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Mailchimp Transactional Email (Mandrill) vs. Microsoft Exchange

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Mailchimp Transactional Email (Mandrill)

    Score7.3 out of 10
    N/AMailchimp Transactional Email (formerly Mandrill) is designed to allow users to deliver fast, personalized transactional emails using API or SMTP.

    $0

    per month

    Microsoft Exchange

    Score8.6 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft Exchange is a secure email / messaging gateway with file archiving and encryption / data loss capability, available as a hosted service (Exchange Online) or installed (Exchange Server).N/A
    Pricing
    Mailchimp Transactional Email (Mandrill)Microsoft Exchange
    Editions & Modules
    Free
    $0
    per month
    Essentials
    $13
    per month
    Standard
    $20
    per month
    Premium
    $350
    per month
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Mailchimp Transactional Email (Mandrill)Microsoft Exchange
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Mailchimp Transactional Email (Mandrill)Microsoft Exchange
    Considered Both Products
    Intuit
    No answer on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    5 Answers
    94%
    Would buy again
    65 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    63 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    5 Answers
    99%
    Happy with the feature set
    68 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    46 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    52 Answers
    Features
    Mailchimp Transactional Email (Mandrill)Microsoft Exchange
    Secure Email Gateway
    Comparison of Secure Email Gateway features of Mailchimp Transactional Email (Mandrill) and Microsoft Exchange
    Feature
    Mailchimp Transactional Email (Mandrill)
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Exchange
    7.3
    84 Ratings
    14% below category average
    Anti-malware00 Ratings6.567 Ratings
    Customizability00 Ratings8.079 Ratings
    Data Loss Protection00 Ratings8.368 Ratings
    Threat Detection00 Ratings6.566 Ratings
    Sandboxing00 Ratings7.444 Ratings
    End-to-End Encryption00 Ratings6.767 Ratings
    Management Tools00 Ratings8.080 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Mailchimp Transactional Email (Mandrill)Microsoft Exchange
    Small Businesses
    Postmark
    Score7.7 out of 10
    Sophos Email
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Postmark
    Score7.7 out of 10
    Sophos Email
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    OpenText Core Email Threat Protection
    Score7.5 out of 10
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    User Ratings
    Mailchimp Transactional Email (Mandrill)Microsoft Exchange
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (16 ratings)
    9.0
    (102 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (4 ratings)
    Usability
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    8.5
    (6 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    6.7
    (2 ratings)
    9.9
    (12 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Mailchimp Transactional Email (Mandrill)Microsoft Exchange
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Intuit
    Any system that requires transactional email message functionality as an external service. The benefits of a well managed and vetted server to maintain reputation as well as being reliability is well worth the effort needed to integrate towards the API specs
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Creating and receiving emails is simple. Managing contacts is a nice feature, especially connecting to Active Directory. Calendar management is also helpful and sharing access to others' calendars for scheduling meetings is useful. And reserving resources such as rooms or equipment is also useful. Personal and shared mailboxes are good features, as well. Tasks are a little lacking, but other than that, the features are thorough.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Intuit
    • Mandrill is extremely reliable. We switched from using a platform that was very hit-or-miss, but we never had a single deliverability issue with Mandrill's transactional API. Every email was sent reliably and quickly.
    • Mandrill's reporting and debugging features made it easy to ensure that all our messages were getting delivered to the right place in a timely manner. In fact, Mandrill's tools were so robust that we used it as an end-around way of debugging another failing service we were using.
    • Mandrill is a very affordable add-on to an existing MailChimp account. Adding an extra layer of reliability was a no-brainer, and made the cost essentially negligible to our organization.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • As we have a large user base of 11,000 users we use MailTips to avoid people getting confused with people with similar names in the organization.
    • The integration between Teams Meeting and Resource booking is generally very good. The Scheduling Assistance makes it easy to scan calendars and find free periods to provisionally scheduled events.
    • Marking yourself as Out of the Office and busy is easy, as is sharing your calendar within the team/organization or individuals.
    • Voicemail integration and the ability to receive missed chats in your inbox are highly used and useful.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Intuit
    • The rate-limit system can be troubling. If you are switching providers and already have a large e-mail volume, you're going to want to transition slowly. The per-hour send limits are initially very low, and if you have any deliverability or complaint hiccups, they will plummet quickly. The Mandrill support staff is very helpful in this area - they will not (and claim that they can not) manipulate send limits for any account at any time for any reason.
