Brevo vs Mailchimp: Pricing Models That Change Everything

Quick Verdict

Side-by-side: How do Brevo and Mailchimp compare?

Brevo wins on value for high-volume senders and teams that want SMS, WhatsApp, and transactional email under one roof. Mailchimp wins on email template design, third-party integrations, and brand recognition.

Dimension	Brevo	Mailchimp	Winner
Pricing model	Per emails sent (unlimited contacts)	Per contacts stored (incl. unsubscribed)	Brevo
Free plan	300 emails/day, unlimited contacts	500 emails/mo, 250 contacts	Brevo
Starter price	$9/mo for 5,000 emails	$13/mo for 500 contacts	Brevo
At 10K contacts	~$18-25/mo (depending on volume)	~$100-135/mo	Brevo
SMS/WhatsApp	Built-in, all plans	SMS add-on (US/UK only), no WhatsApp	Brevo
Transactional email	Built-in (shared platform)	Separate product (Mandrill)	Brevo
Email templates	Good, fewer options	Excellent, 100+ templates	Mailchimp
Automation	Strong, unlimited on paid plans	Strong, pre-built journeys	Tie
Integrations	60+ native integrations	300+ native integrations	Mailchimp
CRM	Built-in sales CRM	Marketing CRM (audience-focused)	Brevo
Best for	High-volume senders, multi-channel teams	Content-driven brands, e-commerce	Depends on use case

Overview

What are Brevo and Mailchimp designed for?

Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is a multi-channel marketing platform that combines email, SMS, WhatsApp, chat, and a built-in CRM in one product. It prices by email volume rather than list size, which makes it dramatically cheaper for businesses with large contact databases. As of March 2026, Brevo’s Standard plan starts at $18/month for 5,000 emails with unlimited contacts. Mailchimp has been the default email marketing platform for over 15 years. Acquired by Intuit in 2021 for $12 billion, it focuses on audience-centric marketing with strong content tools, e-commerce integrations (especially Shopify and WooCommerce), and a massive template library. Its contact-based pricing starts at $13/month for 500 contacts on the Essentials plan. The fundamental difference is philosophical. Brevo wants to be your communication hub across every channel. Mailchimp wants to be the best email marketing platform with audience intelligence built in. Both are good at email. The question is what else you need.

Pricing

How much do Brevo and Mailchimp actually cost at scale?

Pricing is where these two platforms diverge most. Brevo’s volume-based model means your cost stays tied to how many emails you send, not how many people sit in your database. Mailchimp charges by stored contacts and counts unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts toward your limit unless you manually archive them (source: Mailchimp documentation, March 2026). Here’s a concrete example. Imagine a SaaS company with 15,000 contacts sending 4 emails per month (60,000 emails/month):

Platform	Plan needed	Monthly cost	Annual cost
Brevo	Standard (60K emails/mo)	~$49/mo	~$588
Mailchimp	Standard (15K contacts)	~$230/mo	~$2,760

That’s a $2,172 annual difference for the same sending volume. The gap widens as your list grows. At 50,000 contacts, Mailchimp Standard runs over $500/month. Brevo’s cost only increases if you send more emails.

“We moved three clients from Mailchimp to Brevo in Q4 2025. Average savings: 62% on email costs. The two clients who stayed on Mailchimp did so because of specific Shopify integrations they couldn’t replicate. Price alone shouldn’t drive the decision, but ignoring a 3-4x cost difference isn’t responsible either.”
Hardik Shah, Founder of ScaleGrowth.Digital

Brevo pricing breakdown (as of March 2026): Free (300 emails/day, unlimited contacts), Starter at $9/month for 5,000 emails, Standard at $18/month for 5,000 emails with advanced features, Professional with custom pricing for high-volume needs. Removing the Brevo logo costs an extra $10.80/month. Mailchimp pricing breakdown (as of March 2026): Free (500 emails/month, 250 contacts), Essentials at $13/month for 500 contacts, Standard at $20/month for 500 contacts, Premium at $350/month. Prices scale sharply with list size. At 2,500 contacts, Essentials costs ~$45/month.

Multi-Channel

Which platform handles SMS and WhatsApp better?

Brevo wins this category by a wide margin. SMS and WhatsApp messaging are built into the core platform across all plans, including the free tier. You can create automation workflows that combine email, SMS, and WhatsApp in a single sequence. For businesses with customers in markets where WhatsApp is the primary channel (India, Brazil, parts of Europe), this is a significant advantage. Mailchimp added SMS capabilities, but they’re limited to US and UK numbers and function as an add-on rather than a core feature. There’s no WhatsApp integration. For North American e-commerce brands that only need occasional SMS reminders, Mailchimp’s SMS is adequate. For anything beyond that, it falls short. This matters for marketing teams running coordinated campaigns. A product launch sequence on Brevo might look like: email announcement (Day 1) followed by WhatsApp reminder (Day 3) followed by SMS with discount code (Day 5) followed by email follow-up (Day 7). Building this in Mailchimp requires stitching together multiple tools.

Transactional

How do transactional email capabilities compare?

Brevo handles transactional email (order confirmations, password resets, shipping notifications) on the same platform as marketing email. You manage templates, track deliverability, and view analytics in one dashboard. For development teams, Brevo’s SMTP relay and API are straightforward to implement. Mailchimp routes transactional email through Mandrill, a separate product that requires a paid Mailchimp account. Mandrill costs $20/month for 25,000 emails. It’s a capable transactional service, but the separation means two dashboards, two billing systems, and two sets of deliverability metrics to monitor. If your business sends both marketing and transactional email (most do), Brevo’s unified approach saves operational complexity. A mid-size e-commerce brand might send 20,000 marketing emails and 15,000 transactional emails per month. On Brevo, that’s one platform and one bill. On Mailchimp + Mandrill, that’s two products and two bills.

