Shopify Email vs. Mailchimp: Which should you choose in 2025?

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If you’re running an ecommerce brand, you already know that your email platform is a growth engine. And in 2025, you might find yourself comparing the popular options, such as Shopify Email vs. Mailchimp.

On paper, they seem similar: both offer automations, templates, segmentation, and reporting. But dig deeper, and key differences emerge, especially around ease of use, integration, and how much control you really have over your customer data.

Shopify Email is built into your store, which means fewer moving parts. Mailchimp, on the other hand, has more advanced features, but comes with added complexity and costs.

So which one’s right for you?

This guide compares them across features, pricing, integrations, and user feedback, so you can pick the platform that fits your business, not just your budget.

Shopify Email vs. Mailchimp: Brief comparison

Let’s take a look at Shopify Email vs. Mailchimp with a side-by-side comparison of features. We’ll go into detail on each one later.

Now, let’s compare Mailchimp and Shopify Email in depth.

Shopify Email vs. Mailchimp: Pros and cons

Both platforms offer a range of tools and features for businesses of all sizes. However, there are certain advantages and drawbacks to each:

Shopify Email

Pros

• Seamless integration with Shopify stores
• 10,000 free emails/month
• Simple, user-friendly interface

Cons

• Limited automation and segmentation features
• Lack of advanced list-building tools
• Basic reporting and analytics with fewer customization options

Mailchimp

Pros

• Powerful automation and segmentation capabilities
• More than 300 integrations, including Google Analytics
• Advanced analytics, reporting, and A/B testing features

Cons

• Steeper learning curve for beginners
• Limited templates on the free plan
• Customer support can be inconsistent

Email builders

Both Shopify Email and Mailchimp have straightforward email builders that are easy to work with. One difference between them is that Shopify Email is a plugin, so it doesn’t have the same features as Mailchimp, which is a standalone platform.

The Shopify Email setup process is relatively simple, with intuitive navigation. However, it lacks in-depth campaign personalization features such as dynamic product recommendations.

Mailchimp offers more extensive functions. So, if you’re a beginner, expect a bit of a learning curve before you can take full advantage of all the tools and features.

Let’s compare the email builders of both tools by the features offered:

Content blocks

Both Shopify Email and Mailchimp offer a range of essential content blocks, with some tailored specifically for ecommerce. 

Shopify Email includes content blocks for adding gift cards, products, and discount codes. Here’s a screenshot showing the interface to add products to your emails:

Mailchimp also offers ecommerce-friendly options like promo codes, product recommendations, and product showcases. Here’s a screenshot of the various content blocks it offers:

You can easily drag and drop content blocks in both tools and even add dynamic content to personalize emails for your subscribers.

However, when it comes to ecommerce-specific features, both tools fall short compared to Omnisend. Built with ecommerce in mind, Omnisend includes a sophisticated product picker that lets you seamlessly pull products from your store and insert them directly into your emails.

Email templates

Shopify Email and Mailchimp both have pre-made email templates that are fully customizable and responsive. 

Shopify Email offers branded templates that allow you to add your brand’s logos and colors for various occasions and use cases, including holiday campaigns, sales promotions, and themed newsletters. You can access these templates for free.

Mailchimp offers over 130 templates, but access to the entire template library is only available to paid users.

List building features

No Shopify Email vs. Mailchimp comparison would be complete without considering options for building lists.

Form types

Shopify Email

• Offers basic email signup forms
• No native support for advanced form types
• Requires the Shopify Forms app or third-party integrations for popups, landing pages, and other more sophisticated forms

Mailchimp

• Includes a built-in landing page builder and form builder
• Supports multiple form types, such as popups, embedded forms, and slide-ins
• Mobile app allows one-click landing page creation

Customization

Shopify Email

• The Shopify Forms app allows custom triggers and placement control
• Customer reviews state that customization is limited without third-party apps

Mailchimp

• Provides basic and themed templates
• Native tools support form and landing page design without integrations
• Performance analytics are available to identify low-performing pages and optimize them for better conversions 

Third-part integrations

Shopify Email

• Relies heavily on third-party apps for advanced forms and landing pages
• Integration with Shopify Forms or other apps is needed for full functionality

Mailchimp

• Allows integration with various third-party tools for enhanced list-building and analytics

Overall, both tools lack the advanced list-building capabilities offered by Omnisend. 

