Last verified: 18 September 2026. Every plan limit below was re-read on that date from the vendor’s own pricing or help page, and each one links to the page it came from, so you can check any line yourself.

If you run a business in Ghana or elsewhere in Africa, the Mailchimp alternatives worth your time are the ones you can pay for, that fit the list you have, and that make the physical-address rule easy to meet. This guide compares 15 alternatives to Mailchimp on exactly those points, starting with currency and payment.

One of the fifteen, Arkesel Email Marketing, is ours. Its entry is sourced the same way as the other fourteen.

Mailchimp alternatives: the short answer

• A free plan with room for a bigger list: Sender and EmailOctopus both print a 2,500-subscriber cap on their free plans.
• SMS on a free plan: Omnisend and Klaviyo both include SMS on their free plans. Several others sell it as credits, an add-on or a top-tier feature.
• Plans in cedis or rand, with mobile money in Ghana: Arkesel Email Marketing, which also runs a free plan for up to 1,000 subscribers.
• Looking for Mailchimp physical address alternatives? Mailchimp suggests a professional representative’s P.O. Box, a studio, a place you teach or a store you are affiliated with. Switching platform does not remove the rule.

What to check before you switch from Mailchimp

Five questions decide most switches. Answer them in this order before you compare features.

1. Can you pay for it, and in what currency?

Eight of the fourteen third-party pricing pages in this comparison name the payment methods they accept, and the answer is mostly cards, often with PayPal beside them. Two go further than cards: Mailjet also takes wire transfers and prepaid accounts, and Zoho Campaigns takes bank or check transfer on yearly subscriptions. Those routes matter if you do not hold a card that works for international payments.

Flodesk answers a different half of the question. It states that it is available worldwide, usable from any country, and priced the same for everyone in USD.

Five pages (MailerLite, Sender, GetResponse, ActiveCampaign and AWeber) do not state a payment method on the page we read. Ask them before you commit, and put a small payment through before you move a list, whichever platform you choose.

2. Where does the free plan or trial stop?

Some platforms cap subscribers, some cap emails per month, some cap emails per day, and a few cap more than one at once. Which cap binds you depends on whether you hold a large list you email rarely or a small list you email often.

Check the branding line too. A free plan often carries the vendor’s name on your emails, and Sender, EmailOctopus, GetResponse and Arkesel all say so on their own pages.

3. Does it cover the other channels you use?

If you also reach customers by SMS or WhatsApp, check which of those channels the platform includes, or whether the same provider sells them. The SMS question has its own section below.

4. Do you need transactional email?

Receipts, password resets and order updates are fired by your own application, one customer at a time. Not every platform here does that job.

5. What address will you print in the footer?

Mailchimp asks for a physical address because the law it applies requires one. That duty stays with you when you move, so decide which address you will use before you switch.

The 15 Mailchimp alternatives compared

Each platform name links to the pricing page the figures were read from on 18 September 2026.

A thin cell means the detail was not printed on the page we read. It is not a claim that the platform lacks it. If paying in cedis is the question holding up your decision, see what Arkesel’s email marketing platform includes and set it beside the fourteen above.

What can you use instead of a physical address in Mailchimp or its alternatives?

Mailchimp’s own help centre suggests a P.O. Box held by someone who represents you professionally, a studio or rehearsal space, a place where you teach, or a gallery or store you are affiliated with, as long as you can receive mail there. Moving to another platform does not remove the requirement, because it comes from the law Mailchimp is applying, not from Mailchimp’s software.

Mailchimp’s list of substitute addresses

Mailchimp’s guide to alternative physical address ideas is written for senders who work from home or have no office. It describes the requirement as the FTC’s CAN-SPAM Act requirement for a physical address, and it offers four substitutes:

• a P.O. Box belonging to a business manager or other professional representative, if they let you use it
• a creative space such as a music studio or rehearsal space
• a store or other establishment where you teach and can receive mail
• a gallery or retail store you are affiliated with, if it will receive mail for you

The same page says that sometimes the only answer is to purchase a P.O. Box. It also recommends speaking with a professional to confirm that the address you pick meets CAN-SPAM’s valid postal address requirement.

What the regulator accepts

The FTC’s CAN-SPAM compliance guide for business states that your message must include your valid physical postal address. It lists three forms: a street address, a post office box registered with the U.S. Postal Service, or a private mailbox registered with a commercial mail receiving agency.

