Choosing the right email marketing software can feel like navigating a minefield of hidden fees, confusing tier structures, and sudden price hikes. If you are torn between Mailchimp vs Brevo, you are not alone. These two giants dominate the conversation for small businesses, bloggers, and ecommerce stores, but they approach marketing from completely different angles.

Mailchimp is the flashy, creative veteran known for its drag-and-drop design ecosystem and brand recognition. Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is the pragmatic, budget-friendly challenger that builds its pricing around how many emails you send rather than how many contacts you store.

The quick verdict: Choose Brevo if you want lower costs for large lists and built-in SMS/WhatsApp capabilities. Choose Mailchimp if you want advanced creative templates, intuitive design tools, and deep third-party ecommerce integrations.

Quick Answer

• Choose Brevo if: You have a large contact list but send emails infrequently, you want predictable email-volume-based pricing, or you need an all-in-one platform with built-in CRM, SMS, and WhatsApp marketing.

• Choose Mailchimp if: You prioritize a polished design builder, require advanced visual workflow mapping, run a Shopify store that benefits from native ecosystem syncing, and have a smaller contact database with active send volumes.

Quick Comparison Table

Feature	Brevo	Mailchimp
Starting Price	Free plan available; paid plans start at $9/mo	Free plan available; paid plans start at $13/mo
Free Plan Limits	300 emails/day, unlimited contacts	250 contacts, 500 emails/month
Pricing Model	Email-volume-based (plus contact caps on lower tiers)	Contact-based (you pay for unsubscribed users too)
Email Automation	Available (workflow limits on Starter)	Available (Standard tier and above)
SMS Marketing	Native, pay-as-you-go	Available as an add-on
WhatsApp Campaigns	Built-in native feature	Limited / via third-party integrations
Built-in CRM	Yes, robust pipeline management	Yes, basic contact profiles
Transactional Email	Dedicated SMTP and API included	Requires paid transactional add-on
Customer Support	Email & live chat (depending on tier)	Email & 24/7 chat (phone on Premium)
Ease of Use	Clean, highly functional	Polished, creative-focused

What Is Mailchimp?

Mailchimp is an all-in-one marketing platform that has evolved from a simple newsletter tool into a heavyweight marketing ecosystem. Acquired by Intuit, it caters heavily to small businesses, creative agencies, and growing ecommerce brands looking for aesthetic templates, AI-assisted writing tools, and robust analytics.

It suits marketers who prioritize visual branding, want straightforward connections to platforms like Shopify and WordPress, and prefer an intuitive, user-friendly interface over raw data management.

What Is Brevo?

Brevo started as Sendinblue, a transactional email and SMS powerhouse. Over the years, it has transformed into a complete customer relationship platform featuring marketing automation, a built-in CRM, live chat, WhatsApp marketing, and landing pages.

It suits budget-conscious small business owners, B2B companies, and sales teams who want to manage marketing and customer relationships under one roof without paying extra for every single contact stored in their database.

Mailchimp vs Brevo: Detailed Comparison

Pricing and Free Plan

The biggest philosophical difference in the Brevo vs Mailchimp debate lies in how they bill you. Mailchimp charges based on your total contact count meaning you pay for active subscribers, bounced addresses, and even people who unsubscribed years ago. Brevo, conversely, bases its paid tiers primarily on your monthly email volume, allowing you to store unlimited contacts on its free plan and generous contact thresholds on paid tiers.

However, Brevo introduces contact caps on its lower entry plans (Starter and Standard). For instance, if you cross 2,500 contacts, you may need to step up your email tier package even if your email send volume remains low.

• Mailchimp Free Plan: Capped at 250 contacts and 500 emails per month.

• Brevo Free Plan: Allows unlimited contacts with a daily sending limit of 300 emails.

Cost Breakdown Example

Contact List Size	Mailchimp (Standard Plan)	Brevo (Standard Plan + Volume Tier)
2,000 Contacts	~$45 – $60 / mo	~$18 – $25 / mo
10,000 Contacts	~$110 – $135 / mo	~$69 / mo
50,000 Contacts	~$450 / mo	Scales based on email volume needs

Pro Tip: Always audit your list before switching or upgrading. Removing inactive contacts on Mailchimp can save you an entire pricing tier.

