If you store a lot of contacts but mail them sparingly, Brevo's math will look like a gift. If you mail your engaged list weekly and keep the database lean, Mailchimp can be the cheaper invoice once you climb past the entry tiers. This comparison breaks down where each tool wins, with real 2026 prices.
For the wider field, see the best email marketing tools round-up. If you are bootstrapping, the best free email marketing tools shortlist is the right next step.
TL;DR: which one to pick
| Scenario | Pick | Why |
|---|
| Big database (50K+ contacts), mail monthly | Brevo | Send-based pricing rewards low-frequency, high-volume databases |
| Active SMB newsletter to 5-15K engaged subs, weekly cadence | Mailchimp | Templates, automations, and brand polish you can hand to a freelancer |
| Multi-channel: email + SMS + WhatsApp + CRM-lite | Brevo | Native multi-channel; one vendor, one bill |
At-a-glance comparison
| Brevo | Mailchimp |
|---|
| Free tier | Unlimited contacts, 300 emails/day (~9K/month), Brevo branding on emails | 250 contacts, 500 sends/mo, 250/day cap, 1 audience |
| Paid entry | Starter ~$9/month for 5K monthly emails | Essentials ~$13/month for 500 contacts |
| Paid at 10K monthly emails | Starter ~$25/month | Essentials ~$110/month at 10K contacts |
| Best for | Large databases, multi-channel, CRM-lite | Brand-friendly SMB email + multi-channel marketing |
| Automation depth | Real automation on Business tier; weak on free | Customer Journeys on Standard+; mature visual builder |
| Templates | ~70 templates, functional | 100+ templates plus a marketplace, design-forward |
| Integrations | 150+, with native CRM, transactional API, WhatsApp | 300+ apps, broad SaaS marketing categories |
| SMS / WhatsApp | Native, included with credit wallet | Limited SMS on higher tiers, no WhatsApp |
| EmailToolScout rating | 4.3 / 5 | 4.2 / 5 |
One-line verdict: Brevo wins for big-database, multi-channel, low-to-mid frequency. Mailchimp wins for brand-polished, contact-light, engagement-heavy SMB programs.
Pricing showdown
The single most useful thing you can do before buying is write down two numbers: how many contacts you actually mail in a month, and how many emails you send in total. Then plug both into each vendor's calculator. Skipping that step is how teams overpay by 3x for a year.
Brevo pricing ladder (2026, USD, monthly, marketing plans)
- Free: unlimited contacts, 300 emails/day, Brevo branding, no automation depth
- Starter: from ~$9/month for 5K emails, ~$18/month for 10K, ~$29/month for 20K, ~$49/month for 40K, no Brevo branding, basic A/B testing
- Business: from ~$18/month for 5K emails, ~$35/month for 10K, scaling to ~$65/month for 20K and ~$110/month for 40K; this is where marketing automation, predictive sending, multi-user access, and landing pages unlock
- Enterprise: custom; SSO, dedicated CSM, advanced security
- SMS / WhatsApp: separate credit wallets (region-priced; SMS to US typically ~$0.0085/message, WhatsApp by country/template type)
The hidden cost on Brevo: email credits do not roll over in the same way contact storage works on Mailchimp. If you over-buy a tier "for safety," you are burning money. Under-buy and you risk a launch month spilling into overages or a forced upgrade mid-cycle.
Mailchimp pricing ladder (2026, USD, monthly)
- Free: 250 contacts, 500 sends/mo, 250/day cap, 1 audience, 1 seat
- Essentials: from ~$13/month at 500 contacts, ~$26/month at 1,500, ~$60/month at 5,000, ~$110/month at 10,000
- Standard: from ~$20/month at 500, ~$35/month at 1,500, ~$85/month at 5,000, ~$150/month at 10,000; Standard is where Customer Journeys, predictive segmentation, and dynamic content unlock
- Premium: ~$299+/month even at small lists, scaling steeply
The hidden cost on Mailchimp: contacts include unsubscribed, archived, and non-opt-in profiles depending on plan accounting rules. A messy import gets billed at the messy import size, not your engaged size.
