Email is still one of the best ways to reach your audience, get to know them, find out what they’re looking for, and send promotional offers that convert.
Flodesk and Mailchimp are two tools that help you create emails that will look professional, be valuable to your audience, and aim for a high conversion rate.
Both tools come with features that can even help you automate your emails and analyze your efforts.
While they work similarly, they’re two different tools. In this review, you’ll find out both the good and the bad about each tool, and also the similarities and differences so you can make a wise decision!
What is Flodesk?
Flodesk is an email marketing service tool that provides features for creators that can help them design and send branded and professional emails that get results.
Not only does it allow users to create emails from scratch, but it also allows people to create forms, test two emails for the same purpose, continue building the email list efficiently, and achieve better results with the help of email automation.
It takes beautiful emails to the next level by providing one of the easiest ways to create such emails.
What is Mailchimp?
Mailchimp is a marketing automation platform that also incorporates email marketing. Such a combination allows Mailchimp to provide email marketing services and features and combine them with powerful analytics and marketing features that can improve the efficiency of your emails.
As a result, Mailchimp helps creators build an email list, manage it, and create professional emails for the marketing purpose to achieve the much-desired results.
On top of that, Mailchimp provides very decent analytical tools and data analysis, which can further improve the efficiency of the emails you send out.
How to Get Started
Flodesk
Flodesk is very easy to start with, and all you have to do is visit the official Flodesk website. You will see a big “Get Started” button on the landing page, which will help you create an account for free.
This will sign you up for Flodesk’s free trial that lasts for 30 days which is more than enough time to test the platform fully.
After that, you will choose one of the pricing plans if you decide to stick with Flodesk.
Everything Flodesk offers is web-based, so you can access it via browser and on any device without any installation.
Mailchimp
When you visit Mailchimp’s official website, you will see a “Sign Up Free” button that will help you get started with Mailchimp.
You will need to create a free account to test out everything Mailchimp offers. The great thing about Mailchimp is that it has a free plan (not a trial), so you can stick to it as long as you fit the criteria (less than 2,000 email contacts).
With Mailchimp, you can talk and manage your email contacts, create unique and professional emails, and yet keep an eye on its performance to know exactly how to improve your efficiency, as well as your workflow.
Interface
Flodesk
Flodesk features a highly usable interface since it integrates the drag and drop feature. This feature allows you to visually create your emails and ensure they’re perfect before sending them out.
Of course, with such a helpful feature, you won’t need any technical knowledge or experience (not even HTML coding), and you won’t even have any experience creating professional-looking emails.
Formatting or columns won’t be an issue as you’ll have all elements available to create beautiful, unique emails from scratch or using templates.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp integrates a lot more than Flodesk since they’re moving from being only an email marketing service provider to a full marketing service provider that incorporates email.
However, Mailchimp still kept things simple with a very easy-to-understand menu on the left side where you can easily navigate and reach any feature in only a couple of clicks.
On top of that, Mailchimp makes email creation, automation, and even analysis very simple thanks to the visuals.
However, with so many features, you might need a bit more time to get used to everything and to take full advantage of Mailchimp’s wide range of possibilities and features.
Ease of Use
Flodesk
Flodesk is very easy to use, thanks to the drag and drop email designer. Still, it also has additional features that make it super simple for brands and companies of any size to generate emails in seconds.
With brand color, font, and aesthetics, you can integrate your newsletter into your website as if it was an extension of your website.
The best thing about Flodesk is that you can use hundreds of templates to create your emails instead of starting from scratch. All templates are visually beautiful and allow you to create professional-looking emails in only minutes.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp also comes with plenty of templates that are easy to customize yet keep the same style of all emails you’re about to create. This is important for branding, but it also saves you time since you won’t have to redesign the whole email every single time.
What’s also great about Mailchimp’s templates is that they’re responsive, so they’ll look great on both mobile devices and desktops.
Combined with a pretty user interface, the more you use Mailchimp, the more things you’ll discover and find how easy it is to get things done.
A/B Testing & Forms
Flodesk
Unfortunately, Flodesk doesn’t offer the A/B testing functionality, which is a huge downside if you’re still trying to figure out your audience and craft perfect emails that will get you the wanted results.
A/B testing can help you discover a lot of data and information that will help you shape and craft your emails in a certain way to get you closer to your goals.
Hopefully, Flodesk will introduce this feature soon. On the other hand, Flodesk features forms that will help you integrate your email list and gain new subscribers by adding them to your website or any other suitable place on the internet.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp has an integrated A/B testing feature that’s available on paid plans. This feature allows you to create emails and send them in such a way as to test variables, create combinations, and test them on your users to see what works the best.
The winner will be determined by statistics such as the click and open rate, conversion rate, revenue, or other variables.
This won’t only help you learn what email is better, but it will also help you learn how to craft emails for your specific audience to get desired results.
