Zoho Campaigns vs Mailchimp: Which Email Marketing Tool Wins in 2025?

If you’re stuck between Zoho Campaigns and Mailchimp, you’re not alone. Both platforms are popular, both promise easy email marketing, and both are used by thousands of businesses. But once you dig a little deeper… things aren’t as similar as they seem.

Mailchimp is often the first choice for beginners — it’s familiar, polished, and offers a free plan that’s hard to ignore. Zoho Campaigns, on the other hand, flies a little under the radar. But here’s the thing: it quietly delivers powerful automation, deep CRM integration, and super flexible pricing — especially if you’re planning to grow.

So, what do you actually need? Something simple for sending newsletters? Or a tool that can segment, personalize, and automate at scale without charging extra for every new feature? Whether you’re just starting or scaling fast, the right platform will save you time, money, and a whole lot of frustration.

We’ve compared it all — automations, integrations, pricing, deliverability, even customer support. By the end of this post, you’ll know exactly which tool fits your business best — and why it’s probably not the one you thought.

Not sure which platform fits your strategy?

Both Zoho Campaigns and Mailchimp are popular email marketing tools trusted by thousands of businesses — but they serve different types of users. Mailchimp is best known for its ease of use and beginner-friendly interface, while Zoho Campaigns leans into cost-effective, automation-driven marketing that integrates beautifully with the broader Zoho ecosystem.

If you’re running a growing business, chances are you’ll eventually need more automation, more segmentation, and more integration flexibility. And that’s where Zoho Campaigns starts to stand out.

Who is Zoho Campaigns?

Zoho Campaigns is part of the larger Zoho ecosystem — a suite of 45+ apps including CRM, accounting, HR, and project management tools. Launched to help small and medium businesses handle email marketing at scale without breaking the bank, Zoho Campaigns combines powerful automation with deep integration into tools you’re likely already using.

Its value lies in its affordability, customization options, and tight connection with Zoho CRM, making it a natural choice for existing Zoho users or anyone who wants a more holistic marketing system.

Why people choose Zoho Campaigns:

• Built-in CRM integration (no extra tools needed)
• Highly customizable workflows
• Great pricing structure, especially for growing contact lists
• GDPR-compliant email policies
• Native SMS, surveys, and social integrations

Who is Mailchimp?

Mailchimp is one of the most well-known email marketing platforms, used by beginners and small businesses for over two decades. Its core strength lies in its intuitive design, drag-and-drop builder, and robust support documentation. Mailchimp made email marketing accessible for non-techies and solopreneurs — and it’s still a great fit for those just starting out.

However, as many users grow their businesses, they begin to run into limits — especially around automation complexity, CRM functionality, and pricing scalability.

Why people choose Mailchimp:

• A generous free plan (good for smaller lists)
• Clean user interface
• Extensive support library
• Trusted brand reputation
• Easy to set up basic email campaigns

What to expect from Zoho Campaigns

Zoho’s strength isn’t just in its marketing features — it’s the way it connects email, sales, and customer data across your business. If you’re already using tools like Zoho CRM, Zoho Desk, or Zoho Books, you’ll get a tightly connected system that’s hard to match at this price point.

What to expect from Mailchimp

Mailchimp is still a solid tool — especially if your needs are basic, your budget is tight, and you’re not ready to dive into deeper automations. It’s great for newsletters and simple promotional campaigns, and the interface is smooth and beginner-friendly.

Key Differences at a Glance

Automation: Simplicity vs. Custom Journey Mapping

Zoho Campaigns: Automation that grows with you

Zoho Campaigns gives users access to multi-step automation even on its lower-tier plans. You can create workflows based on sign-ups, time delays, past purchases, email activity, and CRM data — all without needing separate tools. The visual workflow builder allows for branching logic, custom actions, and tags that adjust based on how users engage with your emails.

Where Zoho shines is in its tight CRM integration. You can trigger workflows not just from email activity, but also from deal stage changes, lead scores, or activity across other Zoho apps. This is powerful if your business already uses Zoho CRM or plans to adopt it.

Mailchimp: Limited automation unless you upgrade

Mailchimp supports basic automation like welcome series, abandoned cart emails, and product recommendations — but most of these are only available on paid plans. Their automation builder is straightforward but lacks branching or advanced logic unless you’re on the Standard or Premium tier.

As of 2025, Mailchimp’s classic automation builder is being phased out on the free plan. You now need to upgrade even to use simple workflows. That means if you’re just starting out, you’ll find yourself hitting a paywall quickly.

