For me, Mailchimp serves a different purpose than Elastic Email (though they have many similarities and offer similar tools such as email designers, campaign tools, autoresponders, etc.). I was with Mailchimp long before I had a need for bulk SMTP services, and I've been happy with Mailchimp for broadcast emails and autoresponder services, but I didn't see much in the way of opportunity as far as STMP mailing went. I did some searching and found Elastic Email to be an appealing option instead. While helping a client configure some email automation, they mentioned wanting to try
Sendinblue (as they have a higher daily free limit), and it has proven to be a solid choice as well--though I've been 100% happy with Elastic Email for my own needs and have no intention of switching. When looking for email automation solutions, I found Gist and incorporated their fine-grain automation triggers to follow up with visitors based on actions taken on my sites, which it excels at vs Elastic Email and the others mentioned.