The Contact Count Tax
Mailchimp has become synonymous with email marketing. They built a great product, made email campaigns accessible to small businesses, and created an intuitive interface that millions use every day.
But here's the problem with Mailchimp's pricing model: you pay based on how many contacts you have, not how many emails you send.
As your business grows and your customer base expands, your Mailchimp bill grows proportionally. You're being penalized for success.
And here's the catch: those contacts are already in your CRM. You're paying Mailchimp to store duplicate copies of data you already have.
The Integration Tax
Mailchimp is a standalone tool. That creates several problems:
You end up with customer data scattered across systems. Email history in Mailchimp. Purchase history in your billing system. Support tickets in your help desk. None of them talk to each other without expensive middleware.
What We Built Into ThothOS
We looked at the email marketing problem and asked: What if email campaigns weren't a separate tool? What if they were just part of how you communicate with customers and employees?
Here's what we built into ThothOS Communications:
1. Campaign Manager
Create, schedule, and track email campaigns. Monitor opens, clicks, open rates, and click rates in real-time. Filter by status (active, scheduled, draft, paused, completed), template, or schedule range.
Built-in metrics dashboard shows active campaigns, scheduled sends, total recipients, and engagement at a glance.
2. Template Library with 40+ Variables
Create reusable email templates organized by category (Newsletter, Promotion, Support, Internal, etc.). Our variable system includes:
- User variables: recipient name, email, company, phone
- Scheduling variables: event name, date, time, meeting link, reschedule/cancel links
- Marketing variables: month, year, featured content, updates
- Financial variables: invoice number, amount, due date, customer ID
- Footer variables: unsubscribe link, preferences link
Auto-detection finds variables in template body (e.g., {{customer_name}}, {{invoice_number}}) and makes them available for substitution.
3. Email Composer
Rich text editor with To, Cc, Bcc recipient management. Drag-and-drop file attachments. Apply templates with one click. Preview emails before sending. Schedule for later delivery.
Most importantly: Group vs Individual send modes.
4. Group vs Individual Sending
Group mode: Send one email to all recipients. Everyone sees who else received it. Perfect for team announcements, general updates.
Individual mode: Send separate personalized emails to each recipient. Each person receives their own copy with variables populated from their profile. Perfect for invoices, account notifications, customer communications.
All of this is included in your $20 per employee per month ThothOS subscription. No contact limits. No per-email charges. No integration fees.
The Integration Advantage
Here's where ThothOS email marketing fundamentally differs from Mailchimp:
Your CRM IS Your Email List
No imports. No exports. No CSV files. Your customers, employees, and vendors are already in ThothOS. Select who to email directly from your existing data.
Email History Tied to Contacts
View a customer profile and see every email campaign they received, when they opened it, what links they clicked. View an employee and see all company communications sent to them. No switching between systems.
Variables Pull From Real Data
When you use {{customer_name}} in a template, it pulls from the customer's actual name in your CRM. When you use {{invoice_number}}, it pulls from their actual invoice in your billing workspace. No manual data entry.
Segmentation Already Exists
Your customers are already categorized by type, location, service plan, contract status. Your employees are already organized by department, position, location. Just filter and send. No recreating segments in a separate tool.
Feature Comparison: Mailchimp vs ThothOS
| Feature | Mailchimp | ThothOS |
|---|---|---|
| Email campaigns | ✓ | ✓ |
| Email templates | ✓ | ✓ |
| Personalization variables | ✓ | ✓ (40+ types) |
| Opens & clicks tracking | ✓ | ✓ |
| Schedule emails | ✓ | ✓ |
| Pricing model | Per contact | Per employee |
| Contact limits | 500-100k+ | Unlimited |
| Integrated with CRM | Via API/Zapier | Built-in |
| Email history with contacts | Separate system | Unified view |
| Individual send mode | Premium feature | Included |
| Data imports required | Yes (CSV) | No |
| Automation workflows | ✓ (Advanced) | Roadmap |
| A/B testing | ✓ | Roadmap |
| Landing pages | ✓ | Website builder |
Where ThothOS Email Marketing Excels
ThothOS email marketing is designed for businesses that need campaigns to flow seamlessly with their operations:
Customer Communications
Send personalized invoice reminders to 500 customers. Each email includes their specific invoice number, amount, and due date pulled directly from billing. Track who opened it, who clicked the payment link, all tied to customer records.
Company Announcements
Send company-wide updates to all employees. Each employee receives a personalized email with their name, department, and relevant information. No CSV exports. No importing employee lists into a separate tool.
Service Updates & Outages
ISP/MSP sending service notifications? Filter customers by affected service area, send individual emails with their account number, service address, and estimated resolution time. All data pulled from your existing customer records.
Event & Appointment Reminders
Scheduled event tomorrow? Send automated reminders with event name, date, time, location, and meeting link. Each attendee gets their personalized reminder with reschedule/cancel links. Attendance tracked in scheduling workspace.
When You Might Still Need Mailchimp
Let's be transparent about where Mailchimp still has advantages:
Our take: If you're running complex marketing automation campaigns, you'll want Mailchimp's workflow builder. If you're focused on lead generation with landing pages and forms, Mailchimp is optimized for that.
But for customer communications, employee announcements, service notifications, and transactional emails (invoices, appointment reminders, account updates), built-in email marketing wins. No contact limits. No CSV imports. Your data stays unified.
The Bottom Line
Mailchimp is a great product. They pioneered accessible email marketing, built intuitive tools, and helped millions of small businesses reach their customers.
But the model of paying separately for email marketing - separate from your CRM, separate from your customer data, requiring imports and integrations - creates fragmentation, duplicate data, and cost multiplication.
ThothOS takes a different approach: build email marketing into your business operating system. Your contacts are already there. Their data is already there. Email campaigns become just another way you communicate with customers and employees.
✓ Unlimited contacts, unlimited emails
✓ Campaign manager with performance tracking
✓ Template library with 40+ variables
✓ Group & individual send modes
✓ Integrated with CRM, billing, contracts, scheduling
✓ No imports, no CSV files, no Zapier needed
Email marketing shouldn't be separate from your business. It should be built in.
That's the ThothOS advantage.
Ready to See It in Action?
ThothOS launches 2026. Join the waitlist to get early access, see email marketing in action, and experience the all-in-one business operating system.
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