The pricing model decides most of this
Mailchimp and Brevo can both run a small business newsletter, a welcome series, and an abandoned cart flow. Most people comparing them are really comparing two ways to pay:
- Mailchimp charges for every contact in your audience. Your plan tier sets how many emails you can send per month relative to that number.
- Brevo charges for the number of emails you send per month. Contacts are unlimited.
Everything else is secondary for most buyers. Our Mailchimp comparison and Brevo comparison cover each tool in more depth.
Three list profiles, three answers
| Your situation | Mailchimp | Brevo | Likely winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 contacts, 2 sends a month (20,000 emails) | About $110 Essentials or $135 Standard | $29 Starter or $65 Standard | Brevo |
| 30,000 contacts, 1 send a month | Scales with contacts, well above the 10,000 tier | Starter or Standard sized to about 30,000 emails | Brevo |
| 2,000 highly engaged contacts, 8 sends a month | Low contact tier | Priced for about 16,000 emails | Close, depends on features |
Brevo's Starter is from $9/month for 5,000 emails, $29 for 20,000, and $69 for 100,000. Standard is from $18 for 5,000 emails, $65 for 20,000, and $129 for 100,000. Professional starts at $499. Mailchimp at 10,000 contacts is about $110 on Essentials, $135 on Standard, and $350 on Premium.
Where Mailchimp is still worth paying for
- Design and content. The editor, template library, and content tools make it easier to produce a good-looking newsletter without a designer.
- Reporting. Campaign and audience reporting is clear and detailed, which helps teams that review results with non-marketers.
- Marketing extras. Social posting, Facebook and Instagram ads, postcards, and a website builder in one account.
- Familiarity. Many marketers and freelancers already know it, which shortens onboarding.
Where Brevo pulls ahead
- Transactional email. Brevo's SMTP relay and API send receipts and password resets from the same account. With Mailchimp you would add Mandrill.
- More channels. SMS and WhatsApp campaigns run on credits, and the Conversations inbox handles live chat.
- A CRM. Brevo includes a sales CRM with deals and tasks, which Mailchimp does not.
- Unlimited contacts. You can keep past customers and old leads without paying to store them.
The catch is plan gating. Automation depth, A/B testing, and removing Brevo branding push most teams to Standard, so compare Brevo Standard with Mailchimp Standard for a fair view.
Where each one falls short
Mailchimp's weak spots
- Cost at scale. Contact-based pricing means a large list costs a lot even if you rarely send. Unsubscribed contacts can count until you archive them.
- Transactional email is a separate add-on, so app email needs its own setup.
- Channel coverage. No WhatsApp or live chat, and SMS is an add-on.
Brevo's weak spots
- Plan gating. Starter covers sending but not the automation, testing, and branding removal most teams want, so the real comparison is usually Brevo Standard.
- Polish. The editor, templates, and reports work but feel plainer than Mailchimp's.
- Account approval. The free plan requires account approval before you can send, and new accounts face daily limits, so start setup before you need to send.
- Breadth. Email, SMS, WhatsApp, chat, CRM, and landing pages in one tool means more menus to learn for a team that only needs newsletters.
Automation for a small store
For a Shopify or WooCommerce store, both tools cover welcome, abandoned cart, and post-purchase emails. Mailchimp's Customer Journey Builder has ready-made ecommerce paths and product blocks that look good with little effort. Brevo's workflows can add an SMS or WhatsApp step to the same journey, which helps for shoppers who ignore email. If your store sends often to a large list, Brevo's send-based pricing usually leaves more budget for SMS credits.
Mandrill vs Brevo's SMTP: the transactional math
This is the biggest hidden cost difference between the two. If your website or app sends order confirmations, password resets, or receipts:
- Mailchimp requires Mailchimp Transactional (Mandrill), which is only available as an add-on to Standard or Premium. It is sold in blocks of 25,000 emails, starting at $20 per block. A store on Essentials would have to upgrade to Standard first.
