HubSpot vs Mailchimp: CRM Platform or Email Tool?

HubSpot vs Mailchimp at a glance

HubSpot sells a CRM with Hubs on top, and Marketing Hub is the one that sends email. It charges per seat, plus a fee for each pack of marketing contacts. Mailchimp sells an email and SMS tool with a marketing CRM for your audience, and charges by contacts.

Every row comes from the vendors' own pricing pages, HubSpot's Product & Services Catalog, HubSpot's app marketplace and both help centers, read in USD on 27 October 2026. The HubSpot totals at 2,500 and 10,000 contacts are our arithmetic from HubSpot's published contact packs.

What's the real difference between HubSpot and Mailchimp?

HubSpot is a CRM that also sends email, and Mailchimp is an email tool that also keeps an audience. Checked on both vendors' pages on 27 October 2026.

HubSpot's catalog says Smart CRM features "are automatically included with the purchase of the Starter, Professional, or Enterprise edition of any premium product", and that "There is select CRM functionality in our free tools, too." Even the free tools store deals, with one pipeline per object type. Marketing Hub then adds email, automation and ads on top of the same records your sales team works in.

Mailchimp calls its audience tools a "Marketing CRM": contact profiles, tags, segments and groups. Its CRM page names no deals or pipelines, and tells you to "Visit our integrations directory" if you want to sync an outside CRM. In practice, a Mailchimp account is where you write, send and measure campaigns, and the sales record lives somewhere else.

How much do HubSpot and Mailchimp cost by list size?

Mailchimp costs less once your list passes 1,000 contacts. At 10,000 contacts Mailchimp Standard is $135 a month, against $410 for HubSpot Marketing Hub Starter with one seat and $1,390 for Professional, at list price. At exactly 1,000 contacts HubSpot Starter is the cheaper one, as long as one seat is enough. Read on both pricing pages on 27 October 2026.

HubSpot's price is seats plus marketing contacts. Starter lists at $20 a seat a month with 1,000 marketing contacts, then charges $50 a month per 1,000 up to 3,000, $45 up to 5,000 and $40 above that. Professional is $890 a month with 3 seats and 2,000 contacts, then $250 per 5,000 contacts. "If you exceed your marketing contacts tier at any time, you will be billed immediately", and the tier "cannot be downgraded until your contract renewal date."

Two HubSpot prices sit below the list: a Starter promo at $7 a seat for new customers, and Professional at $800 a month billed annually. Neither page says whether the discount covers contact packs, so the table uses list prices. Professional also needs a one-time $3,000 onboarding.

Mailchimp's price is the contact tier. Essentials and Standard come with a 14-day free trial, and seats are included: 3 on Essentials, 5 on Standard, unlimited on Premium. Premium is $350 a month at every tier up to 10,000 contacts. Mailchimp's page currently shows "Save 15% on 10,000+ contacts", with first-year prices at the 5,001 to 10,000 tier of $93.50, $114.75 and $297.50.

Sources: https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/marketing, https://legal.hubspot.com/hubspot-product-and-services-catalog/products and https://mailchimp.com/pricing/marketing/, read on 27 October 2026.

Is HubSpot free? Is Mailchimp free?

Both have a free plan, with different limits. HubSpot's free tools cover up to 2 users and 2,000 email sends a month with HubSpot branding. Mailchimp Free covers up to 250 contacts and 500 sends a month, no more than 250 a day. Checked 27 October 2026.

HubSpot describes its free tools as "'lite' versions of select features in our paid products". Free email automation is limited to "1 automated action", forms to one automated email each, and landing pages to 30, all with HubSpot branding. The free CRM keeps contacts, companies and deals.

Mailchimp Free gives you 1 audience, 1 seat, basic templates, forms and landing pages. Its plan table leaves out automation flows, email scheduling and removing Mailchimp branding, and support is email-only for the first 30 days. Pass 250 contacts and Mailchimp puts "a hold" on sending until you upgrade or trim the list.

Which has better marketing automation?

For branching automation at a low price, Mailchimp. Its Standard plan has up to 200 flows with branching for $45 a month at 1,000 contacts. HubSpot's unlimited automation starts on Marketing Hub Professional at $890 a month. Checked 27 October 2026.

Mailchimp renamed Customer Journeys to Marketing Automation Flows in June 2025. Essentials allows flows "with up to 4 steps" and no branching. Standard and Premium allow up to 200 flows, with "Multiple Starting Points" and "Branching Points". Free has none.

HubSpot Marketing Hub Starter allows "Up to 10 automated actions" in email automation, which HubSpot calls simple marketing automation. Professional adds "Unlimited actions, plus omni-channel marketing automation", up to 300 workflows and up to 5 lead scores. Enterprise goes to 1,000 workflows and adds behavioral event triggers.

The two vendors count differently, steps in a flow against actions, so we don't rank the entry plans against each other. Where HubSpot pulls ahead is what the automation can see. A HubSpot workflow runs on the same records as the sales team's deals, so a lead score or a handoff to a seller needs no sync.

Do you need a CRM, or is Mailchimp's audience enough?

If nobody follows up leads one by one, Mailchimp's audience is enough. Once a seller has to own a lead, see its stage and get a task, you need a CRM, and HubSpot's free one already has deals. Checked 27 October 2026.

