Omnisend vs. Mailchimp (2025) – Best Email Marketing Tool for Ecommerce?

Who is Omnisend?

Omnisend is a modern email and SMS marketing platform purpose-built for ecommerce. Launched in 2014, it was created with online stores in mind—from the way it handles automation to how it tracks customer behavior across email, SMS, and website interactions. Unlike traditional email tools, Omnisend isn’t just repurposing generic marketing features—it’s engineered for ecommerce growth from the ground up.

The platform shines when it comes to pre-built workflows that help ecommerce businesses hit the ground running. Whether you’re recovering abandoned carts, sending post-purchase thank-yous, or nudging loyal customers with personalized offers, Omnisend simplifies it all. It’s known for its clean interface, responsive support, and seamless integration with platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Wix, and more.

TL;DR: Omnisend is made for ecommerce. It’s not trying to be everything for everyone. It’s trying to be everything for you—if you sell online.

Who is Mailchimp?

Mailchimp has been a household name in email marketing since its launch in 2001. Known for its playful branding and beginner-friendly UI, Mailchimp was one of the first tools to make email marketing accessible for non-tech users. Over the years, it’s grown to include basic CRM, simple automation, social posting, and landing page features—becoming a kind of “all-in-one” platform for general small business use.

While its brand recognition and generous free plan have made it a go-to choice for startups and hobbyists, Mailchimp’s strength lies in simplicity, not ecommerce power. If you’re running a blog, nonprofit, or a small local business with straightforward email needs, Mailchimp might work well. But if you’re running an online store, it quickly starts to show its limits.

In short: Mailchimp is solid for beginners. But it’s not built for scaling ecommerce brands that rely on multichannel communication and advanced customer journeys.

How Do Omnisend and Mailchimp Compare?

At a glance, both platforms offer tools for email marketing, automation, segmentation, forms, and reporting. But when you look under the hood, they start to feel very different. Mailchimp is general-purpose software with email at its core. Omnisend is ecommerce software with automation and multichannel strategy at the core.

This difference becomes clear when you compare real-world features that drive sales: automation flexibility, ecommerce integrations, multichannel messaging, and list management.

Here’s where they start to diverge.

Automation

Omnisend: Automation that drives conversions

Omnisend was built with automation at the heart of its offering. Its drag-and-drop workflow builder is not only easy to use—it’s preloaded with ecommerce automation templates that work out of the box. You can automate key touchpoints like:

• Abandoned cart recovery (with dynamic product blocks)
• Welcome series for new subscribers
• Browse abandonment (when someone looks but doesn’t buy)
• Order confirmation and shipping updates
• Birthday offers and anniversary milestones
• Customer win-back campaigns based on inactivity

Every workflow can combine email, SMS, and push messages in the same sequence—no add-ons, no extra fees. You can also layer filters and triggers like purchase history, last activity, total spend, or product category to customize your flows. This means your automations aren’t just “set and forget”—they’re living, breathing, personalized systems that evolve with your customers.

And yes, every automation is available even on Omnisend’s most affordable paid plan. That’s a game-changer for small ecommerce brands.

Mailchimp: Basic automations unless you upgrade

Mailchimp’s automation capabilities are respectable, but limited—especially on the free and Essentials plans. Most advanced features, including multi-step journeys and branching logic, are locked behind the Standard or Premium tiers. While you can build welcome sequences or abandoned cart flows, the level of customization and ecommerce logic is minimal.

Plus, Mailchimp automations are email-only. If you want SMS, it’s a separate tool and an added cost. Want to include a product recommendation block in your flow? That’ll take some workarounds—and likely a premium subscription.

As of mid-2025, Mailchimp no longer allows users on the free plan to access the classic automation builder. That means no editing or building automations unless you upgrade.

