Hubspot vs Mailchimp CRM Comparison 2023: Which Is Best?

Are you in a bit of a dilemma about what’s the best CRM software for your business? 

The choice is now down to two options Hubspot vs Mailchimp. Hubspot, which is a big fish in the marketing universe, and Mailchimp, the email marketing platform that has recently added CRM functionality to its set of features. 

Which one of the two should you opt for? Let's see how the two platforms compare in terms of features and functionality in this detailed Hubspot vs Mailchimp CRM review.

What is the difference between Hubspot and Mailchimp?

The main difference between Mailchimp and Hubspot is that Hubspot was built as a marketing automation platform, while Mailchimp was initially designed as an email marketing tool. Hubspot combines multiple services, including inbound marketing, sales, CMS, operations, and a help desk. Mailchimp has only recently expanded its collection of features.

Hubspot mainly targets small and medium-sized businesses, while Mailchimp’s aimed toward small businesses with basic needs. Many businesses opt for the Hubspot platform as it lets them collect and manage all of their marketing campaigns and customer interactions on an all-in-one unified platform. 

What’s more, the option to mix and match solutions to create bundles makes Hubspot a truly customizable and scalable solution that can grow with your business. Mailchimp is well-liked for its ease of use and intuitiveness, which makes it a solid tool for beginners. 

You can learn more about the main features of Hubspot in this detailed Hubspot review. In case you’re interested in what Mailchimp has to offer, we have a separate Mailchimp review that walks you through the pros and cons of the platform. 

Hubspot vs Mailchimp comparison chart

Hubspot vs Mailchimp pricing

Hubspot's pricing is a bit confusing. There's a variety of app suites with different pricing plans. For example, the HubSpot Sales Hub has three pricing buckets, ranging from $45 per month, $450 per month, and $1,200 per month. The HubSpot Marketing Hub starts at $45 per month and can go as high as $3,200 per month. 

There are also bundles that come with all the essential sales, customer service, CMS, operations, and marketing software. Plans range from $45 per month to $5,000 per month. You can even create your own bundles by combining the type of software your business needs. Keep in mind the price of each plan goes up as you add more contacts and users. 

Mailchimp's pricing structure is slightly less confusing. There are four monthly plans, including a free plan. Paid plans start at $11 per month and go up to $299 per month. The monthly price increases as you add more contacts. 

One great thing about Mailchimp is they have a pay-as-you-go plan. Instead of subscribing to a monthly plan, you can buy email credits as needed. This is a great option for businesses that don't need to send out emails each month as their needs are more infrequent.

Winner: 

Mailchimp wins this round as its pricing structure is more straightforward. Hubspot's paid plans are more robust, but you can get lost trying to figure out the best plan or bundle for your needs. The high price of the monthly plans can be a major issue for startups and small businesses with tight budgets. 

What's more, Hubspot only allows annual contracts. This means that you'll have to pay between $540 to $43,200 at one time, or even more if you need to add more contacts to your monthly plan. Another advantage Mailchimp has is its pay-as-you-go plan that lets you purchase email credits as you need them. But if you need more functionality and flexibility, definitely go with Hubspot. 
 

Mailchimp vs Hubspot free versions

Both Mailchimp and Hubspot have a free version of their software. Hubspot offers many free tools, ranging from sales to marketing tools. From free marketing tools, you'll get forms, email marketing, ad management, landing pages, and shared inbox. 

With Hubspot, you also get email scheduling, documents, contact management, email templates, live chat, and conversational bots. You can have unlimited users and add up to 1,000,000 contacts to your free HubSpot account.

Mailchimp's free plan lets you send up to 2,500 emails per month and add up to 500 contacts. The number of users is limited to one user. You'll get email templates, 300+ integrations, basic reporting and analytics, and forms and landing pages. 

Winner: 

Hubspot wins this round as it has a broader array of free tools. It also supports unlimited users and up to 1,000,000 contacts, which is very generous. Mailchimp’s free version is more limited. 
 

Customer support

Hubspot's customer support is based on which plan you're subscribed to. For example, if you're using the free plan, you can only chat with fellow users in the Hubspot Community or try to fix your issue by reading the help articles in the Knowledge Base. 

You'll also get access to the Hubspot Academy, which contains various videos on different topics. The Starter plans get you email and live chat support too. Professional and Enterprise plans have phone support. If you have multiple subscriptions, your support will be based on your most premium plan.