Mailchimp's audience holds contact profiles with tags, notes, groups and segments, and Standard adds predictive segments. That covers who gets which email. It doesn't cover who owns the deal, what stage it's in or when to call.

HubSpot's free CRM stores contacts, companies and deals, with one pipeline per object type, for up to 2 users. Paid Smart CRM editions raise the pipeline count. If you're not sure which CRM fits your team, pick a CRM in six questions.

Does HubSpot integrate with Mailchimp?

Yes, and HubSpot builds both connectors. Its marketplace lists two certified apps "Built by HubSpot": Mailchimp Campaign Sync, which brings Mailchimp email activity into HubSpot, and a Mailchimp Data Sync app that syncs contacts both ways. Checked 27 October 2026.

Campaign Sync works on all HubSpot products and plans, per HubSpot's help article. The listing names Mailchimp's Free, Essentials and Standard plans. Every 15 minutes it adds Mailchimp sends, opens, clicks and bounces to the matching HubSpot contacts. You can then build segments or start workflows from that activity. It skips campaigns sent more than 30 days before you connect, A/B tests and campaigns that are part of a Customer Journey, Mailchimp's old name for flows. In the other direction, it adds contacts who submit non-HubSpot forms to a Mailchimp list, with "first name, last name, and email address" only. HubSpot says: "contacts can only be synced from HubSpot to Mailchimp and not vice versa."

For a two-way contact sync, HubSpot points to its Data Sync app: "Data Sync - Sync contacts two-way with a Mailchimp Audience". It syncs contacts in real time, starts with your existing records and lets you map fields. The listing says "This app requires Data Hub Starter or above", which HubSpot's catalog lists at $20 a seat a month. It also says Groups, Tags and email opens or clicks don't sync, which is why HubSpot tells you to install Campaign Sync as well. The listing shows 14K installs and a 2.7 rating from 64 reviews.

On Mailchimp's side, look in HubSpot's marketplace. Mailchimp's own directory lists third-party connectors for HubSpot, such as Outfunnel, Workato and Make.

Our angle: if you already send from Mailchimp and sell from HubSpot, connect them before you move anything. The two HubSpot apps cover contacts and email activity. You need an automation layer such as Make, n8n or Zapier when tags or groups have to drive something in HubSpot, when a deal stage should change a Mailchimp audience, or when a third system joins in. We compare those tools in Make vs n8n vs Zapier. When the native apps fall short, we connect Mailchimp to HubSpot through the HubSpot API, n8n or Make, the way we connect HubSpot to the rest of a stack.

Moving from Mailchimp to HubSpot

HubSpot has its own importer for contacts; the flows and the bill need planning. HubSpot's Smart Transfer lists Mailchimp as a supported source, on all HubSpot products and plans, one-way into HubSpot. HubSpot's article was last updated October 2, 2026.

Smart Transfer is "designed for a one-time migration of data from another app to HubSpot". Only Super Admins can run it, and moving custom field mappings needs a Data Hub subscription. You can also export from Mailchimp yourself: an audience, segment, tag or group as CSV files, split into subscribed, unsubscribed, non-subscribed and cleaned. The columns include tags, opt-in time and the marketing permissions a contact gave. Open and click history doesn't come with the contacts.

Then the bill. HubSpot charges for marketing contacts, the ones you can email. Imported contacts are non-marketing by default: "If you don't specify a marketing status when importing new contacts, they'll be set as non-marketing by default." Set 10,000 Mailchimp subscribers as marketing contacts and Starter with one seat goes from $20 to $410 a month at list price. You can mark contacts non-marketing later, but HubSpot applies that only from the next month or renewal, and the tier "cannot be downgraded until your contract renewal date." Import only the people you will email.

Plan to rebuild Mailchimp flows as HubSpot workflows, and check which ones HubSpot's transfer carries before you switch sending off. Mailchimp's guide for the opposite move says you'll "duplicate and test your segments, automated workflows, and templates" in the new tool. Before you switch either way, read what breaks in a migration.

HubSpot or Mailchimp: which one to choose

Choose Mailchimp to send newsletters and simple flows to a growing list at a low monthly price. Choose HubSpot when marketing and sales should work from one CRM and you can pay per seat and per contact pack. If you already run Mailchimp beside a HubSpot CRM, sync the two first and decide later.

Looking for something better than Mailchimp at automation? ActiveCampaign vs Mailchimp compares it with an automation-first email tool. Weighing HubSpot against Salesforce instead? See HubSpot vs Salesforce.

• Choose Mailchimp if you have under 250 contacts and send a newsletter: the Free plan covers 500 sends a month.
• Choose Mailchimp if several people need access on a budget: Essentials has 3 seats and Standard 5, and Standard has branching flows from $45 a month at 1,000 contacts.
• Choose HubSpot if you want a free CRM with deals and email in one place: the free tools cover 2 users and 2,000 sends a month, with HubSpot branding.
• Choose HubSpot Marketing Hub if leads need scoring and a handoff to sales in the same system. That's Professional, $890 a month at list plus $3,000 onboarding.
• Keep both if sales lives in HubSpot and marketing in Mailchimp: HubSpot's Campaign Sync brings email activity in, and its Data Sync app keeps contacts matched with Data Hub Starter.
• Before moving a big list into HubSpot, price the marketing contacts: on Starter, 10,000 of them take one seat from $20 to $410 a month at list.

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