Landing Pages
Flodesk
Along with the email templates, Flodesk also features landing pages. Landing pages are useful at redirecting your audience to a page where they can get something they’ve been looking for, such as a digital product.
Landing pages are a great tool for lead generation, but they’re also great for email collection and they can be a part of your marketing strategy.
There are plenty of landing page templates you can easily customize to match your needs and create a fully custom and unique page.
The only downside is that Flodesks’s landing page URLs aren’t customizable. You’ll have to deal with default and long URLs.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp has a landing page creator that allows you to create landing pages from scratch or rely on pre-built templates that can save you time and help you prepare a landing page in minutes.
What’s great about Mailchimp is that they allow you to use the custom domain name for the landing page.
Different template types will fit different purposes, such as offering a free download, holding a contest, highlighting a product, or creating a promotional buzz for any purpose.
Campaigns
Flodesk
If you’re new to sending out emails and email marketing, you might not be worried about campaigns too much.
But it’s good to know that Flodesk has campaigns in place that can help you automate your emails, so you don’t have to send every email by yourself.
Flodesk allows you to create campaigns for automated general emails such as a welcome email, lists of posts people can refer to, or lists of products they can check out.
These campaigns can help you save time and ensure that your audience is offered everything they might be looking for, which can also benefit you.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp has many more campaign types and settings than Flodesk. On top of that, Mailchimp integrates marketing strategies into the campaigns so you won’t only be saving yourself time and helping your audience by providing valuable information.
You will also be working on getting the best results out of your campaigns and emails. Inside Mailchimp’s dashboard, you can easily create emails for all purposes, including regular emails, automation, landing pages, and even ads.
There are also a couple of campaign types: regular, plain text, A/B testing, and automated.
Content Creation
Flodesk
Flodesk comes with a set standard of features such as templates and a drag and drop builder that helps you create professional content that your readers will love to read and see.
If you ever get stuck, need any help, or need inspiration for your content creation, Flodesk has plenty of educational videos and tutorials on their blog that can help.
Flodesk doesn’t help users as much as Mailchimp does, but you will definitely have to bring your creativity with you when using Flodesk.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is good at helping users create content because it integrates Creative Assistant. This feature helps you create unique ideas from pre-existing templates so you do the least amount of work possible.
You still get to keep control to customize every single thing before you send out your content. On top of that, Mailchimp allows you to keep your files, integrate digital products, use gifs, integrate your Instagram account and posts, and even set a default logo so your content fits your brand.
Custom designs generated by the Creative Assistant feature are fairly decent and are even a better starting point than prebuilt templates.
Automation
Flodesk
Flodesk helps you automate your emails by guiding you through the designing phase to the integration phase of your website.
Such automation allows you to draft emails once and automatically send them out to your new website subscribers.
You can also customize a template to your brand, which can also help you save time and automate one part of the process.
Also, Flodesk allows you to use the automation feature for the lead magnet purpose. This allows you to create an email, create a form, and create a workflow where email is auto-sent to lead magnets that fit the criterion you set.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp offers everything from simple introduction email automation to customized paths where emails are sent only to certain people that meet certain criteria. With such automation, prebuilt emails can get sent automatically even when you’re offline.
Customized paths allow you to “program” a path that automatically decides who and when an automated email is received. You can set rules such as if/else, wait, or delay and choose from actions like sending an email or adding/removing a tag.
On top of that, you can integrate Mailchimp with eCommerce platforms to automate emails for customers that take certain actions, which just shows how specific Mailchimp’s automation can be.
This way, Mailchimp helps you reach email inboxes at the perfect timing and still allows you to track your performance through visual analytics.
Insights
Flodesk
Unfortunately, Flodesk doesn’t include insights or analytical tools that will help you understand how your emails perform and give you tips on what you can improve to achieve better results.
When writing, Flodesk mostly focuses on providing a decent way to design professional-looking emails, send them in bulk, and automate most of the emails you send out.
Hopefully, soon enough, it will feature simple insights and analytics that can help drive better results.
Mailchimp
Since Mailchimp is not only an email marketing platform, it includes a lot of marketing insights and analytics that can be combined with email.
With insights such as the number of new contacts, engagement stats, sales tracking, surveys, benchmarking, and others, you won’t have to hire an analyst to guide you through your future email campaigns.
One of the best features is the smart recommendations that collect data and give you personalized guidance on shaping your next email campaigns.
Integrations
Flodesk
Flodesk can be integrated with other platforms such as Squarespace, Leadpages, and even eCommerce options like Kajabi.
This helps you connect this all-in-one email marketing tool with the specific purpose you’re working on.
As a result, you can improve the workflow, increase efficiency, and do everything from one platform instead of relying on many different platforms.
Most integrations happen via Zapier so that you can connect Flodesk with about 1500 different apps through this platform.
Mailchimp
The great thing about Mailchimp is that you can connect and integrate about 250 apps directly within Mailchimp’s interface.