- Brevo includes SMTP relay and a transactional API with its plans, counted against the same email volume, in the same account.
For a store sending 20,000 marketing emails and 10,000 order emails a month, that means Mailchimp Standard (priced by contacts) plus at least one Mandrill block, versus a single Brevo plan sized for 30,000 emails. The gap grows as transactional volume grows.
Sending caps and daily limits
Each tool limits sending in its own way. Mailchimp caps monthly sends as a multiple of your contact limit: 10x on Essentials, 12x on Standard, and 15x on Premium. Brevo's paid plans are defined by monthly email volume, so the cap is simply the volume you buy, while the free plan is limited to 300 emails a day. New Brevo accounts also go through an approval step before sending. If you need to send a large announcement on day one, set up the account a few days early.
Moving from Mailchimp to Brevo
- Export your audience with merge fields and tags. Export unsubscribed and cleaned contacts as separate files.
- Import into Brevo. Map merge fields to contact attributes. Tags can become lists or an attribute. Import unsubscribes to the blocklist so they stay suppressed.
- Authenticate your domain with Brevo's DKIM and SPF records, and keep DMARC in place.
- Rebuild automations. Customer Journeys do not import; rebuild them as Brevo workflows, adding SMS steps if useful.
- Recreate templates. Export Mailchimp templates as HTML or rebuild them in Brevo's editor to keep them editable.
- Move transactional sending if you used Mandrill. Recreate templates in Brevo and swap SMTP or API credentials in your app, testing every message type.
- Update signup forms on your site.
Moving from Brevo to Mailchimp follows the same steps in reverse, except that transactional email would need Mandrill or another provider, and SMS, WhatsApp, and chat history have no Mailchimp home.
Migration checklist
| Workstream | Mailchimp to Brevo | Brevo to Mailchimp |
|---|---|---|
| Account setup | Allow time for Brevo account approval | Choose a contact tier that covers your full audience |
| Contacts | Merge fields to attributes; tags to lists or attributes | Attributes to merge fields; lists to tags or groups |
| Suppression | Import unsubscribed and cleaned contacts to the blocklist | Import blocklisted contacts as unsubscribed |
| Transactional | Move Mandrill templates to Brevo SMTP or API | Add Mandrill on Standard or Premium, or use another provider |
| Channels | Add SMS and WhatsApp consent fields if used | SMS consent moves only if you buy Mailchimp SMS |
| CRM | Recreate deals in Brevo's CRM if needed | Export deals to a separate CRM |
| Branding | Budget for Standard or branding removal | No action |
Use-case matchups
| Situation | Better fit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 50,000-contact list emailed twice a month | Brevo | Send-based pricing with unlimited contacts. |
| Design-led newsletter for a lifestyle brand | Mailchimp | Polished editor, templates, and reporting. |
| Store needing order emails and marketing together | Brevo | SMTP and API included; no Mandrill add-on. |
| Small business also posting to social | Mailchimp | Social posting and ads in the same account. |
| Team adding WhatsApp or live chat | Brevo | Both channels are built in. |
| SaaS lifecycle email tied to billing | Sequenzy | Send-based pricing like Brevo, with Stripe, Paddle, and Polar triggers. |
Where Sequenzy fits
If you run a SaaS product, Sequenzy shares Brevo's pricing idea, charging by emails sent with unlimited contacts, and includes transactional email. The difference is focus: it connects natively to Stripe, Paddle, and Polar, so journeys start on trial end, renewal, or failed payment without custom events. It does not include Brevo's WhatsApp, live chat, or CRM, or Mailchimp's social and ad tools.
Choosing
- Mailchimp if design polish, templates, and marketing extras justify paying per contact.
- Brevo if price at scale, transactional email, or extra channels matter most.
- Sequenzy if you want send-based pricing with subscription-aware automation for a SaaS product.
