On Changing Mailing Service Providers

I received an email from Mailchimp last week that stated
that their terms of service would be changing. As I normally do, I just deleted
the email, assuming that it would probably be something minor that would hardly
affect me. I’m happy with Mailchimp – they have been my mailing service
provider from the day I realised I needed to have a list of subscribers and
send them email on a regular basis.

Much to my dismay however, the indie author community immediately erupted over the changes being implemented. Read David Gaugrin’s very comprehensive post here.

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The most notable change for me is that the Chimp has moved
over from list subscribers to list audiences – meaning where I once would have
paid only for the people subscribed to my list and not for those who choose to
unsubscribe and no longer want to hear from me, I now have to pay for the size
of the entire audience, both subscribers and unsubscribed. Mailchimp’s
reasoning behind this is that they keep the details of people who have
unsubscribed in their database and it can be used for target marketing. My
argument is that I do not want to market to people who have already indicated
that they are not interested. It seems spammy to me and I’m pretty sure it also
goes against the GDPR regulations. Either way, from a practical point of view,
if someone has unsubscribed from my mailing list, then I don’t want to bother
them anymore and I most certainly do not want to pay for them being in my
supposed audience.

This is particularly pertinent to newbie authors such as
myself who have to first gain an audience by making a free book available to
anyone willing to give me their email address in exchange for it. Inevitably I
get lots of bargain hunters subscribing and then unsubscribing (sometimes
almost immediately, before even reading said book and deciding whether or not
it would be worth staying on my list to learn more about me and my books). It’s
bad enough that I’m giving my hard work away for free, it’s absolutely
unacceptable that I now have to pay for these email addresses who don’t ever
want to hear from me again.

As someone who is currently still within their previously
free plan (less than 2000 active subscribers), there are even more changes that
affect me too:

I now have to pay extra for my automation
sequence (the most important part of the list building toolkit)email templates and custom branding are out the
doorsegmentation is on the highest paid planno more audience insightsno more dedicated customer supportonly 1 audience (so no more multiple lists for
my multiple small businesses)I now have a cap on the amount of emails I get
to send per month (i.e. 10k emails, which is used up quickly if you are a
weekly mailer, even with a small list)

There are probably a few smaller things that I’m unaware of
right now too, but which will inevitably trip me up just when I want to use
them.

I am quite disappointed. I’ve been using Mailchimp since
2017 and have become comfortable and knowledgeable with its interface and features.

Although I am still on the free plan, my first full-length
novel is coming out at the latter end of the year and I was hoping to increase
my number of subscribed users to a significant amount before then. With these
kinds of changes, Mailchimp has made it practically impossible and a lot more
expensive to do so.

Please note that I’m not opposed to paying for a service – I
just want to get my money’s worth when I do. Especially since I earn ZAR and
have to spend USD. The more I have to spend, the longer I have to stick with
the (soul-destroying) day job.

I have one more mail going out with Mailchimp at the end of
the month. After that, it will be time to move to a new service provider.

Are you adversely
affected by Mailchimp’s changes? Are you planning to change service providers?
Who would you recommend instead?