Audience Management and Segmentation

Zoho Campaigns: Flexible, tag-based segmentation

Zoho lets you manage your audience based on custom fields, behaviors, and CRM tags. You can segment by location, open rate, purchase history, or even responses to surveys sent through Zoho Forms. More importantly, Zoho doesn’t double-charge you for the same contact on different lists — a major cost advantage over Mailchimp.

With custom fields and advanced filters, you can create hyper-targeted lists and run personalized campaigns effortlessly.

Mailchimp: Simple, list-based segmentation

Mailchimp uses a list-based structure, which can be restrictive. If one contact is on two lists, you’re charged for that contact twice. Their segmentation options are decent, but limited in flexibility unless you’re on the Standard plan or higher. For many, this results in paying more for less targeting power.

Email Design

Zoho Campaigns: Clean, responsive templates for every use

With over 240 professionally designed templates, Zoho offers a wide variety of modern, mobile-responsive layouts. You can create newsletters, product announcements, seasonal campaigns, and more — all easily customizable. Plus, if you’re a designer or developer, you can import custom HTML templates without restrictions.

They also offer dynamic content blocks, so the same email can show different messages to different people depending on their profile or behavior.

Mailchimp: Decent selection, but limited by plan

Mailchimp offers about 100+ templates, but many of the more polished and modern designs are locked behind the Standard or Premium plan. Users on the free plan often find themselves using older or less customizable templates unless they upgrade.

Email Builder

Zoho Campaigns: Drag-and-drop + advanced blocks

Zoho’s builder includes everything you expect: text, image, video, CTA buttons, social icons, and code blocks. It’s fast, stable, and beginner-friendly — but it also supports conditional content, dynamic images, and RSS-to-email setups. You can even pull in CRM fields directly into the email for extra personalization.

Mailchimp: Easy to use, limited flexibility

Mailchimp’s email builder is simple and clean, and great for basic emails. But if you want conditional content, custom blocks, or dynamic logic — you’ll need to upgrade. And for HTML editing, expect some roadblocks with validation and formatting, especially on the Essentials plan.

Landing Page Builder

Zoho Campaigns: Integrated and advanced (with Zoho Sites)

Zoho’s landing page capabilities are available through Zoho Sites — and the integration is seamless. You can build multi-page, branded landing pages with forms, animations, and embedded video. These pages connect directly to Campaigns and CRM so every lead is captured and nurtured instantly.

You also get access to A/B testing, heatmaps, and behavior-based personalization, especially if you combine with Zoho PageSense.

Mailchimp: Decent but basic

Mailchimp offers a drag-and-drop landing page builder that works well for simple use cases like growing your list or running a promotion. However, customization options are somewhat limited, and it doesn’t integrate deeply with CRM data unless you use external tools or scripts.

Reporting and Analytics

Zoho Campaigns: Deeper insights with CRM connection

Zoho Campaigns offers real-time reporting for opens, clicks, unsubscribes, and bounces — but it goes further by integrating directly with Zoho CRM. That means you can track a contact’s engagement across the entire lifecycle, from first email to closed deal.

You’ll also get heatmaps, device reports, geographic distribution, and campaign comparison reports. For even deeper data, you can use Zoho Analytics to generate custom dashboards — ideal for teams needing multi-channel attribution.

Mailchimp: Clean, but surface-level

Mailchimp’s reports cover the basics well. You’ll see open rates, click-throughs, unsubscribes, and revenue reports for e-commerce campaigns. But unless you’re on a higher-tier plan, deeper insights — like engagement over time, email client data, or comparative reporting — are limited.

Forms

Zoho Campaigns: Smart forms with automation built in

Forms in Zoho Campaigns are dynamic and powerful. You can create inline, popup, slide-in, or embedded forms and trigger automation sequences directly from form submissions.

Each form can assign tags, update CRM fields, or even start a lead scoring journey. You can also add custom fields, enable CAPTCHA, and embed forms on your site or Zoho-hosted pages — all without code.

Mailchimp: Easy but limited

Mailchimp offers basic forms, including embedded and pop-ups. They’re simple and effective for collecting emails, but the customization and conditional logic are minimal. You can’t tie form responses directly to automation triggers or CRM updates without jumping through hoops (or using third-party tools).

CRM

Zoho Campaigns: True CRM integration

With Zoho Campaigns, your marketing and sales data live under the same roof. Campaigns integrates directly with Zoho CRM, enabling detailed automation based on pipeline status, deal values, engagement history, and more.

