[programminggeek]

Both MailChimp and Mandrill look great, but I have a pricing question. Is it possible to use Mandrill to send out newsletters since your Mandrill pricing is WAY cheaper than your pay as you go newsletter pricing?

I've been looking for a newsletter service that charges me reasonable rates for pay as you go sending of a monthly/semi-monthly email newsletter, using the pay as you go product, it would cost me $30 per 1,000 emails, whereas Mandrill's per email rates start around $0.90 per 1,000. You say that both are using the same infrastructure, so why is sending email newsletters with MailChimp 33x more expensive?

[cmorrisrsg]

Yes - you can use Mandrill for newsletters if you want to code your own subscription logic and store your own list of emails. MailChimp is quite a bit more expensive than Mandrill, but it does a lot more too. MailChimp stores more analytics than Mandrill does and stores it longer. It handles scheduling, batch testing, social integrations and content management in ways that Mandrill really doesn't. MailChimp also has analytics and profiles for list subscribers that Mandrill doesn't have.

If Mandrill does everything you need it to do and you can do the rest on your own, you should use Mandrill. It is, as you note, much cheaper.

[ceejayoz]

I can't speak for MailChimp, but bulk e-mail requires a lot more managing - particularly for spam - than transactional.