Brevo vs Mailchimp: Which Email Marketing Platform Is Better?
Choosing an email marketing platform is no longer just about sending newsletters. Modern businesses increasingly need automation, customer relationship management (CRM), transactional messaging, analytics, and multiple communication channels from the same system.
Two of the most established names in this category are Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) and Mailchimp. Both can handle email campaigns, audience management, automation, and reporting, but their pricing structures and broader feature sets are designed around somewhat different priorities.
For businesses that send a relatively high number of emails without wanting costs to rise simply because their contact database is large, Brevo can be particularly attractive. Mailchimp, meanwhile, remains a strong option for teams that prioritize a mature email marketing interface, extensive integrations, and a familiar ecosystem.
Quick Verdict
Brevo is the better overall choice for many small and growing businesses that want email marketing, automation, CRM, transactional messaging, and additional channels in one platform. Its pricing is primarily tied to email volume, while its Free plan allows up to 100,000 stored contacts, although it limits sending to 300 emails per day. (Brevo Help)
Mailchimp may be the better fit for businesses that already use its ecosystem, prefer its campaign-building workflow, or need specific integrations and marketing features that align with their existing technology stack.
Scorecard
| Category | Brevo | Mailchimp |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of Use | 4.5/5 | 4.5/5 |
| Email Marketing | 4.5/5 | 4.7/5 |
| Automation | 4.5/5 | 4.5/5 |
| Multi-Channel Features | 4.8/5 | 4.2/5 |
| Built-in CRM | 4.3/5 | 4.2/5 |
| Transactional Email | 4.8/5 | 4.3/5 |
| Value for Money | 4.7/5 | 4.2/5 |
Ratings are editorial assessments rather than scores published by either company.
Brevo vs Mailchimp at a Glance
The biggest difference between the two platforms is how they approach the marketing stack.
Brevo positions itself as a broader customer engagement platform combining email, SMS, WhatsApp, chat, automation, CRM, and transactional messaging. Its current plans include Free, Starter, Standard, Professional, and Enterprise tiers. (Brevo Help)
Mailchimp has historically focused heavily on email marketing and audience-based marketing workflows, with a large ecosystem of integrations and tools.
For a small business, the decision often comes down to three questions:
- How large is your contact database?
- How many emails do you send each month?
- Do you need channels and CRM capabilities beyond email?
If you maintain a large database but contact only a portion of those people regularly, Brevo’s model can be worth considering.
Core Features Breakdown
1. Email Marketing and Drag-and-Drop Editor
Both Brevo and Mailchimp provide visual email builders designed for users who do not want to code campaigns from scratch.
Brevo includes a drag-and-drop email editor, reusable sections, custom templates, campaign reporting, and personalization features. Its Free plan already includes the drag-and-drop editor and custom email templates. (Brevo Help)
For everyday campaigns, this means a marketer can build a newsletter, promotional campaign, onboarding email, or announcement without requiring a developer.
Where Brevo stands out
Brevo’s advantage is less about having a fundamentally different email editor and more about how the editor fits into the broader platform.
You can combine email campaigns with automation, transactional email, SMS, CRM functionality, and other customer-engagement tools.
Where Mailchimp stands out
Mailchimp has a long-established email marketing workflow and is particularly familiar to agencies, small businesses, and marketers who have used the platform for years.
Verdict: Slight advantage to Mailchimp for overall email-marketing maturity, but Brevo is highly competitive for businesses looking for a broader customer-engagement platform.
2. Multi-Channel Campaigns
Modern customer communication increasingly extends beyond email.
Brevo supports multiple channels, including:
- SMS
- Web push
- Live chat
- Transactional messaging
The exact availability of certain features depends on the plan. For example, Brevo’s current pricing documentation lists web push on paid plans, while WhatsApp campaigns and transactional messaging are included with Professional and Enterprise plans. (Brevo Help)
This makes Brevo particularly interesting for ecommerce brands and businesses that want to coordinate customer communications across channels.
For example, an ecommerce company could potentially use:
Email → abandoned-cart automation → SMS reminder → transactional confirmation → customer support chat
rather than operating completely separate systems.
Verdict: Brevo has the stronger multi-channel proposition.
3. Marketing Automation and Workflows
Automation is where an email marketing platform becomes substantially more useful than a basic newsletter tool.
Typical automation use cases include:
- Welcome sequences
- Lead nurturing
- Abandoned-cart reminders
- Customer onboarding
- Re-engagement campaigns
- Purchase follow-ups
- Behavioral triggers
- Contact segmentation
- Time-based campaigns
Brevo supports marketing automation, although the available scale depends on the subscription. Its current documentation lists a maximum of 2,000 unique contacts entering active automations on Free and Starter, while Standard removes that limit for automation contacts. (Brevo Help)
This distinction is important because a platform can appear inexpensive at first but become restrictive when automation requirements grow.