Notice that both box types on that list are US-registered. The guide does not mention post boxes registered anywhere else, so take professional advice before you rely on a box outside the United States.

Why switching tools does not solve it

Mailchimp’s help page on campaign footers states that anti-spam laws and its Terms of Use require certain information in every email you send, and lists your physical address among it. The legal half of that sentence travels with you to every platform on this list.

So the thing you can change is which address you print, not whether you print one. If any of your subscribers are in the United States, plan for the rule wherever you send from. What your own country’s rules require is a separate question, and one to put to a local adviser.

Which Mailchimp alternatives have a free plan?

Twelve of the fifteen platforms here run a free plan you can stay on: Brevo, MailerLite, Sender, Omnisend, Klaviyo, Mailjet, SendPulse, EmailOctopus, Zoho Campaigns, GetResponse, Flodesk and Arkesel Email Marketing. Eleven of those twelve let you send email on it.

Flodesk is the exception. Its Free plan builds forms and landing pages but does not send, so emailing anyone on Flodesk means a trial first and a paid plan after it.

The other three, Moosend, ActiveCampaign and AWeber, give you a trial that expires with no free tier behind it. If you are hunting for free Mailchimp alternatives, start with the twelve and then match the cap to your sending pattern: list size, monthly emails or daily emails.

The 15 Mailchimp alternatives one by one

Each entry says what the vendor’s own page states, who it fits, and what to check before you commit.

Platforms with a free plan you can stay on

Brevo

Brevo’s pricing page states that once your account is approved for sending, the free plan lets you send up to 300 emails per day. The same page states that all Brevo plans include transactional email features, including RESTful APIs and SMTP.

Choose it if your sending is steady rather than spiky, or you want marketing and transactional email from one provider. Before you commit: the free cap is daily, so one large announcement can hit it in a single afternoon.

MailerLite

MailerLite’s pricing page puts the free plan at up to 250 subscribers, 2 user seats and 2,500 monthly emails. That works out at roughly ten sends a month to a full list.

Choose it if you are building a first list and plan to send often. Before you commit: two seats covers a founder and a marketer, and stops there.

Sender

Sender’s pricing page puts its Free Forever plan at up to 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month, and the plan card states that it contains Sender branding.

Choose it if list size is what keeps pushing you off other free plans. Before you commit: your subscribers will see Sender’s name on your mail.

Omnisend

Omnisend’s pricing page states that on the free plan you can use all the features of the paid plans, limited to 500 emails per month to up to 250 contacts. The channels it lists at that tier include SMS, push notifications, Google Customer Match and Facebook Custom Audiences.

Choose it if you want to evaluate the full product, SMS included, rather than a cut-down version. Before you commit: 500 emails a month is an evaluation budget, not an operating one.

Klaviyo

Klaviyo’s pricing page states that the free tier is limited to up to 250 active profiles and 500 email sends per month. The same page states that the free plan supports text (SMS/MMS) marketing to a degree, with a small monthly allowance of mobile messages so you can test campaigns.

These figures are from Klaviyo’s UK pricing page; check the page for your own region.

Choose it if your list fits inside 250 profiles and you want to try email and SMS together while you evaluate. Before you commit: the free tier is sized for testing, so work out which paid tier your full list would need.

Mailjet

Mailjet’s pricing page states that no credit card is required for the free plan at sign-up, and that you can send up to 6,000 emails per month with a maximum of 200 emails per day.

Choose it if your sending is regular and evenly spread. Before you commit: two ceilings apply at once, so a single burst can stop you well short of the monthly figure.

SendPulse

SendPulse’s pricing page states that with the Free plan you can send emails to up to 500 subscribers.

Choose it if you email a small list often. Before you commit: the paid step is framed as a move up in list size, so plan the point at which you will cross it.

EmailOctopus

EmailOctopus’s pricing page states that it offers no free trial and recommends starting on the free plan, which covers 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails per month with EmailOctopus branding on emails.

Choose it if you want a large free list allowance and can live with the vendor’s name on your mail. Before you commit: with no trial of the paid tier, you evaluate paid features by paying for them.

Zoho Campaigns

Zoho Campaigns’ pricing page runs a forever-free plan alongside a 14-day trial, and states that an expired trial is automatically downgraded to the forever-free plan. That plan covers up to 2,000 contacts and 6,000 emails per month. The trial opens every feature against up to 2,000 contacts and three email campaigns.

