Omnisend vs Mailchimp: pricing, ecommerce automation and which to choose

Omnisend and Mailchimp come at email marketing from opposite directions. Omnisend was built for online stores, and nearly every feature assumes you sell products. Mailchimp is a general marketing platform for small businesses of every kind, with ecommerce as one important use among many. Both have free plans, both connect to Shopify, and both now sell text messaging.

This guide compares them on what actually changes your decision: how each bills, what the free plans allow, automation, segmentation, AI and store data. Every fact about Omnisend and Mailchimp comes from their own pricing pages and help centers, read in October 2026. Prices and promotions change often, so check both pricing pages with your own list size before you commit.

Omnisend vs Mailchimp at a glance

The short version: if your business is an online store and automation drives your email revenue, Omnisend gives you more ecommerce tooling for the money. If you send newsletters, run a service business or sell in several ways at once, Mailchimp's broader toolset may suit you better.

Pricing: how each one bills

The headline price matters less than who counts toward it.

How Omnisend bills

Omnisend bills on billable contacts. That means subscribers (people who opted in to email, SMS or push) plus non-subscribers (people who left an email or phone number through an order or abandoned checkout without opting in to marketing). Its help center says, "Only unsubscribed contacts (those who opted out) are excluded from billing."

As of October 2026, from Omnisend's pricing page and help center:

• Free: $0, no card. Up to 500 emails a month to at most 250 contacts. Omnisend branding is required.
• Standard: starts at $16 a month. You can send up to 12 times your billable contacts each cycle. Unlimited web push, 24/7 support.
• Pro: starts at $59 a month. Unlimited email under a fair-use policy, unlimited web push, and advanced AI features.
• Custom: by quote, for more than 150,000 active profiles.
• Upfront discount: 30% off if you pay three months in advance.
• Limits: on Standard, once you hit your email limit, campaigns can't send, and contacts who trigger automations are removed from workflows until the cycle renews or you upgrade.

How Mailchimp bills

Mailchimp bills by contacts and plan tier. Its help center says subscribed, unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts all count toward your limit. Archived, cleaned and pending contacts don't. Billing uses your peak contact total in each billing period, so archiving today lowers future bills rather than the current one.

As of October 2026, from Mailchimp's pricing page:

• Free: up to 250 contacts and 500 sends a month (250 a day), 1 seat and 1 audience. Email support for the first 30 days.
• Essentials: send limit of 10 times your contact count, 3 seats, 24/7 email and chat support.
• Standard: send limit of 12 times your contact count, 5 seats, generative AI included.
• Premium: send limit of 15 times your contact count, unlimited seats, phone and priority support.
• Trials: a 14-day free trial of Essentials or Standard.
• Overages: on paid plans, Mailchimp automatically bills for contacts over your limit. On the free plan, sending pauses.

Mailchimp's pricing page currently shows introductory discounts that depend on your contact count, so we won't quote a paid price here. Enter your own list size on the page.

What this means for your bill

The two models penalize different things:

• Omnisend counts buyers who never opted in, because it sends them automated messages like cart reminders. A store with many guest checkouts can have a billable count well above its subscriber count.
• Mailchimp counts unsubscribed contacts until you archive them. A list that's been running for years can carry a lot of people you can't email.

On Mailchimp, archive unsubscribed and long-inactive contacts regularly. On Omnisend, check your billable count in Audience before you upgrade. Our guide to email list cleaning explains how to prune a list safely.

Free plans compared

The numbers look identical: 250 contacts and 500 emails a month on both. What you can do with them is not.

• Omnisend Free includes campaigns *and* automation. Its pricing table lists pre-built ecommerce workflows on all plans, so you can run a welcome and an abandoned cart flow on the free plan, with Omnisend branding.
• Mailchimp Free includes campaigns but no automation flows, and it allows one seat and one audience. Support ends after 30 days.

If you want to test ecommerce automation before paying, Omnisend's free plan lets you do it. If you only need to send an occasional newsletter to a small list, either works.

