Connecting and asking is free, and that includes seeing your own headcount chart and archive list. Publishing means turning an answer into a hosted page you keep and share; that is where paid plans start.

Will it tell me the newsletter caused the sales?

No. It marks sends on the money timeline and counts what your tools recorded. When platforms disagree about credit, we show you why instead of making up a number.

Mailchimp

Papercrane

Still paying Mailchimp for people who unsubscribed?

Q: Can this actually lower my Mailchimp bill?

We compute the archive list: who is unsubscribed, non subscribed, or inactive past a window you choose. Seeing that list is free. You archive them in Mailchimp yourself, and archived contacts stop counting toward your tier; whether that drops a tier depends on where your count sits, and the chart shows you before you touch anything.

Q: What access does Papercrane get?

Read access you approve on Mailchimp's consent screen. We can read reports, audiences, and member activity; we cannot send, edit, or delete anything, and you can disconnect from either side at any time.

Q: I'm on the Free or Essentials plan. Does this work?

Any plan can connect. Mailchimp reserves its audience analytics dashboard for Standard and up; Papercrane reads your audience data on any plan.

Q: I have several audiences, or two Mailchimp accounts.

Connect each one and address them by name in the same conversation.

Q: What happens when a dashboard breaks?

The dashboard reports its own errors to the AI agent that built it, and the agent repairs it. You do not file a ticket, and most of the time you will not notice.

Unsubscribed and inactive contacts count toward your bill until you archive them. Connect Mailchimp and Papercrane shows exactly who you are paying for, then joins Square, QuickBooks, and Google Analytics to show what each send did for the business.

See who is on your bill

Connect in about a minute. Free to connect and ask. Paid plans start when you publish a dashboard. See pricing

The headcount on your bill

Mailchimp bills by stored contacts, and unsubscribed and non subscribed contacts keep counting until you archive them. Cross a tier line and an extra charge appears on the bill by itself.

Billed contacts, on the pricing tier ruler

Example audience

Opened or clicked this year · 1,140

No opens or clicks in a year · 820

Non subscribed: cannot receive marketing email · 390

Unsubscribed: left, still billed · 380

Total on the bill · 2,730

Archive the 770 you cannot market to and this audience lands at 1,960, a full pricing tier down.

Contact counting and tier rules from Mailchimp's own billing documentation. Your plan's tier prices are on Mailchimp's pricing page.

Mailchimp has every one of these numbers. The bill math is the part nobody draws. Papercrane builds this from your audience in one request, with the archive list behind it: every contact in the gray bands, ready to review. Seeing this for your own audience is free. You pay only if you keep a published dashboard.

Three dead ends in Mailchimp's reporting

The bill counts everyone

Unsubscribed and non subscribed contacts count toward your plan tier until you archive them. The only number that falls when someone leaves is your open rate.

The growth chart nets out the churn

A flat audience line can hide 60 joins and 60 goodbyes a month. The dashboard that charts it at all needs the Standard plan.

The report ends at the click

Opens, clicks, bounces, then silence. Whether the send filled the calendar or paid an invoice lives in Square, QuickBooks, and your website, not in Mailchimp.

Ask what the report can't answer

Who is on my bill that I can't even market to?

Which contacts haven't opened or clicked anything in a year?

What did each audience gain and lose, month by month?

Put my sends on the same timeline as Square payments and paid QuickBooks invoices.

Donations by week, with send dates marked, next to the Stripe record.

Each answer comes back as a live chart you can keep.

Papercrane marks your send dates on the same timeline as payments, invoices, and site sessions. No invented attribution number: you see what happened next, and you judge it.

1. Connect in about a minute

2. Ask a question

3. Papercrane's AI agent plans, queries, and builds a hosted dashboard

4. If a chart breaks, it reports the error to the agent that built it and gets fixed. You are not the maintenance plan.

Read access you approve on Mailchimp's consent screen. We never send an email or touch your list.

What people build first

The archive audit

The first question most people ask: who am I paying for that I cannot email? The answer is the chart above, drawn from your audience, with the archive list attached.

The board page

One live page of audience in and out, campaign engagement, and donations by week with send dates marked. Published once, current on every meeting day.

When you don't need us

If Mailchimp's own reports answer your questions, keep your money: campaign reports are decent, and the audience dashboard on Standard covers the basics. If you run an online store and live on flows and revenue per email, Klaviyo is built for that, and switching beats building dashboards around the wrong tool. Papercrane is worth paying for when the question spans your list and your money, or when the answer needs to live somewhere your team or board can watch it.