Migrating from Mailchimp to self-hosted Mautic on VPS

Why leave Mailchimp now

Concrete benefits of self-hosted Mautic

• Predictable cost — the VPS costs {{vps.start.price}} per month, regardless of the number of contacts or sends.
• Full data control — lists, segments and engagement history stay on your infrastructure; no third-party provider accesses them.
• Simplified GDPR compliance — a single sub-processor (your VPS host), no transfers to undeclared non-EU servers.
• Dedicated IP reputation — your sending IP address is not shared with thousands of other senders, eliminating neighbourhood effects on deliverability.
• No cap on automations — workflows, lead scoring, embedded forms, A/B testing: no feature is gated behind a paid tier.
• Native integration — REST API, webhooks, CRM connectors: Mautic integrates with existing tools at no extra cost.

Minimum requirements

Exporting contacts from Mailchimp

1. 01

   Access the list to export

   In Mailchimp, click Audience in the left sidebar, then select All contacts. If you manage multiple audiences, repeat the process for each one.

2. 02

   Launch the CSV export

   Click Export Audience (button in the top right), then choose Export as CSV. Mailchimp prepares the file and sends you a download link by email. Download the file and open it in a spreadsheet to check the columns.

3. 03

   Identify the columns to keep

   The Mailchimp CSV typically includes: Email Address, First Name, Last Name, MEMBER_RATING, OPTIN_TIME, OPTIN_IP, CONFIRM_TIME, UNSUB_REASON, TAGS. For Mautic, the essential columns are Email Address, First Name, Last Name and any custom fields you have defined.

4. 04

   Filter out unsubscribed contacts

   The Mailchimp CSV contains all statuses: subscribed, unsubscribed, non-subscribed, cleaned. Filter on subscribed before importing into Mautic to avoid importing contacts who have requested to unsubscribe.

5. 05

   Prepare one file per segment if needed

   If Mailchimp manages multiple segments or tags on the same audience, export segments separately (filter by Tag in the Contacts view, then export). This makes it easier to recreate segments in Mautic at import time.

Installing Mautic via Docker on a VPS

1. 06

   Create the project folder and docker-compose.yml

   Connect to your VPS via SSH and create a dedicated folder:

   mkdir -p /opt/mautic && cd /opt/mautic

   Create the docker-compose.yml file with the following content:

   version: '3.8'
   services:
     db:
       image: mysql:8.0
       restart: unless-stopped
       environment:
         MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: ${DB_ROOT_PASSWORD}
         MYSQL_DATABASE: mautic
         MYSQL_USER: mautic
         MYSQL_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD}
       volumes:
         - db_data:/var/lib/mysql
   
     mautic:
       image: mautic/mautic:5
       restart: unless-stopped
       depends_on:
         - db
       ports:
         - "8080:80"
       environment:
         MAUTIC_DB_HOST: db
         MAUTIC_DB_USER: mautic
         MAUTIC_DB_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD}
         MAUTIC_DB_NAME: mautic
         MAUTIC_TRUSTED_PROXIES: "0.0.0.0/0"
       volumes:
         - mautic_data:/var/www/html
   
   volumes:
     db_data:
     mautic_data:

2. 07

   Create the environment variables file

   Create the .env file in the same folder:

   DB_ROOT_PASSWORD=strong-root-password
   DB_PASSWORD=strong-mautic-password

   Replace the values with long random passwords. Never commit this file to a repository.

3. 08

   Start the containers

   Launch the stack:

   docker compose up -d

   Wait one minute, then check that the containers are running:

   docker compose ps

   Both the db and mautic services should show the running state.

4. 09

   Configure the nginx reverse proxy

   Create an nginx vhost pointing to port 8080 and add SSL via Certbot. Minimal example for mailing.your-domain.com:

   server {
       listen 80;
       server_name mailing.your-domain.com;
       location / {
           proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080;
           proxy_set_header Host $host;
           proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
           proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
           proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
       }
   }

   Then obtain the SSL certificate:

   certbot --nginx -d mailing.your-domain.com

5. 10

   Complete the installation via the web interface

   Open https://mailing.your-domain.com in a browser. The Mautic installation wizard asks you to confirm the database settings (pre-filled from the environment variables) and to create the administrator account. Store the credentials in a password manager.

Importing contacts into Mautic

1. 11

   Access the import in Mautic

   In the Mautic interface, click Contacts in the top menu, then click the Import button (upload icon, top right of the contacts list).

2. 12

   Upload the CSV file

   Select the CSV file filtered to subscribed contacts. Mautic accepts UTF-8 CSV files. If your file contains special characters (accented letters, Arabic), verify the encoding before importing.

3. 13

   Map the columns

   Mautic shows a column-by-column mapping screen. Map Email Address → Email, First Name → First name, Last Name → Last name. For custom Mailchimp fields, create the corresponding fields in Mautic (Settings → Contact fields) before the import.

4. 14

   Enable the Update if exists option

   Check the Update existing contacts option. This option is essential for successive or corrective imports: without it, Mautic creates duplicates instead of merging data. It uses the email address as the upsert key.

5. 15

   Verify the absence of duplicates after import

   Once the import is complete, search for an imported contact by their email address. Verify that the profile is unique and that the fields are correctly populated. To detect any duplicates in bulk, use the Duplicate contacts filter in the segments module.

DNS configuration before the first send

Common troubleshooting

Mailchimp vs self-hosted Mautic

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Next steps