Mailchimp's customer support works similarly. Users of the free plan will receive email support for the first 30 days; after that, they'll only have access to help videos and tutorials. The Essentials and Standard plans offer 24/7 email and chat support, while the Premium plan offers phone and priority support.

Winner:

Both platforms don’t offer chat or phone support to users of the free plan. This round is a tie. 
 

Knowledgebase & learning

HubSpot has a good deal of self-help resources. There’s a rich knowledge base that contains hundreds of help articles that are easy to search using natural language. There’s an active HubSpot community where HubSpot users can exchange tips. 

The HubSpot Academy is where users can watch video tutorials about the Hubspot software or learn new skills. For developer issues, HubSpot provides all the documentation for their API.

Mailchimp has a rich knowledge base that contains step-by-step videos and tutorials. You can browse the knowledge base by topic or search by feature. 

And if you need help using some of Mailchimp's advanced features or creating a marketing strategy, you can hire an expert. Simply browse the directory of experts to find someone who can help you with what you need. Keep in mind this is a paid service. 

Winner: 

Hubspot has a slight lead in this round as it has the Hubspot Academy and an active community forum. 
 

Ease of use

Even though Hubspot's pricing structure is quite complex, the platform itself is very easy to use and intuitive. Even if you're new to CRM software, you won't have a difficult time figuring out how everything works. You'll manage to onboard your team quickly with minimal effort. There are hundreds of features, but the good news is that each one of the features is easily accessible. 

Overall, Hubspot maintains a balance of power, automation, and ease of use. The only area where there might be a slight learning curve is the custom workflows, as this is where the bulk of automation happens.

Mailchimp is also easy to use for beginners. The user interface is intuitive, and navigating the system is fairly simple. The only issue is that some of the tools are slightly hidden, so a good strategy would be to do a bit of exploring before you start using the platform for your business.

Winner: 

Both Hubspot and Mailchimp are relatively easy to use. Mailchimp has a slight lead here as some of Hubspot’s features, like the custom workflows, can have a steeper learning curve. Hubspot also takes more time to set up. 
 

Product limitations

Hubspot comes with many benefits for small and medium-sized businesses. It can also be a great option for scaling businesses, as the software is fully scalable and customizable. However, larger businesses might find Hubspot's CRM tools to not be advanced enough for their complex needs. 

If you're a larger business with more extensive needs, there may be better options than Hubspot. What's more, Hubspot might not be the best CRM option for niche businesses. If your business requires plenty of customization, you may find the software to have some limitations. 

Mailchimp also has a few limitations. The software is more lightweight than Hubspot, which means businesses with more complex needs will find the software even more lacking than Hubspot. 

Another thing to note is that Mailchimp offers basic automation tools. You’ll find functionalities like auto-responses, automated email reminders, and personalized product recommendations, but that’s basically it. The automation features are suitable for small-scale campaigns. 

Winner: 

We’ll call this round a tie as both systems come with their own product limitations. 

Mailchimp vs Hubspot features & functionality

Now that we’ve covered the basics for each solution, let’s see how the two platforms compare in terms of features and functionality: 

Contact and lead management    

The number of contacts you can add in Hubspot depends on your plan, but you can store as many as one million contacts and company records. There are two ways of adding contacts into the software: manually, or Hubspot can retrieve them from your email inbox or form submissions. Contact profiles can contain detailed information about a person, like contact information, work history, job titles, etc. Contacts can also include information like the contact's stage in their customer journey, their interests, demographics, subscription status, and more. 

You'll get an overview of every interaction you've had with a prospect and use the information to build better campaigns and close more deals. HubSpot will also automatically create a company record every time you add a contact from a new company by pulling information from its proprietary business database. Additionally, you can email and call contacts directly from within the software without jumping to another platform.

Similar to Hubspot, the number of contacts you can store in Mailchimp depends on your plan. For instance, the free plan gives you 500, while the Premium has an unlimited number of contacts. You can either import contacts or set up a signup form to collect new contacts. You can then use tags and segments to create custom categories or groups. 

Winner:

Hubspot wins this round as it has more powerful CRM capabilities when it comes to contact management. You can manage all of your contacts in exceptional detail. For example, you can get granular data like how a contact interacts with your website, how many emails they open, the number of tickets they have opened with the support team, and more. 
 