Automation

Which automation builder is more powerful?

Both platforms offer visual automation builders with trigger-based workflows. Mailchimp’s edge is its library of pre-built customer journeys. You can launch a welcome series, abandoned cart recovery, or re-engagement campaign from a template in minutes. For marketers who want proven frameworks without building from scratch, this saves real time. Brevo’s automation is equally capable in terms of logic (if/then branching, A/B splits, time delays, scoring) and adds the multi-channel dimension. You can trigger an SMS based on email non-opens or route contacts to WhatsApp based on location. The builder is slightly less polished visually, but the functional depth matches Mailchimp. A practical difference: Mailchimp limits automation sends on lower plans. The Essentials plan caps customer journeys at 10 automation steps. Brevo’s paid plans include unlimited automation workflow steps.

CRM

Can either platform replace your CRM?

Brevo includes a sales CRM with deal pipelines, contact management, task tracking, and meeting scheduling. It’s not as deep as Salesforce or HubSpot, but for small teams that want deal tracking alongside email marketing, it eliminates one subscription. The Sales Essentials add-on costs $27.92/user/month for advanced CRM features (as of March 2026). Mailchimp’s “Marketing CRM” is really audience management with tags, segments, and behavioral data. It helps you understand and group your contacts for better targeting, but it doesn’t track deals, pipelines, or sales activities. If your team needs actual sales CRM functionality, Mailchimp won’t cover it. For marketing-only teams, Mailchimp’s audience tools are sufficient. For teams where marketing and sales share a contact database, Brevo’s built-in CRM prevents the “we’re in Mailchimp for email and HubSpot for deals” problem that creates data silos.

Choose Brevo

When should you choose Brevo?

Your contact list exceeds 5,000 and Mailchimp’s per-contact pricing is eating your budget
You need SMS and WhatsApp as part of your marketing mix, especially for non-US markets
You send transactional email and want one platform for both marketing and transactional
You want a basic CRM included without paying for a separate sales tool
Budget predictability matters and you prefer paying per email rather than per contact

Choose Mailchimp

When should you choose Mailchimp?

You run e-commerce on Shopify or WooCommerce and need deep product-level integrations
Email design quality is a priority and you want the best template library available
You rely on third-party integrations and need 300+ native connections
Your list is under 2,500 contacts where Mailchimp’s pricing is still reasonable
Your team knows Mailchimp and the switching cost outweighs the savings

Our Recommendation

ScaleGrowth.Digital’s take: Which platform should you pick?

For most growing businesses with 5,000+ contacts, Brevo is the better value. The per-email pricing model is fundamentally more fair than paying for contacts who haven’t opened an email in 18 months. Add the multi-channel capabilities and built-in CRM, and Brevo gives you more platform for less money. Mailchimp remains the right choice for content-driven brands and e-commerce operations that depend on Mailchimp’s deeper integration with platforms like Shopify, WordPress, and social advertising. Its template library and audience insights are genuinely best-in-class. One pattern we see repeatedly: brands start on Mailchimp’s free plan, grow to 5,000-10,000 contacts, and then face a $100+/month bill that doesn’t match their sending needs. They’re paying for list storage, not usage. That’s the moment to evaluate Brevo seriously. The migration takes 2-4 hours for most accounts, and the annual savings typically exceed $1,500.

Email Marketing Checklist

Pre-send checklist covering deliverability, subject lines, segmentation, and compliance. Get Checklist →

Email Automation Guide

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HubSpot vs Mailchimp

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FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Brevo’s deliverability as good as Mailchimp’s?

Both platforms maintain strong deliverability rates (90%+ inbox placement) when accounts follow best practices. Brevo offers a dedicated IP option at $251/year for high-volume senders who want full control over their sender reputation. Mailchimp includes shared IPs on all plans and dedicated IPs on Premium. Deliverability depends more on your list hygiene and content than the platform itself.

Does Mailchimp really charge for unsubscribed contacts?

Yes. Mailchimp counts subscribed, unsubscribed, and non-subscribed contacts toward your plan limit. You must manually archive unsubscribed contacts to stop being billed for them. This is a common surprise that inflates costs, especially for older accounts with years of accumulated contacts.

How hard is it to migrate from Mailchimp to Brevo?

A typical migration takes 2-4 hours. Export your Mailchimp lists as CSV, import into Brevo, recreate your key automation workflows (Brevo has import guides for Mailchimp specifically), and update any API integrations. The hardest part is usually recreating complex automation sequences, not moving contact data.

Which platform is better for e-commerce email marketing?

Mailchimp has deeper e-commerce integrations, especially with Shopify and WooCommerce, including product recommendations, purchase-based segmentation, and revenue attribution. Brevo supports e-commerce workflows but with less product-level granularity. If your revenue depends heavily on email-driven sales with product feeds, Mailchimp is the safer choice.

Can Brevo handle WhatsApp marketing campaigns?

Yes. Brevo integrates WhatsApp Business API natively across all plans. You can send WhatsApp campaigns, include WhatsApp steps in automation workflows, and manage conversations from Brevo’s inbox. This is available on the Professional plan. Mailchimp has no WhatsApp integration as of March 2026.

Brevo vs Mailchimp: Why Your Pricing Model Matters More Than Features