AWeber vs Mailchimp – Which is a Better Email Marketing Platform?

This AWeber vs Mailchimp comparative review will help you understand the strengths and weaknesses of two of the leading email marketing tools online today.

While AWeber focuses only on email marketing, Mailchimp is a complete marketing solution with email marketing a part of a more extensive marketing suite.

The email marketing software you select must fulfill your business needs and budget. But there’s much to evaluate before you select one.

In this AWeber vs Mailchimp comparison, I will walk you through the significant differences between the two platforms’ email marketing features to help you make an informed decision.

AWeber vs Mailchimp: TL;DR

AWeber Pros:

• Supports HTML emails and also provides a visual email builder.
• Supports dynamic content and AMP emails.
• Provide email split testing feature.
• Allows email automation and behavioral automation.
• Provides web push notifications.
• Allows selling physical and digital products through a landing page.
• Provides highly advanced analytics.

Mailchimp Pros:

• Intuitive templates with a drag-and-drop editor.
• Supports dynamic content.
• Autoresponder feature available.
• Drip campaigns are allowed.
• Highly advanced statistics.
• Responsive landing pages.
• Supports A/B split testing of emails.

AWeber vs Mailchimp: Detailed Comparison

AWeber vs Mailchimp comparison breakdown by features

• Ease of Use
• Templates
• Forms
• Landing Page Builder
• Automations
• Integrations
• Email Deliverability
• Split Testing
• Send Time Optimization
• Website Builder
• Reporting
• Customer Support
• Pricing

AWeber vs Mailchimp: Ease of Use

It is important that the email marketing software you select should be user friendly.

AWeber:

AWeber’s user interface is neat, but there can be confusion at times. For instance, email automations are called ‘Campaigns’ and regular newsletters are called ‘Broadcasts.’ They aren’t very intuitive names and users can find them a bit confusing.

Plus, while creating a Broadcast (email newsletter), you will find that certain options like selecting senders’ addresses or reusing campaigns are hidden.

Because they use the subscriber list as the main selector, navigating to automations and campaigns is unnecessarily difficult.

They don’t have any workflow-based visual navigation and the previous/next step buttons. This can slow down the process of creating email broadcasts.

Mailchimp:

Mailchimp offers a clean user interface with neat left navigation. There are many menu options that can be a little overwhelming for first-time users. However, with some patience, it is not at all difficult to master the user interface.

There is one problem with the way they have arranged autoresponders and multi-step workflow builders under the Customer Journeys section in the Automation tab.

That was unnecessary especially when Customer Journey is a more generic marketing term and not specific to email marketing.

A customer journey can be across multiple channels and not just email marketing, which is only one part of overall marketing.

Apart from this weird categorization, everything else is fine.

Winner: Mailchimp because despite its weird arrangement of automations, the overall interface is easier than AWeber.

AWeber vs Mailchimp: Templates

Templates offered by an email marketing tool helps to create email marketing campaigns and landing pages.

AWeber:

AWeber has one of the largest collections of email templates. There are over 700 templates available.

Unfortunately, most of these email templates don’t have a modern and minimalist design. You can find a few gems but it will take time to find them.

Also, the template editor feels a bit clunky, but it allows adding custom HTML codes, which is a great advantage for people who know how to code.

Mailchimp:

Mailchimp offers over 100 themed email templates covering e-commerce, newsletters, promotions, holiday emails, etc. You also get access to 14 blank templates that you can use to create custom layouts.

Similar to AWeber, their templates have outdated design but they also allow adding custom codes.

Winner: AWeber because of the total number of email templates they offer.

AWeber vs Mailchimp: Forms

Sign-up forms or opt-in forms are necessary to get new subscribers. Both AWeber and Mailchimp have forms, but which one is better?

AWeber:

Aweber offers powerful form features. There are options for adding audio files, videos, and page redirects.

Plus, the Aweber email marketing platform will allow you to tag and segment subscribers depending on the type of form they use. This allows for easier subscriber management.

You can even add custom fields to your forms.

Mailchimp:

Mailchimp offers different form types and even allows to have different lists for them. What’s confusing is the form editor. Depending on the type of the form you want to build, you will come across different editors.