Segmentation

The HubSpot CRM allows you to create a list of contacts or companies based on a wide variety of criteria: from age to geographic location to expected deal size. You can then use these lists to automate your email marketing efforts and deliver personalized marketing campaigns. You can send customers the information they need based on their current lifecycle stage, as the software is constantly updated with the latest contact information. 

What's more, HubSpot's active lists automatically update when contact information changes. For instance, if a contact was part of a list that targeted people that live in New York and they have relocated to another city, that contact would be removed from that list. 

In Mailchimp, you can use the segmentation feature to target and filter contacts into separate segments by using the data you already have inside the system. You’ll be able to combine up to five conditions to target the right contacts for your campaigns. The conditions can be a mix of your tags, merge fields, or subscriber data. 

For example, you can create a segment of contacts who are based in London, work as CTOs, and have opened your last campaign—and that's only three conditions.

Winner: 

This round is a tie, as both tools have advanced segmentation features. 
 

Landing pages

Hubspot has a free landing page builder that lets you create and test professional-looking landing pages that generate leads. There's no need to hire designers or do any coding to create the landing pages. You can choose from a library of premade templates or build your own custom pages using the drag-and-drop editor. The software will also give you SEO suggestions on how to optimize your landing pages. 

Mailchimp also has a free landing page builder that lets you design beautiful landing pages in a few clicks. You can choose a premade landing page template or create your own using the drag-and-drop editor. 

The software will tell you how your landing pages perform based on the number of visitors, clicks, conversions, revenue, and what content or offerings are most attractive to different audience segments. Even if you're using the free plan, you can create an unlimited number of landing pages. 

Winner:

Mailchimp wins this round as it lets you create an unlimited number of landing pages, even if you're using the freemium version. Hubspot's free plan lets you create up to 20 pages and use the starter templates only. 
 

Email marketing

Hubspot offers a good deal of email marketing features, even with the free plan. You can create your own custom templates using the simple drag-and-drop editor and personalization tokens. 

The free plan also includes 1:1 email, team email, email scheduling, email reply tracking, and five email templates. The paid plans add features like 5,000 email templates, A/B testing, smart send times, and more. HubSpot's marketing CRM lets you connect the CRM to your Gmail or Microsoft Outlook inbox. 

Once you connect your personal network, you'll be able to send emails from the CRM and set up a shared team email account. By using the detailed information you have stored in the CRM, you can make detailed email campaigns that offer a personalized experience to each contact.

Mailchimp has all the email marketing features Hubspot offers. There’s a gallery of pre-built customizable templates you can fine-tune to fit your brand. The number of email templates you can use depends on your plan. You can always create a new template from scratch by using the easy drag-and-drop editor. 

Emails can be personalized, and you can also create transactional emails. You’ll be able to see how your emails perform with analytics like open rate, clickthrough rate, heatmaps, and more. There’s A/B testing to see which emails work the best for your audience. 

Winner: 

Hubspot is the winner here, as it comes with higher-quality templates that require minimal customization. Mailchimp's free email templates have a more basic design and require heavier customization to make them appealing and engaging. 
 

Marketing automation

One of the best marketing automation features of Hubspot is the Sequences tool. This tool lets you send email sequences without having to go back and schedule each individual message. You can even use personalization tokens to tailor the emails with contact and company details from the CRM. Meaning you can add specific details about a contact or company to engage with them in a more personal and human way.

You can easily create sophisticated, targeted workflows with ease. The visual editor makes it easy to envision workflows in real time – whether you're building simple follow-up campaigns or complex, multi-stage journeys. What's more, you can also automate many other tasks beyond just email. You can use workflows to set up webhooks, score leads, rotate leads to sales, manage your data in bulk, and more.

Mailchimp offers basic marketing automation that lets you send automated emails triggered by a specific action, like a new customer signup or an existing customer making a purchase. There are also customer journeys, which is a more advanced automation feature.

By using customer journeys, you can build an automated marketing path with multiple starting points and branches. There are pre-built customer journeys or you can create one from scratch by using the builder. 

Winner: 

Hubspot is the winner as it has more advanced marketing automation features. Mailchimp comes with more basic automation features that are suitable for businesses with humble needs.
 