Omnisend offers various types of forms, including single- and multi-step popups, flyouts, and the gamified wheel of fortune. It also features over 100 ready-to-use templates for landing pages and forms that can be easily customized and used.

Segmentation and targeting 

Both Mailchimp and Shopify Email offer powerful segmentation options. However, the level of customization and available features vary. For Shopify Email, you can find the segmentation feature under the Customers tab on your dashboard.

Here’s a detailed comparison of the differences:

Mailchimp offers comprehensive segmentation options. You can segment users based on contacts’ demographics, acquisition sources, email and SMS activity, and more.

The best part is that you can create in-depth segments by adding up to five conditions for each segment. You can use “AND”/“OR” operators for setting up these conditions, as shown in the image below:

Both tools offer segmentation options, but neither have the advanced capabilities of other tools, such as Omnisend, which allows you to create unlimited audience segments from over 500 data points.

Additionally, Omnisend assigns a customer lifecycle stage to each customer, further improving segmentation and targeting. It also features ecommerce-specific, ready-to-use segments to target special occasions, such as birthdays and Black Friday.

Marketing automation

When comparing Mailchimp vs. Shopify Email, definitely think about marketing automation as well. We’ll focus on the kind of automation options offered by each tool and the complexity of workflows you can create.

Shopify Email offers essential email automation templates, whereas Mailchimp’s tools provide more advanced automation options. Here’s a comparison:

You can create manual automation workflows using Shopify Flow, which is available with all Shopify paid plans. Set various pre-built triggers, conditions, and filters to create customized workflows. Here’s an example:

Unlike Shopify Email, Mailchimp has powerful built-in marketing automation features. The Customer Journey builder offers an extensive range of pre-built templates that you can customize and use. In this regard, it has an advantage over Shopify Email.

Additionally, it’s easy to use, allowing you to set triggers and conditions to send automated emails with ease. Here’s an example of a basic automated workflow:

However, you don’t get unlimited access to all of Mailchimp’s marketing automation features. You receive only four journey points with the Essentials plan and 200 journey points with the Standard and Premium plans. The free plan doesn’t provide access to automated customer journeys.

Shopify doesn’t have such usage limitations. Marketing automation is available across all plans.

User experience

The user experience of an email marketing platform is important for staying connected with your customers. In this Shopify Email vs. Mailchimp comparison, we’ll examine how the usability and functionality of each platform impact your ability to deliver a hassle-free customer experience.

Shopify Email helps business owners set up and manage campaigns. Here’s how it simplifies email marketing:

• Seamless integration: Automatically connects to Shopify stores, eliminating the need for manual setup
• Beginner-friendly features: Features like pre-made templates, email scheduling, email testing, and precise analytics are easy to navigate for users with little to no technical expertise
• Automated email sequences: Shopify Email lets users set up automated workflows for actions, such as welcome emails and cart abandonment reminders, ensuring consistent engagement with minimal effort

Shopify Email excels in simplicity and ease of use. However, businesses that need advanced features may have to use third-party apps.

Mailchimp’s user experience focuses on more sophisticated features, so you must be willing to invest time in learning the platform. 

Mailchimp supports advanced marketing needs through:

• Sophisticated segmentation: Businesses can segment their audience based on several criteria, including location, purchase history, and engagement levels
• Effective automation: Mailchimp’s trigger-based workflow sends personalized emails automatically, enhancing engagement through timely and relevant communication
• In-depth analytics: Users can track detailed campaign performance, including audience insights and comparative reports

Mailchimp’s performance dashboard shows in-depth analytics in one place. It includes stats for conversions, messages sent, performance over time, and more.

While Mailchimp offers powerful features, the platform’s complexity can be daunting for beginners. Using higher-level tools often requires effort and prior technical knowledge.

Shopify Email and Mailchimp appeal to various users with unique strengths and weaknesses. Here’s a feature-by-feature comparison:

Deliverability

Email deliverability refers to how well an email reaches a recipient’s inbox successfully. Even the most engaging email campaigns can fail if they don’t reach the intended audience.

High deliverability means your audience is receiving and seeing your emails. This result increases the likelihood of engagement, conversions, and achieving your marketing goals. Here are the key factors that can impact deliverability:

• Domain reputation
• IP warmup and sending reputation
• Use of DKIM, SPF, DMARC
• Spam filters and bounces
• List quality and engagement

When it comes to deliverability, Mailchimp offers more advanced features.

