After helping more than 140 businesses streamline their Zoho stack, one debate keeps coming up when discussing email platforms: Zoho Campaigns vs. Mailchimp - which one should I use for email marketing?

If you’re running a small business, agency, or nonprofit, your email marketing platform isn't just a “nice-to-have." It’s the heartbeat of your communication strategy. It nurtures leads, keeps your subscribers warm, and drives sales. Choosing the right one can save you hundreds of hours and thousands of wasted clicks.

Let’s break it down from experience, not just features on a pricing page.

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Why Email Marketing Platforms Matter

Your email marketing strategy isn’t just about sending newsletters. It’s about:

• Automating personalized journeys
• Capturing behavior-driven insights
• Integrating with your CRM and sales stack
• Scaling communications across multiple channels

Whether you’re running SMS campaigns or segmenting contacts with surgical precision, your platform needs to be reliable and flexible. Maybe most importantly, it needs to be cost-effective.

That brings us to today’s showdown: Zoho Campaigns vs Mailchimp.

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Mailchimp Overview

Mailchimp (now part of Intuit) has been the go-to for email campaigns since the early 2000s. It offers:

• Drag-and-drop email builder
• Automation workflows
• Free tier for up to 500 contacts
• Wide selection of coded templates
• Integrated landing pages and pop-ups
• Email + SMS (in premium tiers)

Mailchimp offers robust features for new users and solopreneurs, but its pricing quickly escalates as you scale subscribers, features, and automation paths.

Where Mailchimp wins:

• Familiar interface
• Large template library
• Popular with freelancers and marketers

But those same pros can become bottlenecks as your business needs grow.

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Zoho Campaigns Overview

Zoho Campaigns is Zoho’s email marketing platform built for small businesses, startups, and fast-growing teams who want deep CRM integration.

It offers:

• Seamless integration with Zoho CRM and Zoho Analytics
• Sophisticated workflow builder
• Customizable templates
• List management across multiple lists
• SMS gateway support
• Enriched contact profiles synced with CRM
• Forever free plan (up to 2,000 subscribers)

What sets Zoho Campaigns apart is its integration into the broader Zoho ecosystem. If you’re already using Zoho CRM, Zoho Projects, or Zoho Analytics, Campaigns is a no-brainer.

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Key Features Compared

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User Experience & Interface

Mailchimp is beginner-friendly and polished. It’s built for solo creators and marketers. Its interface is intuitive, and users can get up and running with email campaigns in minutes.

Zoho Campaigns takes a bit more setup, but if you’re looking to build complex, automated workflows, it’s worth the learning curve. It shines once your CRM, contacts, and lists are connected. Plus, it lets you test custom features and save time automating across multiple channels.

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Marketing Automation & Workflows

Both platforms offer automation features, but Zoho Campaigns offers more logic branches, better CRM syncing, and deeper contact behavior triggers.

With Zoho, you can:

• Build multi-step email journeys
• Trigger SMS messages
• Sync campaign activity directly to CRM records
• Adjust marketing strategy in real time based on user behavior

Mailchimp automation is solid but locked behind Essentials and Premium Plan pricing tiers. If you're scaling quickly or want to integrate your email efforts with your customer relationship management system, Zoho is the better long-term option.

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Template Flexibility & Design

Both platforms offer coded templates and drag-and-drop editors. Mailchimp’s library is broader, and the design tools feel a bit more refined for non-tech users.

That said, Zoho Campaigns offers customizable templates that support dynamic content and merge fields from Zoho CRM, which is especially great if you're personalizing at scale.

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Analytics & Reporting

This is where Zoho shines. If you're using Zoho Analytics, your email marketing data becomes part of your larger business intelligence picture.

You can:

• Measure opens, clicks, bounces, and unsubscribes
• Track automation path drop-offs
• View cross-channel insights (CRM + Campaigns + Sales)
• Build custom dashboards

Mailchimp offers good reports, but the in-depth analytics and seamless integration across business tools just isn’t there unless you're using Mailchimp with other Intuit apps.

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Pricing Breakdown

Zoho Campaigns Charges:

• Free tier: 2,000 contacts, 12,000 emails/month
• Paid plans start at ~$5/month
• Add-ons for SMS campaigns and advanced automation

Mailchimp Offers:

• Free tier: 500 contacts, 1,000 emails/month
• Essentials plan: Starts at $13/month
• Premium: Up to $350/month based on list size

Zoho offers more cost-effectiveness and better scalability for small businesses or teams running campaigns across multiple channels.

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Support & Integrations

Zoho Campaigns support includes:

• Chat support
• Phone support on paid plans
• Extensive help docs
• Direct access to Zoho experts and implementation partners

Mailchimp support depends on your plan. Free users are limited to email help. Essentials unlocks live chat, and only Premium plans get phone support.

Zoho’s native integrations across Zoho CRM, Zoho Analytics, and other Zoho applications eliminate the need for third-party tools.

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Which of These is Best for Whom?

Choose Zoho Campaigns if you:

• Use Zoho CRM or other Zoho products
• Want robust list management and multi-list support
• Need CRM-level data enrichment
• Run automated campaigns across email + SMS
• Care about analytics and ROI measurement

Choose Mailchimp if you:

• Are just starting out with a small list
• Want easy-to-use email tools without CRM complexity
• Like their email templates and user-friendly interface
• Don’t mind paying more as your contact list grows

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Final Verdict: Zoho Campaigns vs Mailchimp

Zoho Campaigns is my top recommendation for businesses already in or moving into the Zoho ecosystem. The seamless integration with CRM, powerful automation paths, and low entry cost make it the best Mailchimp alternative for scaling teams.

If you’re looking for long-term growth, unified data, and an integrated email marketing strategy, Zoho wins.

Mailchimp still has a place for solo marketers and small lists. But once you start managing real automation workflows and customer journeys, it becomes clear where Zoho Campaigns shines.

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Need Help Getting Started?

I help businesses compare Zoho Campaigns vs Mailchimp, migrate campaigns, set up workflows, and build scalable marketing systems.

If you're ready to upgrade your email marketing game, let’s talk.

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