Mailchimp vs SendGrid

The type of email you send makes the choice for most people. Marketers who want to send newsletters and campaigns without code choose Mailchimp. Developers who need to send emails from an application choose SendGrid. If you are not sure which group your emails fall into, our guide to transactional vs marketing email explains the difference. Founders who need both usually end up with two subscriptions.

SendGrid ended its permanent free plan in March 2025. It used to offer 100 emails a day for free, forever. New accounts now get a 60-day trial at 100 emails a day, then must move to Essentials ($19.95/month for 50,000 emails) or higher. Mailchimp still has a free plan, but it shrank to 250 contacts and 500 emails a month.

Mailchimp's pricing grows with your list; SendGrid's grows with your sending. Mailchimp Standard costs $100/month at 5,000 contacts and $450/month at 50,000, and each plan caps monthly sends at a multiple of your contacts (12x on Standard). SendGrid charges by emails sent: $34.95/month covers 100,000 emails whether you store 1,000 contacts or 100,000.

SendGrid Marketing Campaigns is not a full Mailchimp replacement. It covers campaign sending, automation and segmentation, but it has nothing like Mailchimp's 300+ integrations, landing pages or marketer-first editor. Developers who try to run everything in SendGrid often find the marketing side thin compared to a dedicated email marketing platform.

The typical SaaS setup ends up with two bills. Transactional email goes through SendGrid or a cheaper API such as Amazon SES (see AWS SES vs SendGrid) or Resend (see Resend vs SendGrid), and marketing goes through Mailchimp or another platform. For more options on both sides, see our full list of email providers.

Mailchimp Transactional, formerly Mandrill, is Mailchimp's answer to SendGrid. It is an API and SMTP service for app-triggered emails, sold only as an add-on to the Standard and Premium plans (not Free or Essentials). You buy blocks of 25,000 emails: $20 per block up to 500,000 emails a month, falling to $18, $16 and eventually $10 per block at higher volumes. A dedicated IP costs $29.95/month. New accounts get 500 free test sends to a verified domain.

On price, SendGrid wins at low and mid volume. At 25,000 transactional emails a month, Mandrill costs $20 plus a Standard plan (from $20), so $40+/month, while SendGrid Essentials is $19.95 for up to 50,000. At 100,000 emails, Mandrill is four blocks ($80) plus the plan, so $100+/month, against $34.95 on SendGrid. For a dedicated IP, Mandrill adds $29.95; SendGrid includes one from Pro ($89.95).

When Mandrill makes sense: you are already paying for Mailchimp Standard and want one vendor, one bill and one place for contacts and templates. If you are not on Mailchimp, a dedicated transactional API (SendGrid, Amazon SES or Resend) costs less for the same volume.

Neither company publishes independent inbox-placement data you can compare. Both run large shared IP pools, so on entry plans your reputation is partly shaped by other senders. Mailchimp advertises 99% deliverability on its transactional page, but that is a vendor claim, not a third-party test.

Your own setup matters more than the vendor. Inbox placement depends mostly on authentication (SPF, DKIM and a DMARC record), list quality and steady sending volume. A dedicated IP only helps once you send consistently at high volume: SendGrid includes one on Pro, Mandrill charges $29.95/month.

Keep transactional and marketing email apart. Send them from separate subdomains (and IPs, if you have them) so a spike in campaign complaints can't delay password resets. Our email deliverability best practices cover the rest.