Alternative to Mailchimp

Mailchimp is the best-known name in email marketing. relay is a developer email service for sending, receiving, and reputation monitoring, hosted in the EU.

Best for marketing campaigns and commerce integrations: Mailchimp

Best for sending, receiving, and monitoring in one EU-hosted service: relay

Quick comparison

Feature	relay	Mailchimp
SPF	Auto-served	Manual record
DKIM	RSA-1024, RSA-2048, Ed25519	RSA only
DMARC	Auto-served	Manual record
MTA-STS	Auto-served	Self-hosted
TLS-RPT	Auto-served	Manual record
Return-Path	Auto-served	Manual CNAME
Reputation monitoring	DMARC + TLS-RPT parsed	Not available
Incoming mail	MX + webhooks	Not available
EU data sovereignty	EU, GDPR	US-owned
Free test domain	Yes	No
Pricing	Flat per message	Tiered, contact-based

What Mailchimp does well

Mailchimp (owned by Intuit) is the most recognized name in email marketing. As of 2025, its drag-and-drop campaign builder, audience segmentation, and commerce integrations are among the best. For marketing teams, it is hard to beat.

The trade-off is transactional and infrastructure email. Mailchimp handles outbound only, through Mandrill. It does not receive mail. It does not ingest DMARC or TLS-RPT reports. DNS authentication is manual.

Where relay is different

All-in-one monitoring

Mailchimp does not ingest DMARC or TLS-RPT reports. relay parses RUA, RUF, and TLS-RPT reports and shows reputation and failure trends in a dashboard. You monitor abuse and deliverability without extra tooling.

Sending without DNS busywork

Mailchimp and Mandrill give you SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records to add to your DNS provider. You rotate keys yourself. relay automates this. You delegate NS and set one DMARC record. relay then serves MX, SPF, DKIM, Return-Path, PTR, and TLS-RPT for you. relay signs mail with DKIM keys in RSA-1024, RSA-2048, and Ed25519, and it serves the MTA-STS policy over HTTPS. The built-in nameserver is the mechanism. You do not touch a DNS dashboard after the initial delegation.

Incoming mail

Mailchimp does not handle inbound mail at all. relay runs an MX server that receives incoming email with STARTTLS. It dispatches each message to your webhooks with an Ed25519 signature, per the Standard Webhooks spec.

EU data sovereignty

Mailchimp is an Intuit product. Intuit is a US company, and it hosts data in the US. US law applies. relay is hosted in the EU under the GDPR, with no US data path.

Free test domain

relay includes a free sender domain to test deliverability and integrations. Mailchimp requires a verified domain before you send.

When Mailchimp makes sense

You need a full marketing-campaign builder with audience segmentation.
You rely on the Mailchimp commerce and landing-page integrations.
You want marketing and transactional email (Mandrill) under one brand.

The bottom line

Mailchimp is a top marketing platform. relay is the better fit for developer email when you want inbound mail, reputation monitoring, and EU hosting, without manual DNS work.

Migrating from Mailchimp to relay

Add your domain in relay. Delegate NS to the relay nameservers.
Set the DMARC record that relay gives you.
Move transactional calls from Mandrill to relay with a per-org credential.
Set up relay webhooks for any inbound mail you need.