Mailchimp vs Substack
Side-by-side comparison of Mailchimp and Substack.
Email marketing platform built for growing audiences
Newsletter publishing and monetization in one place
What they are
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is an email marketing and automation platform used by independent creators, small businesses, and e-commerce brands to build subscriber lists, send campaigns, and track engagement. It offers drag-and-drop email builders, audience segmentation, and basic landing pages. The platform is mature and well-documented, though its pricing scales quickly once your list grows beyond a few hundred contacts.
Substack
Substack is a publishing platform where writers host email newsletters and charge subscribers a recurring fee. Independent journalists, essayists, and niche experts use it to build direct audiences without relying on ad revenue. The platform handles payments, delivery, and a basic website automatically. Substack takes a 10% cut of paid subscription revenue on top of stripe fees, which becomes a real cost as an audience grows.
if you need email marketing. Starts at 13/mo.
- +Extensive template library covers most creator use cases out of the box
- +Audience segmentation lets you target specific subscriber groups
- +Built-in analytics show open rates, click rates, and revenue attribution
if you need hosting and monetization. It has a usable free tier to start with.
- +Free to start with no upfront cost
- +Built-in payment processing removes the need for a separate tool
- +Readers can comment and respond, creating light community features
Which to choose
Mailchimp and Substack both cover email marketing, so this is a real either-or for some teams. The right pick depends on which one's wider feature set and pricing fit how you work.
Read the full reviews for Mailchimp and Substack.
Pricing checked 8 Jun 2026.