Email marketing
Loops vs Mailchimp
Loops is a much nicer experience if you're a software company sending onboarding, product updates and a newsletter from one place. Mailchimp is the safer choice if you need mature reporting, a big integration list, or you're not a SaaS.
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Loops or Mailchimp — which should you use?
Loops is a much nicer experience if you're a software company sending onboarding, product updates and a newsletter from one place. Mailchimp is the safer choice if you need mature reporting, a big integration list, or you're not a SaaS. Loops starts at Paid plans from roughly $49/month (free tier: Free tier for a small number of contacts.); Mailchimp starts at Essentials from roughly $13/month (free tier: Free plan for small lists.). Prices are list prices and change, so check the vendor pages before buying.
Last updated 3 August 2026
Loops is one of the tools founders recommend to each other and marketers have never heard of. It ships a clean editor, contact properties instead of lists, and event-triggered sequences aimed squarely at software products.
It's young. Reporting is thinner than Mailchimp's, and the integration list is short. For its target user, neither matters much.
Side by side
Loops and Mailchimp in short.
Loops
Email for software companies: campaigns, event-triggered loops and transactional sending in one.
- Free
- Free tier for a small number of contacts.
- Paid from
- Paid plans from roughly $49/month
Good at
- Marketing and transactional email in the same tool with the same templates
- Event-triggered sequences without a separate automation product
- Editor is fast and produces emails that look like a person wrote them
Weak at
- Reporting and segmentation are simpler than incumbents
- Fewer integrations; you'll use the API
Mailchimp
Established email marketing platform priced per contact.
- Free
- Free plan for small lists.
- Paid from
- Essentials from roughly $13/month
Good at
- Deep reporting, A/B testing and audience tools
- Integrates with almost everything
- Cheap at small list sizes
Weak at
- List-based model fits products badly
- Transactional email is a separate product
The differences
Where they actually diverge.
| Feature | Loops | Mailchimp |
|---|---|---|
| Data model | Contacts with properties and events | Lists and audiences |
| Transactional sending | Included | Separate product |
| Reporting depth | Basic | Deep |
| Integrations | Few, plus API | Hundreds |
| Best for | SaaS products | General marketing |
Pick one
Which one fits you.
Choose Loops if
- You send onboarding emails triggered by product events
- You want one tool for product and marketing email
- Design quality with zero effort matters
Choose Mailchimp if
- You need serious reporting or a compliance trail
- You rely on a plugin that only supports Mailchimp
- You're not a software company
When neither is the answer
For pure transactional email — receipts, password resets — use Resend or Postmark and keep marketing separate.
Questions
Common questions.
Is a newer tool a deliverability risk?
Deliverability depends mostly on your own domain reputation and list hygiene, plus the sending infrastructure underneath. Ask any vendor whether you can authenticate your own sending domain — if yes, your reputation travels with you.
Can I export if it doesn't work out?
Contacts and events export from both. Check that before you commit: an email tool you can't leave is a liability.
Prices are list prices published by each vendor and change often — check the linked pricing pages before you buy. We take no affiliate commission and nobody pays to appear here.
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