The Mailchimp Transactional Alternative With No Plan to Buy
Mailchimp Transactional costs $60 a month for 50,000 emails. Of that, $20 is a Mailchimp Standard plan you must buy first. Mailfully costs $19 for the same 50,000 and has no other plan to buy.
5,000 emails a month free, then plans from $19/mo, with $0.40 per 1,000 emails past a paid plan's allowance.
Why Teams Look for an Alternative
Mailchimp's Standard plan, which Transactional requires, includes 24/7 chat support. Mailchimp also keeps aggregate stats indefinitely and has SMS.
You pay for a marketing plan to send receipts
Mailchimp adds the Standard plan to your purchase automatically, at $20 a month for up to 500 contacts, before you buy a single block of 25,000 emails. The cheapest month is $40. Mailfully has no other plan to buy: 5,000 emails a month are free and 50,000 are $19.
Blocks expire and sending can stop
Mailchimp sells email in prepaid blocks of 25,000. Unused blocks expire at the end of the month and do not roll over, and sending stops when the blocks run out unless you turn on automatic top-off purchases. A paid Mailfully plan keeps sending past its allowance at $0.40 per 1,000.
No free plan to build on
Mailchimp Transactional has no free tier. Its demo is 500 emails, once per account, only to addresses on your own verified domain, at 25 an hour. Mailfully's Free plan sends 5,000 emails a month, 200 a day, with no card.
Mailfully Compared With Mailchimp Transactional
| Mailfully | Mailchimp Transactional | |
|---|---|---|
| Plan you must also buy | No other plan | Mailchimp Standard, from $20/mo |
| Free tier | 5,000 emails a month, 200 a day | None; a one-time 500-email demo to your own domain |
| 50,000 emails a month | $19 | $60 |
| How volume is billed | A monthly plan; paid plans add $0.40 per 1,000 past the allowance | Prepaid blocks of 25,000 that expire at month end |
| Dedicated IP | $29 a month add-on, included on Scale | $29.95/mo add-on |
| Data retention | 30 days, 60 on Growth, 90 on Scale | 30 days of content, 90 days of bounce details |
Mailchimp Transactional figures checked in October 2026 from its own published pricing and documentation. Published prices change; check both before you commit.
What the Same Volume Costs
| Emails a month | Mailfully | Mailchimp Transactional |
|---|---|---|
| 5,000 | $0 | $40 |
| 50,000 | $19 | $60 |
| 100,000 | $39 | $100 |
| 150,000 | $49 | $140 |
| 300,000 | $109 | $260 |
| 500,000 | $149 | $398 |
| 1,000,000 | $349 | $676 |
Every figure includes the Mailchimp Standard plan ($20 at up to 500 contacts), which Transactional requires. At 500,000 and 1,000,000 the figure is one block more than you need, because Mailchimp's per-block discount makes the bigger purchase cheaper. For a limited time, Mailchimp offers accounts under 90 days old 50% off for 12 months at 1 million emails or more, through sales. That brings the 1,000,000 figure to about $348.
What Mailfully Does Better
- Best in Class Pricing
- Straightforward plans, published in full. Past a paid plan's allowance, extra emails are a flat $0.40 per 1,000 at any volume.
- Get Real Human Support
- Every paid plan includes support from a real person. When an email goes missing, our team pulls up the message, reads the log, and tells you what happened.
- Detailed Logging and History
- Every email keeps a complete history, down to the exact reply from the receiving mail server. When a customer says a receipt never arrived, you see what Gmail said about it. Logs are kept for 30 days on Free and Starter, 60 on Growth and 90 on Scale, available from the API and the dashboard.
Moving Over
Mandrill posts JSON to /api/1.0/messages/send with your key in the body and each recipient as an object with an email and a type. Mailfully takes the key in a Bearer header, and the to field takes plain addresses.
// Before
// await fetch("https://mandrillapp.com/api/1.0/messages/send", {
// method: "POST",
// headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json" },
// body: JSON.stringify({
// key: process.env.MANDRILL_API_KEY,
// message: {
// from_email: "you@yourdomain.com",
// subject: "Welcome aboard",
// html: "<p>Thanks for signing up!</p>",
// to: [{ email: "customer@example.com", type: "to" }],
// },
// }),
// });
import { Mailfully } from "mailfully";
const mailfully = new Mailfully({
apiKey: process.env.MAILFULLY_API_KEY ?? "",
});
const { data, error } = await mailfully.emails.send({
from: "you@yourdomain.com",
to: "customer@example.com",
subject: "Welcome aboard",
html: "<p>Thanks for signing up!</p>",
});
if (error) throw new Error(`${error.type}: ${error.message}`);Questions
- Do I need a Mailchimp account?
- No. Mailfully is a separate service with its own sign-up and plans, and sending through it needs nothing from Mailchimp.
- What happens to unused volume?
- On Mailchimp, a block you do not use expires at the end of the month and does not roll over. A paid Mailfully plan includes a monthly allowance. There are no blocks to use up, and past that allowance you pay $0.40 per 1,000.
- Can I keep using Mailchimp for newsletters?
- Yes. Moving your transactional mail to Mailfully leaves your Mailchimp audiences and campaigns alone, so newsletters can stay where they are.
Send the First One Free
5,000 emails a month on the free tier, no card. Paid plans start at $19/mo, with $0.40 per 1,000 emails beyond the allowance.
Start free