Brevo vs Mailchimp: Priced by Emails Against Priced by Contacts

Brevo against Mailchimp is the comparison buyers search most for Brevo: 350 searches a month across both directions in the United States. Brevo publishes a page arguing its own case ^[22]. Our version uses our own measurements of both vendors, and the answer depends on one thing more than any other: how many contacts you keep compared with how often you email them.

The short answer

Brevo charges by emails sent, with a contact cap per tier. Mailchimp charges by contacts stored. So Brevo is usually cheaper for a large list that is emailed rarely, and Mailchimp's model can suit a small list that is emailed often. Brevo also publishes its whole price list; Mailchimp, served to an American reader, publishes the entry band and two ceilings.

Our composite scores: Brevo 3.58, Mailchimp 3.46. Brevo leads on capability and documentation; Mailchimp's weakest area is price transparency, Brevo's is support and account access.

## How each one charges

Brevo. A base fee plus a monthly email tier. Starter $9 and Standard $18 at 5,000 emails, rising to $82 and $139 at 100,000 ^[3]. Each email tier also caps stored contacts: 500, 1,500, 2,500, then up to 500,000 from 20,000 emails ^[5].

Mailchimp. A plan price by contact band. In our September measurement, the cards showed $13 for Essentials and $20 for Standard at 500 contacts, both 15% first-year promotions, and the American pricing page withheld most band prices. Its comparison page publishes two ceilings: $385 for Essentials at 50,000 contacts and $800 for Standard at 100,000. Sends are allowed at ten, twelve or fifteen times the contact limit, by plan.

The models reward different lists. Brevo's price follows your sending; Mailchimp's follows your audience.

Price at three list sizes

1,000 contacts, a weekly newsletter (about 4,300 emails a month). Brevo needs the 10,000-email tier for 1,000 contacts: $17 on Starter, $35 on Standard ^[3]. Mailchimp Standard at that size is not published to American readers.

50,000 contacts, one newsletter a month. Brevo needs the 50,000-email tier: $56 on Starter, $97 on Standard. Mailchimp Essentials at 50,000 contacts is $385, its published ceiling.

100,000 contacts, one newsletter a month. Brevo Standard at 100,000 emails: $139. Mailchimp Standard at 100,000 contacts: $800.

For large, infrequently mailed lists, Brevo costs a fraction of Mailchimp. The gap narrows as sending frequency rises, because Brevo's price grows with every send and Mailchimp's includes a multiple of the list.

## What happens as your list grows

Brevo upgrades the tier automatically when contacts cross the cap on its first three tiers ^[8], and stops doing so at 20,000 emails ^[14]. Mailchimp, in our measurement, does not move your tier; it bills the peak contact count of the period and adds contact blocks until you change the tier yourself.

Both bill growth. Brevo's model changes the plan for you; Mailchimp's leaves the plan and adds a surcharge. Neither refunds a peak.

What happens when you want to pay less

Brevo: "To downgrade a paid subscription, you first need to cancel it." ^[9] Prepaid credits are lost on a downgrade, and a lower tier cannot be selected while you hold more contacts than it allows.

Mailchimp lets you change the tier, and bills the peak of the period in which you change it. In both cases the cheapest move is to clean the list before the billing date.

## Free plans

	Brevo Free	Mailchimp Free
Contacts stored	up to 100,000	250
Sending	300 a day	500 a month, 250 a day
Users	1	1
Branding	Brevo sticker	Mailchimp badge

Brevo's free plan is far larger ^[6]. A 1,000-person list cannot be held on Mailchimp Free at all; on Brevo Free it can, sent in batches of 300 a day.

Features per dollar

At $18, Brevo Standard includes multi-step automation for unlimited contacts, A/B testing, AI send-time optimisation, advanced reports, a landing page and logo removal ^[5]. It also carries SMS and transactional email on the same account, which Mailchimp sells separately.

Brevo's catalogue reaches further: WhatsApp, push, a sales CRM with deals, a customer data platform and loyalty programmes. For a business that wants several channels in one place, Brevo offers more at every price point we can compare.

Mailchimp's advantage is maturity: a very large integration ecosystem and a long track record with agencies.

Account access and support

This is Brevo's weak side. It publishes strict suspension thresholds, a hard bounce rate above 2%, unsubscribes above 1% and complaints above 0.2% ^[13], and a second suspension is final. In our recent Trustpilot sample, 20 of 100 reviews describe a suspension ^[15].

Mailchimp's Trustpilot score is 2.5 ^[25], below Brevo's displayed 3.9, though Brevo's recent sample averages 2.85. Mailchimp's complaints in our earlier measurement ran to billing; Brevo's run to access and support.

If you are migrating a large list, the risk on Brevo is the first send. Verify the list, start with recent contacts, and widen over a week.

Transparency

Brevo publishes a public pricing API and a Markdown "Machine-readable pricing reference generated from the Brevo pricing API" ^[3]. You can price any volume in seventeen currencies.