Segmentation & Audience Management

Omnisend: Dynamic, data-rich, ecommerce-ready

Omnisend offers powerful segmentation that updates in real-time. You can create audience groups based on:

• Behavior (opened emails, clicked links, viewed products)
• Shopping data (total spend, product/category purchased, order count)
• Channel engagement (email vs. SMS opens)
• Lifecycle stage (new customer vs. returning vs. lapsed)

Every contact lives in a unified list, and you’re never charged twice for the same person. Plus, Omnisend allows for multi-condition filters and nested logic, which means you can get incredibly granular with targeting—without ever touching code or spreadsheets.

And here’s the kicker: once a segment is created, it’s dynamic. That means as people qualify (or don’t), they’re added or removed automatically. This makes your campaigns smarter, more personalized, and more profitable over time.

Mailchimp: Basic lists and static segments

Mailchimp gives you basic segmentation tools, such as tag-based sorting and static groups based on signup source or location. However, there are significant limitations.

First, lists in Mailchimp are siloed. If the same contact is on multiple lists, you’re charged for them multiple times. Second, dynamic segments are less flexible—you’ll need to do manual clean-up or pay for more powerful logic on higher-tier plans.

And if you’re in ecommerce? Mailchimp just doesn’t offer the kind of product- or revenue-based segmentation that Omnisend does right out of the box.

Email Builder

Omnisend: Built for efficiency and ecommerce sales

Omnisend’s email builder is modern, fast, and designed specifically for ecommerce marketers. You’ll find over 250 pre-made templates that are not only visually appealing but also conversion-optimized. From welcome emails to flash sale promos, every template includes ecommerce elements like:

• Dynamic product blocks (auto-pulls from your store)
• Discount codes and scratch cards
• Product review prompts
• Shop-the-look layouts
• Abandoned cart items

You can build from scratch or start with a template, then drag-and-drop blocks including text, images, videos, buttons, social media icons, and dynamic product feeds. The platform also supports conditional content, so you can show different blocks to different segments within a single email.

Even better? Omnisend’s builder auto-syncs with your store. That means when you drop in a “product recommender” block, it can pull in bestsellers or new arrivals based on browsing behavior or purchase history—no manual input needed.

Mailchimp: Clean interface, but lacks ecommerce DNA

Mailchimp’s email builder is beginner-friendly, with a clean layout and a logical drag-and-drop editor. For simple newsletters, it works great. You can add text, images, buttons, and social media blocks. However, many advanced features—such as conditional content, product blocks, or dynamic recommendations—are either hard to implement or unavailable altogether.

Mailchimp also lacks true product data syncing unless you’ve integrated your store—and even then, customization is more limited than Omnisend. Templates on the free plan are pretty basic, and more modern designs are only unlocked at higher tiers.

Verdict? Mailchimp’s builder is solid, but Omnisend’s is built for selling.

Campaign Design Tools

Omnisend: Fully branded in minutes

Omnisend’s Brand Asset Manager (Brand Kit) allows you to auto-pull your logo, brand colors, and fonts from your ecommerce store and instantly apply them across templates. That means your emails will always look on-brand—without needing a designer.

You can also save and reuse content blocks across campaigns, set up brand-consistent footers, and use prebuilt layouts that match your brand’s aesthetic.

Mailchimp: Manual brand setup

Mailchimp lets you manually customize colors and fonts per email, and you can save branded templates. But there’s no native tool to automatically sync brand assets from your site. That’s fine if you don’t mind setting things up from scratch—but for ecommerce businesses that move fast, this adds time and friction.

Landing Pages

Omnisend: Personalization + conversion-focused features

Omnisend’s landing page builder is simple, mobile-friendly, and optimized for lead capture. You can design product launch pages, limited-time offer pages, or Black Friday event hubs in minutes. You can add forms, countdown timers, product showcases, and even SMS sign-up triggers.

Pages are fully responsive and tie directly into your automations, so when someone fills out a form, they’re instantly added to the right list, segment, or workflow.

