Podia and Mailchimp are both tools for managing and automating your email marketing, but while Mailchimp exclusively focuses on email, Podia gives you a wide range of features for running your entire business.

Every creator business is unique, so to help you make the best choice for your situation, let’s get into the nitty-gritty details.

Pricing and plan limits for Podia and Mailchimp

Nearly all email marketing platforms, including Podia and Mailchimp, have different plans and pricing based on the number of email subscribers you have. As you grow your list, you must upgrade to continue contacting your audience members.

Here’s how the plans, prices, and limits work for Podia and Mailchimp.

With Podia, you’ll start by choosing a base plan:

• Mover: $39/month or $33/month when paid annually (5% transaction fee), includes your website, blog, landing pages, and custom domain, plus unlimited digital products, unlimited courses, and our straightforward online course platform

• Shaker: $89/month or $75/month when paid annually, includes everything on the Mover plan plus affiliates

All plans include your first 100 email subscribers for free. You can choose to pay for additional subscribers as your list grows.

• Up to 100 subscribers: Free

• Up to 500 subscribers: $9/month

• Up to 1500 subscribers: $17/month

• Up to 2500 subscribers: $25/month

• Up to 5000 subscribers: $42/month

• Up to 10000 subscribers: $63/month

• See pricing for more subscribers

There are no email send limits with Podia, so you can send as many messages as you like on all plans. And all plans come with all email features to keep things simple.

(If you prefer to use another email platform, Podia also integrates with tools like ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, Flodesk, AWeber, and Mailchimp. That said, Podia Email has some of the best prices in the industry so it’s worth price shopping to see what makes sense for you.)

Mailchimp offers four different base plans, and the price of each plan varies depending on the size of your list. Each plan also has email send limits, so if you hope to send lots of messages to your followers, this is something to keep an eye on.

• Free: Up to 500 contacts with 1,000 monthly email sends

• Essentials: Starting at $13/month for 500 contacts and 5,000 monthly email sends

• Standard: Starting at $20/month for 500 contacts and 6,000 monthly email sends

• Premium: Starting at $350/month for 500 contacts with 150,000 monthly email sends

To illustrate, let’s say your small business has a list with 5,000 subscribers.

With Podia, your total cost would be $67 per month (which includes the Mover plan paid annually for $33 per month plus up to 5,000 email subscribers for $34 per month).

You could send unlimited emails to those 5,000 subscribers, plus you’d also get unlimited marketing automations, your website, blog, landing pages, and unlimited products and courses.

With Mailchimp, you wouldn’t be eligible for the free plan and the prices for 5,000 contacts increase significantly:

• Essentials: $75 per month, limit monthly email sends to 10x your subscriber count

• Standard: $100 per month, limit monthly email sends to 12x your subscriber count

• Premium: $350 per month, limit monthly email sends to 15x your subscriber count

If you exceed your email limits in a given month, you have to pay overage charges too.

How many audiences or segments can I have?

As your audience grows, you might need a way to send emails to certain people on your list but not others. You can do this by creating different groupings of people from your main list.

With Podia, you can set up segments and tags. Segments are groups of audience members that you can customize based on filters. For example, you can make segments based on when people were last active, which products they have purchased, how much they’ve spent with you, or which tags are associated with them.

Tags are labels you can manually add to audience members based on shared characteristics. You can send a campaign or broadcast email to a specific tag or segment, or to your entire list.

With Mailchimp, you can organize your email list by breaking it into different audiences, then building segments within each audience. You get one audience on the free plan, three audiences on the Essentials plan, five audiences on the Standard plan, and unlimited audiences on the Premium plan.

Run your business on autopilot with email scheduling and automations

Ever wish you could deliver content, engage with followers, and make sales without having to spend 23 hours a day tied to your computer? Scheduling and automation can help.

Email scheduling allows you to write an email whenever you have time and send it to your audience at a later date. Automations are pre-written emails or campaigns that are sent to audience members whenever they take a certain action, like purchasing a product, opting in to a newsletter, or downloading a lead magnet.