For smaller organizations, Brevo provides enough automation functionality for many common workflows without requiring a highly technical marketing operations team.
Mailchimp also provides automation and customer journeys, making it a capable option for businesses whose requirements are primarily email-centric.
Verdict: Close comparison. Brevo gets the edge when automation is considered alongside its other channels and CRM tools.
4. Sales CRM and Pipeline Management
CRM functionality can be valuable when marketing and sales teams need to work from the same customer information.
Brevo includes sales functionality across its plans. Current built-in sales features include deal management, a sales pipeline, meeting scheduling, live chat, reporting, forecasting, tasks, reminders, and connected calendar/mailbox functionality. (Brevo Help)
The free sales functionality includes up to 50 open deals and one sales pipeline, while additional Sales packages expand the available capabilities. (Brevo Help)
This is useful for smaller businesses that do not want to immediately purchase a separate CRM.
However, companies with highly sophisticated sales operations may still require a dedicated CRM such as Salesforce or HubSpot.
Verdict: Brevo offers a practical CRM layer for SMBs, but enterprise sales teams should evaluate their CRM requirements carefully.
5. Transactional Email
Marketing campaigns are only one part of business email.
Transactional messages include:
- Order confirmations
- Password resets
- Account notifications
- Shipping updates
- Invoices
- Verification emails
- Application notifications
Brevo supports transactional email alongside marketing email and provides SMTP/API capabilities for application-based sending.
This is one of Brevo’s stronger areas because businesses can combine marketing communications with transactional infrastructure instead of automatically maintaining separate providers.
For high-volume senders, domain authentication and sender reputation remain critical. No platform can guarantee inbox placement simply because you use its infrastructure.
Verdict: Brevo is particularly strong for businesses that need both marketing and transactional email.
The Pricing Model Advantage
One of Brevo’s most important differences is its approach to pricing.
Rather than making contact-list size the sole basis for marketing-email pricing, Brevo structures its paid email plans around the number of emails sent per month. The selected email volume also determines the contact-storage tier on certain Starter and Standard plans. (Brevo Help)
That distinction matters.
Imagine a company has 20,000 contacts but only sends two campaigns per month. A pricing model based heavily on stored contacts can become expensive even when actual email volume is relatively modest.
Brevo’s approach can be more attractive in this situation.
Current Brevo Plan Structure
| Plan | Starting Price | Key Characteristics |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/month | 300 emails/day, up to 100,000 stored contacts |
| Starter | From $9/month | No daily sending limit; multiple email-volume tiers |
| Standard | From $18/month | Advanced marketing features, automation, A/B testing |
| Professional | From $499/month | High-volume, advanced multichannel capabilities |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom volume, security, support and enterprise features |
Brevo’s current pricing documentation lists these five plans and notes that the Free plan includes 300 daily email sends and up to 100,000 stored contacts. (Brevo Help)
The Free plan’s 300-email daily limit does not roll over. Paid plans increase monthly sending capacity, with current documented limits reaching 100,000 emails/month on Starter, 500,000 on Standard, and up to 10 million on Professional. (Brevo Help)
Important: Pricing and feature limits can change, so businesses should verify the current plan configuration before purchasing.
Brevo Pros and Cons
Pros
1. Broad Customer Engagement Platform
Brevo combines email with SMS, WhatsApp, chat, automation, CRM, and transactional messaging, reducing the need to immediately assemble multiple separate tools.
2. Flexible Email-Based Pricing
For businesses with relatively large databases and moderate sending volumes, pricing based on email volume can be more economical than purely contact-based models.
3. Strong Transactional Email Capabilities
SMTP and API functionality make Brevo suitable for applications and ecommerce businesses that need automated transactional messages.
4. Useful Built-in Sales Tools
Brevo includes basic CRM and sales functionality rather than forcing every customer to purchase a separate CRM immediately. (Brevo Help)
5. Generous Free Contact Storage
The Free plan currently allows storage for up to 100,000 contacts, although the 300-emails-per-day sending limit significantly restricts actual campaign volume. (Brevo Help)
Cons
1. Free Sending Limit
The Free plan’s 300-email-per-day limit can become restrictive quickly for an active newsletter or ecommerce business. (Brevo Help)
2. Some Advanced Features Require Higher Plans
Features such as more advanced automation, landing pages, larger push audiences, and advanced multichannel functionality vary by plan. (Brevo Help)
3. Contact Limits Still Apply on Some Paid Tiers
Although Brevo’s pricing is primarily based on email volume, the lower Starter and Standard tiers can have contact-storage limits linked to the selected email volume. (Brevo Help)
Brevo vs Mailchimp vs ActiveCampaign vs Klaviyo
| Feature | Brevo | Mailchimp | ActiveCampaign | Klaviyo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Primary Pricing Approach | Email volume + plan tier | Audience/plan-based | Contacts + plan/features | Contacts/profile-based |
| Contact Storage | Generous; varies by plan | Plan-dependent | Plan-dependent | Plan-dependent |
| Email Marketing | Excellent | Excellent | Excellent | Excellent |
| Marketing Automation | Strong | Strong | Very strong | Very strong |
| SMS | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Yes, plan-dependent | More limited | Available in supported configurations | Available in supported configurations | |
| Built-in CRM | Yes | Limited CRM capabilities | Strong | More marketing/customer-data focused |
| Transactional Email | Yes | Available through dedicated products/features | Yes | Yes |
| Ecommerce Focus | Strong | Strong | Strong | Excellent |
| Best Fit | SMBs & multichannel businesses | General marketing | Advanced automation | Ecommerce & customer data |
This table is a high-level editorial comparison. Exact features, limits, and pricing can vary by plan, region, usage, and product configuration.
