Mailchimp vs SendGrid vs beehiiv: Which Is Best for You?

Feeling swamped trying to pick the right email marketing platform? 

With so many choices, knowing what’s best for you is tough. 

I get it. 

That’s why I’ll be breaking down the Mailchimp vs SendGrid vs beehiiv face-off to help you make a smart choice.

In one corner, we have Mailchimp. 

It’s been around for what seems like an eternity and is known for being easy to use with some pretty cool templates.

Over in another corner is SendGrid. 

It’s a beast when it comes to delivering emails. It also features some solid features for those who love getting into the techy details.

And then there’s beehiiv.

It’s the new kid in town, bringing a fresh take on email marketing and offering a ton of easy-to-use tools.

Each one has its own special perks, ready to meet different needs and skills.

So, are you a small business owner needing simple email solutions? 

Or a seasoned marketer hunting for advanced features? Or maybe you’re somewhere in between? 

Whichever it is, one of these platforms is ready to be your email marketing hero.

So, who’s it gonna be?

Let’s dive in and explore each one to help you figure it out!

Mailchimp Vs SendGrid Vs beehiiv: Which Is Best?

Mailchimp

Since hitting the scene in 2001, Mailchimp has made a big splash in the email marketing pool. 

It's not just its longevity that speaks volumes but also its user-friendly interface, solid template designs, and comprehensive analytics and reporting that have attracted millions worldwide. 

It's a favorite for small to medium-sized businesses and beginners in email marketing, offering a smooth and efficient way to create professional and effective email campaigns.

Mailchimp Key Features

Mailchimp’s features allow users to create beautiful, professional emails without needing a degree in design. 

The automation features save time and ensure no one falls through the cracks, while the analytics help users understand what’s working and what’s not, allowing for continuous improvement.

Here are Mailchimp's most popular key features:

• Email Templates: A wide variety of customizable templates

• Automation: Set it and forget it with automated email campaigns

• Analytics: Track your success with detailed reports

Getting Started With Mailchimp

Starting with Mailchimp is a breeze. Simply create a free account to dive in. 

Once you're in, the world is your oyster. Choose from a wide array of templates to craft your perfect email. 

Each template is a canvas for your creativity, allowing you to add text, images, and branding to make it uniquely yours.

After you’ve got your email looking spiffy, it’s time to decide who gets to see your masterpiece. 

Set your audience and make sure your email gets to the right inboxes. 

Now, you're all set to send your email out into the world. Hit send for immediate dispatch or schedule it for a later time that suits you best.

But the journey doesn’t end there. 

Mailchimp provides detailed analytics to help you see how your email is performing. 

Use this valuable insight to tweak and refine your future emails, ensuring they always hit the mark.

SendGrid

SendGrid, now part of Twilio, has been a reliable name in the email delivery service world since 2009. 

It's not just about sending emails; it's about ensuring they land right where they should — in the inbox. 

With a focus on deliverability, SendGrid stands out among the rest.

It's ideal for businesses serious about email deliverability and those looking for scalable, reliable email sending.

While SendGrid is great, it does require greater “techy” skills than other platforms. 

SendGrid Key Features

SendGrid offers a powerful set of features that prioritize your emails’ deliverability.

The platform provides detailed analytics and insights, helping you understand your email performance so you can make necessary adjustments for optimal results.

Here are SendGrid's most popular key features:

• Email API: Integrate SendGrid with your app for seamless email sending

• SMTP Service: Reliable email sending with SMTP

• Deliverability Optimization: Ensure your emails reach the inbox

Getting Started With SendGrid

Embarking on your SendGrid journey is straightforward. 

Sign up and get access to a world of top-notch email-sending services. 

Navigate through the platform with ease, choosing the services and features that align with your needs. 

Set up your email campaigns, ensuring they are primed for high deliverability.

After setting everything up, it’s time to send those emails out. 

Monitor their performance with SendGrid’s comprehensive analytics, and use the insights to make your future email campaigns even more effective.

beehiiv

beehiiv is a newsletter platform that's all about uncomplicated growth. 

It's a haven for those looking to expand their newsletter reach while ensuring a delightful reader experience. 

Ideal for creators keen on design, automation, and monetization, beehiiv makes the newsletter journey smooth and rewarding. 

It's not just about sending emails; it's about creating an experience, growing your audience, and even generating income.

beehiiv Key Features

beehiiv stands out with its ultimate editing and design tools. 

It offers a powerful text editor and custom email journeys, ensuring your newsletters are not just seen but enjoyed. 

The AI assistance and referral programs are like the cherry on top, making your growth journey even sweeter.

Here are beehiiv’s most popular key features:

• Powerful Text Editor: Craft your newsletters with ease and flair

• Custom Email Journeys: Personalize the email experience for your subscribers

• AI Assistance: Let the AI handle the complexities, giving you more time to be creative

• Referral Programs: Incentivize your readers to spread the word about your newsletter

Getting Started With beehiiv

Embarking on your beehiiv journey is a walk in the park. 

