Mailchimp: Email Marketing for Squarespace

Mailchimp is the best-known email marketing and automation platform. You can connect it to your Squarespace site to capture subscribers, send newsletters and campaigns, and build automated email journeys. This page is a plain-English rundown of what it is, what it does, what it costs, and who it suits.

Best for: Squarespace businesses that want a powerful, dedicated email platform with advanced automation and segmentation.

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What it is

Mailchimp is an email marketing and automation platform, owned by Intuit, used by millions of businesses to manage contacts and send campaigns. You connect it to Squarespace through newsletter blocks and embedded signup forms, so visitors who subscribe on your site flow into your Mailchimp audience, where you design emails, segment your list, and set up automations. It is a dedicated marketing tool rather than a website feature, which is both its strength (depth) and the thing to weigh up, since Squarespace now has its own built-in Email Campaigns.

That is the key decision: Squarespace’s native Email Campaigns is simpler and lives inside your site with no second tool to manage, while Mailchimp is more powerful on automation, segmentation, and integrations, but separate and generally pricier. Pick the native option for straightforward newsletters; reach for Mailchimp when you need its advanced features.

What it does

Mailchimp covers the full email marketing toolkit, with the more advanced tools on higher plans. Key features include:

• Campaigns and newsletters built with a drag-and-drop editor and a large template library.
• Audience management with contacts, tags, and groups, plus signup forms and landing pages to grow your list.
• Segmentation, from basic on entry plans to behavioral and predictive segmentation on Standard and above.
• Multi-step automation (customer journeys with branching logic) for welcome sequences, abandoned-cart, and follow-ups, available from the Standard plan.
• A/B testing on paid plans, with multivariate testing on Premium.
• Send-time optimisation and dynamic content to personalise what each contact receives (Standard and above).
• An AI creative assistant plus reporting and analytics on opens, clicks, and revenue.
• Integrations with hundreds of tools, one of the widest ecosystems in email marketing.

Pricing

Mailchimp is priced by the number of contacts you store, with four tiers, and the cost rises as your list grows. As a rough guide for US pricing (it varies by region, so check the Mailchimp pricing page):

• Free: $0, but heavily limited now, around 250 contacts and 500 emails per month, with no automation and Mailchimp branding on emails. Realistically for testing only.
• Essentials: from around $13 per month for 500 contacts (rising with list size). Removes branding, adds A/B testing, all templates, and 24/7 support, but only basic automation.
• Standard: from around $20 per month for 500 contacts. The recommended tier, where multi-step automation, advanced segmentation, dynamic content, and send-time optimisation unlock.
• Premium: from around $350 per month (for 10,000 contacts), adding multivariate testing, comparative reports, and phone support for larger senders.

Two honest cost points. Automation, the main reason most people choose Mailchimp, requires the Standard plan, not Essentials. And Mailchimp counts every contact toward your limit, including unsubscribed and inactive ones, unless you manually archive them, so list hygiene directly affects your bill. SMS and transactional email are also charged separately.

Who it is for

Mailchimp suits Squarespace businesses that want a serious, standalone email platform, especially anyone who will use multi-step automations, deeper segmentation, and a wide integration ecosystem, which points most users to the Standard plan. It is a weaker fit if your needs are simple: the free plan is now too limited to run a real list, cheaper alternatives exist for basic sending, and if you only want occasional newsletters, Squarespace’s built-in Email Campaigns may cover you without a second subscription. It is also worth a second look if you are very cost-sensitive, since pricing scales steeply as your list grows.

Our verdict

Mailchimp is still the most recognised email platform, and on the Standard plan it is genuinely capable: the automation, segmentation, and AI tools are strong, and the integration ecosystem is hard to match. Go in clear-eyed, though. The free plan has been cut back to the point of being a testing tool, pricing climbs steeply with your list, and you pay for unsubscribed contacts unless you archive them. If you want powerful automation and will use it, Mailchimp earns its place; if you mainly need simple newsletters on Squarespace, weigh it honestly against the native Email Campaigns first.

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Frequently asked questions

Does Mailchimp work with Squarespace?
Yes. You can connect Mailchimp to Squarespace newsletter blocks and embed signup forms, so subscribers from your site flow into your Mailchimp audience for campaigns and automations.

How is Mailchimp different from Squarespace Email Campaigns?
Squarespace’s built-in Email Campaigns is simpler and native, with no second tool to manage and tight integration with your site. Mailchimp is more powerful on automation, segmentation, and integrations, but separate and generally pricier. Choose native for simple newsletters, Mailchimp for advanced automation.

Is Mailchimp’s free plan still worth it?
Not for much. It has been reduced to around 250 contacts and 500 emails per month with no automation, so it is really only useful for testing. Most businesses need Essentials or Standard.

How much does Mailchimp cost?
Free for around 250 contacts, Essentials from about $13 per month, Standard from about $20 per month, and Premium from about $350 per month, all scaling with your contact count. Annual and nonprofit discounts are available.

Does Mailchimp charge for unsubscribed contacts?
Yes. It counts all contacts toward your plan limit, including unsubscribed and inactive ones, unless you manually archive them. Keeping your list clean keeps your bill down.

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