Mailchimp for Nonprofits: Discounts, Features, and Whether It's the Right Choice

Mailchimp for nonprofits sounds like a good deal until you start doing the math. That 15% discount? It's the lowest in the industry.

"Most of our clients who consider themselves nonprofits or associations typically have healthy communications budgets," I've explained to clients countless times. "Fees from platforms like Mailchimp, Constant Contact, or even Salesforce are well within their budget."

So the question isn't just "how do we save money?" It's "which platform actually serves our needs?"

Let me be clear about something upfront: FatLab doesn't do email marketing. We're integration specialists. We work with our clients to integrate their stack into their WordPress website. We don't handle sending, messaging, or list management on behalf of our clients.

This means we don't have a vested interest in pushing one platform over another. What follows is an honest assessment of email marketing for nonprofits based on what we've seen work for nonprofit clients.

Mailchimp's Nonprofit Discount: What You Actually Get

Mailchimp offers a 15% discount to verified 501(c)(3) nonprofits and charities. Here's how to claim it:

Eligibility Requirements:

• Must be a registered 501(c)(3) organization (Mailchimp 501c3 verification required)
• Need to submit your IRS determination letter
• Cannot combine with other promotions
• Get an additional 10% discount if you enable two-factor authentication

What the Discount Applies To:

• Essentials plan
• Standard plan
• Premium plan

What the Discount Does NOT Apply To:

• The Free plan (already free, obviously)
• Pay-as-you-go credits
• Add-on features purchased separately

The Real Cost at Different List Sizes

Here's where nonprofits need to pay attention. Mailchimp's pricing scales with your contact count, and the 15% discount becomes less meaningful as your list grows.

The difference compounds quickly. At 25,000 contacts, a nonprofit using MailerLite with their 30% discount saves over $100 per month compared to Mailchimp with its 15% discount.

The Hidden Cost Most Nonprofits Miss

Here's something that doesn't get enough attention: Mailchimp counts unsubscribed contacts toward your billing.

This changed in 2019, and it means you're paying for people who can't receive your emails. If you've been building your list for years, you might have thousands of unsubscribed contacts inflating your monthly bill.

Contrast this with MailPoet, which runs inside WordPress with no per-contact billing. Or MailerLite, which only counts active subscribers.

For a nonprofit that's been running campaigns for years and has accumulated a large unsubscribed/inactive list, this hidden cost can be substantial.

What Features Do Nonprofits Actually Need?

After working with professional associations and advocacy organizations for years, I can tell you their email needs are fundamentally different from those of commercial clients.

Nonprofit Email vs. Commercial Email

Commercial clients are trying to get services and products in front of as many people as possible. Heavy segmentation for sales targeting. Rapid-fire marketing with flash. Driving traffic spikes that turn into transactions.

Nonprofits and associations are doing communications for the sake of communications and proving value. Regular, consistent, less flashy communications. Not immediate traffic spikes. The goals are very different.

The Three Types of Nonprofit Email

1. Trade/Professional Associations

Take the American Board of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons. Physicians who want board certification must maintain good standing with the association by paying dues.

This isn't a sales pitch. You're not selling membership because you're already the premier trade association in your field.

Their email needs:

• Remind members to renew certifications
• Recruit board members
• Promote annual meetings and regional meetings
• Share educational material
• Distribute legislative affairs updates
• Provide industry insights

They're not doing heavy donor-based marketing. Sure, there are soft pitches for donations, but that's not where their communications focus.

2. Industry Associations

The American Chiropractic Association provides education materials to its members, organizes networking opportunities, and engages in significant legislative affairs work.

Their email communications are complex:

• Distributing educational materials
• Reminding people to take action on legislative matters
• Promoting meetings, events, and webinars
• Building community among members

3. Donor-Based/Issues-Based Organizations

• Donation pleas
• Recruiting for walkathons and donation activities
• Issue advocacy

Which Mailchimp Features Actually Matter

Based on how nonprofits actually use email, here's what matters and what's overkill:

Mailchimp's Standard and Premium plans include features most nonprofits will never use. You might be paying for advanced automation and behavioral targeting when all you need is a newsletter that goes out on time.

Mailchimp Alternatives with Better Nonprofit Pricing

If Mailchimp's 15% discount isn't enough, here's how the alternatives compare:

Complete Nonprofit Discount Comparison

Annual Cost Comparison at 10,000 Subscribers

The differences compound. At 10,000 contacts, a nonprofit using MailerLite with their 30% discount saves $768/year compared to Mailchimp with its 15% discount.

When to Consider Each

MailerLite makes the most sense for budget-conscious nonprofits. The 30% discount is genuinely significant, and the platform handles newsletters and basic automation well. The interface is clean, and the learning curve is minimal.

Constant Contact is worth considering if support matters more than price. They offer phone support at all tiers, which is rare. For organizations with limited technical staff who value being able to call someone, the higher price may be justified.

MailPoet is interesting if you're WordPress-heavy and want to avoid external dependencies. Your subscriber data stays in your WordPress database, and there are no monthly fees based on list size. But there's a tradeoff I'll address next.

The WordPress-Native Question

Some nonprofits look at WordPress-native solutions like MailPoet or FluentCRM as a way to avoid monthly SaaS fees entirely. I want to be honest about this option.