After you sign up, you immediately gain access to the plethora of tools available. 

Choose your design, set up your automation, and watch as beehiiv’s features work together to enhance your newsletters. 

As you send out your creations, utilize the 3D analytics to gain insights and continuously improve your approach, ensuring your newsletters always resonate with your audience.

Why Trust Us?

Russell started his journey as a content writer, writing hundreds of articles for niche websites. He then turned to copywriting, writing for big brands. He is now the founder of InboxConnect marketing agency, has over five years of expertise in email marketing, and has run notable campaigns for leading brands such as Payoneer.

Comparison With Top Competitors

Design and Templates

Designing marketing emails is a breeze with all three platforms, each offering unique features. SendGrid stands out for those who love customization. 

You can use their email template builder for a WYSIWYG campaign creation, and if you're tech-savvy, their top-notch code editor is at your disposal for more intricate designs. 

This dual path is SendGrid’s strength, catering to both coders and visual designers.

On the flip side, Mailchimp is the go-to for code-free design.

It offers over 100 ready-made email templates and layouts, making email campaign creation straightforward for any business size. 

The ability to preview by device on the free plan and by email client on paid plans adds to its appeal for those less technically inclined.

beehiiv keeps it simple and user-friendly, perfect for those who want to create beautiful emails without the fuss. 

Its intuitive design interface means you spend less time figuring out the platform and more time sending out stunning emails.

Landing Pages and Signup Forms

For landing pages and signup forms, Mailchimp and beehiiv make the process smooth. 

Both provide easy-to-use form builders, allowing you to create and customize forms without needing to know a line of code. 

For example, with beehiiv, you can quickly set up a signup form and integrate it with your website in just a few clicks, capturing leads and growing your list effortlessly.

SendGrid, while offering more customization, requires a bit more technical knowledge. 

It’s ideal for those who have specific, detailed requirements for their forms and landing pages and don’t mind getting their hands dirty with some coding.

List Management

When it comes to list management, beehiiv and Mailchimp offer intuitive and straightforward tools, making it easy to organize and manage your email lists. 

With beehiiv, you can easily segment your list based on various criteria, ensuring your emails reach the right audience. 

This segmentation is done with a few clicks, making your email marketing more targeted and effective.

SendGrid’s powerful list management tools are more suited for those with technical expertise, offering advanced detailed list segmentation and management features.

Automation

Mailchimp’s automation is all about ease and efficiency. It allows you to create automated email sequences based on triggers and actions. 

For example, you can set up a welcome email series for new subscribers or a follow-up email for those who abandoned their shopping carts. 

The platform provides pre-built automation workflows, making it easier for you to set up complex email sequences without the hassle.

SendGrid's automation features are solid and customizable. 

You can create and manage automated email workflows with a visual editor, allowing you to visualize the email journey of your subscribers. 

It's perfect for businesses that want to create personalized and timely email campaigns. 

For instance, you can send a special discount email to customers who haven’t made a purchase in a while, helping to boost sales and customer engagement.

beehiiv’s Automation Process

Ensuring that your emails land in the right inboxes at the perfect moment is the key to unlocking the highest level of engagement and impact for your email campaigns.

And the best way to do that is through beehiiv’s segmentation and automation features!

Even if you're new to email marketing automation, beehiiv makes setting up automated email journeys a breeze.

For example, you can easily create multi-step email journeys based on different triggers.

Things like signups or upgrades.

This will ensure that your audience receives personalized and timely emails.

Here’s how it works:

1. Select a Trigger: Start by choosing a trigger. beehiiv has two simple triggers: Signup and Upgrade. More trigger options will be coming soon.

2. Add a Step: Add a step to determine the action to be taken when the trigger is activated.

3. Choose a Time Delay: Decide the time delay for sending out the email after the trigger is activated.

4. Create Your Email: Craft a compelling email that resonates with your audience.

5. Repeat: Add as many steps as necessary to create a comprehensive email journey.

Reporting and Analytics

Because reporting and analytics can make or break your campaigns, here’s the rundown.

• Mailchimp offers ease of use and accessibility in analytics

• SendGrid provides depth and detailed insights for those who seek it

• beehiiv offers advanced and comprehensive analytics tools, ensuring you have a deep understanding of your audience and campaign performance

Here’s a closer look below.

Mailchimp offers general statistics about campaign open rates and clicks.

The platform also offers insights into audience growth and e-commerce performance, along with a customizable chart for tracking the metrics that matter to you. 

You can view reports on your email campaigns, audience growth, and e-commerce performance, helping you to understand your email marketing ROI and make data-driven decisions.

Another cool feature they offer is that if you've connected your eShop to Mailchimp, you can also view campaign revenue and ROI.

SendGrid offers advanced technical analytics beyond basic insights. 

