A smaller Mailchimp alternative, compared honestly

Mailchimp is a mature product with far more features than we have. This page says who MAAC Go Email suits instead, what is different about it, and what it does not do — so you can rule us out in two minutes if we are the wrong fit.

Last updated 28 September 2026 · No price comparison on this page: prices change, and ours are all on the pricing page.

Who it suits

• Creators, writers and small brands sending a newsletter or promotions to a list people joined on purpose.
• Teams that also send transactional email — receipts, one-time codes, order updates — and want one account, one allowance and one suppression list for both.
• Developers and people who work through AI agents, who want Claude Code, Cursor or Codex to send mail and read the results.
• Taiwanese brands who would rather pay per email in NT$ with no monthly fee — the Taiwan site signs you up on that price list.

What is different here

• Ten sends per contact on paid plans. Plans are sized by active contacts, and paid plans include ten emails per contact each month — 500 contacts come with 5,000 emails. Past that, extra emails are US$2 per 1,000 from a prepaid balance.
• Free for 100 contacts and 200 emails a month, no card.
• Only active contacts count. Someone who unsubscribes, bounces or complains moves to the suppression list and stops counting the same day, so keeping your history never costs you.
• Your own sending domain. Verify it with three DNS records (SPF, DKIM and a return-path MX) and send from info@yourbrand.com, news@ or any address you like; add a DMARC record at your DNS host yourself. Until then you send from a shared address that reaches you, your team and readers who confirmed through your subscribe page, plus up to 50 imported contacts a day (200 in total); verify your domain or add credit to send to your whole list.
• Marketing and transactional email in one account. Receipts and one-time codes go through the same REST API, with HMAC-signed delivery webhooks, and draw on the same allowance, the same balance and — importantly — the same suppression list as your campaigns.
• An MCP server. Claude Code, Cursor and Codex can send mail, send or schedule a campaign a human wrote, and read the delivery report. It is scoped so an agent cannot write a new campaign, issue a key or start a payment.
• A hosted subscribe page. Switch it on and you get edm.cresclab.com/p/your-brand, with your name, logo and colour, a subscribe form and, if you choose, an archive of the issues you have sent. The same form pastes into your own site with no JavaScript, and every signup confirms from their own inbox first.
• A path to LINE and SMS when you need them — same company, MAAC Enterprise, which has served POYA, Nissan Taiwan and 800+ brands.
• Taiwan-based infrastructure — the application and database run in asia-east1.

Also included

Subject-line A/B tests (two subjects go to a test slice, the winner by opens or clicks goes to everyone else; lists of 20 or more); audience conditions on tags, engagement and join date; scheduled sending; 25 templates that adopt your brand colours; and delivery, open, click and unsubscribe reports for every campaign, down to each recipient.

What we do not do

If you need any of these today, Mailchimp or another larger tool is the better choice, and we would rather you knew now:

• No automation journeys. There are no multi-step sequences triggered by what a subscriber does. You can schedule a send and target a segment; that is all.
• No paid subscriptions. You cannot charge readers, and there is no referral or recommendation network.
• No landing-page builder. The subscribe page is one page, it stays on edm.cresclab.com/p/your-brand rather than your own domain, and its footer carries a "Sent with MAAC Go Email" line.
• No integration marketplace and no e-commerce revenue reporting.
• No direct import from another tool. Lists come in as a CSV or pasted rows.
• A modest template library — 25 templates, not hundreds.

What is the same, because it has to be

These are table stakes and we treat them as such: SPF and DKIM domain verification (DMARC is a record you add at your DNS host); one-click unsubscribe in the header, the way Gmail and Yahoo require of bulk senders; automatic suppression of unsubscribes, hard bounces and complaints, enforced on every path including the API; and a full per-recipient delivery record for every send.

Moving your list across

1. In Mailchimp, export your audience as CSV.
2. Import it here, or paste the rows. You see how many contacts are ready and how many invalid rows were skipped before anything is saved; duplicates are skipped.
3. Also export your unsubscribed and cleaned contacts and add them to the suppression list. This is the step people forget: it guarantees someone who already opted out is never mailed again.
4. Verify your sending domain (or add credit) before mailing the whole imported list — until then only a trial allowance goes out (up to 50 imported contacts a day, 200 in total), and afterwards the reputation you build is yours.

Questions

How is MAAC Go Email priced compared with Mailchimp?

We do not publish a price comparison: prices change, and the right answer depends on your list size, how often you send and which add-ons you use. Our side is simple. Plans are sized by active contacts. Free is 100 contacts and 200 emails a month; paid plans include ten emails per contact each month and cost US$17 for 500 contacts, US$26 for 1,000, US$52 for 2,500, up to US$629 for 50,000. Extra emails are US$2 per 1,000. Unsubscribed and bounced contacts never count. Put your own numbers into both pricing pages and compare. Every tier, including the NT$ per-email list for Taiwan accounts, is at edm.cresclab.com/pricing.

What does Mailchimp have that MAAC Go Email does not?

Automation journeys (multi-step sequences triggered by what a subscriber does), a landing-page builder, a much larger template gallery, an app-integration marketplace and e-commerce revenue reporting. MAAC Go Email is deliberately smaller: newsletters and campaigns, a hosted subscribe page, subject-line A/B tests, a transactional API and an MCP server for AI agents, with the deliverability basics done properly.

Who can I email before I verify my domain?

Until you verify your own sending domain or add credit, mail goes out from a shared address. It reaches you, your team and readers who confirmed through your subscribe page, plus up to 50 imported contacts a day (200 in total) so you can try it for real; that allowance pauses if those sends bounce heavily or draw a spam complaint. Verify your domain (three DNS records) or add credit to send to your whole list.

Can I move my Mailchimp list over?

Yes. Export your audience as CSV and import it; you see how many contacts are ready and how many invalid rows were skipped before anything is saved, and duplicates are skipped. Export your unsubscribed and cleaned addresses too and add them to the suppression list, so people who already opted out are never mailed again. Verify your sending domain (or add credit) before mailing the whole imported list; until then only up to 50 of those contacts a day (200 in total) can be sent to.

Can an AI agent send email or run a campaign with it?

Yes. There is an MCP server: Claude Code, Cursor and Codex can send a transactional email, send or schedule a campaign someone already wrote, and read the delivery report. It uses the same API keys and scopes as the REST API, so an agent cannot write a new campaign, issue a key or start a payment. The setup guide is at edm.cresclab.com/mcp.html.

Start free — 100 contacts, no card →