Cost · 6 min read
I moved 280k subscribers off Mailchimp. Here's the real bill.
DK
Daniel Koh
April 24, 2026 · 6 min read
In April 2025, I exported a 280,000-subscriber newsletter list from Mailchimp and migrated it to AWS SES. A year later, I have a clean side-by-side comparison.
The before picture
I was paying Mailchimp $1,200/mo at the start of 2025 for a 280k-subscriber list with the Standard tier. Annual run rate: $14,400.
The after picture
Twelve months of data is in. Total: $486.90 AWS + $119.88 SES Mailbox = $606.78. Compared to Mailchimp's projected $14,400, the savings are $13,793.
Did anything get worse?
Open rate climbed from 28.4% on Mailchimp to 32.5% on SES Mailbox over the first 90 days. Dedicated sender reputation paid off. Click rates were unchanged. Bounce rate down 0.2pp.
Would I do it again?
I would have done it three years earlier. The 6-hour migration paid for itself within the first 18 days.