Quick verdict: Mailchimp is the world’s most-used email marketing platform — 14 million users, 260+ templates, and a powerful Customer Journey Builder on the Standard plan. Brevo is the value challenger — multi-channel (email, SMS, WhatsApp, live chat), volume-based pricing that gets dramatically cheaper as your list grows, and a CRM on every plan including free. If you prioritize templates and brand recognition, choose Mailchimp. If you prioritize price-to-feature ratio and multi-channel reach, choose Brevo.
| Your situation | Our pick |
|---|---|
| Just starting with email marketing | Brevo |
| Large template library and design options | Mailchimp |
| Growing list, budget-conscious | Brevo |
| Advanced ecommerce campaigns and retargeting | Mailchimp |
| Need email + SMS + CRM in one tool | Brevo |
| Multi-step Customer Journey automation | Mailchimp |
| Free plan with real contact storage | Brevo |
| Brand familiarity / team already knows it | Mailchimp |
Mailchimp vs Brevo at a Glance
| Category | Mailchimp | Brevo |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | By contact count | By email volume (emails/month) |
| Starting price | $13/mo (Essentials, 500 contacts) | $9/mo (Starter, 5,000 emails) |
| Free plan | Yes — 250 contacts, 500 emails/month | Yes — 100,000 contacts, 300 emails/day |
| Automation | Basic on Essentials; Customer Journey Builder on Standard+ | Basic on Starter; full automation on Standard+ |
| Email templates | 260+ | 40+ |
| SMS marketing | Paid add-on (US only) | Built-in, pay per message |
| Not available | Professional plan | |
| CRM | Not included | Built-in, free on all plans |
| Integrations | 300+ | 150+ |
| G2 rating | 4.3/5 (12,698 reviews) | 4.5/5 (2,315 reviews) |
| Best for | SMBs, beginners, ecommerce with retargeting | Volume senders, multi-channel, large contact lists |
Pricing from emailtooltester.com and official websites. G2 ratings from g2.com. All verified March 2026.
Mailchimp and Brevo represent two very different philosophies about what email marketing should be. Mailchimp built its brand on being the easiest way for small businesses to send beautiful emails — and that heritage shows in its 260+ template library, polished UI, and deep integration with ad platforms. Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) bet on breadth and value: volume-based pricing that doesn’t punish you for having a big list, and a suite of channels — email, SMS, WhatsApp, live chat, VoIP — all under one roof.
The decision often comes down to one question: are you paying for a marketing suite or a list management tool? Let’s work through it.
Pricing Comparison
This is where the platforms diverge most sharply — not just on price, but on pricing models entirely.
Mailchimp charges by contact count. Every contact on your list counts toward your bill, including unsubscribed contacts. Duplicates across audiences count separately. There is no annual billing discount — Mailchimp is monthly billing only (with a limited 15% discount for 10,000+ contacts on Standard for the first 12 months).
Brevo charges by email volume. You pay for the number of emails you send per month, not how many contacts you store. This is dramatically cheaper if you have a large list but send infrequently.
Mailchimp Pricing (Monthly Billing, USD)
| Contacts | Free | Essentials | Standard | Premium |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 250–500 | $0 | $13 | $20 | $350 |
| 2,500 | — | $45 | $60 | $350 |
| 5,000 | — | $75 | $100 | $350 |
| 10,000 | — | $110 | $135 | $350 |
| 25,000 | — | $270 | $270 | $620 |
| 50,000 | — | $385 | $450 | $815 |
[source: emailtooltester.com, last updated Jan 26, 2026]
Brevo Pricing (Monthly Billing, USD)
| Emails/mo | Contacts | Starter | Standard |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5,000 | 500 | $9 | $18 |
| 10,000 | 1,500 | $17 | $35 |
| 20,000 | Unlimited | $29 | $65 |
| 40,000 | Unlimited | $39 | $75 |
| 60,000 | Unlimited | $55 | $89 |
| 100,000 | Unlimited | $69 | $129 |
[source: emailtooltester.com, verified March 2026]
Direct Price Comparison
| Scenario | Mailchimp | Brevo |
|---|---|---|
| 500 contacts, 5,000 emails/mo | $13 (Essentials) | $9 (Starter) |
| 2,500 contacts, 10,000 emails/mo | $45 (Essentials) | $17 (Starter) |
| 5,000 contacts, 20,000 emails/mo | $100 (Standard) | $29 (Starter) |
| 10,000 contacts, 40,000 emails/mo | $135 (Standard) | $39 (Starter) |
The gap becomes massive at scale. At 5,000 contacts with moderate send frequency, Brevo costs less than one-third of Mailchimp’s equivalent tier. Mailchimp’s pricing model becomes particularly painful when your list grows but your send frequency stays constant — you pay more for contacts you’re not even emailing.
