How to export your contacts and cancel Mailchimp

Step 1: Export your audience from Mailchimp

These are the steps in Mailchimp's help center as of October 2026:

1. Click Audience.
2. If you have more than one audience, choose the one you want from the Audience drop-down.
3. Click Export audience.
4. Click Export CSV.

Mailchimp shows a message that the export is in progress and emails you when it's ready. You can also find it under Audience, then More options, then Export history. Mailchimp keeps exports for 30 days, so download the file and save it somewhere safe.

If you have several audiences, repeat this for each one.

What's in the zip file

A full audience export is a zip file with one CSV per type of contact:

• Subscribed: people who agreed to get your emails. These are the people you'll send to.
• Unsubscribed: people who opted out. You must keep these, so your new tool knows never to email them.
• Cleaned: addresses Mailchimp removed after they bounced. Also worth keeping, so they stay off.
• Non-subscribed: people who never opted in to marketing email, such as store customers.

Each file has columns for email, name, any extra fields you set up, and tags. Don't unzip and pick out only the subscribed file. If you do, your unsubscribes are lost and you risk emailing people who asked you to stop.

Step 2: Import it into MailWild

MailWild reads Mailchimp's zip as it is. You don't need to open it or clean it up first.

• Subscribed contacts come in ready to email.
• Unsubscribed and cleaned contacts come in as unsubscribed, so they never get your newsletters.
• Non-subscribed contacts are left out, because they never agreed to marketing email.
• Your Mailchimp tags become MailWild lists. Duplicates are removed and each person is counted once.

You only pay for people you can email. See what that costs on the pricing page.

Step 3: Run both for one send

Importing into MailWild changes nothing in Mailchimp, so there's no rush. A safe order:

1. Connect your sending domain in MailWild and send a test to yourself.
2. Send your next newsletter from MailWild.
3. Check the results: delivered, opens, clicks, unsubscribes.
4. Only then change your Mailchimp plan.

If anyone joins your Mailchimp signup form in the meantime, export again before you close the account so you don't miss them. Better yet, put your MailWild signup form on your site first, so new people join MailWild directly.

Things that don't move with your contacts

• Past campaigns and reports. If you want a record of what you sent and how it did, save copies or screenshots before you delete Mailchimp. Pausing keeps them.
• Signup forms and embedded forms. Replace any Mailchimp form on your website with your MailWild signup form before you close the account, or new subscribers will hit a dead end.
• Automations. If you have a welcome email, write down its text and timing. You can rebuild it as an email sequence in MailWild.
• Templates. Your designs stay in Mailchimp. Most people rebuild their header and footer once in the new editor, which takes a few minutes.

Step 4: Downgrade, pause or delete Mailchimp

Mailchimp gives you three options, all under your profile icon, then Account & billing. Menu names can change, so follow Mailchimp's help center if what you see differs.

• Downgrade to Free. Mailchimp says you can do this only once over the life of your account, and the Free plan is limited to 250 contacts, so you may need to archive contacts first. The change takes effect at your next billing cycle.
• Pause. Stops billing for 3 or 6 months and keeps your data. Mailchimp allows 2 pauses every 12 months.
• Delete. Permanent. Mailchimp says deletion removes your audiences, campaign archives and reports, and you must pay any outstanding balance first. Make sure you have your export zip before you do this.

If you're unsure, pause first. You can delete later once you're happy with the new tool.

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