Verdict on price: At 5,000 contacts mailed weekly (~20K monthly emails), Brevo Business runs around $35-50/month while Mailchimp Standard runs around $85/month. At 50,000 contacts mailed monthly (~50K emails), Brevo Business is around $50-70/month while Mailchimp Standard is around $370+/month. Brevo wins on most plausible high-volume scenarios; Mailchimp wins only when you stay tiny and want the brand polish.
Features face-off
Email editor
Mailchimp's editor is the more polished generalist. The block library is mature, you can save brand styles once and reuse, and the template gallery covers more event/seasonal/industry layouts than Brevo's library.
Brevo's editor is competent and modern, with drag-and-drop blocks and conditional content on Business+. The template library is smaller but covers the basics. The editor handles transactional templates alongside marketing emails in the same interface, which is a quiet productivity win for technical teams.
Verdict: Mailchimp for design-first teams; Brevo for teams that want one editor for marketing and transactional mail.
Automation
Mailchimp's Customer Journeys on Standard+ are mature: visual builder, branching, goals, conditional waits, and pre-built journey maps for welcome, abandoned cart, and re-engagement. The product nudges beginners toward sensible flows.
Brevo's automation is honest about plan gating. The free and Starter tiers offer minimal automation. Business is where it becomes competitive: visual builder, multi-step workflows, multi-channel triggers (email + SMS + WhatsApp in the same flow), and event-based logic.
Verdict: Mailchimp for single-channel automation done well. Brevo for multi-channel automation in one canvas.
Segmentation
Mailchimp segmentation handles tags, audience fields, ecommerce purchase data (when connected), engagement scores, and predictive segments on higher tiers. Useful but not unusual.
Brevo segmentation accepts contact attributes, list membership, email engagement, and event data through its tracking API. The built-in CRM gives you deal-stage segmentation that Mailchimp does not natively offer.
Verdict: Tie for "do the basics." Edge to Brevo if your segmentation needs to combine sales and marketing data.
Reporting
Mailchimp's reports are clean, comparative, and beginner-friendly. Click maps, audience growth, comparative reports across campaigns, and revenue attribution where ecommerce is connected.
Brevo's reports cover opens, clicks, unsubscribes, bounces, heat maps, and conversion tracking through tracking pixels. Multi-channel reporting (email + SMS together) is its differentiator.
Verdict: Tie. Mailchimp for prettier dashboards; Brevo for cross-channel context.
Integrations
Mailchimp's catalog is broader (300+) and friendlier to non-technical SMB stacks: Squarespace, Shopify, Canva, QuickBooks, Eventbrite, and a dense Zapier ecosystem.
Brevo's catalog (150+) is smaller but stronger on transactional + marketing patterns: native API, SMTP relay, WordPress plugins, Salesforce, HubSpot sync, and CRM-lite features that mean you may not need a second tool.
Verdict: Mailchimp for SMB convenience; Brevo for technical teams that want one vendor for marketing + transactional + light CRM.
Deliverability
Both vendors run mature infrastructure and inbox well for healthy senders.
Mailchimp has decades of reputation management, large IP pools, and a mature compliance team. Lower-tier shared pools span a wide variety of accounts, which is industry-normal.
Brevo runs solid shared infrastructure and offers dedicated IPs on Business+ at reasonable price points (sometimes included in higher Business bands). Brevo also runs your transactional mail on dedicated transactional IPs by default, which is a reliability win.
Verdict: Tie for marketing email. Edge to Brevo if you also need clean transactional sending in the same vendor.
Ease of use
Mailchimp wins for total beginners. The UI nudges you to templates, previews, and checklists, and the navigation is familiar to anyone who has used a SaaS marketing tool.
Brevo's UI is denser. There are more modules (Email, SMS, WhatsApp, Conversations, CRM, Transactional, Automation, Forms), and finding the right setting can take an extra click. After a week, the density stops being intimidating and starts feeling like leverage.
