Method: Official documentation and pricing checked September 28, 2026. No benchmarks were run. Recommendations are based on documented features and billing, not hands-on results.
Loops has the larger documented free contact allowance in this comparison. Mailchimp needs to be evaluated as a broader marketing-plan purchase, with its transactional product priced separately where required. Neither price page proves inbox placement or revenue improvement.
Current free limits
| Service | Contact allowance | Send allowance | Important condition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Loops Free | 1,000 subscribed contacts | 4,000 in a rolling 30-day window | Marketing and transactional sends share the allowance; Loops footer included |
| Mailchimp Free | 250 contacts | 500/month; 250/day | Sending pauses when the applicable limit is exceeded |
Sources: Loops pricing, Mailchimp plan documentation. A free allowance is useful only if your actual audience and send schedule fit it. A single campaign to 500 recipients counts as 500 sends, not one.
Paid billing is not directly comparable
Loops lists $49/month for 1,001–5,000 subscribed contacts, including unlimited sending and transactional support to recipients outside the subscribed audience. Its next bracket, 5,001–10,000, is $99/month. A paid plan can also be selected below the automatic contact threshold.
Mailchimp pricing depends on both plan and contact tier. Its marketing calculator did not provide an unambiguous comparable USD quote in this check, so this article omits a paid-dollar comparison. Select the actual audience size, currency and billing offer before relying on a checkout figure.
Mailchimp’s help page says subscribed, unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts count toward marketing billing; archived, cleaned and deleted contacts do not. Loops describes its paid brackets in subscribed contacts. The same mailing database can therefore produce different billable totals.
Transactional email changes the decision
If you need password resets and receipts as well as campaigns, list them separately. Loops includes transactional email in its published offer. Mailchimp documents Transactional as an addition to Standard and Premium marketing plans. Confirm the full product combination before assuming a marketing subscription covers all application email.
Which to evaluate first
Choose Loops for a pilot if its subscribed-contact model and combined application-email offering fit your requirements. Choose Mailchimp for a pilot if the marketing features and integrations in the selected plan are the primary requirement. Check the exact plan table rather than assuming every automation is included at every tier.
Measure delivery events, bounces, unsubscribes and handling of duplicate sends in your own controlled evaluation. No delivery-rate comparison or claimed percentage revenue lift is supported here. Preserve consent and suppression state when moving an audience; the goal is a correct migration, not simply a larger contact count.
Sources, checked September 28, 2026: Loops pricing, Mailchimp plan details, Mailchimp pricing.