Everyone knows Mailchimp, and Omnisend is becoming better known in the ecommerce industry by the day. If you are choosing between the two for your store, the real question is not which is more famous, but which fits your ecommerce better.
The underlying difference is quick to sum up: Mailchimp is a generalist email marketing platform, built for all kinds of business. Omnisend is a tool specialised in ecommerce. One covers a lot of ground. The other goes deep on one specific area, online stores. At STRAT we are an Omnisend Agency Partner and work with it every day, so we tell you how they differ, where each one wins and who each platform is for.
What you need to know if you are in a hurry
If you do not have time to read it all, here is a quick summary:
Choose Omnisend if you have an online store and want email, SMS and push in a single tool, with ready-to-use email flows and an affordable price. It is the logical option for an ecommerce that wants to sell more without assembling a puzzle of tools.
Choose Mailchimp if you want a more generalist email marketing platform, with plenty of templates, a highly recognisable brand and a broad ecosystem, or if ecommerce is not your only focus.
| Omnisend | Mailchimp | |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | Ecommerce specialist | Generalist marketing (all-in-one) |
| Founded | 2014, Lithuania | 2001, US (Intuit since 2021) |
| Channels | Email, SMS and push unified | Email (SMS and transactional as add-ons) |
| Automation | Ready-to-use ecommerce flows | Multi-step only from Standard (200-point limit) |
| Automation on the free plan | Yes | No |
| Segmentation | Purchase and behaviour oriented | Predictive and behaviour based (from Standard) |
| Free plan | 250 contacts, 500 emails and push, with automation and 24/7 support | 250 contacts, 500 emails, no automation |
| Billing | By number of contacts | By contacts, including unsubscribed ones |
| SMS | Built into the platform (credits) | Paid add-on |
| Transactional email | Handled by your store (Shopify, etc.) | Paid add-on (Mandrill) |
| Ecommerce integration | Native and deep (Shopify, WooCommerce...) | Broad, but general-purpose |
| Support | Chat and email 24/7, including on the free plan | 24/7 on paid plans; on the free one, only 30 days |
| Price (50k contacts, Standard) | ~$330/mo | ~$450/mo |
Where they come from: the veteran generalist versus the ecommerce specialist
Mailchimp: the generalist everyone knows
Mailchimp was founded in 2001 in the United States and became synonymous with email marketing for small businesses of every kind. In 2021 Intuit bought it for $12 billion, and since then it has grown as a generalist marketing suite: email, landing pages, websites, ads and a light CRM. Its strong suit is the brand, the ease of starting and an enormous template library. Its natural ground is any business that wants to send newsletters, not just ecommerce.
Omnisend: the ecommerce specialist
Omnisend was founded in 2014 in Lithuania and took the opposite path: instead of covering everything, it focused on online stores. That is why it is built around ecommerce, with email, SMS and push in the same platform and automations designed to sell. More than 150,000 brands use it. It does not try to be the tool for every business, but the best tool for one in particular: the one that sells online.
The difference that changes everything: generalist versus specialist
Here is the point that decides almost the whole comparison. Mailchimp is horizontal: it covers many marketing needs for many types of company. Omnisend is vertical: it covers the needs of an ecommerce in depth.
What does that mean in practice? That in Mailchimp you will find features for almost anything, but the ones an ecommerce uses every day (cart automation, repeat-purchase flows, SMS in the same journey) are either on higher plans or separate add-ons. In Omnisend those features are the centre of the product and come as standard. It is not that one is good and the other bad. It is that they are designed for different problems.
Channels: email, SMS and push in one, or email with add-ons
Omnisend integrates email, SMS and push notifications in the same tool, and lets you combine them in a single flow: an email, a reminder push and a final SMS, all coordinated. For a store that wants several touchpoints, that simplifies a lot.
In Mailchimp the central channel is email. SMS exists, but as a paid add-on with credits that expire each month and only in some countries. And transactional email (order confirmations, shipping notices) is another separate add-on. For an ecommerce, that means more pieces to add up and more costs to keep an eye on.
Email flows
Email flows are where an ecommerce makes or loses money, so they are worth a close look.
Omnisend has the key flows already built: welcome, abandoned cart, browse abandonment, post-purchase, inactive-customer recovery and birthday, among others. You personalise them and off you go. And you have them even on the free plan.
In Mailchimp, multi-step automation only unlocks from the Standard plan, with a cap of 200 points per journey. On the lower plans you do not have it, and on the free plan it disappeared outright in 2026. For a store that lives on automated flows, that is an important point to weigh.
Editor, templates and ease of use
Mailchimp deserves credit on its strong ground: the editor is comfortable, the brand inspires confidence and its template library is enormous and very polished. For anyone prioritising design and template variety, it is among the most complete on the market.
Omnisend has a drag-and-drop editor too, clean and quick, with product blocks that pull items from your catalogue and dynamic discounts. It is built to assemble store campaigns fast, with no design team. Fewer templates, more oriented to selling product.