Some of the most popular integrations include Stripe, Drupal, Squarespace. Still, you can also connect Mailchimp with apps such as LiveChat, SimpleTexting, Zendesk Activity, and others to help your readers further.
To improve your marketing efforts further, you can integrate Mailchimp with services such as Facebook, Linkedin, Vimeo, and others.
You can connect Mailchimp with Typeform, Formstack, SurveyMonkey, and other similar platforms for more analytical data.
Whatever your purpose is, Mailchimp can integrate with third-party options to make it easier for you. Some apps integrate natively into Mailchimp’s interface, while some apps integrate Mailchimp into their interface.
Workflow & Support
Flodesk
Flodesk improves the average workflow when it comes down to sending emails out. It even has a feature called WorkFlow where it helps you automate almost everything you can automate regarding email.
Whenever you need any additional support, you can easily reach out to the Flodesk help center via email or even a private Facebook group made for questions from the users.
Flodesk is good at providing support, so you can always expect to receive help promptly. In the meantime, you can browse their blog, where they have plenty of information that can be helpful and potentially answer some of the general questions you might be having.
Mailchimp
MailChimp integrates plenty of things into one, and while it might seem like a lot to take on at first, once you get to know the ins and outs of Mailchimp’s dashboard, you’ll learn all of its possibilities.
The simple and minimalistic interface, easy customization, automated features, great integrations, and other marketing-oriented features that combine well with email make a huge difference and almost always improve the workflow.
If you ever get stuck or need any help, you can always contact Mailchimp’s support through various options such as email, weekday 24-hour chat support, 24/7 chat support, or even weekday phone support.
However, one thing to keep in mind is that the support you receive will also depend on the pricing plan you choose.
Mailchimp vs Flodesk – Pricing
Flodesk Pricing
Flodesk has a very simple pricing plan where all features are unlimited to every Flodesk user. The only difference is if you’d pay monthly or annually.
The monthly plan costs $38 while the annual plan costs $418, which helps you save about $38 per year.
You also shouldn’t forget that Flodesk has a free 30-day trial ideal for fully testing Flodesk.
Keep in mind that this was the pricing at the time of writing. For the latest Flodesk pricing, visit the official Flodesk pricing page.
Mailchimp Pricing
Mailchimp has a couple of different pricing plans that are categorized under the following categories:
- Marketing Platform
- Website & eCommerce
- Transactional Email
Marketing Platform offers four plans:
- Free – $0/month
- Essentials – $9.99/month
- Standard – $14.99/month
- Premium – $299/month
Websites & eCommerce offers three plans:
- Free – $0/month
- Core – $10/month
- Plus – $29/month
Transactional Email offers a pricing plan based on blocks:
- 1 to 500K emails per month – $20/block
- 500K to 1M emails per month – $18/block
- 1M to 2M emails per month – $16/block
- 2M to 3M emails per month – $14/block
- 3M to 4M emails per month – $12/block
- 4+M emails per month – $10/block
For the latest pricing, visit the official Mailchimp pricing page.
Similarities
- Both platforms have a great and easy-to-use interface
- Both platforms provide forms
- Both platforms help automate emails
- Both platforms provide landing pages
- Both platforms provide an efficient way to create professional and unique content
- Both platforms support integration
- Both platforms provide a great workflow
Differences
- Mailchimp provides a free plan while Flodesk only offers a free trial
- Only Mailchimp provides A/B testing
- Mailchimp provides many more testing and campaign options
- Mailchimp combines marketing with email to provide better results
- Mailchimp provides more insights and data-backed recommendations
- Mailchimp has a better support
- Mailchimp offers both in-app and off-app integrations
Flodesk vs Mailchimp – Pros and Cons
Flodesk Pros
- Very affordable pricing
- Incredibly good looking templates you can customize with drag & drop builder
- Great ways to make beautiful emails from scratch
- Great workflow options
- Ability to include Instagram feed
Flodesk Cons
- Only offers a free trial, but not a plan
- Has no insights and marketing analytical features
- No advanced features that can help improve the efficiency of your emails and get you better results
Mailchimp Pros
- Offers a free plan
- Thorough reporting and insights
- Combination of email and marketing that helps users improve their marketing efforts
- Great template editor
- Easy to use interface with plenty of features
- Additional features that make workflow better
- Plenty of in-app and off-app integration possibilities
- All-in-one marketing solution most brands and companies of any size could use
- Very good support system
Mailchimp Cons
- Could use more templates to choose from
- A bit better organization for contacts could be preferred
Flodesk vs Mailchimp – Which is Better?
Mailchimp is a far better option because it integrates more features, is a lot more flexible, and is a great fit for users who want to run email campaigns for almost any purpose.
On top of that, it has a very generous free plan and it’s full of marketing features and insights that can help you improve your email marketing as you take action.
Mailchimp also provides additional features which Flodesk lacks, so there’s no doubt that Mailchimp comes out of this review as a winner.
