Beehiiv vs Mailchimp: Which Email Platform Still Makes Sense in 2026?

Updated: September 2026

If you're a solopreneur, coach, or creator trying to pick an email platform in 2026, there's a decent chance Mailchimp is still on the shortlist.

It was on mine for a long time. Probably the second ESP I ever used, back in the mid-2000s, almost right after it launched. Cutting edge then. I used it for myself and for dozens of clients over the years.

I've also used Beehiiv ($) to run Redefining Retirement. So this isn't a "I Googled both and picked a winner" post. I've lived in both dashboards.

I'm a Beehiiv affiliate. I'll say that up front. I still want this to be a fair comparison, because Mailchimp is still relevant depending on what you want. It's just not as easy as it used to feel. If you go Beehiiv through my link, code BEE20 is 20% off at checkout.

If you're also weighing Beehiiv vs Kit or Beehiiv vs Substack, those write-ups live here too.

Let's break down Beehiiv vs Mailchimp so you can pick the right one for your goals.

Both send email. That's about where the family resemblance stops.

Mailchimp thinks like a marketing department. Beehiiv thinks like a publication. Which one you want depends on which of those you're actually building.

This is where the old ESP still flexes.

Mailchimp has real marketing automation depth on paid plans. Flows, triggers, e-commerce journeys, behavior paths. If you need abandoned carts, multi-step customer journeys, and email tied into a store, that muscle is there. The catch, from my side of the screen: building those automations never felt simple. Forms were hard. Automations were hard. As they added features, the whole thing felt more complicated, not cleaner.

Beehiiv automations are more newsletter-native. Welcome flows, drips, segmentation around how people engage with your publication. Not as deep as Mailchimp's full marketing-automation toolkit if you're running a complex store. Plenty for most creators who want the right email to go out after someone subscribes, clicks, or buys a digital product inside the platform.

If your business lives on multi-channel marketing journeys, Mailchimp still has more knobs. If you want automation that stays pointed at a newsletter, Beehiiv stays cleaner.

This is one of the biggest splits.

Mailchimp helps you sell through email. Store connections, product blocks, promo campaigns. The money usually happens on your site or Shopify store. It is not really built around monetizing the newsletter itself with an ad network or native paid subscriptions the way a media newsletter would.

Beehiiv offers:

If email is a megaphone for a store, Mailchimp fits. If the newsletter is the business (ads, paid subs, products, referrals), Beehiiv casts the wider net.

This one matters more every year.

Beehiiv gives you a public archive that works like a real blog. Custom slugs, meta titles and descriptions, your own domain, website analytics next to newsletter stats. Write once, send to the list, let the same post try to rank on Google. That "blogletter" approach is a big reason RR runs here.

Mailchimp has landing pages and some website tools. Fine for lead magnets and campaign pages. It was never built to turn your back catalog of emails into an SEO asset the way Beehiiv was. Going back into Mailchimp for blogging and website work still feels like asking an ESP to pretend it's a CMS.

Mailchimp will not match Beehiiv on blogging and website. That shows up in the chart below for a reason.

I still have clients on Mailchimp. When I go back in, it feels clunky.

The dashboard redesign a few years ago helped a bit. It's still hard to find things. Stuff feels scattered. Newer ESPs were built from the ground up around collecting emails and running a publication. Mailchimp feels like a powerful tool that grew in every direction at once.

Beehiiv is not "dumb simple" like Substack. It's cleaner for the job of writing, sending, and publishing a newsletter with a site attached. Templates, signup forms, referral widgets, pop-ups, and an AI-leaning website builder if you want the whole front door in one place.

Mailchimp still wins on sheer template volume and promotional email design flexibility. If you need fancy promo layouts for a retail brand, that library is deep. If you want a publication that looks like your brand and doesn't fight you every Tuesday, Beehiiv feels more intentional.

Mailchimp:

Beehiiv:

Mailchimp is stronger when you need to know which email drove a purchase in a connected store. Beehiiv is stronger when you need to know where growth is coming from across search, referrals, and the site.

This is Mailchimp's other big remaining advantage.

Mailchimp has hundreds of integrations. CRMs, stores, ads, forms, membership tools. If your stack already speaks Mailchimp, that ecosystem is hard to beat on paper.

On paper. In practice, I've watched client setups break a lot when you're linking forms from different parts of a site and trying to pass data through. The integration catalog is huge. The day-to-day wiring is where the pain shows up.

Beehiiv has a tighter set of integrations (Zapier and the usual creator stack) plus a lot of monetization and publishing tools built in, so you need fewer duct-tape connections for a newsletter business.

Need to bolt email onto an existing marketing stack? Mailchimp. Want fewer tools and a publication that lives in one house? Beehiiv.

Mailchimp (marketing plans, starting tiers; prices climb with contact count):

Beehiiv:

Pricing changes on both platforms, and Mailchimp's quote depends heavily on your contact tier. Verify current numbers at mailchimp.com and beehiiv.com before you buy.

The number that matters more than the sticker: what each platform is actually built to help you earn. Mailchimp prices like a marketing suite that scales with contacts. Beehiiv prices like a publication stack, with monetization tools that keep more of the newsletter revenue in your pocket.

Here's how I'd sum it up:

Choose Mailchimp if…

Choose Beehiiv if…

Mailchimp earned its reputation. For a stretch of years it really was the default.

I used it when it felt cutting edge. I used it for clients. I still bump into it when a client's forms and site pieces need to talk to each other, and that wiring still breaks more than it should. Going back in 2026, it still feels like a powerful ESP that stopped feeling built around the thing I care about most: collecting emails and running a publication without the scavenger hunt.

Redefining Retirement is a publication. I want the content working in search, building an archive, and giving me monetization options that don't require five other tools. That's why RR runs on Beehiiv.

If you're building (or rebuilding) a newsletter as the center of the business, Beehiiv ($) is where I'd point you. Code BEE20 gets you 20% off at checkout.

If your world is e-commerce journeys, CRM spaghetti, and email as one spoke on a bigger marketing wheel, Mailchimp can still be the right hammer.

Want to try Beehiiv? I've partnered with them to give you a discount plus access to my AI Newsletter Fast-Track Checklist that walks you through my exact setup. Sign up through my link, then use code BEE20 at checkout for 20% off.

👇 Tap below to get a copy:

Either way, pick the one that matches how you actually plan to run this. Not just the logo you remember from 2009.

Have a good one,

Corey