Brevo and Mailchimp are two of the most considered email marketing platforms for small and mid-sized businesses — but they price their products in fundamentally different ways. Brevo charges by email send volume; Mailchimp charges by contact count. That single difference drives most of the decision, so this comparison starts there and works outward.
Method note: the facts below come from the companies’ official pricing and plan pages, read in September 2026. Mailchimp’s live pricing pages render headline prices via JavaScript, so its dollar figures below come from search-indexed renders of the official pages (consistent across multiple crawls — treated as high-confidence but not directly eyeballed). We present them with that caveat and recommend checking the official page before buying.
At a Glance
| Brevo | Mailchimp | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing/billing model | By monthly email send volume, not contacts. Free: $0; Starter from $9/mo; Standard from $18/mo; Professional from $499/mo; Enterprise custom. | By contact count. Free: $0; Essentials from $13/mo; Standard from $20/mo; Premium from $350/mo (all at base contact tiers; prices rise as your list grows). |
| Free plan | $0 forever, no credit card. 300 sends/day, up to 100,000 contacts stored, 1 seat, automation (2,000 contacts), transactional email, built-in sales tools. | $0. Up to 250 contacts, 500 emails/month (or 250/day), 1 audience, 1 seat. Sending pauses if limits exceeded. No scheduling, A/B testing, or automation flows. |
| Ease of use | Drag-and-drop editor on all plans; Aura AI assistant included. Not hands-on tested by us — try the free plan to judge. | Long-standing reputation for beginner-friendly design; generative AI features on Standard and above (not on Essentials). |
| Automation | Multi-channel automation on all plans (2,000-contact limit on Free); unlimited contacts on Standard+; contact scoring and AI segmentation on Professional. | Automation “flows”: Essentials limited to 4 steps; Standard and Premium allow up to 200 flows with branching. Free plan has preview only. |
| Integrations | Webhooks (outbound all plans, inbound Professional+); API documented. Specific integration counts not verified from official pages we read. | 300+ integrations advertised on the Free plan; content studio and broad app ecosystem are long-standing Mailchimp strengths. |
| Best for | Large lists with modest sending; budget-conscious SMBs; businesses wanting email + SMS + light CRM in one platform. | Small-to-mid lists emailed frequently; users prioritizing templates, integrations, and a polished beginner experience. |
| Limitations | Unused monthly credits expire; auto-upgrade on contact caps; advanced features (WhatsApp, AI segmentation, scoring) gated at $499+/mo Professional. | Price climbs steeply with list size; restrictive free plan (250 contacts); SMS credits expire monthly with no rollover; transactional email is a separate add-on. |
Pricing and Billing Model: The Deciding Factor
This is where the comparison is won or lost.
Brevo bills by monthly email sends. A 40,000-contact list emailed once a month costs the same as a 5,000-contact list emailed eight times a month. The entry prices are low — Free at $0, Starter from $9/month, Standard from $18/month — and even the contact-storage caps on paid tiers reach 500,000 contacts. The Professional tier starts at $499/month, a steep jump.
Mailchimp bills by contacts, and prices scale as your list grows. Headline figures (as listed at research time — check the official page): Essentials from $13/month and Standard from $20/month at the 500-contact base tier, Premium from $350/month at 10,000 contacts. Send caps are a multiple of contacts: Essentials allows 10× contacts per month, Standard 12×, Premium 15×. A 50,000-contact list on Mailchimp can cost hundreds per month before you send a single email.
The rule of thumb: if your list is large relative to your sending frequency, Brevo is usually cheaper. If your list is small and you email often, Mailchimp’s model may work out fine — but do the math for your own numbers, because Mailchimp’s per-contact pricing punishes list growth.
Caveats on both sides: Brevo’s unused monthly credits expire, and exceeding the contact cap on lower Starter/Standard tiers triggers an automatic upgrade (with warnings). Mailchimp’s paid plans auto-bill overages when contact or send limits are exceeded. Pricing may have changed — check the official pages.
— See Brevo’s current pricing · — See Mailchimp’s current pricing
Free Plans Compared
Brevo’s free plan is substantially more generous: 300 sends per day with up to 100,000 contacts stored, automation included (2,000-contact limit), transactional email, and built-in sales tools — no credit card required.
