Most people who leave Mailchimp for MailerLite are chasing two things: a lower bill and a builder that does not fight them. Mailchimp's pricing climbs with every contact you store, and its interface has accumulated enough menus over the years that simple jobs take longer than they should. MailerLite strips that back — a cleaner editor, a flatter price curve, and a free plan that is genuinely usable rather than a lead-gen trap.
The catch, and it surprises people every time, is that MailerLite reviews new accounts by hand before letting you send campaigns. This is not a technical hurdle, it is an anti-spam measure, but it means you cannot sign up and blast your list the same afternoon. Plan the migration around that wait rather than discovering it on a deadline.
The rest of the move is familiar territory: export, import, rebuild automations, repoint forms, test, then send. Nothing carries across automatically between the two platforms, so treat this as a rebuild with your existing content as raw material, not a straight transfer.
How long this takes
2–3 hours, plus review wait time
Most of that time goes into rebuilding automations and repointing forms, not the import itself.
Why switch from Mailchimp to MailerLite?
Switch if…
- Your Mailchimp bill has grown faster than your list has actually earned you money.
- You want a genuinely usable free plan rather than one designed to force an upgrade at 500 contacts.
- You find Mailchimp’s editor and navigation slower than the job should require.
- You do not need Mailchimp’s deeper CRM or predictive analytics features and are paying for them anyway.
- You want simple, reliable automation without hitting a paywall for basic branching.
Stay put if…
- You need same-day sending — the manual account review can take a day or two and blocks campaigns until cleared.
- You rely on a specific Mailchimp integration or app that has no MailerLite equivalent.
- Your automations are genuinely complex, and rebuilding them by hand is more work than the savings justify right now.
Mailchimp vs MailerLite: the key differences
| What changes | Mailchimp | MailerLite |
|---|---|---|
| Account setup | Send immediately after signup | Manual review before first campaign send |
| Pricing model | Per contact stored, steep tier jumps | Per contact stored, notably cheaper at equivalent tiers |
| Free plan | Capped contacts and monthly sends | Higher usable free ceiling with core features included |
| Editor | Feature-dense, more menus | Cleaner, faster to build a simple campaign in |
| Segmentation | Tags plus audience-based groups | Groups plus segments, mapped differently |
| Automation depth | Branching gated behind higher tiers | Reasonable branching available on entry paid tiers |
| Landing pages / sites | Basic landing page builder | More capable site and landing page builder included |
| CRM depth | Fuller built-in CRM features | Lighter CRM, aimed at email-first senders |
Before you switch, have this ready
- Admin access to your Mailchimp account.
- A MailerLite account created and submitted for review at least 48 hours before you plan to send.
- A written list of every form, plugin, and integration currently posting to Mailchimp.
- Notes or screenshots of each active Mailchimp automation, with its trigger and timing.
- Your unsubscribed and cleaned contact exports, not just the subscribed list.
- A couple of hours free, ideally not immediately before a scheduled campaign.
Step-by-step: Mailchimp to MailerLite
Step 1: Apply for MailerLite review early
Sign up at MailerLite and fill in your account and website details as completely as you can — incomplete profiles are the most common reason review takes longer. MailerLite checks that your business and content are legitimate and not obviously spam-oriented before unlocking full sending.
This review typically clears within a day but occasionally takes longer if your website is thin, brand new, or missing a clear description of what you send and to whom. Add a privacy policy and a visible description of your business if you do not already have one, since reviewers look for both.
Do this step first and let it run in the background while you handle the export and import below. There is no reason to wait on it before starting the rest of the migration.
Screenshot
MailerLite account setup screen with pending review status
Step 2: Export your audience from Mailchimp
In Mailchimp, go to Audience → All contacts, select your audience, and choose Export Audience. You get a zip with separate files for subscribed, unsubscribed, cleaned, and non-subscribed contacts.
Keep all four. The subscribed file is what you import as active contacts in MailerLite; the unsubscribed and cleaned files become a suppression list so you never re-email someone who opted out on Mailchimp.
Open the subscribed CSV and check it includes tags and any custom fields you rely on for segmentation. If tags are missing, re-export from the Tags view in Mailchimp so you have something to rebuild groups from.
Screenshot
Mailchimp Audience → Export Audience screen
Step 3: Build groups and import contacts into MailerLite
In MailerLite, go to Subscribers and create the groups you plan to use before importing — mirror your Mailchimp audiences and your most-used tags as separate groups, since MailerLite’s model leans on groups rather than tags as the primary structure.
Create any custom fields that match your Mailchimp merge fields first, so the import can map to them directly instead of creating duplicates you have to merge later.
Import the CSV via Subscribers → Import, map each column to the right field or group, and confirm the count matches what you exported. Then import your unsubscribed and cleaned lists and mark them unsubscribed in MailerLite so they are excluded from every future send.
