Flodesk vs MailChimp – Which One Is Better for Travel Bloggers for 2024?

Reading Time: 13 minutes

This Flodesk vs Mailchimp review intends to bring out the major differences between the two email list marketing software tools so that lifestyle & travel bloggers like you can make an informed decision and pick the option that suits your needs and budgets.

Mailchimp has many advanced features suitable for advanced marketers. The Flodesk email marketing tool focuses on the basics and is suitable for rookies.

The platform you select will depend on the scale & complexity of your business operations and your email marketing strategy.

So, let’s find out which email marketing platform is best suited for travel bloggers and digital nomads.

Quick Takeaways:

  • User-Friendly Interface: Flodesk offers a cleaner, more intuitive user interface compared to Mailchimp, making it easier for beginners and experts alike to create professional-looking emails without needing HTML or CSS knowledge.
  • Pricing and Access: Flodesk provides a simple pricing structure with a flat fee, offering unlimited subscribers and no limit on the number of emails you can send. This is particularly beneficial for bloggers with a limited budget, as it avoids the potential for spiraling costs associated with subscriber increases in Mailchimp.
  • Advanced Features and Integrations: Mailchimp excels in offering advanced features like A/B testing, automation, and a wide range of integrations with over 250 apps, making it a better choice for medium to large businesses that require sophisticated marketing tools.
  • Ease of Use: Flodesk is highlighted as being more user-friendly than Mailchimp, especially for those new to email marketing. It provides a plethora of responsive and customizable templates, ensuring emails look great on all devices.
  • Customer Support and Analytics: Mailchimp offers superior customer support with 24/7 chat availability and more advanced analytics features. This can be particularly useful for businesses that rely on detailed data to refine their marketing strategies.

Flodesk vs Mailchimp: TL;DR

Best for Budget & Design
Flodesk
  • Type: Email marketing software
  • Unique features: Direct Shopify integration unlike Mailchimp that requires Zapier
  • Email capture: Pop-ups, embedded forms, and landing pages for website
  • Pricing plans: One plan and one flat rate
  • Free plans: No free plan
  • Suitable for: Any individual blogger or small business
Best for Advanced Features
Mailchimp
  • Type: Marketing suite with included email marketing
  • Unique features: Autoresponders, drip campaigns, A/B testing, behavioral targeting, marketing CRM, digital ads, postcards, content studio, lookalike audiences, automated customer journeys, and more
  • Email capture: Pop-ups, embedded forms, and landing pages for website
  • Pricing plans: Multi-tiered pricing
  • Free plans: Free plan with limited features
  • Suitable for: Any medium to a large business that needs advanced marketing features

Flodesk Pros

  • Beautiful & intuitive templates.
  • Drag-and-drop email builder (no coding skills required).
  • Very easy setup.
  • Trigger-based email workflow automation.
  • Clean email and subscriber statistics.
  • Responsive design for emails and landing pages.
  • Excellent customer support.
  • Cheapest usable email platform on the market.

Mailchimp Pros

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

Flodesk vs Mailchimp: Detailed Comparison

Flodesk vs Mailchimp comparison breakdown by features

  • User interface
  • Ease of use
  • Landing pages
  • A/B testing
  • Automation
  • Analytics
  • Content creation
  • Integrations
  • Customer support
  • Pricing

Flodesk vs Mailchimp: User Interface

The user interface of any email marketing platform must be pleasing.

Flodesk:

Screenshot of Flodesk my favorites page

Flodesk offers a clean yet robust & intuitive user interface. It allows the visual creation of emails using its drag-and-drop interface.

Thus, even if you don’t know HTML and CSS, you can still create professional-looking emails in minutes. You can use their email templates or build emails from scratch.

Mailchimp:

Screenshot of Mailchimp Audience Dashboard page

Mailchimp is a leading name in the email marketing industry but its interface is not as simple as that of Flodesk.

The platform has moved from being a dedicated email marketing platform to a full marketing suite with email marketing included. The sheer number of features can be overwhelming.

Though it offers a left navigation menu that will allow you to access everything, it feels clunky and crowded.

Even though all features are intuitively arranged, unless you scale its steep learning curve, you won’t feel comfortable with the UI.

Winner: Flodesk because it has a cleaner and more intuitive user interface.

Flodesk vs Mailchimp: Ease of Use

An email marketing service must be easy to use so that even noobs can use it easily.

