Polychimp is a WordPress plugin that does two things. First, it allows users of the plugin to support multiple email addresses per account in a WordPress installation. Secondly, it allows those email addresses to be synchronised with a Mailchimp list.
Why have I written this? I had two issues with the existing plugins. I have been using Autochimp for a number of years but the plugin is rather dated and uses a deprecated Mailchimp API which means that it will stop working any day. Secondly, I had a need to support multiple email addresses per account and this is something that I haven’t found anywhere. I would like to have it because sometimes the account doesn’t map to the user of the web site but rather some other entity of which there is a single one shared by multiple people. Examples of this includes housing communities where the houses could be accounts, shared by the people living in them. Or, it could be a scout or kids sports association where parents should share an account.
I then wanted to support Mailchimp as it is my preferred choice of email provider. Ideally I want to be able to post a blog from WordPress that ends up both on the site and as an email to all users of the site. The plugin does not support this fully at this time but at least it keeps the list of users synchronised with Mailchimp so it is easy to compose emails using the Mailchimp UI, knowing that at least it reaches the correct people.
The plugin is not optimised for very large installations. My needs are for WordPress installations with maximum a few hundred accounts. I may get around to improving that one day. But if your needs match mine I hope it will be useful. And as long as you don’t pay Mailchimp you should not have to pay me. But donations are always welcome 🙂
PS The plugin will soon (hopefully) be available on WordPress.org. This page is written a little prematurely to have something to link to in the Plugin documentation.