    • Billing is combined in with a paid MailChimp subscription, which didn't used to be the case.
    • No free tier.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • The two main factors for the better reliability & Uptime of internally hosted Exchange Server depends on Exchange Server configuration and the level of investment the organization is willing to provide for hosting the Exchange Server On-Premise Environment. As the data is stored in the organization’s hardware, any disaster may lead to the loss of email and servers.
    • Losing data might affect business continuity and rebuilding it can be costly.
    • Security remains a major concern.
    • Security of data loss is main concern. To ensure that, organization needs to configure networks, systems and Exchange platform against possible threats.
    • Hardware and license costs are high.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Intuit
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    Email and calendars in a business setting are requirements. And Microsoft continues to be the standard of business applications. Microsoft 365 makes Microsoft Exchange easy to use. Everything is in the cloud. Let Microsoft take care of the hardware, the software, and the security. You just enable your business users with the functionality they need.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Intuit
    It did the job for us and we were happy with the delivery rates of the email, analytics and customisation available while integrating it within our platform.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Microsoft Exchange has come a long way over the years and has nowhere near the technical overhead required for support as it did back in 2003/2007 and prior. The integrations with Teams, Defender, Sharepoint, Copilot and many other products make it a solid and well-rounded tool used for many day-to-day tasks.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Intuit
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    Exchange is setup with multiple servers behind load balancers to provide high availability.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    Intuit
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    I would say it's the best email product I've experienced.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Intuit
    I haven't personally reached out to their support team, but the feedback I've heard from our tech support and engineering teams have been that their response to questions has often been they either are unsure or that Mandrill is what it is. For example, when our customers weren't able to see opens and clicks for all emails sent, and we reached out to their support, the response was it is what it is, and they'll send a notification to our app if they can.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    We have a good enterprise agreement with Microsoft which affords us quick phone support. I have found the support staff knowledgeable and prompt with a solution when required. At times it may be difficult to schedule a call back, this is mainly due to our need for calls early in the morning which happens to be during a shift change at Microsoft support.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Intuit
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    Implementation/conversion can be quite complex and, unless you have certified Exchange administrators in-house, you should strongly consider a 3rd party consultant for this implementation.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Intuit
    So we actually work with clients across all of the platforms listed above, but Mandrill has a huge ease of use bonus in its favor, especially when working with clients who are setting up a Cart Recovery style marketing campaign for the first time or are looking for a bit of a fire-and-forget setup. With more sophisticated clients (on the scale of global ecommerce companies), who have a larger subscriber/customer base and in-house design teams, we find that Mandrill usually isn't enough
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    Microsoft Exchange Product The best cloud-based enterprise-grade archiving platform with a host of features that enable files to be securely archived and retrieved with advanced search options. This tool is very easy to use and has a User-friendly interface. It is a highly reliable platform that allows all employees to automatically store their data without any limitations. It offers a cost-effective solution with customized policy management. We are happy that the customer support team is always fast and concerned, and the product's uninterrupted service experience. It is very good that it stores data in real-time without losing it, even in the event of a disaster. The cost-effective solution and integration with other tools are seamless.
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    Intuit
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    The only time Exchange has failed us is when we did something to cause the failure.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Intuit
    • It helped us to grow our customer database substantially in the last quarter.
    • Last week we reached 62% customer engagement in our campaign. This is very good customer engagement for our projects.
    • In the last quarter we achieved our target by 135%.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • It has been an important factor in allowing seamless communication with clients and scheduling business meetings, which in turn works in the company's favor.
    • Haven't noticed any negative impact Exchange has had on our ROI. The support team is also responsive and helpful.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
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