Integrations

Hubspot integrates with 200+ third-party apps, and new integrations are being added daily. If you go to the Hubspot App Marketplace, you’ll find all kinds of integrations with tools like WordPress, Mailchimp, Google Workspace, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Zendesk, Zoho CRM, Wistia, and many more.

Mailchimp integrates with 300+ third-party apps, ranging from e-commerce and payments to productivity and design apps. 

Hubspot Mailchimp integration is possible with Zapier. Zapier lets you send info between HubSpot and Mailchimp automatically and allows you to combine these two tools into a powerful Mailchimp Hubspot CRM.

Winner: 

This round is a tie as both platforms integrate with all the most popular and widely used tools. 

A note on hubspot to mailchimp integration

If you want to use the two apps together and unite all of your customer data in one platform, you’ll be happy to hear there’s a Hubspot-Mailchimp integration possible. You can easily integrate the two tools in a few different ways. 

The HubSpot data sync lets you create a one-way or two-way sync between HubSpot and Mailchimp. You can also enable a Mailchimp-Hubspot CRM integration via Zapier. Refer to Zapier's documentation to learn more. 
 

Mobile versions

All users can download the Hubspot mobile apps, even those on the free plan. The mobile apps for Android and iOS have a clean interface and are good for performing most of the basic CRM stuff. You can set and review tasks, work on deals, access your customer contact records, update customer details, and more. 

Mailchimp also supports work on the go and has a mobile app for Android and iOS. The mobile apps come with features like a business card scanner, creating and sending emails, creating landing pages, tracking the performance of your ongoing campaigns, and more.

Winner: 

This round goes to Mailchimp as its mobile apps are easier to use simply because the platform is more lightweight than Hubspot. The robustness of Hubspot makes it challenging to find your way around the rich functionality from a small screen. 
 

Reporting and analytics 

Hubspot has an extensive suite of reporting features. The free plan gives you access to 90+ basic reports, like open email rate and link click rate. Custom reporting is only available with the higher tiers. If you've subscribed to the Professional plan, you can create up to 100 custom reports. 

The Analytics feature is more advanced than the reporting functionality and is a great option for businesses that want to integrate the CRM with the marketing hub. For instance, you can use the Analytics tool to analyze your pages' performance and identify which traffic sources bring in the most website sessions, contacts, and customers.

Mailchimp comes with a solid reporting feature that lets you analyze the performance of your campaigns. For example, you can track metrics like the number of opens, clicks, orders generated by the campaign, total order revenue, and more. The reporting feature also tracks the performance of your landing pages and social media posts/ads. 

A neat feature called Comparative Reports lets you measure the performance of any number of campaigns to identify patterns in subscriber engagement so that you can improve your content. You can track your landing pages or website using the Google Analytics integration to understand the behavior of your visitors.

Winner:

We give this round to Hubspot. Although Mailchimp has solid reporting capabilities, HubSpot has more advanced analytics, insights, and reporting features, especially in the higher pricing tiers.

Which is better, Mailchimp or Hubspot? Our conclusion

Finally, we arrive at the end of this comparison review, where we'll give a longer answer to which platform is better for your business, Mailchimp or Hubspot.

We compared the two software solutions across a number of categories to see which one is better than the other. According to our analysis, Hubspot seems to offer a richer free plan, more powerful marketing automation features, and more robust reporting and analytics capabilities. 

Mailchimp, on the other hand, seems to have a better ease of use, more straightforward and flexible pricing, and excellent email marketing features. 

In the end, the best software for you will depend on your budget, business goals, and what kind of CRM software capabilities you need. Hubspot is an affordable-yet-powerful option that can be ideal for small and medium-sized businesses and growth-focused organizations. If you need a CRM system that can integrate seamlessly with a marketing or sales tool, so you don't have to invest in separate software, then Hubspot is the right choice. 

Mailchimp can be a great option for small business owners and startups with tight budgets and little or no previous digital marketing expertise. The platform is suitable for beginners who want to get up and running quickly. Everything is effortless to use and very intuitive, so you won't have a hard time creating your first marketing campaign.

The good news is that both platforms have a free plan. Make sure you take advantage of this option to test their features before you commit to a paid subscription. And in case you want to explore other options besides Hubspot and Mailchimp, we have a post that compares the best customer management software tools and systems.