 Flodesk:

Screenshot of Flodesk Browse all page

Though Flodesk is a beginner-friendly platform, it is perfect for both starters and experts. Its robust drag-and-drop email builder will allow you to create beautiful emails in minutes even if you have no prior experience.

The learning curve is almost flat, and it will allow you to customize newsletters and landing pages to match your brand design.

There are hundreds of responsive and stunning templates that you can use. Flodesk’s templates have a responsive design, which means they look stunning on all devices.

Mailchimp:

Screenshot of Mailchimp Thems templates page

This platform also offers email templates that you can use to create emails. Mailchimp’s templates are also customizable, which means you can customise them to maintain your brand identity.

These templates are all responsive and hence, you can check how they look on different devices before sending the emails.

However, Mailchimp’s templates are not as stunning as that of Flodesk because they are more function-focused. The end results are often pretty ugly but you can beautify them if you know HTML and CSS.

Also, the crowded UI of this email marketing software can hinder your workflow unless you know where to find the features and tools you need.

Winner: Flodesk is much easier to use than Mailchimp.

Flodesk vs Mailchimp: Landing Pages

Landing pages are tools that you can use for lead generation and offer something to your readers. You can even use it to create a promotional buzz. It is one of the most standard features of email marketing services.

Flodesk:

Screenshot of flodesk creating design page

Flodesk provides many pre-made landing page templates that you can edit to match your brand’s needs.

You can use the simple drag-and-drop feature to customize these responsive landing pages with various elements like videos, logos, web fonts, buttons, Instagram posts, and more.

The templates have a modern high-quality design, however, if you want, you can ditch the templates and create one from scratch.

The only drawback is that you must use the default long URLs, which are not only ugly but also break the brand consistency.

Mailchimp:

Screenshot of Mailchimp Select a template page

This powerful email marketing platform also has a landing page builder that you can use to create one from scratch or simply use one of their various premade templates.

The templates have a responsive design and you can customize them quickly using a wide range of elements such as buttons, videos, countdown timers, social profiles, etc.

The best part is that though Mailchimp offers default long URLs, it will also allow you to use your custom domain for the landing pages. This ensures that the page remains consistent with your brand’s website design.

Winner: Mailchimp because it allows using a custom domain with a landing page.

Flodesk vs Mailchimp: A/B Split Testing

Split testing an email marketing campaign can help you to identify the best performing emails so that you can focus on what works and discard the rest.

Flodesk:

Image showing flodesk has no A/B split testing feature

Unfortunately, Flodesk lacks A/B split testing feature. They may introduce the feature later, but there is no official word on that.

Mailchimp:

Screenshot of Mailchimp A/B split testing page

Mailchimp offers A/B split testing for email campaigns, but not on its free plan. This feature allows large, medium, and small businesses to discover important data and information that they can use to build an effective email marketing strategy.

With Mailchimp’s split testing feature, you can test multiple variations of emails and subject lines, and test different variables and combinations to see which ones have higher click and open rates, conversion rates, etc.

Once you know what your customers prefer, you craft your future email campaigns accordingly to maximize your profits.

Winner: Mailchimp because Flodesk doesn’t have this feature.

Flodesk vs Mailchimp: Automation

Marketing automation helps to save time and increase the efficiency of email marketing strategy.

Flodesk:

Flowchart shwoing flodesk email automation

Flodesk’s user-friendly platform allows automating emails easily starting from the design phase to the website integration phase.

You can easily draft emails once and send them automatically based on pre-defined rules and triggers.

You can even create an email template or edit an existing template and save it for repeated future use.

With Flodesk you can use automation for lead capture wherein you can create an email, form, and workflow and automatically send emails to potential leads that fit your preset criteria.

Mailchimp:

Screenshot of Mailchimp showing automation

Mailchimp’s automation features are way more advanced, making them suitable for large businesses. However, even a small business can benefit from its simple automation features like automatically sending introduction emails or simple action-based follow-up emails.

You can always use its more advanced features and create custom paths to send emails to certain contact segments meeting specific criteria.

You can even program a path that can automatically decide who should receive an email and when. You can use various rules like if/else, delay, wait, etc. to perform actions like sending emails, adding or removing tags, etc.

You can even integrate Mailchimp with e-commerce platforms to automate emails for customers depending on the actions they take.

Winner: Mailchimp because its automation features are more advanced, but for lifestyle & travel bloggers needing something simple, Flodesk is a better choice.