Choose it if you want to test the full product and still have somewhere to land. Before you commit: spend the fortnight on the features you would miss, because the free plan keeps a contact limit; check which features it drops.

GetResponse

GetResponse’s pricing page offers a 14-day free trial with access to its premium features. After that, the page states, you lose the premium features but can still log in and use the free version, and the GetResponse badge is added to every message you send from it.

Choose it if you want to try the full product without the account closing behind you. Before you commit: the pricing page does not tie a subscriber or send ceiling to the free version, so ask for those figures before you plan around them.

Flodesk

Flodesk’s pricing page states that it offers both a Free plan and a free trial. The Free plan builds forms, landing pages and link-in-bio pages, and does not include email sending or workflow automations. An account that picks no paid plan when the trial ends moves back to the Free plan.

Flodesk’s paid plans carry unlimited email sends, and their prices scale with your active subscriber count. Choose it if you send heavily to a list that grows slowly. Before you commit: budget for a paid plan from the day you want to send.

Platforms that give you a trial that expires

Moosend

Moosend’s pricing page offers a 30-day free trial with no credit card required, and lists a trial rather than a free tier.

Choose it if you can run a real evaluation inside a month. Before you commit: put the trial end date in your calendar on day one.

ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign’s pricing page offers a 14-day free trial and states that no credit card is needed.

Choose it if automation is the reason you are leaving Mailchimp and you want to build one before deciding. Before you commit: map the automation you need first, so the fortnight goes on building rather than exploring.

AWeber

AWeber’s pricing page lists three paid options: Lite and Plus, each opening with a 14-day trial, and Done For You, which adds a paid expert setup service on top of everything in Plus. Plus carries unlimited email automations; Lite carries 3.

Choose it if you can name how many automations you need, because that is where Lite and Plus divide. Before you commit: count your planned automations against the Lite allowance.

Arkesel Email Marketing, the fifteenth, has its own section further down.

Which Mailchimp alternatives also send SMS?

Several Mailchimp competitors here sell SMS alongside email. What differs is where it sits: on the free plan, as credits you buy, as an add-on, or on a top tier only. Check which plan carries SMS before you compare on it.

SMS on the free plan

Omnisend’s pricing page states that the free plan gives you the paid plans’ features and a variety of channels, SMS among them, within the 500-email, 250-contact limit. Klaviyo’s pricing page states that its free plan supports both email and text (SMS/MMS) marketing to a degree, with a small monthly allowance for testing. Either lets you try email and SMS together before you pay.

SMS as credits, an add-on or a top-tier feature

• Credits bought separately: Brevo’s pricing page lists email and SMS on its Starter plan, with SMS credit sold separately. Sender’s pricing page lists SMS messaging on its paid plans and states that on the Standard plan you buy SMS credits, with the cost depending on the destination country.
• An add-on: ActiveCampaign’s pricing page sells SMS marketing automation as an add-on, and Zoho Campaigns’ pricing page lists SMS marketing as an add-on too.
• The top tier: GetResponse’s pricing page lists SMS marketing among the Enterprise plan’s tools, which it describes as not available in the standard plans.

For any vendor not named here, check its own SMS or product page rather than assuming either way. Whichever you shortlist, confirm the vendor sends SMS to your country, and at what price, before you count on it.

Arkesel

Besides Email Marketing, Arkesel offers an SMS Platform for bulk SMS and a WhatsApp Business API, and one Arkesel login reaches all three. Each product keeps its own dashboard and its own billing; the login is the only thing they share.

Whichever channels you use, segmenting your list is what decides which customers get which message.

Transactional email, delivery and integrations

Which Mailchimp alternative handles transactional email?

Brevo’s pricing page states that all Brevo plans include transactional email features, including RESTful APIs and SMTP. Sender is worth a look beside it: its pricing page lists transactional emails among the Free Forever plan’s inclusions, and its FAQ states that SMTP is included in the service rather than sold separately.

Arkesel Email Marketing is not the tool for this job. Its automation flows (welcome, follow-up and reminder sequences) are lifecycle email built and triggered inside the platform, not messages fired from your own application code.

What about delivery rates?

A delivery rate published for someone else’s sending will not tell you how your own list performs, because much of what decides delivery sits on your side: an authenticated sending domain, a list of people who asked to hear from you, and messages they expect.