Mailchimp: Good builder, limited ecommerce depth

Mailchimp includes a landing page builder on all plans. It offers drag-and-drop design with access to a handful of page templates and form fields. You can create simple pages like newsletter sign-ups or thank-you confirmations, and even sell single products via Stripe integration.

But the personalization options are limited. You won’t find ecommerce-specific blocks, dynamic product showcases, or the ability to add SMS opt-ins directly.

Reporting & Analytics

Omnisend: Sales-driven insights

Omnisend tracks every email, automation, and SMS you send—and ties it directly to sales. You can see how much revenue was generated by each campaign, which products were clicked, and which segments performed best.

Even better, Omnisend’s analytics dashboard surfaces:

• Campaign revenue
• Automation revenue
• Channel performance (email vs. SMS vs. push)
• Click maps
• List growth
• Customer lifecycle breakdowns

If you’re an ecommerce brand, this is the level of insight you need to optimize your customer journey. You don’t just see engagement—you see ROI.

Mailchimp: Solid analytics for email performance

Mailchimp provides all the standard email metrics: open rates, click rates, unsubscribes, bounces, and A/B test results. You can also get some basic e-commerce data (like revenue from campaigns) if you’ve connected your store.

That said, Mailchimp reporting tends to live at the surface. You’ll know if an email performed well, but tying that to customer behavior across channels is harder. And unless you’re on a premium plan, you won’t get access to predictive analytics or multi-channel reporting.

Forms & Popups

Omnisend: Smart, personalized, and built to convert

Omnisend offers a wide variety of signup forms designed to capture leads and boost sales. You can create popups, flyouts, exit-intent overlays, and embedded forms—all without needing code. Each form can be customized to show based on specific behavior (like time on page or cart value), and you can A/B test different versions.

Forms are also fully integrated with your automation flows. When someone signs up through a popup, they’re instantly tagged, segmented, and added to the appropriate workflow.

What really sets Omnisend apart? You can collect email and phone numbers in the same form and even add gamified options like scratch cards and wheel-of-fortune popups for giveaways.

Mailchimp: Basic forms with limited behavior triggers

Mailchimp includes a form builder for embedded signup forms and simple popups. You can customize the fields and add basic styling, but there are fewer options when it comes to behavior triggers or multi-step logic. You won’t find native tools for gamified forms, and collecting SMS alongside email requires extra setup.

SMS & Multichannel Messaging

Omnisend: True multichannel communication

This is where Omnisend truly separates itself from Mailchimp. Omnisend is natively multichannel—meaning email, SMS, and push notifications live inside the same platform. You can build automation workflows that use all three, and contacts can receive messages on their preferred channel.

SMS is not an add-on—it’s part of the platform. You get international sending, two-way messaging (in some countries), and dedicated numbers on paid plans. This allows for:

• Abandoned cart recovery via SMS
• Flash sale alerts via text
• SMS-only subscriber segments
• Multi-step workflows mixing email and SMS

Mailchimp: Email-focused with external SMS

Mailchimp is primarily an email platform. While it does offer SMS functionality, it’s limited and not deeply integrated into automations. You’ll need to use an integration or a separate Twilio-based workflow to add SMS messaging, which increases setup complexity and costs.

CRM Capabilities

Omnisend: Ecommerce CRM, simplified

Omnisend includes built-in tools to manage customer relationships at a glance. While it’s not a full-blown CRM like HubSpot or Salesforce, it gives ecommerce businesses everything they need:

• Contact timelines
• Purchase history
• Custom properties (tags, VIP status, lifetime value, etc.)
• Engagement scores
• Lifecycle stages

All of this data can be used for segmentation and automation. For many ecommerce brands, that’s more than enough to personalize campaigns and automate outreach.

Mailchimp: Tag-based audience management

Mailchimp markets itself as having CRM features, but it doesn’t offer true relationship management. You can apply tags and build basic contact profiles, but you won’t get purchase timelines, lifecycle stages, or deep customer scoring without integrations or custom workarounds.