Flodesk vs Mailchimp: Analytics

For any online business, understanding how its email marketing strategy is performing is vital. This is why analytics is important.

Flodesk:

Screenshot of Analytics result of email marketing

Flodesk offers basic analytics where you can get data on email click and open rates, bounces, open by devices, spam, delivery time & corresponding open and click rate, etc.

You can also see insights on individual subscribers like total emails opened by them, lifetime opens & clicks, etc.

You can use the data to alter your email marketing strategy as required. Read my Flodesk review to learn more about the platform’s analytics features.

Mailchimp:

Screenshot of Mailchimp result of email marketing

Mailchimp isn’t only an email marketing platform any longer. It has evolved into a complete marketing suite with many advanced features like marketing CRM, social media ads, appointment scheduling, behavioral targeting, predictive demographics, customer journeys, and more.

Thus, the insights and analytics data you receive are also highly advanced, making the platform suitable for expert marketers.

The platform’s analytics can provide data on sales, engagement, audience demographics, surveys, ad performance, benchmarking, etc.

For small businesses and individuals, all that data can be overwhelming.

Winner: Flodesk because of simple insights and analytics data, but it’s not sufficient for advanced marketers.

Content Creation

The content of your email campaigns is just as important as the timing of your emails.

Flodesk:

Image showing flodesk has no AI Content Help

Flodesk will give you beautiful templates and a user-friendly interface to work with. However, you will be responsible for the content you write. There will be no assistance from Flodesk’s end. Yes, you can use its educational videos and tutorials to get help when you are stuck, but they don’t help with the content creation process.

Mailchimp:

Screenshot of Mailchimp Creative Assistant features

Mailchimp has something called ‘Content Studio’ and ‘Creative Assistant.’ Content Studio will allow you to store, sync, and edit images & files in one place.

The ‘Creative Assistant’ is an AI-powered tool that helps with content creation by generating ideas from pre-existing templates. It also has a Subject Line helper.

However, you can still customize everything, integrate Instagram posts, add GIFs and digital products, and more.

The content suggested by the AI is not perfect, but it does give you the starting point and you can improve on it.

Winner: Mailchimp because it offers an AI-assisted content creation tool.

Integrations

Third-party integrations are often necessary for effective email marketing.

Flodesk:

Screenshot of Flodesk integrations to other apps

Flodesk has limited direct third-party integrations that include Instagram and Shopify integration.

For more integration options, you must connect Flodesk with Zapier which will allow you to connect with other platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, WebinarJam, and more.

Mailchimp:

Screenshot of Mailchimp integrations to other apps

Mailchimp can directly integrate with over 250 apps. Some popular integrations include Squarespace, Drupal, Stripe, LiveChat, Zendesk, SimpleTexting, etc. It can even integrate with platforms like LinkedIn, Vimeo, Facebook, etc.

SurveyMonkey, Typeform, Formstack, and similar other integrations are also available for advanced analytical data.

Winner: Mailchimp because it offers more direct integrations than Flodesk.

Customer Support

Customer support is a critical element of any business. How do Flodesk and Mailchimp perform in this segment?

Flodesk:

Screenshot of Flodesk help center

Flodesk is known for its great customer support. Though they don’t have chat support available and offer only email support. Though they respond very quickly, there can be instances where they can take days to respond.

They have plenty of helpful tutorials and videos that you can use. They also have a private Facebook group where business owners using Flodesk provide tips and tricks. You can ask for help in that group and receive quick responses.

Mailchimp:

Screenshot of Mailchimp help center

Mailchimp has both chat and email support available. However, the extent of support you receive will depend on your chosen pricing plan.

The best part is the 24×7 chat support where you can find instant help for basic problems. They also have phone support available, but only on weekdays.

Winner: Mailchimp because they have 24×7 chat support available.

Pricing Structure

For lifestyle & travel bloggers with limited budgets, the pricing of an email marketing platform is crucial.

Flodesk:

flodesk pricing plan

Flodesk has only one pricing plan. They will charge a flat fee of $38 a month or $418 a year and allow:

  • Unlimited subscribers.
  • Full access to all email marketing features of the platform.
  • No limit on the number of emails you can send.

Unfortunately, they do not have any free plan.

However, if you sign up via my link you’ll get a full 50% off your first year, making your initial investment just $19/month or $228!

