant or useful for any online business.
Previously Mailchimp used to charge its customer on subscribers basis. It used to provide “lists” which is now changed into “Audience” which will also include the unsubscribers or the people who have opted-out of the email newsletter.
So let’s consider, you are a new online business and have opted for the free mailchimp service and your unsubscribe rate is 50%. This implies that 1000 out of free 2000 email addresses are rendered to no use.
Mailchimp explains that the inclusion of unsubscribers to the “Audience” can have a favourable long-term implications. We can’t predict the future; however, we are sure that many marketers can’t digest the new pricing policy in the present. As a result, many notably, new marketers are looking for alternatives already.
Conclusion
Mailchimp has been a great email marketing platform for more than a decade. It has a strong and loyal customer base, which will keep Mailchimp into business despite the policy change. Nevertheless, if you are a new marketer, Mailchimp is generous enough to give a free service till 2000 emails, which also includes the unsubscribers. However, if you are a paid member, Mailchimp does offer a wide range of services but is also very costly. The premium revised plan is 299$ per month, which is obnoxiously expensive. Therefore, if you aren’t willing to spare a considerable sum, you must start looking for other options.
We at (BizProspex) have created a survey to know the reaction of MailChimp users to this pricing revision. Please click this link and complete the survey, we will send the survey results to MailChimp CEO on 28th May for him to reconsider his decision.