Screenshot
MailerLite import wizard with CSV columns mapped to fields
Step 4: Rebuild your automations
Nothing automated carries over. Go back to your Mailchimp automation list and rebuild only the ones that are actually earning their place — for most senders that is a welcome series, one nurture sequence, and maybe a re-engagement flow.
In MailerLite, Automations → Create automation gives you triggers based on group joins, form submissions, field changes, and dates. Match each Mailchimp trigger to its nearest MailerLite equivalent and rebuild the delay timings carefully, since a misconfigured wait step will fire an entire sequence at once.
Rebuild the email content in MailerLite’s editor rather than pasting raw HTML from Mailchimp — pasted markup rarely holds its layout, particularly on mobile.
Add yourself as a test subscriber, trigger the automation, and walk every branch before turning it on for real contacts.
Screenshot
MailerLite automation builder with a welcome sequence
Step 5: Repoint forms, embeds, and integrations
Work through the list of integrations you documented in the checklist. Website embed forms, WordPress plugins, e-commerce apps, and any Zapier or Make scenario referencing Mailchimp need to be rebuilt against MailerLite.
Swap embedded Mailchimp forms for MailerLite forms rather than trying to reuse the old markup — the field names and posting structure are different.
Leave the Mailchimp account active for a couple of weeks after cutover and watch for new signups still landing there. Every one is a form or integration you missed.
Screenshot
List of connected apps with Mailchimp integrations pending replacement
Step 6: Test with a small send before going wide
Once your account clears review, send your first MailerLite campaign to your most engaged 200–500 contacts, people who opened in the last 30 days on Mailchimp.
Check open rate against your Mailchimp baseline and check that mail is landing in the inbox rather than spam across Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Mail.
If placement looks healthy, widen to your full active list over the next few sends rather than emailing everyone from day one on a brand-new sending domain.
Screenshot
MailerLite campaign report showing opens and click activity
Step 7: Decommission Mailchimp
After two clean weeks with no new Mailchimp signups and no missed automations, export a final backup of the Mailchimp account for your records before closing it.
Cancel the subscription rather than just leaving it dormant, since Mailchimp continues billing on active plans regardless of whether you are sending.
Update any documentation, onboarding guides, or team wikis that still reference Mailchimp so new team members are not confused down the line.
Screenshot
Mailchimp account billing page with plan cancellation option
Integrations you need to update
Every one of these is a place contacts or data currently flow into Mailchimp. Work through the list before you stop watching the old account — a missed form is invisible until someone complains they never got your email.
| Integration | What to do |
|---|---|
| Website signup forms | Replace Mailchimp embeds with MailerLite forms and test a live submission. |
| WordPress | Deactivate the Mailchimp plugin and connect MailerLite’s, then reconnect each form. |
| Shopify or WooCommerce | Connect the MailerLite app and confirm customer sync before disabling Mailchimp’s. |
| Zapier / Make | Rebuild each automation using the MailerLite connector; old Zaps referencing Mailchimp keep running unless you turn them off. |
| Facebook / Instagram lead ads | Reconnect lead forms to MailerLite so new leads stop landing in the old account. |
| Landing pages | Rebuild any Mailchimp-hosted landing page using MailerLite’s built-in site builder. |
| Google Analytics / tracking | Reconnect tracking codes and UTM settings inside MailerLite campaigns. |
| CRM or helpdesk tools | Update API keys and confirm test contacts sync correctly in both directions. |
Troubleshooting: common post-migration problems
MailerLite account review is taking longer than expected
Add a clear description of your business, a visible privacy policy, and remove any placeholder content from your linked website, then contact support if it still has not cleared after a few days.
Contacts imported without their tags
Re-export from Mailchimp’s Tags view rather than the general audience export, create matching groups in MailerLite first, then re-import — MailerLite updates existing contacts rather than duplicating them.
Automation sent every email at once to a subscriber
A delay step was set to zero or skipped during rebuild. Open the automation, check every wait step, and remove anyone stuck mid-sequence before re-enabling it.
Previously unsubscribed contacts are receiving campaigns again
The unsubscribed and cleaned CSVs were never imported. Add them now, mark them unsubscribed, and pause sending until it is confirmed.
Open rates dropped noticeably after moving
A new sending domain has no reputation yet. Send to your most engaged contacts first and widen gradually over a week rather than emailing the whole list immediately.
New signups are still appearing in Mailchimp
A form or plugin was never repointed. Check the source field on the new Mailchimp contact — it will usually tell you exactly which form is still connected.
Should you make the switch?
The migration itself is rarely the hard part — it is the automations you rebuild and the forms you forget. If the reasons in the "switch if" list above describe your situation, MailerLite is worth the afternoon. If you are only moving because you are frustrated with an interface, fix the emails first and keep the platform.
Read both sides before you commit: our Mailchimp review covers what you would be giving up, and our MailerLite review covers what you are buying, including current pricing and where it falls short. Every switch we document is listed on the migration guides hub.