Most of the Mailchimp alternatives UK businesses look at will send a newsletter perfectly well. Brevo, MailerLite, the UK-based senders and platforms like ours all get an email into an inbox. Choosing between them matters less than people expect. What decides whether the switch goes smoothly is the move itself: which contacts come across, which must come across and usually don't, and what quietly breaks in your templates on the way.
We have brought a business's Mailchimp emails across onto our own platform, so this is what the move actually involves, including the parts the comparison sites leave out.
Why UK businesses look for Mailchimp alternatives
It is usually the bill. Mailchimp prices by contacts, and its count includes people who have unsubscribed and people who never subscribed, not only the ones you can actually email. A list that has been running for years carries a long tail of people who left, and you are paying for every one of them until someone archives them by hand.
The second reason is paying for things you do not use. Most small businesses send a newsletter and the occasional offer. The automation journeys, the predictive segments and the hundreds of integrations are the reason the higher plans cost what they do, and many accounts never touch them.
The third is where the data lives, which deserves a straight answer of its own.
Is Mailchimp GDPR compliant for UK businesses?
Yes, it can be used lawfully. Mailchimp's servers are in the United States, so your contacts' details leave the UK, but Mailchimp is certified under the UK extension to the US Data Privacy Framework, which is the recognised route for that transfer. Moving to a UK-hosted platform is a reasonable preference. It is not a legal necessity, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling something.
What no platform does for you is the part that matters most: knowing why you are allowed to email each person. That stays your responsibility wherever the list lives, and it is the first thing to get right when you move.
Exporting your Mailchimp contacts
When you export an audience, Mailchimp gives you a zip file with separate spreadsheets for each kind of contact: subscribed, unsubscribed, non-subscribed and cleaned. Each one carries the email address, the fields you collected such as first name, your tags and the contact's status.
The natural thing to do is import the subscribed file and ignore the rest. That is the mistake.
The contacts that matter most are the ones who left
The unsubscribed file is the list of people who told you to stop. The cleaned file is the addresses that bounced hard and do not exist. Neither belongs on your new mailing list, but both have to come with you, because your new platform does not know about them.
Leave them behind and the first time someone imports an old spreadsheet, a trade show list or last year's customer export, some of those people are back on your list. You will be emailing people who opted out, which is exactly what the UK's electronic marketing rules forbid. And you will be sending to dead addresses, which is one of the quickest ways to start landing in spam.
So the unsubscribed and cleaned addresses go onto your new platform's block list before the first send, not after. A good platform then refuses to email anyone on that list, whichever list they turn up on later.
While you are at it, decide what you are relying on to email the people who are coming across. Did they sign up and tick a box, did they buy from you, or are they business contacts? Record it against the import. If anyone ever asks, "they were in Mailchimp" is not an answer.
Your templates will not come across looking the same
This is the part nobody warns you about. Mailchimp will export your templates as HTML, and every other platform will accept HTML. In practice, a Mailchimp export dropped into another editor is a mess, and it is a mess in the same ways every time:
- Duplicate content for Outlook. Mailchimp includes hidden copies of images and layout that only Outlook reads. In a new editor they show up as doubled pictures and blocks you cannot select.
- Mailchimp's own codes. Personalisation is written as Mailchimp tags such as the one that inserts a first name, and the unsubscribe link is a Mailchimp tag too. Another platform does not understand them, so they either appear as gibberish or, worse, the unsubscribe link silently stops working.
- Fixed widths. Images and columns are pinned to exact pixel widths that suit Mailchimp's layout. In a different editor they stop resizing, and the email breaks on a phone.
- Images that still live in Mailchimp. Every picture in the template is served from your Mailchimp account. It works until you close that account, and then it is relying on files you no longer pay for.
- Tracking and hidden text. Mailchimp's tracking code, the hidden preview line and its own branding are all in the export, and none of them belong in the new version.
When we move a business, we clean each template rather than retyping it. The Outlook-only copies, tracking and branding are stripped out. Mailchimp's codes are swapped for the new platform's own, including the unsubscribe link. Fixed widths are removed so the layout responds again, and every image is downloaded into your own image library.
It is not perfect, and it is better to know that up front. Mailchimp keeps some of its styling in a separate block of code that has to go, so expect to tidy text alignment and a few image sizes on each template in the editor afterwards. That is minutes per template, not a rebuild, but it is not zero.
What does not come with you
- Automations. Welcome sequences and abandoned-basket journeys do not export anywhere. They have to be rebuilt, which is a good moment to ask which ones actually earned anything.
- Your reports. Open and click history stays in Mailchimp. Take Mailchimp's full account export before you cancel so you have the record.
- Sign-up forms and landing pages. Any Mailchimp form embedded on your website has to be replaced, or new sign-ups keep going into an account nobody is reading.
- Integrations. Anything that feeds contacts into Mailchimp automatically, such as your shop or your CRM, needs pointing at the new platform.
Finding a cheaper alternative to Mailchimp: compare the right number
When you compare Mailchimp pricing in the UK with the alternatives, compare at your real list size, which is bigger than the number you think you email. Then check how each platform counts. Some charge per contact, some per email sent, and some include people who have left. A platform that looks cheaper at 2,000 contacts can cost more at 10,000, and the list only grows.
One thing worth doing whatever you decide: archive your unsubscribed contacts in Mailchimp now. They stop counting towards your bill, and if you stay, you have just cut your costs for nothing.
Where our email marketing fits
blu::campaign is the email marketing part of our platform, built for UK businesses that send newsletters and offers rather than run marketing departments.
- One block list across everything. An unsubscribe, a hard bounce or a complaint blocks that address from every campaign, and any later import skips it automatically.
- A reason recorded for every import. You say what you are relying on to email the people in each upload, and it is stored against them.
- An unsubscribe link in every email. A campaign without one will not send.
- The same editor as your website if your site is built on our platform, and, if your shop runs on it too, mailing lists that build themselves from your customers and orders.
- Business contacts from Companies House for B2B campaigns, without buying a list.
- Sent from Amazon's London data centre, with your list held in the UK.
And what it will not do, so you can rule it out quickly if these matter to you: there is no complex automation builder, no SMS, and no catalogue of hundreds of integrations. If your marketing runs on multi-step journeys, Mailchimp or a specialist automation tool is the better home, and we will say so.
Where to start
Before you choose anything, take Mailchimp's full account export and keep it. Then open the unsubscribed and cleaned files and look at how many people are in them. That number tells you how much you are paying for people who left, and it is the list you cannot afford to lose in the move.
If you would rather someone else handled the move, templates included, get in touch and we will look at your account with you.