Mailchimp Nonprofit Pricing: Free Plan, Discount and Zeffy Compared
Mailchimp bills by contact count, with 15% off for nonprofits, and it doesn't know who gave. Zeffy sends your emails from a free donor CRM that every donation, ticket and membership writes into.
Zeffy is trusted by 100,000+ nonprofits
Zeffy VS Mailchimp
Zeffy is 100% free, always.
Your emails, sent from where your donors already are
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Email that knows who gave
Every donation, ticket and membership writes into your free donor CRM, and each send shows who gave after reading it. Mailchimp only holds the mailing list.
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Every campaign, not just the email
Take gifts, sell gala tickets, run an auction or a raffle, open a merch shop and renew members on Zeffy, all free. Mailchimp has no donation forms, ticketing or auctions.
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Bring your Mailchimp account over
Connect Mailchimp and your contacts, tags, templates and recent emails move to Zeffy in one import. From then on, a bigger list costs nothing more.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Mailchimp and Zeffy?
Zeffy is a free all-in-one fundraising platform. Your emails go out from where your donors already are: a full donor CRM, built in, that every donation, ticket and membership writes into, so you can email lapsed monthly donors and see who gave from each send. The same free account sells your gala tickets, hosts team pages and auctions, draws raffles, runs a merch shop and renews members, with every card fee paid by Zeffy. Mailchimp is an email marketing tool priced by contact count, and it does not know who gave: it does not collect donations, run events or keep giving history. With Mailchimp, gifts are collected on another platform, and the two contact lists have to be kept in step. On Zeffy, every gift lands in the same CRM you email from.
Is Mailchimp free for nonprofits?
Only up to 250 contacts. Mailchimp's Free plan allows 250 contacts and 500 sends a month, with no more than 250 a day. It has no automation flows or scheduling, and the Mailchimp branding stays on. Above 250 contacts, sending is paused until you upgrade or trim your list. If you want free email marketing for a nonprofit at any list size, Zeffy has no plan to outgrow: newsletters, donations and the donor CRM are free, with no fee per contact or per email. See how Zeffy is free.
Does Mailchimp offer a nonprofit discount, and how do you get it?
Yes: 15% on the plan, requested before you buy. The steps, from Mailchimp's help center:
- Add your EIN to your Mailchimp account.
- Open the Contact page, choose Billing, then Non-profit Discount Requests (US or Int'l).
- Mailchimp may ask for your 501(c)(3) letter. Outside the US, it asks for a link to your website.
- It gives no retroactive discounts or refunds, so ask before you buy a plan.
The discount trims a price that still grows with your list. On Zeffy, there is nothing to request: Mailchimp's discount article and how Zeffy is free.
How much does Mailchimp cost for a nonprofit?
Mailchimp prices each plan by contact count, per month:
- Free: $0, up to 250 contacts.
- Essentials: $13 at 500 contacts, $45 at 2,500, $75 at 5,000.
- Standard: $20 at 500 contacts, $60 at 2,500, $100 at 5,000.
- Premium: $350 for up to 10,000 contacts.
- Over your limit, extra contact blocks are billed on the month's peak count.
- SMS and Transactional email are paid add-ons.
With the 15% nonprofit discount, Standard at 5,000 contacts comes to $85 a month, or $1,020 a year. Zeffy costs $0 at any list size. Source: mailchimp.com, October 2026.
Can Mailchimp accept donations?
Not through a donation form. Mailchimp has no donation pages. An email can carry a Payment block: a payment link with a set amount, paid by card, bank transfer, Apple Pay, PayPal or Venmo. It needs a QuickBooks Online account with QuickBooks Payments turned on, and its fees are not published on mailchimp.com. On Zeffy, your email links to your own donation form, with no fees, and each donor who gives shows in that email's results.
Is Mailchimp a CRM? Does Zeffy have a donor CRM?
Mailchimp is a marketing CRM, not a donor CRM. It keeps contact profiles, tags and segments for email, but no giving history. Zeffy has a full donor CRM, free for every nonprofit. Every gift, ticket and membership lands on the donor's record, with lifetime giving and the last gift. You filter donors by giving history into lists that update on their own, and email them from the same screen. Ask the AI Data Assistant about your donors, and it replies in plain words. See Zeffy's donor CRM.
How do I move from Mailchimp to Zeffy?
Connect your Mailchimp account in Zeffy and pick what to bring over, in one guided import:
- Your contacts, with their tags and segments, which become lists.
- The templates you used recently, saved in My templates.
- Your recent campaigns, as drafts that are never sent on their own.
Automations do not come over, so rebuild your welcome series in Zeffy. An email built in Mailchimp can also be pasted in as HTML and edited, though complex layouts may not carry over exactly. Once your list is in, every new gift, ticket and membership keeps it up to date.
Is Mailchimp good for nonprofits, or is there a better option?
Choose Zeffy to email your donors from the same free platform that runs your donation forms, events and full donor CRM, seeing who gave from each send, at any list size. Mailchimp is email marketing first: long automation flows, SMS, transactional email and A/B testing, billed by contact count, with donations collected on another platform. More in our guide to Mailchimp alternatives for nonprofits.
Keep comparing — and see why nonprofits choose Zeffy
Related content
Zeffy was built for nonprofits like yours
focus on what matters
Built for small teams with big missions.
Zeffy is the fundraising platform that cuts out the fees, clears up your tech mess, and puts your cause first — so your team, even if you're a small team wearing many hats or a one-person show, can focus on what really matters.
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Keep 100% of every dollar.
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Stop bouncing between MailChimp, Eventbrite, and all those spreadsheets. Now you can handle donations, ticket sales, memberships, raffles, and all your donor info in one spot.
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Built for teams like yours — whether you're volunteer-led or have limited staff. Set up donation forms, sell tickets, and launch campaigns without needing a tech wizard. It's super easy, and you'll be up and running in minutes.
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From QR codes on flyers to Tap-to-Pay on a phone, Zeffy makes it easy to accept donations on the go. Mobile-optimized and offline-ready, so no donor slips through the cracks.
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Never lose a donor to volunteer transition.
Centralize supporter relationships, automate thank-you messages, and preserve institutional knowledge when board members rotate out.
100,000+ nonprofits trust Zeffy — and keep their fees at $0.
For 7+ years, Zeffy has supported nonprofits with free, user-friendly fundraising tools.
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As a startup nonprofit with only two members, and no funding (yet) we’d need something with low (or no) fees. Zeffy was a dream come true.
Masey, Loose Ends.
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SUCCESS STORIES
Zero-fee fundraising in action — nonprofit stories worth sharing.
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