So compare mechanisms. Does the platform issue and verify SPF and DKIM records for your sending domain? Does it report bounces and spam complaints per campaign?

The groundwork behind both is in our guide to keeping emails out of the spam folder.

Integrations for an online store

Start with the store. Whatever software runs it has to appear in the email vendor’s own integrations directory, so check yours by name before you shortlist anything.

Mailchimp alternatives in Africa: is there a platform built for African businesses?

Yes, more than one. Mail Blaze describes itself as a South African email marketing platform. Arkesel Email Marketing, the fifteenth platform in the table, lists coverage in Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania.

If you are in South Africa, check Mail Blaze’s plan limits on its own site.

Arkesel Email Marketing

Arkesel’s email marketing page lists coverage in Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania, and lists its plans in Ghana cedis (GHS). Arkesel’s pricing page prices each country in its own currency and shows the payment methods accepted there. For Email Marketing, it lists the plans in cedis under its Ghana tab and lists the same plans in South African rand (ZAR) under its South Africa tab.

The Ghana tab accepts mobile money (currently MTN MoMo, Telecel Cash and AT Money) as well as Visa and Mastercard; the South Africa tab accepts Visa, Mastercard and Amex. For a business in either country, that takes the currency conversion and the international-card question out of the comparison.

The entry tier is a plan called Free: up to 1,000 subscribers, up to 5,000 emails per month, Arkesel branding on emails, statistics stored for 30 days and basic support. Email Marketing pricing appears under the Ghana and South Africa tabs; the Nigeria and Tanzania tabs carry no Email Marketing pricing, so if you send from either, ask Arkesel about the free plan before you count on it.

Features, authentication and reporting

The platform runs email campaigns and newsletters, automation flows for welcome, follow-up and reminder sequences, contact segmentation, and A/B and split testing on subject lines and content variants. Arkesel Email Marketing supports SPF and DKIM authentication for your sending domain: you add the domain, the platform issues the DNS records to publish, then checks them and marks the domain verified.

Every campaign reports its bounce and spam-complaint rates, with per-recipient logs you can open from the campaign itself. There is also an API at email.arkesel.com under /api/v1.

Choose it if the currency or payment question is the one stalling your decision, or if email is only part of how you reach customers. Before you commit: for transactional mail fired from your own application, look at Brevo or Sender instead. Current prices are on the pricing page.

Which Mailchimp alternative should you choose?

• A small list you want to test the full product on. Omnisend gives you the paid plans’ features at 250 contacts and 500 emails a month. MailerLite gives you more sending room at 2,500 monthly emails to 250 subscribers.
• A larger list on a free plan. Sender and EmailOctopus both reach 2,500 subscribers and both put their branding on your emails. The monthly ceilings differ: 15,000 emails on Sender, 10,000 on EmailOctopus.
• Paying without an international card. Mailjet takes wire transfers and prepaid accounts; Zoho Campaigns takes bank or check transfer on yearly subscriptions.
• Marketing and transactional email from one provider. Brevo, whose pricing page states that every plan includes transactional features, or Sender, whose free plan lists transactional emails.
• A full evaluation before you decide. Moosend gives you 30 days; ActiveCampaign, AWeber, GetResponse and Zoho Campaigns give you 14. GetResponse and Zoho Campaigns leave a free tier behind when the trial ends; the other three do not.
• SMS alongside email. Omnisend and Klaviyo include SMS on their free plans; Brevo and Sender sell SMS credits; ActiveCampaign and Zoho Campaigns sell it as an add-on.
• Heavy sending to a slow-growing list. Flodesk, which prices on subscribers rather than sends. Budget for a paid plan from the start, because its free tier does not send.
• Plans in cedis or rand, mobile money in Ghana, and bulk SMS and WhatsApp on the same Arkesel login. Arkesel Email Marketing, whose free plan runs to 1,000 subscribers and 5,000 emails a month.

Once you have chosen, plan your first campaigns around the types of email worth sending. New to the category? Our guide to how email marketing works covers the basics.

Start sending

The right Mailchimp alternative is the one whose caps sit where your list and your sending pattern actually are, and that you can pay for from where you are. Pick on that constraint rather than the longest feature list, and re-check the plan page on the day you sign up.

Ready to run campaigns, automation flows and segmentation from plans listed in cedis? Create an Arkesel account and start on the free plan, or see current pricing first.

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