Compare CRMs
AllClients vs Mailchimp
AllClients is client management software for small business, built around follow-up. Landing pages, forms, email marketing, follow-up automation and AI are included in every plan, starting at $24 a month. It's built for the non-technical owner who sells to consumers and runs the follow-up themselves.
Mailchimp is an email marketing platform, priced by how many contacts you store rather than how many you email. Its CRM tools are audience tools: segments, tags and an audience dashboard. It's built for the business whose marketing is campaigns to a list.
14 days at the Premium level. No credit card.
Written by Jeff Shamus, AllClients co-founder. Mailchimp information last checked August 2026.
The short version
One is an email platform with audience tools attached. The other is client management software with the email built in. The sharpest difference is the bill: Mailchimp charges for every contact you store, including the ones who unsubscribed. AllClients charges for the plan. Here's the quickest way to tell which one is yours.
Mailchimp is the better fit if
- Your marketing is campaigns to a list, and the list is the asset
- You want a free plan to start on, or to buy credits and send only now and then
- You sell online and want the store, the ads and the email in one reporting view
- You'll use deep segmentation and testing on the way to a better open rate
AllClients is the better fit if
- You need a record of the person, not just a row on a mailing list
- Your follow-up is one-to-one and ongoing, not a monthly newsletter
- You want a bill that doesn't move every time your list grows
- You want the landing page, the form, the email and the automation in one plan
Side by side
| AllClients | Mailchimp | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | CRM plus marketing automation for small business | Email marketing platform with audience management tools |
| Pricing model | Per account. Three plans at $24, $48 and $96, each with its users, contacts and email allowance included. | Priced by contact tier. Subscribed, unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts all count toward the total, and passing your contact limit mid-cycle adds a charge to that month's bill. |
| Contact record | A contact record with the full history and the next step scheduled on it | Audience contacts with tags, segments and a dashboard view |
| Lead capture forms | Included on every plan | Included, from the free plan up |
| Landing pages | Included on every plan | Included. Full websites are a separate Websites plan. |
| Email marketing | Included on every plan, with an email allowance built into each plan | The core of the product. Monthly send limits are set as a multiple of your contact limit. |
| Follow-up automation | Included on every plan, starting at $24 | A one-click welcome email on free. Automation flows arrive on paid plans, capped at four steps on Essentials, with the fuller versions on Standard and up. |
| Sales pipeline | Boards, tied to automation so contacts move themselves | Not in Mailchimp's published marketing plans |
| AI | Included on every plan | AI marketing tools across the platform |
| Texting | Bring your own provider and it’s built into the contact card and workflows. Pay them directly, no markup or expiring credits. | A paid add-on, bought as credit blocks that expire monthly |
| Users | Included per plan: 1 at $24, 2 at $48, 5 at $96 | One seat on free, three on Essentials, five on Standard, unlimited on Premium |
| Free trial | 14-day free trial, no credit card. Build in every feature; sending turns on when you subscribe. | 14-day free trial, no credit card, plus a free plan capped at 250 contacts |
| Support | US-based support on every plan, no demo or sales call required to start | Email and chat support on paid plans. Phone support arrives on Premium. |
How each one is organized
Underneath the feature lists and the pricing, the two products are built around different objects. That's the difference that should decide it.
The center of the product is the list and the send. Contacts become segments, segments receive campaigns, and the reporting measures how the campaign performed. That's why the price follows the size of the audience: the audience is what you're operating on.
Every contact has a next step, and the question is when. The record holds who this person is, what's happened, and what's scheduled, and the workflows, autoresponders, landing pages and Boards hang off that record. A campaign is something the system does; the relationship is what it keeps.
Where Mailchimp is the cheaper way in. Free. Mailchimp's free plan holds up to 250 contacts and sends up to 500 emails a month, and there's a pay-as-you-go option for anyone who sends a few times a year. If a small list and an occasional newsletter is the whole job, that's a fair place to be, and nothing at $24 beats free. The comparison starts where the newsletter ends: the day you need to know what you promised a client in March.
The test is what you need on a Tuesday afternoon when a past client calls. On an email platform, you can see which campaigns they opened. On AllClients, you can see the whole history and what was supposed to happen next. If your marketing is a monthly send to a list, Mailchimp is built for that job. If your business runs on remembering people and following up with them one at a time, that's follow-up, and follow-up is what AllClients was built for.
Where Mailchimp is the better tool
Starting at nothing
A free plan and a pay-as-you-go option mean you can run real email marketing without a subscription at all. For an occasional sender, that's the right answer.
Campaign craft
A/B testing, multivariate testing on the higher plans, advanced segmentation and pre-built segments. If improving a send is a job someone does, there's a lot to work with.
Ecommerce and integrations
A large integrations directory and deep ties to online stores. If your revenue comes through a cart, the reporting connects to it.
Multiple audiences and teams
Separate audiences for separate brands, with more seats and permission levels as the plans go up.
Where AllClients is the better tool
A real contact record
Notes, history, and the next step scheduled on the person rather than on a campaign. The thing you reach for when a client calls after six months.
A price that doesn't follow your list
Three plan prices with the contacts included at each step, so a growing list is a decision you make rather than a charge that appears.
The whole loop in one plan
Landing pages, forms, email marketing and follow-up automation from $24 a month, with nothing to sync and no second product for the client record.
Follow-up that isn't a newsletter
The automation is built to keep one person moving through a sequence, not just to send the same message to everyone at once.
A person on the phone
US-based support on every plan, with no demo or sales call to get started. Mailchimp's phone support arrives on Premium.
Questions people ask
Does Mailchimp have a CRM?
It has marketing CRM tools, which means audience tools: tags, segments, an audience dashboard and the contact data behind a campaign. What it doesn't carry is a sales pipeline, and it integrates with outside CRM software for businesses that need one. AllClients takes the other path and builds the client record and the email into the same product, so the history and the sending live together.
Why does a Mailchimp bill go up when you aren't sending more?
Because the plan is priced by contacts held, not emails sent. Subscribed, unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts all count toward the total, so people who will never receive another email still sit in the number the bill is based on, until they're archived or deleted. AllClients prices the plan instead: the contacts are included at each step, and moving up a step is a choice you make.
Is Mailchimp cheaper than AllClients?
At the free plan, nothing beats free, and for a small list and an occasional send it's a fair way to work. Matched on the whole job, a client record with history, a landing page, email marketing and automated follow-up, it takes a paid Mailchimp plan for the sending and automation plus something else for the client record, against one $24 plan. Which is cheaper also depends on where your list is going, because one bill follows the plan and the other follows the list.
Can I move my contacts over from Mailchimp?
Yes. Export your contacts from Mailchimp as a CSV and AllClients will bring them in for you. Data migration is free and there are no setup fees.
The best way to compare is to try AllClients
Start free. No credit card, no demo, no sales call. Build your setup, then turn on sending when you subscribe.
Start your free trialSwitching from Mailchimp? Export your contacts as a CSV and AllClients will bring them in for you, free.
The two plans compared above are Select at $24 and Premium at $48. Elite is $96 for five users, and there's also EasyContacts, a $9 contact manager with no marketing layer. See full pricing
How we put this together. Every Mailchimp claim on this page comes from Mailchimp's own pricing page, plan documentation and CRM product pages, last checked August 2026. No reviews, roundups or third-party pricing trackers. If something here is out of date, tell us and we'll fix it.