One important caveat: Mailchimp’s Standard plan includes more advanced features (Customer Journey Builder, predictive segmentation, dynamic content) that you don’t get on Brevo Starter. A fairer feature-to-feature comparison would put Brevo Standard ($65/mo for 20K emails) against Mailchimp Standard ($100/mo for 5K contacts). Brevo still wins on price.
Bottom line: Brevo wins on pricing at every contact and send volume level. The pricing model difference alone makes Brevo dramatically cheaper for businesses with lists over 2,500 contacts.
Free Plan Comparison
Mailchimp’s free plan has been steadily eroded. As of 2026:
| Feature | Mailchimp Free | Brevo Free |
|---|---|---|
| Contacts | 250 (down from 500) | 100,000 |
| Emails/month | 500 | ~9,000 (300/day) |
| Automation | None (removed Jun 2025) | Basic (limited entry rules) |
| CRM | Not included | Built-in |
| A/B testing | No | No |
| Templates | Limited selection | 40+ |
| Support | Email (30 days only) | Knowledge base |
| Branding removal | No | No |
[source: groupmail.io Feb 2026; brevo.com official docs]
Brevo’s free plan is categorically better. 100,000 contact storage, daily send volume that handles real campaigns, and basic automation included. Mailchimp’s free plan is now effectively a demo — 250 contacts and 500 emails per month won’t support any real email program. Mailchimp also removed Customer Journey Builder automation from the free plan in June 2025.
Bottom line: Brevo wins the free tier by a substantial margin.
Email Builder and Templates
Here Mailchimp pulls ahead.
Mailchimp: 260+ mobile-responsive templates spanning newsletters, promotions, announcements, and seasonal campaigns. The drag-and-drop editor is polished and well-documented. Standard plan adds dynamic content (showing different blocks to different segments in the same email). Generative AI content tools on Essentials+, with creative assistant and send-time optimization on Standard+.
Brevo: 40+ templates — a significantly smaller library. The editor is clean and functional but offers fewer starting points. AI content generator is available from Starter. Brevo’s strength is not in design variety but in channel integration (more on that below).
| Feature | Mailchimp | Brevo |
|---|---|---|
| Template count | 260+ | 40+ |
| Drag-and-drop editor | ✅ | ✅ |
| Dynamic content | ✅ (Standard+) | ❌ |
| A/B testing | ✅ (Essentials+) | ✅ (Standard+) |
| AI content tools | ✅ (Essentials+) | ✅ (Starter+) |
| Branding removal | ✅ (all paid plans) | ✅ (Starter requires ~$10 add-on) |
| Custom HTML editor | ✅ (all plans) | ✅ |
Bottom line: Mailchimp wins decisively on template quantity and design depth. If you care about having a wide variety of starting templates and want dynamic content in your emails, Mailchimp is the better choice.
Marketing Automation
Both platforms lock serious automation behind paid tiers, but approach it differently.
Mailchimp Automation
- Free plan: No automation (Customer Journey Builder removed June 2025)
- Essentials: Basic single-step automations (welcome emails, birthday campaigns, abandoned cart — limited)
- Standard: Multi-step Customer Journey Builder with behavioral triggers, conditional paths, predictive segmentation
- Premium: Same as Standard plus multivariate testing
The Customer Journey Builder on Mailchimp Standard is genuinely useful for ecommerce — you can trigger sequences based on purchase behavior, browsing activity, and engagement scoring. Predictive segmentation uses machine learning to identify contacts most likely to buy.
