Mailchimp + MailKite

Mailchimp is a marketing email platform. Use MailKite's SMTP for transactional email while Mailchimp handles your marketing campaigns, or use Mandrill (Mailchimp's transactional service) alongside MailKite for different use cases.

What you need

• A verified domain with SPF + DKIM published
• Your API key (mk_live_…)
• Mailchimp account (Mandrill add-on for transactional)

Send email

Use MailKite SMTP for transactional email. Keep Mailchimp for newsletters and marketing campaigns.

# Use MailKite SMTP for transactional email
# Mailchimp/Mandrill for marketing campaigns

SMTP Host: smtp.mailkite.dev
SMTP Port: 587
SMTP Username: mailkite
SMTP Password: mk_live_...
From: hello@yourdomain.com

# Keep Mailchimp for newsletters and marketing
# Use MailKite for password resets, receipts, alerts

Receive inbound email (optional)

Mailchimp is primarily outbound-focused. Use MailKite's inbound webhook to tag subscribers or update lists based on replies.

// Receive inbound email → update Mailchimp subscriber
const MAILCHIMP_API = 'https://us1.api.mailchimp.com/3.0';

async function handleInbound(email) {
  const res = await fetch(`${MAILCHIMP_API}/lists/${process.env.MAILCHIMP_LIST_ID}/members`, {
    method: 'GET',
    headers: {
      'Authorization': `apikey ${process.env.MAILCHIMP_API_KEY}`,
    },
  });
  // Check if subscriber exists, update preferences or tag
  // Mailchimp is primarily for outbound marketing
  console.log(`Inbound from ${email.from} — consider adding to list or updating tags`);
  return { ok: true };
}

Test it

Send a test email through your app's SMTP config to verify MailKite is handling transactional sends.

# Test your SMTP connection
echo "Test" | swaks --to test@example.com --from hello@yourdomain.com \
  --server smtp.mailkite.dev --port 587 \
  --auth USER=mailkite --auth-password mk_live_...

Troubleshooting

• Mandrill is a paid add-on to Mailchimp. For pure transactional, MailKite is simpler and cheaper.
• Use Mailchimp for marketing, MailKite for transactional — clean separation of concerns.
• Mailchimp's API region (e.g. us1) appears in the API URL — check your account.

See the SMTP relay docs for the full connection reference, or all integrations for other platforms.