With Podia, you can schedule and send as many broadcasts and campaigns as you like on all plans.

With Mailchimp, you can schedule emails and set up automated campaigns on paid plans, but not on the free plan.

Will my emails look pretty?

Email is an essential part of communicating with your followers, and the messages you send should look cohesive with your brand.

Both Podia and Mailchimp have an email builder that’s easy to use and templates that can jumpstart your creativity.

Here are some design features you get with Podia:

• Endless design options: You can change the background color, width, vertical padding, typeface, font color, headings, and other styles to match your brand.

• Customize dividers, buttons, and sections: You can adjust individual sections how you want. Yes, you can set global options, but you can also completely adjust each section to your heart’s content.

• Style the header and footer: Adjust the colors, logos, and links you want to highlight in your header and footer sections.

• Templates: You’ll be able to select a starting pre-made template that we’ve designed for you or choose one of the recent ones you’ve made yourself.

Podia also allows you to view your message in your web browser and edit your design from your mobile device.

Mailchimp offers a library of templates that you can customize, and you can import your own HTML templates on the Standard plan and above.

Making websites and landing pages that feel like yours

In addition to email marketing tools, both Podia and Mailchimp allow you to build a website and landing pages for free. Third-party website tools can get complicated and pricey fast. Connecting your email list with the rest of your online presence keeps things simple.

Podia’s point-and-click website builder is so simple that you can set up your website in an afternoon, with a totally customized style. Podia includes over a dozen pre-designed sections so you know your page heroes, images, grids, testimonials, FAQs, and products look amazing.

Podia also has a built-in blogging tool so you can share blog posts without paying for an extra platform. You can customize your blog layout and design, add embeds and images, and update the SEO settings to help your articles show up in search.

There are native integrations for your Google Analytics code, Facebook Pixel, and Pinterest tag so you can track how users are interacting with your website.

“Podia makes website building so fun. I feel like I could set up a site in an afternoon, and it would look great. And there’s something to be said for how pretty it is. It’s the best-looking one by far.”

— Joseph D’Amico, Flex Lessons

Mailchimp also has website functionality where you can pick a theme and set default colors and fonts. You can choose from six different block types and add as many sections as you like to each page. You can also add unlimited pages and customize the header and footer.

Podia connects your blog and email list

One feature that sets Podia apart is blog post emailing. Since your blog and email marketing software are both in the same platform, you can automatically pull your blog content into your email campaigns and newsletters with just a few clicks.

You can also add an email opt-in form or lead magnet to your blog posts, website, and landing pages using Podia’s easy page builder.

Selling products and managing your email marketing go hand in hand

Podia is best for entrepreneurs who sell digital products like courses, digital downloads, webinars, and coaching sessions. Because Podia products tie directly into your email list, you can easily deliver files, run drip courses, create product waitlists, and send new product notifications to your members.

Podia’s all-in-one platform also includes affiliate marketing management, so you can incentivize happy customers to promote your products for you. You can use PayPal or Stripe as your payment processor with Podia.

Mailchimp can also work with selling digital products if you use it with ecommerce integrations like Shopify and WooCommerce. You can also use a third-party tool like Zapier to connect with even more platforms. Mailchimp uses Stripe as the payment processor.

Support is one of the most important features of any platform

Even the most tech-savvy creators will have questions along the way, and it’s important to be able to get answers when you need them.

Mailchimp’s free users only get 30 days of email support. After that, you’re on your own and you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan to access chat and email support in the future. That said, there are help docs available to all users at any time.

Podia users get expert email and chat customer support, help docs, free training courses, guides, video tutorials, and access to our welcoming Podia Community.

If you’re ready to launch your dream online business, create courses, sell products, manage your email marketing, and so much more with a friendly team who gets it, we’d love to have you. Get started with your free 30-day trial of Podia today.