Mailchimp:

Mailchimp pricing plan

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

Free: $0 a month

  • Email contacts storage: 500 max
  • Number of emails you can send and the number of emails you can have: 500 max
  • Email support for 30 days only.
  • 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 chat and email support.
  • Access to pre-built 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 chat 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: Flodesk because of the unrestricted access against a flat fee and no limit on email subscribers.

Flodesk vs Mailchimp: Summary

While Mailchimp is an extremely powerful and well-known platform in the email marketing industry, Flodesk is far more intuitive and beginner-friendly.

In fact I switched from Mailchimp to Flodesk myself in 2021 and although Flodesk features are more limited when compared to Mailchimp, it gets the job done. Also, the Flodesk email designs are more visual and elegant compared to Mailchimp.

If you’re a lifestyle or travel blogger with a limited budget and you don’t need more features than just the core email marketing features (which most of us don’t!), Flodesk is a better choice, especially because it doesn’t put a cap on the number of subscribers or new users you can have and the number of emails you can send.

With Mailchimp, your email marketing budget can rapidly spiral out of control if your subscribers increase quickly or if you need to send more emails than the defined limit.

Building an email list is one of the most important things you can do to accelerate your blogging business. With Flodesk, you can start today without breaking the bank.

Mailchimp vs Flodesk: FAQ

Does Flodesk integrate with Mailchimp?

Yes, Flodesk and Mailchimp can integrate through Zapier. There are a number of benefits of this integration. For example, if you have a new subscriber on Mailchimp, the subscriber will be added to your Flodesk contacts list.

What is the best Mailchimp alternative?

Flodesk is a good alternative to Mailchimp if you need something simpler. But, if you need something as powerful, ActiveCampaign, Aweber, and ConvertKit are some great alternatives you can consider.

What are the downsides of Flodesk?

While Flodesk excels in creating visually appealing emails and simplicity, it has some limitations. The platform lacks advanced features like autoresponders, a detailed CRM system, and customer surveys, which are essential for in-depth email marketing strategies. Also, its customization options, though user-friendly, may not be as extensive as those of more comprehensive platforms like Mailchimp or Constant Contact.

Is Flodesk good for email marketing?

Absolutely, Flodesk is great for email marketing, especially for users who value design and simplicity over complex functionality. It offers unlimited email sends, intuitive opt-in forms, and an easy-to-use interface. While it might not have the advanced features of other email marketing tools, its focus on creating beautiful, responsive emails makes it a solid choice for small businesses and creatives.

What are the disadvantages of using Mailchimp?

Mailchimp, while comprehensive, can be overwhelming for new users. Its plethora of features, including advanced CRM software and customer journey builder, might be more than what’s needed for some users. Additionally, the free version has limitations in terms of the number of emails and contacts. The Essentials plan and premium plans offer more, but at an increased cost. Mailchimp also has limited support options for free users.

How do Flodesk and Mailchimp handle email automation and customer journeys?

Flodesk simplifies email automation with its easy-to-use interface, allowing users to send unlimited email sequences with ease. However, it doesn’t offer a customer journey builder, unlike Mailchimp. Mailchimp provides advanced automation options, including autoresponders and a sophisticated customer journey builder, essential for in-depth marketing strategies and managing complex customer interactions.

What integration capabilities do Flodesk and Mailchimp offer?

Flodesk allows users to integrate directly with a limited number of platforms, focusing on essential integrations that enhance the user experience. In contrast, Mailchimp offers a wide range of native integrations, including popular native integrations with CRM software, e-commerce platforms, and other essential business tools. This makes Mailchimp a versatile choice for businesses that rely on various software systems.

Are there any unique features in Flodesk and Mailchimp that set them apart from other email marketing platforms?

Flodesk stands out with its ability to create visually appealing and responsive emails with ease, making it a game changer for users looking for design-focused email marketing tools. Mailchimp, with its comprehensive suite including features like the Mailchimp assistant, robust support team, and extensive customization options, caters to a more diverse range of marketing needs. Both platforms offer unique aspects such as unlimited everything in Flodesk’s single plan, and Mailchimp’s diverse range of plans including transactional emails and advanced analytics for premium users.

Do Flodesk and Mailchimp offer subscriber segmentation?

You can segment your subscribers using both of these platforms. Segmenting subscribers on both platforms is easy, but Flodesk allows you to color code your segments for easy identification.

About the author

Disclaimer: Please note this post may contain affiliate links, from which, at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission. Also as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I only recommend products and services I’ve used or would use myself. If you choose to purchase from any of my links, thanks so much for your support! 😊