SMS and push: theirs, and how they're sold

Omnisend changed its SMS model in 2026. Its help center says new subscribers can't use SMS on Free or Standard. SMS is available on Pro through an SMS Credits Subscription. As of October 2026, US rates run from $0.009 down to $0.007 per message depending on monthly spend. Unused credits expire after 60 days, and for new Pro customers SMS is bought separately from the plan, with no SMS credits included. Accounts with an SMS subscription from before May 4, 2026 keep their legacy rates. Web push is included on paid plans.

Mailchimp sells SMS as a paid add-on on Essentials and higher, in select countries. MMS is available on Standard and Premium for US and Canadian contacts. Its pricing page notes that SMS credits expire monthly and don't roll over. Web push isn't listed on Mailchimp's pricing page.

If text messaging is part of your plan, compare it on your real volume and country mix. Also count the cost of the plan you'd need to unlock it.

Shopify and store data

Omnisend and Shopify

Omnisend's help center says orders, cart updates and customer actions sync from Shopify within about three minutes. Profile updates take about an hour and tag changes about 24 hours. Email subscription status syncs back to Shopify, and SMS status doesn't. Omnisend can also sync Shopify segments and works with Shopify Flow.

Mailchimp and Shopify

Mailchimp for Shopify syncs customer details, order information and custom fields such as birthdays and phone numbers into one Mailchimp audience. Its help center says changes flow in near real time, while discount codes sync every few hours. Shopify also shares behavior events such as cart activity and checkout steps, which can trigger automations. Email and SMS engagement data flows back to Shopify, and tags sync one way, from Shopify to Mailchimp.

Which is better for a Shopify store?

Both integrations are solid. The bigger difference is what each tool does with the data. Omnisend's whole product is organized around store events. Mailchimp treats the store as one input alongside its other marketing tools. For other Shopify options, including Shopify Messaging (formerly Shopify Email), see our roundup of the best email marketing apps for Shopify.

Flows and segmentation

Automation

Omnisend lists email automation, pre-built ecommerce workflows, custom events, automation splits and A/B testing on all plans, and its automation covers SMS and push too. Presets are grouped by trigger, such as welcome, browse abandonment, cart abandonment, post-purchase and win-back, and come with recommended timing you can change.

Mailchimp calls its automations Marketing Automation Flows, and plan matters a lot here. As of October 2026:

• Free: no automation flows.
• Essentials: flows of up to four steps.
• Standard and Premium: up to 200 flows.

A four-step limit is enough for a basic welcome series. It gets tight for something like an abandoned cart flow with branches for first-time and returning customers. Most stores that rely on automation end up on Mailchimp Standard.

Our guide to ecommerce email flows covers which flows to build first and how to time them.

Segmentation

Omnisend lists unlimited segmentation on all plans. It includes pre-built segments (first-time buyers, repeat customers and engagement groups) and a Customer Breakdown that groups customers by recency, frequency and spend into stages like "Champions" and "About to Lose". Its AI segment builder turns a plain-language request into a segment and shows a preview.

Mailchimp offers segments and tags for organizing an audience. Predictive segments group customers by likelihood to purchase, predicted lifetime value and churn risk, and are for Standard or Premium accounts with a connected store. In May 2026, Mailchimp announced an AI Segment Builder in beta for select customers.

Here's an example request you could type into either AI segment builder: "Customers who bought in the last year, spent over $100 total, and haven't opened an email in 60 days." It's a good win-back audience.

AI features

Omnisend's AI page lists a Forms AI assistant, AI copywriting suggestions, AI subject lines and preheaders, brand assets import, the AI segment builder, a personalized product recommender, dynamic content, and an MCP connection for asking questions of your data. Its help center says Pro includes the advanced AI features, and Standard can add personalized content or send-time optimization as paid add-ons.

