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Email MarketingMediumHigh savings potentialCaution

subscriber data, sending reputation

Kill Mailchimp

$13-350+/mo

Mailchimp starts at $13/month and scales painfully by contact count - including contacts who unsubscribed. Listmonk is the self-hosted alternative with no per-contact pricing. Pair it with Postmark for deliverability and you're looking at $20/month flat regardless of list size.

Why Replace Mailchimp?

  • ×You're billed for unsubscribed contacts - Mailchimp keeps charging unless you manually archive them one by one, and there's no bulk archive on lower tiers
  • ×Duplicate contacts across audiences are billed twice - the same email in two Mailchimp audiences counts as two contacts on your bill
  • ×The free plan has lost 87% of its value since the 2021 Intuit acquisition - cut from 2,000 contacts and 10,000 emails down to 250 contacts and 500 emails
  • ×Overage charges are automatic - if your list crosses a tier boundary mid-cycle, you're bumped to the next tier with no warning before the charge hits

What People Use Mailchimp For

Newsletter or broadcast list
Occasional campaigns to subscribers
Signup forms on website
Basic open and click tracking
Simple welcome email sequences

Replacement Stack

Listmonk

Self-hosted newsletter and list manager. Handles everything you see and touch: lists, campaigns, templates, signup forms, analytics, and double opt-in. No per-contact pricing. Stores unlimited contacts for free. Go templating for emails, with Markdown support.

Free (self-hosted)

Railway

One-click hosting for Listmonk. Railway handles the application container, PostgreSQL database, and environment variables. Usage-based pricing at around $5/month for this workload.

~$5/moGet Started

Postmark

Email delivery layer. Handles sending, bounces, spam complaints, and deliverability reputation. Free for the first 100 emails/month, then $1.50 per 1,000 emails. At typical small business volumes (5,000-20,000 emails/month), you're looking at $7-30/month for delivery.

$1.50/1k emailsGet Started

Kill Checklist

1

Export your Mailchimp data

~10 mins

Go to Audience > Export Audience in Mailchimp and download the CSV. Also export any campaign reports you want to retain from Reporting > Export. If you have automation sequences, screenshot or document the logic - you'll rebuild them in Listmonk. Keep the CSV as a backup.

2

Create a Railway account and a Postmark account

~15 mins

Railway is where Listmonk will run. Postmark is your email delivery layer. Create both accounts and verify your sending domain in Postmark (add the DNS records they provide - DKIM, SPF, and DMARC). Note your Postmark SMTP credentials - you'll need them during Listmonk setup.

https://railway.com?referralCode=killyoursaas →
3

Deploy Listmonk on Railway

~10 mins

Use the one-click Listmonk template on Railway. It provisions the application container, PostgreSQL database, and pre-configured environment variables. Takes about 3-5 minutes. Then add a custom domain in Railway project settings - lists.yourdomain.com or mail.yourdomain.com works well.

https://railway.com/new/template/listmonk?referralCode=killyoursaas →
🔒

Get the full kill plan for Mailchimp

Sign up to unlock 7 more steps, a customizable Claude Code prompt tailored to the features you actually use, and a checklist to track your progress.

  • ✓Pick which Mailchimp features you care about - skip the rest
  • ✓Get a Claude prompt customized to your exact setup
  • ✓Track your kill progress across all your SaaS tools

Free account. No credit card required.

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