While the drag-and-drop form builder is powerful with the ability to add and edit fields and field values respectively, the confusion comes when you try to create embedded forms. That’s when you will encounter a different form builder.

Among the different builders, the popup builder is the most advanced and contemporary.

Winner: AWeber because it has a uniform form builder experience.

AWeber vs Mailchimp: Landing Page Builder

Both AWeber and Mailchimp email marketing solutions offer templates for landing pages, but which one is better?

AWeber:

AWeber offers 100+ templates for landing pages. All of them are customizable using their powerful landing page editor.

AWeber even integrates Canva so that you can design attractive landing pages.

Furthermore, you can use these pages as an ecommerce platform to sell both physical and digital goods. You can also use them for lead collection and subscriber acquisition.

Mailchimp:

Mailchimp offers only 10 templates for landing pages. Apart from them, there are a few blank ones that you can heavily customize using their powerful drag-and-drop editor.

Unfortunately, there is no Canva integration and the template designs are very outdated.

Winner: AWeber because there are more landing page templates and the platform offers Canva integration.

AWeber vs Mailchimp: Automations

Both AWeber and Mailchimp offer email marketing automation features, but who comes out on top?

AWeber:

AWeber’s marketing automation features are very limited and basic. Automation options are relatively new and hence, they are not advanced.

However, you can always use the marketing automation feature for tagging users when they subscribe. This allows for easy list management.

There is no CRM feature available. You can, however, use third-party integrations if you need to use a CRM with AWeber marketing automation.

Mailchimp:

Mailchimp offers single-step automations (autoresponders) and multi-step automations that they refer to as Customer Journeys, which happens to be quite inappropriate.

However, ignoring the nomenclature, Mailchimp’s marketing automations are powerful. To create a multi-step automation workflow, you can use the ‘Create’ button located on the top menu, or you can access the ‘Automation’ option from your Mailchimp account dashboard.

Unlike other platforms, Mailchimp will not give you a drag-and-drop workflow builder. Fortunately, despite the lack of a drag-and-drop workflow builder, the overall process is fairly simple.

Winner: Mailchimp wins because it has more powerful marketing automation options than AWeber.

AWeber vs Mailchimp: Integrations

Integrating your email marketing software with other applications allows for easier data flow and hence, informed business decisions.

AWeber:

AWeber has many integrations. There are well over 300 native integrations available, but in case you don’t find any native integration, they have Zapier integration that will allow you to connect thousands of third-party apps.

The platform also offers native Google Analytics integration.

Mailchimp:

Mailchimp lets you natively connect with over 250 third-party applications. They also have Zapier integration available just in case you need to integrate an application that is not natively supported by Mailchimp.

Winner: AWeber because it offers more native integrations than Mailchimp.

AWeber vs Mailchimp: Email Deliverability

A higher email deliverability rate means that more of your emails are landing in the inboxes of your subscribers. Who wins in this segment?

AWeber:

AWeber has poor performance in this area. In the last three rounds of tests by Email Tool Tester, AWeber had an average deliverability rate of 74, placing it in the 14th spot among the 15 email marketing tools they tested.

Mailchimp:

Though not the best in class performance, Mailchimp scored 86 in the tests, placing it in the 7th spot among the 15 tested tools.

Winner: Mailchimp wins because it has a much better email deliverability rate than AWeber.

AWeber vs Mailchimp: Split Testing

The ability to split test your email marketing campaigns can help you to select the most effective email marketing strategy.

AWeber:

You can easily create A/B split tests for your email campaigns. The process is simple and you can test both the subject line and the email content. Unfortunately, you cannot perform automation split tests. They also don’t have multivariate testing.

Mailchimp:

Mailchimp offers A/B split testing for email campaigns, but not on its free plan. With Mailchimp’s split testing feature, you can test multiple variations of emails and subject lines, and test different variables and combinations at once to see which ones have a higher click and open rates, conversion rates, etc.

Winner: Mailchimp because it offers multivariate testing that AWeber lacks.

AWeber vs Mailchimp: Send Time Optimization

The ability to send emails at a time when your subscribers are most likely to engage can help you to maximize the outcome of your marketing campaigns.