Ease of Use and Interface

Mailchimp offers a polished, friendly onboarding experience. The dashboard is modern, colorful, and guides first-time users smoothly through creating their first campaign. Its menus are organized logically, though recent feature expansions can occasionally make the sidebar feel cluttered.

Brevo’s interface leans more utilitarian and professional. It feels less like a design studio and more like a control center. While it is easy to navigate, users moving from Mailchimp may find Brevo’s menu grouping separating transactional logs, CRM pipelines, and campaigns takes a few days to master.

Email Builder and Templates

Mailchimp is famous for its drag-and-drop email builder. It is smooth, responsive, and packed with pre-designed layouts, dynamic content widgets, and generative AI copy assistants.

Brevo’s drag-and-drop editor has improved significantly, offering clean blocks, easy image adjustments, and mobile preview tools. However, Mailchimp still holds a slight edge for creative flexibility and out-of-the-box visual flair.

Key Takeaway: If your brand relies heavily on highly stylized, custom-designed graphic emails, Mailchimp’s editor provides a smoother creative workflow.

Marketing Automation and Workflows

Automation is where platforms separate casual hobbyists from serious revenue generators.

• Mailchimp locks powerful multi-step automation builders behind its Standard tier and higher. Once unlocked, the visual journey builder is exceptional, letting you branch campaigns based on customer behavior, ecommerce purchases, and tags.

• Brevo provides an automation builder across its plans (with certain advanced workflow triggers restricted on lower tiers). It uses a clean, node-based flowchart system that makes building welcome sequences, abandoned cart triggers, and lead-scoring workflows straightforward.

Real-World Example: If you run an online store and want to trigger a 3-part email sequence when someone abandons a cart, both tools handle this seamlessly, but Brevo does so at a lower entry threshold for large lists.

CRM and Sales Features

Brevo shines brightly when it comes to built-in CRM capabilities. Every account includes pipeline management tools, deal tracking, task assignments, and contact notes. If you are a small B2B team, you can track leads from initial email open to closed deal right inside Brevo.

Mailchimp offers basic contact profiles, tags, and audience segmentation, but it lacks a true sales pipeline tracker. For advanced CRM depth, marketers often couple Mailchimp with external tools or look into options like HubSpot vs Marketo for enterprise needs.

SMS and WhatsApp Marketing

Omnichannel marketing is essential for modern engagement.

• Brevo was built with multi-channel communication in mind. It features native SMS and WhatsApp campaign managers directly inside the main dashboard, allowing you to run combined email-and-text journeys effortlessly.

• Mailchimp supports SMS marketing, but it is often handled as an add-on service with regional limitations and separate credit pricing structures.

Transactional Emails and SMTP

If your website needs to send automated password resets, order receipts, or system alerts, you need reliable transactional infrastructure.

• Brevo includes robust transactional email capabilities through its dedicated SMTP relay and API on virtually all plans, making it a favorite for developers and SaaS founders.

• Mailchimp handles transactional mail through its transactional arm (formerly Mandrill), which requires a separate paid add-on structure.

Email Deliverability

Deliverability depends heavily on your domain health, authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), and sending practices. Both Mailchimp and Brevo maintain strict sender policies, monitor abuse complaints closely, and provide dedicated IP options for high-volume senders.

Independent deliverability tests generally place both platforms neck-and-neck, with inbox placement rates hovering above industry averages when proper Google email sender guidelines are followed.

Landing Pages, Forms and Ecommerce Features

• Mailchimp excels at audience acquisition tools. It offers stylish pop-up forms, embedded sign-up blocks, and a straightforward landing page builder. Its native integration with Shopify is among the best in the industry.

• Brevo also includes form builders, landing page templates, and plugins for WordPress, WooCommerce, and Shopify, though the design selection feels a bit more functional than creative.

Reporting and Analytics

Mailchimp provides detailed visual reports covering open rates, click maps, revenue generated, click-through performance, and comparative benchmarking against industry averages.

Brevo offers clean, straightforward data reports covering delivery statistics, bounce logs, open/click metrics, and conversion tracking. For deeper data handling, businesses often export metrics or sync data using Make vs Zapier automation.

Integrations (WordPress, Shopify, WooCommerce, Zapier)

Both platforms boast extensive app directories.

• Mailchimp integrates with virtually every major marketing tool, content management system, and ecommerce plug-in on the market.

• Brevo covers all major essentials including WordPress, Shopify, Magento, and Zapier plus a developer-friendly API and growing ecosystem support.

