The free Mailchimp to Salesforce integration now starts at $25/month. This is pretty low (lower than SyncApps, in all transparency), but is it worth it?
We wrote an in-depth piece comparing SyncApps to MC4SF, so let’s see if something has changed.
What I honestly liked about their revamp is that they fixed a lot of the many, many bugs that made the solution pretty much unusable for the Salesforce layperson. It is now more reliable, it doesn’t crash as often as it used to, and yes, it holds together.
Perhaps the best feature is the ability to look at any object in Salesforce that has an email on it to pull into Mailchimp as a subscriber.
There are no shiny new features to speak of at the time of writing this, but I expect them to drop now that it’s a paid tool.
Look, I’m biased — of course I am! You know as well as I do that I’m going to tell you that SyncApps is better.
Will you bear with me nonetheless? I think I have a strong case for it, so keep reading and judge for yourself.
MC4SF is built and maintained by Mailchimp’s partner, Beaufort 12, for their clients. If you decide to switch from Mailchimp to another email automation platform but keep Salesforce, you lose all your data.
Let me say that again, just to sink in, you lose all your metrics data.
I’ve been working with Salesforce for 25 years now, and this seems like a very risky proposition because you’re essentially betting all your customer data on a single platform. Yikes!
Did you know that if you ever want to switch from another marketing automation vendor or even to an iPaaS like Boomi (my favorite), Tray.io, or others because you outgrow us, you can keep all your data? Even if you shut down your Mailchimp account, you’ll still have access to it in Salesforce.
SyncApps uses the APIs of both Salesforce and Mailchimp, but there is nothing to install in Salesforce. This means we cover all API features that also cover 99% of all use cases. If you ever leave SyncApps for any reason, the data you have integrated into both Mailchimp and Salesforce is yours to keep.
Because your data is your own, and no one should ever prevent you from accessing it!
What’s most puzzling to me is that MC4SF does not sync data between Mailchimp and Salesforce in real time. It takes one full hour (!!) for the sync to happen.
This is automation circa 2005. If you’re looking for real-time automation, this is not it.
The $25 price tag may sound attractive, but remember, it’s just for up to 10k audiences. If you cross that threshold, you will pay $100 or $200-$550 for total Mailchimp Audience members over 100k-300k.
When your contact list grows, it doesn’t always mean that your revenue or profit grows too. This is why SyncApps has virtually unlimited records sync on most plans — because it takes time for audience growth to be reflected in business growth.
I know this is a big deterrent for Salesforce users, as shown by our 1000s of Zendesk support tickets to our team over the past 15+ years of building features into Mailchimp for Salesforce.
It’s not just a matter of convenience; it’s an important feature in ensuring that non-technical people have access to state-of-the-art integration and can fully leverage it.
I’ll gloss over these quickly because this is turning into an MC4SF roast, which is not the point—more on that below.
A few final words: I wrote this to help you make an informed decision: do you need any of the features that MC4SF does not have? Real-time automation, webhooks updates, and fair pricing are chief among them
If not (and it’s perfectly valid NOT to need them), stick to it. Just make sure you download your data as often as possible so you don’t lose access to it if you ditch Mailchimp or MC4SF.
Need any of the features that MC4SF does not have — at least not yet? Learn what makes SyncApps the best-in-class iPaaS solution — our transparent view on what makes for a great integration solution, with zero BS.
