Home › Compare › Mailchimp vs Substack
Mailchimp vs Substack
Mailchimp: Email and SMS marketing minus the learning curve. Substack: Writers making money doing the work they believe in. Same fact set for both, straight from each vendor's docs.
Mailchimp
- Free tier
- Free plan, up to 500 contacts (500 sends/mo)
- Paid from
- $13/mo (Essentials, 500 contacts); scales with contact count · pricing page
- Public API
- Yes docs
- MCP server
- Yes · Official MCP for Transactional (Mandrill) in dev docs; Marketing API MCPs are community
- Best for
- Email and SMS marketing minus the learning curve
- Website
- https://mailchimp.com
Substack
- Free tier
- Free to publish, no subscriber cap
- Paid from
- No monthly fee; 10% of paid subscription revenue plus Stripe fees · pricing page
- Public API
- Yes docs
- MCP server
- Community · Community servers on GitHub only
- Best for
- Writers making money doing the work they believe in
- Website
- https://substack.com
Which one?
Mailchimp suits email and sms marketing minus the learning curve. Substack suits writers making money doing the work they believe in. Pricing changes; the fact tables above link both vendors' live pricing pages. For the rest of the field, see Mailchimp alternatives, Substack alternatives, or the full table.