Mailchimp vs Mailgun
Side-by-side plans, pricing, and feature gates for Mailchimp and Mailgun, verified . Mailchimp is primarily email marketing; Mailgun is primarily transactional email.
Plans side by side
Every published plan from each vendor, with the headline monthly anchor price. Some prices scale with subscriber count or seats; full detail lives on each tool's page.
Mailchimp
- Free
Up to 250 contacts, 500 sends/month
Free - Essentials
Entry paid tier with A/B testing
$13/mo - Standard
Most popular paid tier
$20/mo - Premium
For high-volume senders and bigger teams
$350/mo
Mailgun
- Free
Hobby tier capped at 100 emails per day
Free - Basic
Entry paid tier with 10,000 emails/month included
$15/mo - Foundation
50,000 emails/month with template builder and full inbound routing
$35/mo - Scale
100,000 emails/month with SAML SSO, dedicated IP, and live support
$90/mo - Enterprise
Custom contracting for high-volume senders
Custom
Limits at the entry paid tier
Compares Essentials (Mailchimp) against Basic (Mailgun). Both are the lowest-priced non-free, non-custom plan on each side.
| Limit | Mailchimp | Mailgun |
|---|---|---|
| Contacts | 500 contacts (anchor; scales up) | · |
| Emails / month | 5,000 sends (10x contacts) | 10,000 |
| Team seats | 3 | · |
| Automations | 4 flow steps | · |
| Campaigns | 3 audiences | · |
When Mailchimp wins
- Small businesses that want one tool with a real onboarding flow and a huge integration list
- Teams already living in Intuit (QuickBooks) products
- Operators who want a brand-name vendor for stakeholder approval
Where Mailchimp is the wrong fit
- Creators with growing newsletters; the per-contact tax compounds (Kit, beehiiv, or MailerLite tend to be cheaper at 10k+ subscribers)
- B2B sales teams; the CRM is light versus HubSpot or ActiveCampaign
- Teams needing predictive AI on a budget; you have to jump to the $350 Premium plan
When Mailgun wins
- Developers integrating receipts, notifications, and password-reset emails
- Teams already on a marketing ESP that need a separate transactional channel
- High-volume B2B applications with strict deliverability requirements
Where Mailgun is the wrong fit
- Marketing teams seeking campaign tooling (use Mailchimp or Kit)
- Creators sending newsletters (use Kit or beehiiv)
- Free-tier hobbyists with low total volume but spiky daily-cap-bumping use cases
Common questions
- Is Mailchimp cheaper than Mailgun?
- Both Mailchimp and Mailgun have free or custom entry pricing, so a direct entry-tier price comparison is not meaningful.
- Does Mailchimp or Mailgun have a free plan?
- Both have free plans. Mailchimp: Up to 250 contacts, 500 sends/month. Mailgun: Hobby tier capped at 100 emails per day.
- Are Mailchimp and Mailgun in the same category?
- No. Mailchimp is primarily a email marketing tool; Mailgun is primarily a transactional email tool. They overlap on use case but sit in different primary categories, so the comparison is between adjacent tools rather than direct competitors.
- Which has more plans, Mailchimp or Mailgun?
- Mailgun ships 5 plans; Mailchimp ships 4. Mailgun's longer ladder gives more granular upgrade steps, which can mean smoother price escalation as your team scales.
- Where can I see alternatives to Mailchimp or Mailgun?
- Each tool has a dedicated alternatives page on TierGauge with ranked options and verified pricing: /alternatives/mailchimp for Mailchimp and /alternatives/mailgun for Mailgun. Alternatives are derived from each tool's editor-flagged competitors plus same-category tools we track.
Mailchimp: https://mailchimp.com/pricing/marketing/ · Mailgun: https://www.mailgun.com/pricing/
Last verified . Pricing changes between refreshes; confirm at the vendor before purchasing.