Mailchimp’s free plan caps at 250 contacts and 500 emails per month (or 250 per day), with sending paused entirely if you exceed limits. It excludes email scheduling, A/B testing, automation flows (preview only), and SMS, and support is limited to the first 30 days of email support.
For anyone starting from zero, Brevo’s free tier is the more functional product. Mailchimp’s free tier reads more like an on-ramp to paid plans.
Features Head-to-Head
Email and campaigns. Both offer drag-and-drop editors and templates. Mailchimp’s template library and content studio are established strengths; Brevo includes custom templates and reusable sections on every plan, including free.
SMS. Both treat SMS as a paid extra. On Brevo, SMS campaigns and transactional SMS are available from the free tier up, billed per credit ($0.0109/credit unit price per official product terms, country-based consumption, packs from 100 credits that never expire). On Mailchimp, SMS is an add-on to paid plans in select countries, with credits purchased in blocks that are re-purchased monthly and unused credits expiring each month — no rollover. MMS is available only on Mailchimp Standard and Premium (US and Canada).
Automation. Brevo includes multi-channel automation on all plans, with the contact limit lifted on Standard and advanced capabilities (contact scoring, AI segmentation, marketing pressure management) on Professional. Mailchimp structures automation as “flows”: Essentials is limited to 4 automation steps, while Standard and Premium allow up to 200 flows with multiple starting and branching points.
Landing pages and extras. Brevo’s Standard includes 1 landing page; Professional includes 10. Mailchimp includes forms and landing pages even on its free plan, plus pop-up forms and surveys.
CRM. Brevo bundles basic sales tools into every plan — pipelines, live chat, meeting scheduling, deal tracking — at no extra cost. Mailchimp’s plans don’t include an equivalent built-in sales CRM; contact profiles and tagging are its closest analogues.
Ease of Use
Mailchimp has the longer track record as the beginner-friendly option, with a polished interface and extensive onboarding content; its Standard plan adds generative AI features and personalized onboarding (one session in the first 90 days). Brevo includes its Aura AI assistant on all plans and a drag-and-drop editor throughout.
We haven’t hands-on tested either platform for this comparison, so treat usability claims as the vendors’ positioning rather than our verdict. Both offer free entry points — Brevo’s free plan and Mailchimp’s 14-day trials on Essentials and Standard — which are the honest way to judge fit yourself.
Integrations
Mailchimp advertises 300+ integrations on its free plan, and its ecosystem is one of the platform’s core selling points. Brevo documents webhooks and an API on its official plan pages, but we didn’t verify a published integration count or directory from the official pages we read. If you depend on specific native integrations (ecommerce platform, CMS, analytics), verify availability on each vendor’s integrations page — this is one area where Mailchimp’s breadth is the safer assumption.
Who Should Choose Brevo
- Your contact list is large but you send infrequently — Brevo’s send-based pricing will likely cost far less.
- You’re budget-conscious and want a genuinely usable free plan.
- You want email, SMS, and basic CRM/sales tools under one login.
- You prefer prepaid SMS credits that never expire.
Who Should Choose Mailchimp
- Your list is small-to-medium and you email it often — contact-based pricing with generous send multiples fits this pattern.
- You prioritize template quality, the 300+ integration ecosystem, and a polished beginner experience.
- You want advanced segmentation, predictive analytics, and generative AI features (Standard/Premium).
- You need MMS messaging (Standard/Premium, US and Canada).
The Verdict
There’s no universal winner — there’s a right answer for your sending profile. Choose Brevo if you have a large list you email modestly, want the strongest free plan, or want email plus SMS plus light CRM in one platform at a low entry price. Choose Mailchimp if your list is modest, you email frequently, and you value its template library, integration ecosystem, and beginner-friendly experience — while accepting that costs rise steeply as your list grows.
Either way, verify current prices on the official pricing pages before committing: Brevo’s per-tier prices beyond the “from” amounts weren’t published on the official pages we reviewed, and Mailchimp’s headline figures were read from indexed renders rather than the live page. Pricing may have changed — check the official pages.
— Try Brevo free · — Try Mailchimp
