In hostile move, Mandrill gives all developers 60 days to switch to paid Mailchimp service

Mandrill has long been Mailchimp’s standalone email service for developers needing to send transactional email from their apps.

Today, the company has announced a bizarre developer-hostile move: it’s turning the standalone service into a Mailchimp add-on that requires a paid Mailchimp account — or risk losing their service.

Mailchimp justifies the change because its competitors, like Amazon SES or Sendgrid provide a better “utilitarian” service for customers that’s cheaper and more efficient — so the company wants to compete on features instead of price.

Fixed the Mandrill home page, in light of recent developments. pic.twitter.com/wn4Ph5LY3o

— ⌁Տ. (@shawnroos) February 25, 2016

Anyone without a paid Mailchimp account will be cut off next month, giving developers 60 days to build out and test an alternative or cough up more money.

Developers who use Mandrill’s service are pissed off about the move, and rightly so: if you’ve integrated a service into your product and then it requires you to pay for another service, why would you keep using it?

A disappointing end to a worthy product. Dramatic short-sightedness from @MailChimp. Coming over @SendGrid https://t.co/mwyee2JSqr

— Josh (@joshuawalkernz) February 25, 2016

Woah, Mandrill cutting off access to anyone without a paid MailChimp account – I'll be busy migrating to SEShttps://t.co/lUTKr01Oq0

— Wes Bos (@wesbos) February 25, 2016

It’s a disappointing move that might make sense to the company, but from the outside looks like a way to force users into paying for another product they don’t necessarily need.

The good news is that there’s alternatives out there. Services like Sendgrid and Amazon’s SES service offer similar functionality and prices — but it may take time to migrate apps across.

➤ Important Changes to Mandrill [Mailchimp]