MailPoet is probably best for newsletters and simple campaigns. It's a list manager with basic workflows, welcome emails, and newsletters. It markets itself as a CRM, similar to how Mailchimp does. But from what I've seen, it's really just a list manager.

Warning: Do not install MailPoet expecting a full-blown CRM. You're not going to be doing customer relationship management there. You will be doing list building.

The Infrastructure Problem

There's a reason we typically recommend external platforms like Mailchimp over WordPress-native solutions, even though they cost more.

"If you go use a Mailchimp or Constant Contact, you're taking advantage of their multi-million dollar infrastructure that was designed and built for exactly what you want to do," I tell clients considering the WordPress-native route.

It's the same argument for video hosting. YouTube and Vimeo have invested millions in technology whose only job is to deliver videos efficiently. Your website and the hosting server you're paying $5 to $100 a month for will never deliver videos as well as the big video providers.

The same applies to email marketing. "You're just never, ever going to get that with a plugin. You're going to be making decisions and sacrifices here and there when you go that route."

Here's the technical reality most nonprofits don't understand: "Email sending is the stepchild of web hosting companies." Most hosting providers do not maintain their SMTP servers. They can go down for days or even weeks without anyone noticing.

"One of the number one complaints we hear from people who are migrating from budget hosting companies is that they never get their contact form information. It's been down for weeks or months."

If you're going to use a WordPress-native email solution, we require an external SMTP service like SendGrid or Mailgun. But even then, we typically recommend using a dedicated email platform instead.

When Mailchimp Is the Right Choice

Despite everything I've said about alternatives, Mailchimp remains our default recommendation for most clients. Here's why:

Integration flexibility matters more than you think.

We work with some large companies and associations that have literally spent a ton of money on their branding and brand strategy. Having a third-party form with wrong fonts or wrong colors doesn't fly, even though these seem like minor details.

Mailchimp offers three integration tiers:

1. Widget/Embed - Easiest, least control
2. Plugin - Middle ground, some customization
3. API - Full control, complete brand matching

Their API is incredibly well-documented. This means we can meet client challenges, wishes, and budget at almost any level.

A nonprofit may want a robust API integration that adds people to multiple lists based on certain criteria, fully branded and integrated. But they may only have a budget for a widget. That's okay. Mailchimp offers all of those options.

Mailchimp makes sense when:

• You need flexible integration options
• WordPress integration is important
• Your budget can handle the 15% discount
• You want a platform your team already knows
• You're planning to grow into more sophisticated automation later

When to Choose an Alternative

Consider MailerLite if:

• Budget is the primary constraint
• You have straightforward newsletter needs
• The 30% discount makes a meaningful difference
• You don't need advanced automation

Consider Constant Contact if:

• Support is more important than price
• You want phone support at every tier
• Event marketing is a core need
• Your team prefers a simpler interface

Consider MailPoet if:

• You're deeply committed to WordPress
• You want subscriber data in your own database
• You have technical resources to manage it
• Your list is small enough that performance isn't a concern

The Deliverability Factor

"One of the most frustrating things that can happen, and I've seen it happen a lot, is that users, standard users, members of an association, don't really know the difference between removing a message and adding it to spam."

The scenario: An association sends event reminders every few days. A member has zero interest in the event. They're not going to attend, no matter how many messages you send. They want the messages out of their inbox. Instead of clicking unsubscribe, they click "spam."

"What they don't realize is that they've just hurt your deliverability score. By adding it to spam, they have not only hurt your ability to send messages to other people, but they may not receive any more messages that they'd like to receive from the association."

This is one of those confusing points in technology that's not clear to the end user, and nobody's explaining it to them.

The three keys to good deliverability for nonprofits:

1. Organized lists
2. Relevant content to the right segments
3. Reasonable sending rate

Whichever platform you choose, these fundamentals matter more than the platform itself.

Our Recommendation

If someone asks me point-blank whether Mailchimp for nonprofits is the right choice, my honest answer is usually yes, despite the lower discount.

Why? "They offer widgets, they offer plugins, and they offer a relatively robust API. Their API is incredibly well-documented. We can meet the client's challenges, wishes, and budget at almost any level with that one platform."

Integration flexibility matters more than most nonprofits realize. "We work with some large companies and associations that have literally spent a ton of money on their branding and their brand strategy. To have a third-party link with wrong fonts or wrong colors, even though they seem like minor details, doesn't really fly."

But "safest" isn't always "best." If budget is genuinely tight and you don't need sophisticated integrations, MailerLite's 30% nonprofit discount makes it worth serious consideration.

And if you're a professional association with a healthy communications budget, the difference between platforms matters less than having organized lists, relevant content, and reasonable sending frequency. For a head-to-head comparison, our Mailchimp vs Constant Contact guide covers the key differences.

"We are not going to recommend a native solution for them, even though it is much more costly to run with some of the other platforms. It's well worth it for them."

The platform is the infrastructure. What you do with it, how you segment your lists, and how you communicate with your members, that's what determines success.

For more on how email platforms work with WordPress and why we recommend external services over native solutions, see our complete guide to WordPress email marketing. If your nonprofit needs help integrating Mailchimp or any email platform with WordPress, our website support services can handle the technical setup.