Segmentation and ecommerce data
Both segment well. Mailchimp offers predictive and behavioural segmentation from the Standard plan. Omnisend segments around what matters in a store: purchase history, browsing behaviour and engagement level, with the sale as the focus. If your strategy revolves around the ecommerce customer lifecycle, Omnisend takes you there by the short route.
Integrations with your store
Omnisend integrates natively and deeply with ecommerce platforms: Shopify, Shopify Plus, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Wix and others, with a connection that takes minutes and a very high rating on the Shopify App Store. Mailchimp integrates with many tools, but from its generalist logic: it connects with ecommerce platforms, though store-data depth is not its speciality. If your business is the store, Omnisend's native integration plays in your favour.
Pricing: how much and, above all, how they bill
Both have a free plan (250 contacts, 500 emails). From there, comparing Standard plan with Standard plan at the same number of contacts, Omnisend is cheaper across every tier, and the gap widens as the list grows.
Monthly price: Omnisend vs Mailchimp
Each platform's Standard plan, by number of contacts (USD/mo, email only, excluding SMS and add-ons).
Tap or slide your finger across the chart to see the amounts.
Indicative 2026 figures (Standard plan, US, in dollars, excluding SMS and transactional email). Check the current price for your real contact volume.
But the list price is not the whole story, and here it is worth looking at the billing model.
Worth bearing in mind on the Mailchimp bill
Mailchimp bills by number of contacts, and includes unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts until you archive them by hand. On established lists, that usually means paying for a share of contacts who no longer open anything. Add that SMS and transactional email are separate paid add-ons, and that the free plan was cut back in 2026 (250 contacts, 500 sends, no automation). The result is that the real bill tends to come in above the price you see on the rate card.
Omnisend bills by contacts too, but with push included, 24/7 support even on the free plan and a more predictable model. For a store, it usually translates into fewer surprises at the end of the month.
Support
Omnisend offers chat and email 24/7, and does so even on the free plan, which is unusual. Mailchimp provides 24/7 support on paid plans, but on the free plan it is limited to the first 30 days. When you build campaigns against the clock, having support at any hour makes a difference.
So which one do I choose?
Choose Omnisend if: you have an online store and want email, SMS and push in a single tool, ready-to-use ecommerce automations from day one, native integration with Shopify or WooCommerce and a predictable price. It is the option built to sell more without complicating things.
Choose Mailchimp if: you want a generalist marketing platform for several types of communication, you value its template library and its brand, and ecommerce is not your only focus. For a business that is not a store, its breadth may fit better.
And the tip we always give: think two years out, not just today. Changing email tool is not dramatic (contacts export, flows get rebuilt), but the analytics history and the tests do not migrate. Choose where you want to be, not just where you are.
How we see it at STRAT
We are an Omnisend Agency Partner and know it inside out: we know what kind of store it performs for, how to build the flows that generate the most revenue and how to make the most of it without overpaying. We are not Mailchimp partners, so what we have told you about it is an honest analysis from the outside. For an ecommerce that wants email, SMS and push working together at a contained cost, Omnisend is our default recommendation, and if you are coming from Mailchimp, that migration is exactly one of the areas where we support you.
Frequently asked questions
Omnisend or Mailchimp, which is better for an ecommerce? For an online store, generally Omnisend. It is built around ecommerce: email, SMS and push in a single tool, ready sales automations and predictable pricing. Mailchimp is generalist and many features key to a store sit on higher plans or as add-ons.
Which is cheaper? Omnisend usually comes out cheaper at the same number of contacts on the Standard plan, and the gap widens as the list grows. On top of that, Mailchimp bills every contact, including unsubscribed ones, and charges separately for SMS and transactional email.
Is Mailchimp any good for ecommerce? It can be used, but it is built as a general-purpose marketing tool. For an ecommerce you will notice that multi-step automation only appears from Standard, that SMS and transactional are add-ons, and that the integration with your store is less specialised.
Does Omnisend include SMS and Mailchimp doesn't? Omnisend integrates email, SMS and push in the same platform and combines them in a single flow. In Mailchimp, SMS is a paid add-on with credits that expire each month and only in some countries, and transactional is another add-on.
Which free plan is better? Omnisend's is more complete for a store: it includes automation, segmentation and 24/7 support. Mailchimp's was cut back in 2026 to 250 contacts and 500 sends, with no automation, so it serves mainly to try out the interface.
Can I migrate from Mailchimp to Omnisend? Yes. Contacts export and import without much trouble and the flows get rebuilt. What does not migrate is the analytics history and accumulated tests. At STRAT we support that migration.
If you have an online store and want to get everything Omnisend offers, at STRAT we are an Omnisend Partner agency and we build the email, SMS and automation strategy that moves your revenue. And if you are coming from Mailchimp, we support the Mailchimp to Omnisend migration without losing contacts or subscription statuses along the way.