Brevo Automation
- Free plan: Basic automation with entry limits
- Starter: Basic automation (single-step and simple sequences)
- Standard: Full visual workflow builder with multi-step sequences, behavioral triggers (email activity, website visits, contact property changes)
- Professional: Advanced AI segmentation, web push included
Brevo’s automation covers standard use cases well: welcome sequences, re-engagement campaigns, abandoned cart. But it lacks Mailchimp’s predictive segmentation and conditional content capabilities.
| Feature | Mailchimp | Brevo |
|---|---|---|
| Multi-step workflows | ✅ (Standard+) | ✅ (Standard+) |
| Behavioral triggers | ✅ (Standard+) | ✅ (Standard+) |
| Predictive segmentation | ✅ (Standard+) | ❌ |
| Dynamic email content | ✅ (Standard+) | ❌ |
| Pre-built automation templates | ✅ | Limited |
| A/B testing in automations | ✅ | ✅ (Standard+) |
Bottom line: Mailchimp’s Customer Journey Builder on Standard is more sophisticated than Brevo’s equivalent. For ecommerce businesses using behavioral triggers and predictive segmentation, Mailchimp has the edge. For straightforward sequences, both platforms are adequate.
Multi-Channel Marketing
This is where Brevo turns the tables.
Brevo’s Channel Suite
- Email marketing — core feature on all plans
- SMS marketing — built-in on all plans, pay per message (not US-only)
- WhatsApp campaigns — Professional plan ($499/month)
- Live chat widget — built-in on all plans
- Chatbot — available for website automation
- Push notifications — web push on Professional
- Meeting scheduling — Brevo Meetings built in
- VoIP phone — built-in calling
- CRM — built-in, free on all plans including free
All channels live in one platform with unified contact management. You can build an automation that sends an email, follows up with an SMS if unopened, and routes interested contacts to a live chat agent.
Mailchimp’s Channel Options
- Email marketing — core feature, best-in-class templates
- SMS marketing — paid add-on, US only
- Social posting — schedule posts to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (Essentials+)
- Retargeting ads — Facebook and Google retargeting (Essentials+)
- Websites — free website builder included on all plans
- Landing pages — drag-and-drop builder on all plans
- No live chat
- No CRM
- No WhatsApp
Mailchimp is stronger on the advertising side — its Facebook and Google ad integration for retargeting is genuinely useful for ecommerce. But it has no SMS, no live chat, and no CRM.
Bottom line: Brevo wins on channel breadth by a wide margin. If reaching customers via email, SMS, and chat from a single platform matters, Brevo is the only choice of the two.
Deliverability
Both platforms have been tested extensively by independent researchers.
- Mailchimp: 82–85% deliverability rate in independent testing — below the industry standard of ~85–90%. [source: max-productive.ai independent testing]
- Brevo: Generally rated among the top performers for deliverability. Brevo’s infrastructure as a transactional email provider gives it strong deliverability credentials. Dedicated IP available as an add-on.
The deliverability gap between Mailchimp and Brevo is meaningful — 82% vs 90%+ means roughly 1 in 12 emails going undelivered vs 1 in 100. For high-volume senders, this difference matters.
Bottom line: Brevo has better deliverability in independent tests. For businesses where inbox placement is critical, this is a significant factor.
Integrations
| Platform | Integration count |
|---|---|
| Mailchimp | 300+ integrations |
| Brevo | 150+ integrations |
Mailchimp connects with 300+ tools — Shopify, WooCommerce, WordPress, Salesforce, Canva, Google Analytics, Facebook, and more. Its ecommerce integrations are particularly deep, with purchase-event triggers for automations.
Brevo’s 150+ integrations cover the major platforms but have fewer niche app connections. For uncommon integrations, you’ll often need Zapier.
Bottom line: Mailchimp wins on integration count, especially for ecommerce tech stacks.