Mailchimp's AI now goes by Intuit Intelligence (formerly Intuit Assist). Write with AI drafts and edits email copy in the editor, and Analytics AI answers questions about your results on Standard and Premium. Mailchimp describes Intuit Intelligence as a beta for certain Standard, Premium and Legacy users. The pricing page lists generative AI as included at no extra cost on Standard and Premium, and not included on Free or Essentials.

So on Omnisend, the most useful AI for stores (recommendations, dynamic content) sits on Pro. On Mailchimp, any generative AI means Standard or higher.

Deliverability is on you either way

Neither tool can rescue a sending domain that skips the basics. Before your first campaign, authenticate your domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, send from your own domain, include one-click unsubscribe, and only email people who asked. Gmail and Yahoo enforce these rules for bulk senders. Our Gmail and Yahoo sender requirements guide lists them in full.

Which should you choose?

Choose Omnisend if

• Your business is an online store and automated flows are your main revenue source.
• You want automation on the free plan and on every paid plan.
• You want web push, or you plan to use SMS on the Pro plan.
• You'd like published starting prices and 24/7 support on every plan.

Choose Mailchimp if

• You send mostly newsletters, announcements and simple automations.
• Your business isn't only ecommerce, or you want one tool for general small-business marketing.
• Your team already knows Mailchimp's editor and you want minimal retraining.
• You're fine moving to Standard once automation and AI matter.

A quick test

Write down the three emails that matter most to your business. If they're "abandoned cart, post-purchase, win-back", lean Omnisend. If they're "monthly newsletter, event invite, service reminder", lean Mailchimp.

A third option: EterMail

EterMail is our product, so weigh this section with that in mind.

• You pay per email, not per contact. Neither unsubscribed contacts nor guest buyers make your bill bigger. 1,000 credits are $1, and a marketing email costs 2 credits, about $2 per 1,000 emails. Plans run from Free ($0, 1,000 credits, up to 1,000 contacts, no card) to Starter $19, Growth $49, Pro $149 and Ultra $299.
• AI drafts, a person approves. EterMail learns your brand and products, then drafts campaigns and flows (welcome, browse abandonment, abandoned checkout, post-purchase, win-back, custom events). By default, nothing is sent until someone approves it. AI can also make the pictures: on-brand banners, or scenes built from your real product photo, with an optional short greeting.
• Shopify, Stripe, an API and CSV import bring your data in. Shopify connects through a read-only custom app that syncs every 15 minutes.

Where it falls short: no SMS or push, no Shopify App Store listing, and fewer years of templates and integrations than either tool. Compare it directly in EterMail as an Omnisend alternative and EterMail as a Mailchimp alternative.

FAQ

Is Omnisend better than Mailchimp for ecommerce?

For most online stores, Omnisend offers more ecommerce tooling per plan. It has automation on every plan including Free, pre-built store workflows, and segments built around purchase behavior. Mailchimp can do ecommerce well too, but you'll usually need its Standard plan for full automation and AI.

Is Omnisend cheaper than Mailchimp?

It depends on your list. Omnisend publishes starting prices ($16 for Standard and $59 for Pro as of October 2026) and counts non-subscribed buyers who receive automated messages. Mailchimp counts unsubscribed contacts until you archive them, and its page shows introductory discounts. Put your own numbers into both pricing pages.

Does Mailchimp's free plan include automation?

No. As of October 2026, Mailchimp's pricing page lists automation flows as not included on Free. Essentials allows flows of up to four steps, and Standard and Premium allow up to 200 flows.

Can I move from Mailchimp to Omnisend?

Yes. Omnisend lists free migration on all plans. Export your subscribed contacts with their consent status, rebuild your key flows, and turn off the old automations before the new ones go live so nobody gets two of the same email.

Does Omnisend count unsubscribed contacts?

No. Omnisend's help center says only unsubscribed contacts are excluded from billing. It does count non-subscribers, meaning people who bought or abandoned a checkout without opting in to marketing, because they can receive automated messages.