Email and newsletters decision
Mailchimp
A competent developer can build a narrow Mailchimp replacement (sending, lists, templates, basic automations) in about a week and maintain it, but reproducing Mailchimp’s integrations, deliverability expertise, analytics, AI features and support is impractical for a small team.
Visit website↗$20/mo
$240/yr
Read off the official pricing page.
$50one-off30 h to build
$25/mo10 h/mo upkeep
On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 2 seats.
Open-source builds that already do this
Every project below is open source and already does this job today. Fork one, self-host it, or take the parts you need - the build prompt further down assumes an empty file, and this is the shortcut past that. Licences differ; check the one on each card before you ship. All Mailchimp alternatives, with the arithmetic →
What a replacement has to do
- Collect contacts via signup forms, store audience and segments, compose HTML templates, send campaigns via a transactional email provider, and track opens/clicks.
What it still won’t have
- Deliverability tuning and IP warmup managed by Mailchimp
- 300+ built-in third-party integrations
- Advanced analytics, predictive segmentation and AI marketing tools
- 24/7 award-level support and onboarding services
- Polished UI, templates library, and multivariate testing
What remains hard
- Integration maintenance
See 300+ Integrations
- Brand trust
Count on award-winning support
First-year cost
Keep paying
Paying is—cheaper in year one.
On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 2 seats.
Money you would actually spend
Time you would spend
—
What you would spend
What we assumed
The verdict above measures whether you could build it. This one is only about money.
Runnable build prompt
Build a minimal self-hosted email marketing system using Node.js (Express), Postgres, React, and a transactional email provider (SendGrid or Mailgun). Implement: (1) signup forms and double opt-in, (2) contact storage and basic segmentation, (3) an HTML template editor with a few templates, (4) campaign scheduling and send via transactional API, (5) webhook handlers for opens/clicks and a simple analytics dashboard, (6) a welcome-email automation. Out of scope: SMS, advanced predictive AI, multivariate testing, and 300+ third-party integrations. Include error handling, input validation, dockerized deployment manifests, and unit + integration tests for critical paths.
How we checked
How the score was reached
- Partly verdict base52
- An open-source build was found+5
- 5 cited sources+3
- Price verified on pricing page+3
- 3/3 assessment runs agreed+4
- Evidence score67
The base comes from the verdict. Everything under it is a check that either happened or did not, and each one is a fact frozen in this record rather than a judgement made at render time - so the same evidence always produces the same number.
How scoring works →Cited sources · 5
Every page the run actually retrieved.
- official productMailchimp homepage
- official pricingMailchimp pricing — Marketing
- official docsMailchimp features
- open sourceknadh/listmonk
- open sourcemautic/mautic
Integrity checks
What held up, and what did not.
