HubSpot vs. MailChimp: Which One Is Better?

HubSpot and MailChimp are great marketing platforms for small and medium-sized businesses. Both are easy to use, offer all the necessary features for email marketing, and come with reliable customer support. But there are also major differences between the two.

This blog post isn’t about comparing features and capabilities, though. Conversations around martech require more nuance than that. Instead, I’ll ask you to think about your own goals and strategies to determine which platform will serve you best now and in the future. 

So without further ado, let’s discuss HubSpot vs. MailChimp:

HubSpot vs. MailChimp Pricing

If cost is your only concern, I’ll save you some time and give you the answer right now: go with MailChimp. It is undeniably cheaper than HubSpot and will allow you to do all the standard email marketing tasks you need it to do.

Both HubSpot and MailChimp operate on a freemium model, meaning they offer free and basic plans that increase in cost as you add more features. Paid MailChimp plans start at $11/month and go up to $299/month. HubSpot starter plans begin at $45/month and increase based on the number of contacts you want to store. 

But if you are going to use HubSpot, you’ll want to go with the more expensive Marketing Hub Professional plan which starts at $800/month. You really start to see the value of HubSpot when you use some of the more advanced features like marketing automation, CMS, and custom dashboards. 

If you don’t plan to use those features or don’t know how, it might not be worth the extra money to you.

A More In-depth Look

Of course, pricing isn’t the only factor that should influence your decision. We also want to look at HubSpot vs. MailChimp in the in the following ways:

• As an email platform
• As a CRM
• As a marketing automation platform
• As an ads tool

As an email platform

In terms of creating and sending emails, HubSpot and MailChimp are pretty much identical. Both platforms allow you to do standard email marketing tasks such as:

• Create list segments 
• Send email blasts
• Set up A/B tests
• Use drag-and-drop editors
• Report on email performance

Overall, I’ll give the advantage to MailChimp because it’s less expensive and provides the same features as HubSpot. If all you need to do is send a few marketing emails, MailChimp can handle that responsibility and do it at a lower price point than HubSpot can. 

As a CRM

HubSpot is one of the best CRMs on the market – possibly the best CRM for small and medium-sized businesses.

It goes beyond email marketing to give you the full picture of your customers’ interactions with your business. The entire history of a contact is stored and easily referenced within the contact record. You can see valuable information such as:

• How the contact was generated
• What page(s) they converted on
• What pages(s) they viewed
• Where they are within the buyer’s journey
• What deals they are associated with
• And more

The power of HubSpot really starts to show itself when you use it as a centralized CRM for your sales, marketing, and service departments. MailChimp also has a CRM that is easy to use but is less powerful and does not allow you to create custom fields the way HubSpot does. 

As a marketing automation platform

While MailChimp has grown its automation capabilities recently, it still leaves a lot to be desired. HubSpot can do all the same things as MailChimp, but it does them…better.

HubSpot’s capabilities also extend beyond email automation. You can set up workflows that complete a variety of tasks, such as:

• Update contact properties
• Rotate leads among your sales team
• Create internal notifications and task reminders
• Create support tickets
• And more

MailChimp users can still send out automated emails such as order confirmations, abandoned cart reminders, happy birthday emails, and more. But if marketing automation is an important part of your marketing strategy, then HubSpot is the way to go. 

As an ads tool

MailChimp allows you to connect your Google display ads and Facebook ads to your account to keep track of ad spend. However, your ability to target your ads is limited and you can’t use contact lists to filter your audience. 

HubSpot offers the same features but on a more advanced level. You can use contact lists to create a lookalike audience. You can also create in-depth reports that track how much revenue your ads are generating.

So which one is better?

Both MailChimp and HubSpot are solid email platforms that are easy to use. MailChimp is a great option if you’re new to email marketing or if your business is just getting started. It’s perfect for running the occasional email campaign or setting up basic autoresponders, but it lacks the sophistication needed to perform email marketing at scale.

HubSpot offers advanced automation and segmentation capabilities that allow you to execute complex email strategies. It can also do a lot of things that I didn’t cover in this post like social media posting, dashboard creation, CMS integration, and many other things that will become increasingly more useful as your business grows.

As a full-funnel marketing agency that has been in business for over a decade, WEBITMD has plenty of experience with both platforms. If you would like to pick our brains about which email platform is best for you, download this free Growth Stack guide or contact us today!