Analytics and Reporting
| Feature | Mailchimp | Brevo |
|---|---|---|
| Campaign reports | ✅ (all plans) | ✅ (all plans) |
| Click maps | ✅ | ✅ (Standard+) |
| Revenue analytics | ✅ (Standard+) | ✅ (Standard+) |
| Comparative reporting | ✅ (Standard+) | ❌ |
| Predictive demographics | ✅ (Premium only) | ❌ |
| Custom reports | ✅ (Premium only) | ❌ |
| Website tracking | ✅ | ✅ |
Mailchimp’s analytics on Standard and Premium plans are more comprehensive, particularly for ecommerce with revenue attribution and comparative campaign reporting.
Bottom line: Mailchimp has deeper analytics, especially on higher tiers.
User Reviews
Mailchimp: 4.3/5 on G2 with 12,698 reviews — one of the largest review bases for any email marketing tool. Common praise: ease of use, template library, integration ecosystem. Common complaints: pricing increases over the years, contact counting that includes unsubscribed contacts, free plan restrictions tightened significantly.
Brevo: 4.5/5 on G2 with 2,315 reviews. Users consistently praise the pricing model (volume-based is more predictable for large lists), multi-channel capabilities, and generous free contact storage. Complaints often mention that advanced features require Standard+ and that the template library is smaller.
Bottom line: Brevo has a slightly higher G2 score despite fewer reviews, suggesting more satisfied users relative to its user base size.
Who Should Choose Mailchimp
- Beginners who want the most recognizable platform with extensive tutorials, community resources, and third-party documentation
- Design-focused teams that need access to 260+ templates and dynamic email content
- Ecommerce businesses that rely on retargeting ads (Facebook, Google) integrated with email campaigns
- Small teams at the Essentials tier ($13/month) with fewer than 500 contacts and moderate volume
- Businesses heavily invested in Mailchimp’s integrations — particularly Shopify and WooCommerce with purchase-event triggers
- Teams that need multi-step behavioral automation on the Standard plan
If you’re exploring Mailchimp alternatives with better automation, see our Kit vs Mailchimp comparison and GetResponse vs Mailchimp comparison.
Who Should Choose Brevo
- Budget-conscious businesses with growing lists — Brevo’s volume pricing is 2–5x cheaper at scale
- Multi-channel marketers who want email, SMS, WhatsApp, and live chat in one platform
- Large contact lists with moderate send frequency — store 100,000 contacts on the free plan and pay only for what you send
- Startups wanting a real email program without cost pressure
- Businesses that need a built-in CRM without paying for a separate tool
- International businesses needing SMS support outside the US (Brevo has global SMS coverage)
- High-volume senders where deliverability performance matters
For more on Brevo’s capabilities, see our full Brevo review. If you’re considering budget alternatives, check out Brevo vs MailerLite or explore Brevo alternatives.
Mailchimp and Brevo are both capable email platforms, but they serve different priorities. Mailchimp justifies its premium through design depth, advertising integrations, and brand recognition that makes onboarding easier for non-technical teams. Brevo wins on value, multi-channel reach, and pricing model — especially for businesses that outgrow Mailchimp’s contact-count pricing.
For most new businesses starting from scratch, Brevo is the smarter default: better free plan, better price trajectory as you grow, and CRM included. For businesses that need a polished template library, ecommerce retargeting integration, and are already embedded in the Mailchimp ecosystem, staying makes sense. For a full field view of the email marketing landscape, check our best email marketing for creators guide.
Related Comparisons
- Brevo vs ActiveCampaign: Full Comparison — multi-channel suite vs automation powerhouse
- Brevo vs MailerLite: Full Comparison — two affordable platforms compared
- Brevo vs Kit: Full Comparison — multi-channel suite vs creator-first platform
- Kit vs Mailchimp: Full Comparison — creator tools vs all-purpose hub
- GetResponse vs Mailchimp: Full Comparison — automation and webinar differences
- AWeber vs GetResponse: Full Comparison — legacy simplicity vs marketing depth
- Best Email Marketing for Creators 2026 — full field comparison
- In-depth reviews: Brevo Review 2026 | MailerLite Review 2026
- Explore alternatives: Brevo Alternatives | GetResponse Alternatives
Last updated: March 2026. We regularly update this content — if something has changed, let us know.