It includes detailed deliverability reports and an Expert Insights Report with the Expert add-on. 

This report lets you analyze email subjects, view your email funnel, and check complaint stats, among other metrics. 

Their unique email categories feature shows engagement stats by category for more precise email marketing optimization.

beehiiv stands out with its advanced 3D Analytics, offering a comprehensive Cohort Analysis. 

This feature allows you to analyze the retention and quality of your readers by month and compare the performance of various acquisition channels. 

This means that you can easily uncover which channels are performing better than others and focus on attracting quality subscribers. 

The detailed subscribers and posts reports provide both aggregate trends and granular performance metrics.

In layman's terms, you’ll have all the data you need, such as:

• Open rates

• Click through rates

• Conversion rates 

• Bounce rates

 All are designed to help you make informed decisions to optimize your email marketing strategy.

Deliverability

Mailchimp ensures high deliverability rates with its powerful infrastructure and adherence to email-sending best practices. 

It helps you optimize your email content and settings to improve deliverability, ensuring that your emails reach your subscribers’ inboxes.

SendGrid is known for its exceptional deliverability. It provides tools and features to optimize your email settings, content, and list management, ensuring high delivery rates and inbox placement.

beehiiv also prioritizes deliverability, ensuring that your emails are sent reliably to your subscribers’ inboxes. 

The platform provides features to optimize your email content and settings, helping to improve deliverability and avoid spam filters.

Customer Support

Mailchimp offers various support options, including email support, a knowledge base, and tutorials. However, phone support is limited to premium plans.

SendGrid provides 24/7 customer support through various channels, including email, chat, and phone. It also offers a comprehensive knowledge base and community forum for additional support.

beehiiv offers dedicated customer support to assist you with any issues or queries. The platform provides email and chat support, ensuring that you receive timely and effective assistance for your email marketing needs.

Pricing and Scalability

When it comes to pricing and scalability, each platform brings something different to the table. 

Let’s break it down:

Mailchimp

Mailchimp offers a Free plan for up to 500 contacts, with a step-up in pricing as your contact list grows. 

It’s a great option for small businesses or individuals just starting out. 

However, as your needs and contact list grow, you might find yourself quickly outgrowing the free and essential plans.

SendGrid

When it comes to pricing, SendGrid offers a fair deal with a chance to explore its features for free. 

You can start with the Marketing Campaigns free plan, which allows you to manage up to 2,000 contacts and send 6,000 emails per month. 

This plan includes A/B testing, basic automation, and fundamental deliverability features, giving you a taste of what SendGrid has to offer without spending a dime.

If your focus is solely on transactional emails, SendGrid has got you covered. 

You can send up to 100 transactional emails each day for free, forever. 

This is a great option for small businesses or individuals who are just getting started with email marketing and want to ensure their transactional emails are in good hands.

For those looking to unlock more features, SendGrid's paid plans are competitively priced. 

However, it's worth noting that you might need to invest in add-ons and pay additional consulting fees to leverage all the advanced features. 

beehiiv 

beehiiv stands out with its diverse and scalable pricing options. 

Starting with the Launch Plan at $0/month, it allows up to 2,500 subscribers and unlimited sends. 

This plan is perfect for those who are just dipping their toes into the email marketing world. 

The scale plan starts at $39/month for 1,000 subscribers, $59 for 2,500 subscribers, and up to $299 for 100,000 subscribers. On the Scale plan, you’ll have access to a suite of tools like custom domains, new website templates, automation capabilities, unlimited teammates for seamless collaboration, community access, and a whole bunch of other great tools. 

The Max Plan starts at $99/month for 1,000 subscribers and goes up to $399 for 100,000 subscribers. It offers all the same features available in the Scale plan, such as the referral program, but also more advanced features, including the ability to remove beehiiv branding, beehiiv’s NewsletterXP course, and the possibility of running 10 publications.

The Enterprise plan has everything in the Max plan, plus concierge onboarding, a designated account manager, dedicated IP addresses, and infinite subscribers.

Which Is Right for You?

Truthfully, Mailchimp, SendGrid, and beehiiv each offer unique features and benefits tailored to different needs and expertise levels.

If customization and detailed analytics are your priority, SendGrid is a decent choice. 

For a more straightforward, code-free experience with a wealth of templates, go with Mailchimp.

If you're a creator or looking for the best platform to run your email newsletter and value simplicity, user-friendliness, and affordable pricing, beehiiv is the best choice.

While the platforms do have their crossover of features, in the end, the choice boils down to your specific needs and goals. 

Take the time to explore each platform, weigh the pros and cons, and choose the one that aligns best with your email marketing objectives. 

Remember, the right platform is a powerful ally in achieving email marketing success, helping your emails reach the inbox and make a lasting impact.

Thinking beehiiv is the buddy you need for your email marketing journey? 

Awesome! 

Sign up with beehiiv today and start exploring all the cool stuff they offer firsthand.

Happy mailing!