You can create segments from CRM fields, track lead scores, assign sales tasks, and automate follow-ups — all without leaving the email platform.

Mailchimp: CRM in name, not in depth

Mailchimp offers a lightweight CRM built into its audience dashboard. You can tag contacts and create segments, but there’s no pipeline management, lead scoring, or sales tracking. It’s a stretch to call it a true CRM — and most users end up needing an external CRM platform anyway.

Integrations

Zoho Campaigns: Best for Zoho users, wide reach overall

Zoho Campaigns integrates seamlessly with 500+ apps, including all native Zoho products like CRM, Desk, Books, and Creator. You’ll also find popular third-party integrations with Shopify, WordPress, Eventbrite, Google Workspace, and Zapier.

The Zoho Marketplace makes it easy to extend features through plug-ins — and with Zoho Flow, you can create custom app automations across your tech stack.

Mailchimp: Good range, but limited to 250

Mailchimp supports about 250 integrations, including Stripe, Shopify, QuickBooks, and social platforms. But if you need advanced CRM, accounting, or project management integration, it often requires middleware like Zapier or costly upgrades.

Deliverability

When EmailToolTester ran its email deliverability tests, Zoho Campaigns achieved a 93% average — on par with top tools like ActiveCampaign and ConvertKit. Mailchimp came in slightly behind at 92.6%.

It might not seem like a big difference, but a 0.5% dip could mean thousands of emails never make it to the inbox. And as your list grows, inbox placement becomes even more critical.

Zoho gives you control over sender domain authentication (SPF, DKIM), clean list management, and real-time blacklist monitoring — all essential for staying off spam radars.

Artificial Intelligence

Zoho Campaigns: AI where it counts

Zoho Campaigns uses AI to optimize send times, generate subject line recommendations, and predict audience engagement. When combined with Zoho CRM, you unlock even deeper insights like sales-readiness scores, lead nurturing triggers, and cross-channel predictions.

Mailchimp: AI-lite

Mailchimp offers AI-generated subject lines, basic predictive segmentation, and content recommendations — mostly surface-level tools for saving time. Helpful for beginners, but not quite as intelligent when it comes to adapting full campaigns based on behavior or pipeline activity.

Pricing Breakdown

Zoho Campaigns wins the pricing game — no question. It’s designed to support scaling businesses without ballooning costs. You’re charged per contact (not per list), and automation isn’t locked behind expensive plans.

Mailchimp may be more recognizable, but its pricing structure punishes growth and demands frequent upgrades just to access features Zoho includes by default.

Why do people switch from Mailchimp to Zoho Campaigns?

For many teams, it’s about scaling without being punished for growth. Mailchimp becomes costly once your list grows and quickly shows limits in automation, CRM, and integrations.

Users switching to Zoho Campaigns often cite:

• Lower pricing for larger lists
• Native CRM and sales automation
• More control over segmentation and targeting
• Better email deliverability
• Less dependency on external tools like Zapier

Zoho also provides free onboarding, email migration, and template recreation, making the transition smooth even for teams with complex campaigns.

What real users say

“We were spending over $100/month on Mailchimp for basic email marketing. Switching to Zoho cut that in half — and we gained better automation and CRM tracking.”
— Ecommerce Store Owner

“Mailchimp’s interface is nice, but we outgrew it. Zoho gave us the control and segmentation we needed, especially with CRM syncing.”
— Marketing Agency Manager

Final Thoughts: Which should you choose?

Choose Mailchimp if:

• You’re brand new to email marketing
• You just want a simple, fast solution for newsletters
• You’re okay with limitations as you grow

Choose Zoho Campaigns if:

• You want more automation and better CRM syncing
• You’re price-conscious but need powerful tools
• You plan to scale your business and want the flexibility to grow

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Zoho Campaigns good for beginners?
Yes — the platform is easy to use, offers guided onboarding, and includes a free plan with generous limits. Plus, it scales as your needs grow.

Does Zoho integrate with Mailchimp?
Not directly. If you’re switching, Zoho provides tools to import lists, templates, and even recreate automations from Mailchimp.

Which has better email deliverability?
Zoho Campaigns slightly outperforms Mailchimp in deliverability tests and gives you more control over sender reputation.

Which is better for automation?
Zoho Campaigns. It offers visual workflows, CRM triggers, and branching logic without needing to upgrade to a higher-tier plan.