AWeber:

AWeber doesn’t have this feature.

Mailchimp:

This platform will allow “send time optimization.” It is a tool that automatically sends your emails at a time when they are most likely to be opened.

To achieve this, Mailchimp looks at the time when your subscribers opened your previous emails. It also looks into the data of other Mailchimp users who have the same email addresses (or at least a subset of email addresses) on their lists.

Winner: Mailchimp because AWeber doesn’t have this feature at all.

AWeber vs Mailchimp: Website Builder

Not many popular email marketing tools will allow you to build entire websites and add custom domains.

AWeber:

AWeber doesn’t have this feature. However, it does allow integration with Weblium – a mobile-friendly and AI-driven website builder. You can easily integrate your sign-up forms with email lists from AWeber.

Mailchimp:

This platform will provide you with a full-blown website builder with a drag-and-drop feature. You can even add a custom domain. Mailchimp will host the website for you and you will have the option of adding website tracking.

The builder will provide a lot of layout and design options and you can quickly preview your website before publishing it.

Winner: Mailchimp because AWeber doesn’t offer this feature.

AWeber vs Mailchimp: Reporting

All popular email marketing services offer reporting and analytics features. Mailchimp and AWeber are no different, but who is better?

AWeber:

The platform offers highly advanced reporting and analytics. In fact, this email marketing platform offers one of the most extensive reporting tools you will find today.

Even the free plan offers many reports that you can find only with paid plans of other email marketing tools.

You can find detailed reports on A/B testing, audience, geotracking, and e-commerce that can help you to optimize your newsletter campaigns so that you can ensure that your targeted emails always reach subscribers’ inboxes.

You can even update your lists and create new segments directly from the reports section, which helps in the advanced segmentation of your mailing lists.

For instance, if a Black Friday sales promotion performed well, you can target those subscribers who opened the email with a follow-up campaign.

Mailchimp:

Mailchimp offers an endless range of reports. Apart from basic performance reports like click rates, open rates, unsubscribes, etc. you will also find hourly reports, opens by location, click maps, e-commerce store sales, performance by domain, etc.

Mailchimp can also integrate with Google Analytics and help you to track the performance of your messages for various geographic locations. You can even track e-commerce performance.

Apart from giving robust data that you can use to improve your email marketing efforts, Mailchimp also ensures that you can read the reports easily. Unlike Mailchimp, AWeber has a slightly poor user experience and finding some data can be a bit difficult.

Winner: Mailchimp because it gives a better user experience.

AWeber vs Mailchimp: Customer Support

Both AWeber and Mailchimp email marketing services offer customer support but which is best?

AWeber:

This email marketing solution offers excellent customer support with superfast response times. They have phone support, email support, and live chat available. While phone support is available between 8 AM and 8 PM ET USA, live chat and email support are available 24/7.

All support channels are available for AWeber free plan users. Paid plan users get priority support.

They also have a thorough knowledge base that you can access anytime and use to resolve common issues.

Mailchimp:

Paid Mailchimp users are entitled to 24×7 support through email and live chat. Mailchimp offers phone support only to their Premium plan users.

However, free plan users get very limited support through email only, and that too, ends in 30 days, leaving them with no other option but self-service support using video tutorials and support articles.

Winner: AWeber because it offers all support channels to all users irrespective of whether they are on a free plan or a paid plan. On the contrary, Mailchimp’s free plan offers only limited email support.

AWeber vs Mailchimp: Pricing

Its important as a small business or solopreneur to select an email marketing software that fulfills all your needs and is within your email marketing budget.

AWeber Pricing:

This email marketing service has one free plan and one paid plan! That’s all! What’s interesting is that both the free account and the paid plan will allow unlimited users (team members), unlimited landing pages, free migration service, and access to all support channels. Paid customers are entitled to priority support.