My subjective scoring:
- Mailchimp ease of use: 8.5 / 10
- Brevo ease of use: 7.0 / 10
- Brevo "leverage per dollar": 9.0 / 10 if you use the multi-channel features
Brevo, decisively. If you store 50K-500K contacts and mail a fraction of them monthly, Brevo's send-based pricing is in a different universe from Mailchimp's contact-based pricing. A nonprofit emailing donors twice a quarter, a marketplace mailing inactive users on lifecycle moments, or a legacy SaaS with a giant trial database will all save 60-80% on Brevo.
Who wins for active SMB newsletters and brand-led ecommerce?
Mailchimp. A 5-15K engaged list mailed weekly with a polished template, decent automation, and a recognizable brand workflow is exactly what Mailchimp Standard is built for. The template ecosystem and the editor make it easier to delegate to a freelancer or a marketing intern.
For Shopify or WooCommerce stores that have outgrown Mailchimp, Klaviyo is usually the next stop. See Klaviyo vs Mailchimp for that decision.
Who wins for multi-channel (email + SMS + WhatsApp)?
Brevo, by default. SMS and WhatsApp live in the same flows as email, share the same contact attributes, and bill from the same vendor. Mailchimp's SMS is functional on higher tiers but does not match Brevo's depth, and Mailchimp does not natively offer WhatsApp.
If you are running cross-channel campaigns for ecommerce, retail launches, or transactional notifications, Brevo saves you weeks of integration work.
My final verdict
I would pick Brevo when the cost driver is send volume relative to contact count, when multi-channel is a real requirement, or when I want transactional and marketing under one vendor. I would pick Mailchimp when the program is a focused, brand-led SMB newsletter with strong template needs.
- Brevo: 4.3 / 5 for value, multi-channel, and CRM-lite SMB
- Mailchimp: 4.2 / 5 for brand polish, beginner ease, and recognizable workflows
For deeper feature breakdowns, read the Brevo review and the Mailchimp review. If you are comparing Brevo against value alternatives, MailerLite vs Brevo and MailerLite vs Mailchimp cover the rest of the value tier. For automation-first comparisons, ActiveCampaign vs Mailchimp is the right next read.
For ecommerce-specific shortlists, see best email marketing tools for ecommerce. For beginners weighing options, best email marketing tools for beginners is more digestible than the full round-up. If your real workload is transactional email (receipts, password resets, OTPs)—an area where Brevo competes especially well—jump to best transactional email services. And if you're explicitly weighing the two "default SMB" ESPs against each other, Constant Contact vs Mailchimp covers the comparison Brevo often gets confused for.
FAQ
Is Brevo really cheaper than Mailchimp?
Almost always at scale, sometimes not at small lists. At 5K contacts mailed weekly, Brevo Business runs around $35-50/month vs Mailchimp Standard at ~$85/month. At 50K contacts mailed monthly, Brevo wins by 5-7x. Mailchimp can win only at very small contact counts where the entry tier is $13/month vs Brevo Starter at $9/month for fewer features.
Can Brevo replace my CRM?
For light SMB use, yes. Brevo includes a deal pipeline, contact tasks, and basic sales workflows. For weekly pipeline reviews with multiple reps, you will outgrow it and want HubSpot or a dedicated CRM.
Which is better for ecommerce, Brevo or Mailchimp?
Both are competent for small ecommerce. Brevo's send-based pricing is friendlier when you have a large guest-checkout list. Mailchimp's templates and store integrations are friendlier for small Shopify stores that prioritize design. Neither beats Klaviyo for serious ecommerce; see Klaviyo vs Mailchimp for that comparison.
Does Brevo have a free plan?
Yes. Brevo's free plan offers unlimited contacts, 300 emails/day (about 9K/month), and basic features with Brevo branding on emails. It is genuinely usable for early-stage SMBs, unlike Mailchimp's free tier which caps at 250 contacts.
Can I migrate from Mailchimp to Brevo without losing my list?
Yes. Brevo offers CSV import and direct list migration. Plan to rebuild automations from scratch since the platforms model journeys differently. Budget 1-2 days for a list under 25K contacts and a week for anything larger.
Disclosure: Pricing and plan limits change. I am summarizing publicly advertised positioning as of the article date. Verify features and checkout totals on each vendor's official pricing page before you buy.