Mailchimp
Summary
Email marketing service expanding into a full marketing automation platform.
Parent organisation: The Rocket Science Group
Type of organisation: Privately-owned company (or group)
Market share: Market dominance
Pricing: Free-$299/month
Factors driving pricing: Additional features, Ability to whitelabel or customise
Skills needed to set-up: Needs tool/domain expert to configure
Skills needed to use: Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it)
Parent organisation: The Rocket Science Group
Type of organisation: Privately-owned company (or group)
Market share: Market dominance
Pricing: Free-$299/month
Factors driving pricing: Additional features, Ability to whitelabel or customise
Skills needed to set-up: Needs tool/domain expert to configure
Skills needed to use: Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it)
Pros
Open Source alternatives available
Releases new features regularly
Transparent pricing model
Clear data policies
Allows data deletion
Cons
Newsworthy business issues/challenges - Mailchimp and Shopify break up, Before breaking up with Shopify, Mailchimp quietly acquired a Shopify competitor
Newsworthy security breaches - MailChimp ‘working’ to stop hackers flinging malware-laced spam from accounts
Lacks accessibility statement
Does not share diversity data
Full Product Data Collection
Data collected January-February 2020
| Product name | Mailchimp |
| Product URL | https://mailchimp.com/ |
| Parent organisation | The Rocket Science Group |
| Workflow category | Publishing & distribution |
| Date product founded | 2001 |
| Product description | Email marketing service expanding into a full marketing automation platform. |
| What type of company or organisation is the product owned by? | Privately-owned company (or group) |
| Is the company profit-making? | Yes, profitable |
| How is this product funded? | Subscriptions |
| What market share does the tool have? | Market dominance |
| Is there an Open Source alternative in this product space? | Yes. Mailtrain, Sympa, phpList |
| When did the company last release new features? | November 2019: Launched website builder tool in beta. |
| Have they shared details of the product roadmap? | No |
| Is there talk of the product raising further investment? | No |
| Is there talk of the product being acquired? | No |
| Have there been any newsworthy business issues or challenges in the last 12 months? | Yes. Mailchimp and Shopify break up, Before breaking up with Shopify, Mailchimp quietly acquired a Shopify competitor |
| Is there a pricing model listed on the website? | Yes |
| How clear & transparent is this pricing model? | Very: full pricing listed |
| What is the range of prices offered? | Free tier available. Essentials $9.99/month Standard $14.99/month Premium $299/month Pay As You Go option for infrequent users: $150 for 5000 credits Note: all plans offer 15% discount for non-profit orgs and charities. |
| What factors drive higher pricing? | Additional features, Ability to whitelabel or customise |
| What skills are needed to get this tool set up & usable? | Needs tool/domain expert to configure |
| What skills are needed to USE this tool day-to-day? | Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it) |
| Does this tool use proprietary file formats for saving documents & outputs? | Defaults to common open standard file formats |
| Is the product reliant on 3rd-party APIs or interoperability to function? | No |
| Have there been any newsworthy technical issues in the last 3 years? | No |
| How clear is the Terms of Service for users (i.e. publishing customers)? | Technical, legalistic TOS |
| Does the product have a data collection & usage policy on its website? (Can be a GDPR statement)? | Yes, comprehensive. |
| Is their data policy “GDPR everywhere”? | No GDPR policy information available |
| Does the product require your audience to sign-in to use it? | N/A not an audience-facing tool |
| IF SIGN IN REQUIRED: Does audience sign-in use 3rd party platforms? | N/A not an audience-facing tool |
| Does the public product website mention how to export or transfer your data to another service? | Only partial exports available |
| Does the public product website mention how to delete your data? | Yes: for both publisher and audience data |
| Have there been any newsworthy security breaches with this product in the last 3 years? | Yes. MailChimp ‘working’ to stop hackers flinging malware-laced spam from accounts |
| Does the company have an accessibility statement on its website? | No / cannot find |
| Does the company release information on the diversity of the workforce? | No |