Email and marketing: what users struggle with, 2026
34 sourced reports about 2 email and marketing products, gathered from public posts and linked to where each was said. The most-discussed problem area is Pricing & plans (45 items across the category). 30 items, across all dates, describe leaving one of these tools.
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The category at a glance
| Product | Reports | Themes | Source threads | Most-discussed area |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mailchimp | 23 | 15 | 98 | Pricing & plans |
| listmonk | 11 | 11 | 64 | Reliability & bugs |
Problem areas, ranked by number of items
Items of every date, including older ones outside the recent window the report counts above use.
| Area | Items | Mailchimp | listmonk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing & plans | 45 | 45 | 0 |
| Reliability & bugs | 29 | 16 | 13 |
| UI & usability | 22 | 19 | 3 |
| Customization | 18 | 8 | 10 |
| Permissions & security | 13 | 8 | 5 |
| Self-hosting & upgrades | 11 | 0 | 11 |
| Integrations | 7 | 4 | 3 |
| API & developer experience | 6 | 6 | 0 |
Read the products
- Mailchimp problems and requests · Mailchimp alternatives
- listmonk problems and requests · listmonk alternatives
Side by side
Method and limits
Reports come from public Hacker News comments and public issues of vendors' open-source repositories; each was extracted into a structured item, and each links to its source. A report counts once per product, however many people agreed. Open-source and developer-facing products are over-represented because that is where public discussion happens; counts show how much is said, not which tool is better. Full method and sources.
Cite as: Friction, “Email and marketing: what users struggle with, 2026”, https://friction.grain64.com/state-of/email-and-marketing/, data as of 2026-10-15.