What is a cheaper alternative to Mailchimp?
The largest saving comes from changing the pricing model, not the vendor. Platforms that meter stored contacts charge for addresses you never email. AeroCampaign charges a flat segment fee starting at $49 per month and routes delivery through your own Amazon SES account at about $0.10 per 1,000 emails. A 40,000-contact list mailed four times a month costs roughly $95 all-in versus roughly $350 on a per-contact tier.
- A 40,000-contact list on a per-contact plan costs roughly $350 per month.
- The same list on AeroCampaign costs roughly $95 per month, including SES delivery.
- Amazon SES charges about $0.10 per 1,000 emails.
- 160,000 emails per month costs about $16 in SES delivery.
- AeroCampaign adds no markup to delivery.
Switching between two per-contact platforms usually saves a modest percentage. Switching pricing models changes the shape of the bill: software cost stops tracking list size, and delivery cost drops to infrastructure rates.
The trade-off is real. You need a SendGrid API key or an AWS account, and SES accounts start in a sandbox that only sends to verified addresses until production access is granted. If nobody on the team will touch that, the saving is not free.