Free Plan:

• Max subscribers: 500
• Max email sends per month: 3,000
• List profiles: 1
• RSS to Email (Blog broadcasts that use RSS feed to send blog posts to subscribers)
• Drag-and-drop email builder
• Access to all templates
• Dynamic content
• Google analytics integration
• Forms
• WordPress plugins
• E-commerce features with 1% transaction fee
• 50,000 Web Push Notification subscribers
• All integrations

Pro Plan: $19.99 a month

• Max subscribers: 500 (price increases as subscribers increase)
• Send unlimited emails per month
• List profiles: unlimited
• RSS to Email (Blog broadcasts that use RSS feed to send blog posts to subscribers)
• Drag-and-drop email editor
• Access to all templates
• Dynamic content
• Email A/B testing
• Google analytics integration
• Facebook pixel tracking
• Forms (with split testing)
• WordPress plugins
• Advanced reporting
• E-commerce features with 0.6% transaction fee
• Unlimited Web Push Notification subscribers
• All integrations

Mailchimp: Pricing

Mailchimp has one forever free plan and three paid plans. Mailchimp’s free plan will not give access to all the features.

Free: $0 a month

• Email contacts storage: 1,000 max
• Number of emails you can send and the number of emails you can have: 1,000 max
• Email support for 30 days only from the subscription date.
• Access to pre-built templates.

Essentials: $11 a month

• Email contacts storage: 50,000 max
• Number of emails you can send and the number of emails you can have: 500 max
• 24/7 live chat support and email support.
• Access to pre-built basic templates.
• A/B testing.
• Basic automated customer journeys.

Standard: $17 a month

• Contacts storage: 100,000 max
• Number of emails you can send and the number of emails you can have: 500 max
• 24/7 live chat support and email support.
• Custom-coded and pre-built email templates.
• A/B testing.
• Enhanced automated customer journeys.
• Predictive segmentation.

Premium: $299 a month

• Contacts storage: Unlimited
• Number of emails you can send and the number of emails you can have: 10,000 max
• Priority support and phone support.
• Custom-coded and pre-built templates.
• Multivariate & A/B testing.
• Enhanced automated customer journeys.
• Predictive segmentation.
• Dedicated onboarding specialist.

Note that though the contact storage may be much higher for paid plans, there is a limit to the number of contacts you can store or emails you can send. If you exceed that limit, overages will apply.

Winner: AWeber because it has a more generous free plan. Also, the pricing structure is less complex.

AWeber vs Mailchimp: FAQ

Who is AWeber best for?

AWeber is best suited for small businesses that do not require advanced marketing features and yet want a platform with robust reporting. Unfortunately, this email service provider doesn’t offer powerful automation options. If you need that feature, you can try Flodesk which focuses on email marketing only and offers a powerful visual automation builder.

Is AWeber better than Mailchimp?

It is difficult to say because the answer depends on your needs. AWeber focuses only on email marketing whereas Mailchimp is a complete marketing suite, and hence, you get many features with Mailchimp that AWeber doesn’t offer.

But AWeber support is far better and offers live chat, phone, and email support even to free users. Mailchimp offers support but treats it more like a paid product with limited email support for free users.

Furthermore, the advanced features of Mailchimp are more suitable for tech-savvy users and advanced marketing professionals. If you have a small business and need a simple platform to utilize the power of emails, AWeber is possibly a better choice.

How much does AWeber cost and can I use it for free?

AWeber has only one paid plan that starts at $19.99 a month and offers access to all features that the platform has to offer. However, the pricing will change depending on the number of subscribers you have.

You can use AWeber for free. Their free offering has limited features, but still, it is quite generous. However, the emails you send using the free option will have AWeber branding, which makes it look a little unprofessional.

Do Mailchimp and AWeber support social media advertising campaigns?

With Mailchimp, you can instantly publish or schedule posts across Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. You can even design and create Instagram and Facebook ad campaigns directly from inside the Mailchimp platform.

AWeber’s capabilities are limited here. AWeber offers posting broadcasts on Twitter and Facebook. That’s all.

AWeber vs Mailchimp: Summary

Both AWeber and Mailchimp email service providers are popular email marketing tools. They both offer advanced analytics that can help you improve your campaigns. However, comparing AWeber with Mailchimp is a little unfair.

AWeber offers only an email marketing solution while Mailchimp is a complete marketing platform that can be overwhelming for a small business or a lifestyle blogger.

Having said that, you can still choose Mailchimp even if you want to use it only as an email platform.