Step-by-Step: Setting Up Brevo and Migrating From Mailchimp
If you’re moving from Mailchimp to Brevo, the migration itself is relatively straightforward, but deliverability should be treated as a separate project.
Step 1: Create Your Brevo Account
Create your account and configure your organization details, sender information, and marketing preferences.
Start with the Free plan if you want to test the interface and workflows before committing to a paid subscription.
Do not immediately import every historical contact without first reviewing your database.
Remove:
- Invalid addresses
- Hard bounces
- Unsubscribed contacts
- Known spam complaints
- Contacts without appropriate permission
A smaller, permission-based database is generally more valuable than a large inactive one.
Step 2: Authenticate Your Sending Domain
Domain authentication should be completed before sending significant campaign volume.
Brevo’s current authentication process supports automatic or manual configuration. Depending on your setup, Brevo may require DNS records for its verification, DKIM, and DMARC configuration. (Brevo Help)
Brevo also notes that DNS changes can sometimes take up to 48 hours to propagate. (Brevo Help)
Why authentication matters
Proper authentication helps receiving providers verify that your organization is authorized to send from your domain. It also helps protect the domain from spoofing and phishing.
Do not treat authentication as a guarantee of inbox placement. Reputation, engagement, content quality, complaint rates, bounce rates, and sending practices all influence deliverability.
Step 3: Import and Organize Your Contacts
Prepare your Mailchimp export before importing it.
A typical migration may include:
- Email address
- First name
- Last name
- Customer type
- Purchase information
- Marketing preferences
- Tags or segmentation information
Brevo supports contact imports using files such as CSV, with documented file-size requirements. (Brevo Help)
Pay particular attention to consent status. Do not assume that every historical contact should automatically be subscribed to future marketing communications.
Step 4: Launch a Controlled First Campaign
Your first campaign after migration should not necessarily be your largest.
Start with your most engaged subscribers and monitor:
- Delivery rate
- Bounce rate
- Open rate
- Click-through rate
- Unsubscribe rate
- Spam complaints
Once the results look healthy, gradually expand the audience.
This approach is more useful for protecting sender reputation than immediately sending a large campaign to dormant contacts.
Which Platform Should You Choose?
Choose Brevo If:
- You want email, CRM, automation, and multiple communication channels in one platform.
- Your contact database is relatively large compared with your monthly email volume.
- You need transactional email through SMTP/API.
- You’re an SMB or growing ecommerce company.
- You want to start with a free plan before upgrading.
- You want pricing that emphasizes email volume rather than simply charging more as your database grows.
Choose Mailchimp If:
- Your primary requirement is traditional email marketing.
- Your team already knows the Mailchimp interface.
- You depend heavily on Mailchimp’s integration ecosystem.
- You prefer its existing campaign and audience-management workflow.
- Your current costs and audience structure already work well for your business.
Consider ActiveCampaign If:
Your business needs particularly sophisticated marketing automation, customer journeys, and sales automation and is willing to invest more time configuring the system.
Consider Klaviyo If:
You operate an ecommerce business where advanced customer segmentation, behavioral data, product-focused marketing, and ecommerce analytics are central requirements.
Final Verdict
Brevo is the better overall choice for many SMBs, budget-conscious businesses, and growing ecommerce brands that want a broad customer-engagement platform rather than an email-only solution.
Its combination of email marketing, automation, transactional messaging, CRM, SMS, WhatsApp, and other channels gives it a compelling value proposition.
The strongest argument for Brevo is not simply that it is cheaper. It is that its pricing and product architecture can make sense for businesses whose contact database grows faster than their actual email-sending volume.
Mailchimp remains a capable and mature platform, particularly for organizations already invested in its ecosystem. There is no universal winner: the right choice depends on your contact volume, sending frequency, automation requirements, ecommerce needs, and existing technology stack.
For a new SMB evaluating both platforms today, Brevo gets our overall recommendation for value, multichannel capabilities, and the combination of marketing and transactional communication.
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Editorial note: Product features, pricing, limits, and plan availability can change. Always verify the current terms directly with the provider before making a purchasing decision.