Analytics and reporting

Analytics and reports help you understand how your email marketing campaigns perform. Shopify Email and Mailchimp both offer the tools needed to track performance. However, they differ in complexity and available features.

Here’s a breakdown of their analytics and reporting features:

Analytics

Both tools provide essential insights into your email campaign’s performance, helping you track key metrics such as open rate, click rate, unsubscribe rate, and more.

Shopify Email goes a step further by tracking ecommerce-specific metrics, including:

• Total sales generated from emails
• Average order value
• Average products sold
• First-time customers

It also offers insights into your customers’ journey through the marketing funnel, tracking metrics like:

• Unique visitors who visited your site after reading your email
• Number of sessions where a user added a product to their cart or placed an order
• The number of times a user viewed a product page
• The number of clicks on each email link to your online store

While Shopify Email can help you monitor both email performance and customers behavior, its analytics remain fairly basic. If you want more advanced analytics, consider other Shopify Email alternatives.

Mailchimp broadens its range of analytics, including:

• Customer purchase behavior and likelihood of repeat purchases
• Engagement with social media and landing pages
• Lead generation effectiveness across different channels

Although its ecommerce insights are relatively basic, Mailchimp has one distinct advantage over Shopify Email: it offers over 300 integrations, including web analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, allowing you to collect and analyze data from multiple sources.

Omnisend provides more in-depth and advanced analytics than both. You can see sales trends and audience activity data. You also get deliverability insights and even real-time analytics. Its analytics and reporting tools are perfect for ecommerce businesses.

Reporting

While Shopify Email provides in-depth reports on your email campaigns, it doesn’t provide comparative benchmarking reports. 

Here is where Mailchimp takes the lead. It provides comparative reports to see which segments are performing better than others.

This capability is similar to what Omnisend does with its “performance by segments” report. Although, Mailchimp doesn’t have the segment customer breakdown report that Omnisend offers.

A/B testing

Another win for Mailchimp in this Mailchimp vs. Shopify Email comparison is that it offers A/B testing for emails. 

You can send different variations of emails to different customers. You’ll see which elements perform better. This capability allows you to optimize and perfect your emails to drive the most conversions.

Mailchimp also provides send-time optimization. You can ensure your emails are sent at times when subscribers are most likely to engage with them.

Pricing

Price is one of the most important criteria involved in choosing an email marketing tool. In this section of our Shopify Email vs. Mailchimp comparison, we’ll compare their free and paid plans.

Shopify Email pricing works on a simple model, where you can send up to 10,000 emails per month for free. After that, you only pay for what you use. You can use Shopify Email for free to meet basic monthly email requirements.

Mailchimp offers a free plan with limited features. It also has three paid plans with varying features.

Granted, Mailchimp is more expensive than Shopify Email. However, it provides greater accessibility and a more comprehensive set of features.

Our cost-feature analysis

Shopify Email can be a solid option for ecommerce businesses already on the Shopify platform. It’s not the most cost-effective option for those who aren’t.

Mailchimp is an affordable email marketing tool for all types of small businesses. It may not be as cost-effective for larger businesses, though. The price increase gets quite steep beyond a certain number of subscribers.

Use our email pricing calculator below to quickly compare costs and features with those of other top platforms. Input your desired number of contacts, choose up to two other email marketing providers from the list, and see how Omnisend stacks up against them.

User reviews

User feedback is essential when comparing Shopify Email Marketing vs. Mailchimp. It offers valuable insights into the strengths and limitations of both platforms. Let’s examine users’ reviews of both platforms from trusted review sites, such as G2, Trustpilot, Capterra, and Shopify App Store.

Shopify Email is praised for its simplicity. It’s an excellent choice for small businesses and beginners. Here are some reviews from Shopify App Store:

In contrast, Mailchimp is known for its powerful features, but it can be challenging for beginners in email marketing. Here’s what some G2 reviews have to say:

Choosing between Shopify Email and Mailchimp largely depends on your business size, complexity, and marketing goals. When comparing Shopify Email vs. Mailchimp, Omnisend combines the simplicity of Shopify Email with the advanced features of Mailchimp.

Wrap up

That brings us to the end of the Shopify Email vs. Mailchimp comparison. Here are our key takeaways:

If you’re looking for an email marketing tool designed for ecommerce businesses that can grow with your business, then Omnisend is your best choice. It offers advanced ecommerce-specific features and analytics to help you elevate your email marketing.

FAQs: Shopify Email vs. Mailchimp