Substack Vs Mailchimp: Which Email Marketing Platform Is The Best?

A comparison of the email marketing platforms, Substack, and Mailchimp.

I was searching for a solution that could give me the ability to send unlimited emails to my fans and followers. Email marketing is one of the best marketing tools for any content creator who is thinking long-term. If you are thinking about starting a newsletter, Substack and Mailchimp are the two platforms that you should look into. In this article, we have thoroughly discussed the difference between Substack and Mailchimp

The Internet is changing. I remember when I started writing on a free blogger blog and was struggling to make money even though I didn’t have any money to invest in buying my own custom domain and hosting.

A new and improved platform is emerging. With the rise of the paid newsletter, and a lot of people making a good amount of money through building an email list and then monetizing it through getting paid readers.

You can watch the video where I have explained my personal experience with Substack as well as Mailchimp:

What is Substack? Pros and Cons:

Substack is a platform that gives everyone the opportunity to make a newsletter and make money in a variety of ways. I have subscribed to one of the newsletters and that writer monetized his big 20K email subscribers sponsored by the small businesses or startups. The main idea behind the business model of Substack is to give writers the opportunity to monetize their newsletter by getting paid readers.

You can fix your monthly and yearly subscription charges and 10% of the subscription charges go to Substack. A $10/month subscription, $1 will goes to Substack as service charges. This business model works fine as time passes by and the platform gets more quality and famous content creators.

Pros of writing on Substack:

• It’s free.
• You could get a custom domain on Substack which is good for branding.
• You get the opportunity to monetize your Substack newsletter through getting paid readers.
• You could also use Substack as a platform to capture emails and build yourself a community. Even if you are blogging on your blog, you could use Substack as a free platform to send bulk emails that other platforms let you do that if you pay them.
• You could build yourself a community around a common interest.
• You get a sub-domain too if you don’t want to attach a custom domain and it getting ranked on search engine and generate your email leads organically.
• You can also export and import emails list to and from Substack.

Cons of writing on a substack publication:

1. You could only make money by getting paid readers and running sponsored posts. The monetization is very limited.
2. There are very few statistics available like what country your email subscribers are from, their interests, and the age group.

I will definitely list down the disadvantage of not having a brand identity on Substack but they recently announced that you can add a custom domain with a Substack publication which makes me not list down here because you have complete freedom.

What is Mailchimp? Pros and Cons:

Mailchimp is *not a writing platform* but software or SaaS that could help you to capture and send emails to your people who have subscribed to your email list. Mailchimp isn’t free. The platform gives you the opportunity to use their services for free if you have less than 1,000 email subscribers. If you are planning long-term then Mailchimp would costs you more on a monthly basis ad the cost will increase as you get more subscribers.

As you can see, you have to pay $15 every month to manage 100K email subscribers but there is a part that most people missed here and it is “They could suspend your account if you do a minor mistake”

The suspension is permanent and they sometimes don’t explain the reason why they have suspended your account.

Pros of using Mailchimp:

1. Mailchimp gives you more stats about your audience.
2. Mailchimp gives a lot of tools like making your own landing page, different email templates, and other premium designs that help you get more email subscribers.

Cons of using Mailchimp:

1. Mailchimp is a paid platform. Unless and until you are making a good amount of money from your blog, Mailchimp isn’t worth it.
2. Your account could be suspended at any time and you will lose everything. You will still have the opportunity to export your contacts but you have to change all the links that you have added in your blog posts.

If you ask me, Substack should be your first choice. You can invest $50 and buying a custom domain and attach it with your Substack publication to make your publication a brand.

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Read more articles:

• Medium Vs Substack: Which writing platform is the best?

• Substack writing: How to make money writing on Substack?

• Ghost Vs Substack: Which email marketing platform is the best?

I hope this helps.