Customer Support

• Mailchimp offers email and 24/7 live chat support on paid tiers, stepping up to phone support on its expensive Premium plan.

• Brevo provides email and live chat support depending on your plan tier, with helpful customer service representatives known for quick technical troubleshooting.

Security and GDPR Compliance

Both platforms take data protection seriously, offering robust tools for data processing addendums (DPAs), two-factor authentication (2FA), and full adherence to GDPR standards to ensure European subscriber data is handled legally and safely.

Pros and Cons

Mailchimp Pros & Cons

• Pros:

  • Beautiful, intuitive email editor and templates

  • Deep native ecommerce integrations (especially Shopify)

  • Advanced visual journey builder

• Cons:

  • Expensive contact-based pricing that charges for unsubscribed users

  • Aggressive feature gating on lower-tier plans

  • Frequent price adjustments

Brevo Pros & Cons

• Pros:

  • Predictable email-volume pricing with unlimited contacts on lower/free plans

  • Built-in CRM and sales pipeline tools

  • Native SMS and WhatsApp campaign support

• Cons:

  • Contact caps on lower paid tiers can trigger forced upgrades

  • Interface feels more utilitarian than creative

  • Advanced workflow triggers restricted on starter tiers

Real User Opinions

A review of feedback across developer forums, marketing subreddits, and review sites reveals a clear pattern. Users transitioning away from Mailchimp almost always cite unexpected bill shocks caused by list growth and paying for inactive or unsubscribed records.

Conversely, Brevo users frequently praise its cost-to-value ratio for large lists, though some note that adjusting to its contact-versus-email tier structure requires careful monitoring. Many small business owners recommend starting on Brevo if list size is growing rapidly but budget is tight, while creative agencies often stick with Mailchimp for client presentation polish.

Who Should Choose Which?

• Freelancers and Bloggers: Brevo’s free tier with unlimited contacts is fantastic for lean creators starting out.

• Ecommerce Store Owners: Mailchimp offers deeper native product recommendations and shopping cart recovery blocks for Shopify stores.

• B2B Companies & Sales Teams: Brevo wins easily due to its integrated CRM and pipeline tracking.

• Agencies: Mailchimp provides easier multi-client asset sharing, though Brevo handles multi-user collaboration well on higher plans.

Mailchimp vs Brevo for Small Business: Final Verdict

If your main goal is keeping overhead low while managing a large or fast-growing subscriber database, Brevo is the smarter financial choice. Its email-volume model protects you from paying extra for cold, inactive subscribers.

However, if you run a design-driven brand or a Shopify store where out-of-the-box aesthetic templates and seamless ecosystem sync are your top priorities, Mailchimp remains a reliable industry standard provided you budget for its tier jumps.

Best Alternatives to Mailchimp and Brevo

If neither of these platforms hits the mark, consider these alternatives:

1. MailerLite: Excellent for clean design, straightforward contact pricing, and friendly user interfaces.

2. ActiveCampaign: The gold standard for ultra-advanced automation, CRM depth, and behavioral tracking.

3. Klaviyo: The undisputed powerhouse for high-volume Shopify and ecommerce direct-to-consumer brands.

FAQs

1. Which tool is cheaper, Mailchimp or Brevo?

Brevo is generally cheaper for businesses with large contact lists because it charges based on email sending volume rather than total stored contacts. Mailchimp bills for every contact in your database, including unsubscribed users.

2. Can I use Brevo for free?

Yes, Brevo offers a free-forever plan that lets you store unlimited contacts and send up to 300 emails per day.

3. Does Mailchimp charge for unsubscribed contacts?

Yes. Mailchimp counts every profile in your audience database toward your billing tier, including unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts, unless you explicitly archive them.

4. Which platform has better email deliverability?

Both Mailchimp and Brevo maintain high industry-standard deliverability rates, provided you properly authenticate your custom sending domain with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records.

5. Does Brevo include a CRM?

Yes, Brevo includes a built-in CRM with deal pipelines, task management, and contact history tracking on all accounts. Mailchimp offers basic contact profiles but lacks a visual sales pipeline.

Conclusion

Choosing between Mailchimp vs Brevo comes down to understanding your core business model: do you pay for the contacts sitting in your database, or do you pay for the actual messages you send? Take stock of your list size, your budget, and your need for extra channels like SMS or CRM pipelines before making your choice.

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