TL;DR: Omnisend is light CRM that’s deeply ecommerce-aware. Mailchimp is tag-based email sorting.

Integrations

Omnisend: Built for ecommerce

Omnisend integrates with the most popular ecommerce platforms—Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Wix, Magento, and more. It also connects to review apps, loyalty programs, shipping tools, and advertising platforms like Meta and Google Ads.

The integrations are designed to go deep—not just sync names and emails, but full product, order, and behavioral data.

Mailchimp: Broad app support, but less ecommerce depth

Mailchimp supports over 250 integrations across marketing, social media, and ecommerce, including Shopify (re-added in recent years). But many users report that data syncing and ecommerce performance feel shallow, especially compared to tools purpose-built for online selling.

Deliverability

Deliverability is often the silent killer of email campaigns. If your messages aren’t getting into inboxes, your strategy isn’t working.

Omnisend consistently ranks among the top email platforms for deliverability. Its ecommerce-friendly sending infrastructure, engagement-based sending rules, and smart throttling help ensure your campaigns actually reach your audience.

Mailchimp also maintains strong deliverability scores but has been known to penalize accounts more quickly for spam complaints, and their shared sending IPs may cause issues for high-volume senders.

Recent data from EmailToolTester showed Omnisend with a 94%+ deliverability rate, while Mailchimp trailed slightly at around 92%.

Pricing Breakdown

Mailchimp Pricing Overview

• Free Plan: 500 contacts / 1,000 emails/month — limited features, no automation
• Essentials: Starts at $13/month for 500 contacts
• Standard: $20/month — adds automation, templates, and segmentation
• Premium: $350/month — advanced features, phone support, unlimited audiences

Pricing grows quickly as your list expands—and you’re charged for duplicate contacts across lists.

Omnisend Pricing Overview

• Free Plan: Up to 250 contacts and 500 emails/month — includes automation and SMS
• Standard: Starts at $16/month for 500 contacts — full automation, segmentation, and forms
• Pro: Starts at $59/month — adds SMS credits, advanced reporting, and priority support

Omnisend includes automation on all plans and never charges for duplicate contacts. Pricing is transparent and scales affordably for ecommerce brands.

Why Do Brands Switch from Mailchimp to Omnisend?

Many brands start with Mailchimp because of name recognition and a free plan—but quickly hit limits. Common frustrations include:

• No SMS
• Shallow ecommerce integration
• Clunky automation
• Paying for duplicate contacts
• Limited segmentation logic

Omnisend solves these pain points and offers:

• Deep ecommerce workflows
• Email + SMS + push in one platform
• More transparent pricing
• Higher ROI from automation
• Better deliverability + support

Real Customer Reviews

“We switched from Mailchimp to Omnisend and immediately saw a 20% increase in revenue from automations alone.”
— Shopify store owner, G2

“Mailchimp was fine when we were small, but we needed SMS and proper segmentation. Omnisend does both without 5 different tools.”
— WooCommerce user, Capterra

“Omnisend feels like it’s built for us—not just a general tool we have to bend into shape.”
— BigCommerce user, TrustRadius

Final Verdict: Omnisend or Mailchimp?

Choose Mailchimp if you’re a beginner with a tight budget and only need basic newsletters and forms. It’s a good stepping stone.

Choose Omnisend if you’re running an ecommerce brand and want serious growth tools—SMS, automation, product-based campaigns, and deep segmentation included from day one.

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FAQs

What’s better: Omnisend or Mailchimp?

Omnisend is better for ecommerce businesses that want multichannel marketing, automation, and real-time store data. Mailchimp is better for general email marketing and small teams just starting out.

Is Omnisend free?

Yes! Omnisend has a free plan that includes up to 250 contacts, automation workflows, signup forms, and even SMS capabilities.

Can I migrate from Mailchimp to Omnisend?

Absolutely. Omnisend offers free migration tools and tutorials to help you move over your contacts, templates, and automations.