Mailchimp, in our measurement, served nineteen prices to a European reader and two to an American one on the same page, with the band selector disabled in the American copy.

For a buyer who wants to model costs before committing, the difference is decisive.

Brevo's own comparison page

Brevo publishes a page comparing itself with Mailchimp ^[22]. Like every vendor comparison page, it picks its battles. We have used it only as a pointer to Brevo's claims and checked prices against each vendor's own published figures and our Mailchimp dossier. Where Mailchimp does not publish a band price to American readers, we have not used anyone's estimate of it.

Migrating from Mailchimp to Brevo

Four steps keep the move safe.

1. Count contacts and choose the Brevo email tier that holds them, not the one that fits your sending.
2. Import only subscribed contacts. Unsubscribed contacts count toward Brevo's contact cap too, and cold addresses drive the bounces and complaints that trigger suspension.
3. Send the first campaign to the most engaged segment, then widen.
4. Keep Mailchimp until the first full Brevo send is clean; Mailchimp bills its peak anyway.

A worked example: a retailer with 20,000 contacts

A regional retailer keeps 20,000 contacts: customers who opted in at checkout over several years. It sends a promotional email twice a month and a seasonal catalogue four times a year.

Sending. Twenty-four regular sends and four catalogues come to about 560,000 emails a year, or roughly 47,000 a month on average, with peaks near 60,000 in catalogue months.

On Brevo. The 50,000-email tier on Standard costs $97 a month and stores up to 500,000 contacts ^[3]. In catalogue months the retailer either buys a 60,000 tier for that month or uses a prepaid credit pack, which never expires. A year on Standard at 50,000 emails is $1,164 monthly, or about $1,048 billed yearly. Adding the logo-free footer and automation costs nothing more, because both are in Standard.

On Mailchimp. The bill follows the 20,000 contacts rather than the sends. Mailchimp does not serve the price of that band to an American reader, so we cannot quote it. What we can say from the published ceilings is that Essentials reaches $385 at 50,000 contacts, and that the bill would follow the peak contact count of each month.

The lesson. When you send to your whole list two or three times a month, Brevo's email pricing and Mailchimp's contact pricing converge. When you send less often than that, Brevo pulls ahead quickly.

SMS, WhatsApp and transactional email

Many businesses compare email platforms and then discover they also need text messages, order confirmations or a WhatsApp channel.

Brevo carries these on the same account. Transactional email shares the same email credits as marketing: "you can use your email credits to send both marketing and transactional emails" ^[7]. SMS is sold as credits, and WhatsApp is available on Professional as an add-on ^[5]. A small online shop can run receipts, password resets, campaigns and SMS reminders from one login.

Mailchimp separates these. Transactional email is a distinct paid product, and SMS is offered in a limited number of countries. For a business that needs only newsletters, this does not matter. For a business building an app or a store, it can decide the choice.

Team access and roles

Brevo limits seats by plan: one on Free and Starter, up to three on Standard with an add-on, ten on Professional ^[5]. Extra seats on Standard cost $12 a month each in the catalogue; Starter cannot add seats ^[3].

Mailchimp limits roles rather than raw seats: in our measurement, two roles on Essentials, four on Standard and five on Premium.

A team of four that wants separate logins hits Brevo's ceiling on Standard and must either share access or move to Professional. On Mailchimp the same team fits Standard's roles. For teams larger than three, this can outweigh the price difference at small list sizes.

Contracts and exits

Brevo's terms make every subscription binding for its term: "These Terms are non-cancellable by You prior to the end of your ongoing Subscription, and We will not provide refunds for any prepaid or unused fees." ^[14] Price changes require at least thirty days' notice. A yearly Professional plan is cancelled through a support ticket ^[10].

Mailchimp's promotional pricing ends after the first year by design, so year two costs more whatever you do.

On both, the safest pattern is the same: start monthly, prove the list and the workflow, then move to annual billing for the 10% only when the volume is stable.

Reviews in detail

Our 100-review Brevo sample is sharply split: 47 one-star and 39 five-star reviews, with almost nothing between ^[15]. The negative reviews cluster around suspensions and support; the positive ones praise the price and the breadth of features. Price itself is a complaint in only two reviews.

Mailchimp's complaints, in our earlier measurement, centred on billing: promotional prices that end, contact counts that include unsubscribed people, and tiers that are hard to read in advance.

So the two vendors disappoint different people. Brevo disappoints those who lose access; Mailchimp those who are surprised by the bill. Choose according to which risk you can manage better: list quality, or budget.

## Which to choose

Choose Brevo if your list is large relative to how often you email it, if you want SMS, WhatsApp or a CRM on the same account, or if you want to see every price before you commit. At 100,000 contacts and a monthly newsletter, Brevo Standard is $139 against Mailchimp Standard's $800.

Choose Mailchimp if your team depends on its integrations, if your list is small and mailed often, or if you prefer a tier that stays where you set it.

Either way, clean the list before the move. On Brevo, it decides whether the account survives its first week.