Updated October 14, 2026. Research-based comparison of public product documentation; this is not a claim of hands-on testing.
Affiliate disclosure: The links in this article are ordinary official links, with no affiliate tracking. If affiliate links are added, the disclosure must be updated to explain the relationship.
The short answer
Choose Brevo when your buying decision starts with sending volume, you can forecast that volume reasonably well, and its contact-storage tier fits your database. Choose Mailchimp when the way your team already builds campaigns and connects customer data matters more than winning the opening-price contest. Neither choice deserves a trophy for displaying a small number next to the word “from.” That is merely the software industry's version of photographing an apartment from the hallway.
My default shortlist for a small business starting fresh would include Brevo Standard and Mailchimp Essentials or Standard, depending on the automation required. I would not choose between them using their free plans alone. Free plans answer “can I start?” Your business needs an answer to “can I send Thursday's offer to the whole list and manage the follow-up?”
This recommendation is an editorial judgment, not a deliverability ranking or a promise of cheaper bills. The useful comparison is your actual contacts, actual sends, actual workflow, and actual staff time.
Start with the unit you are buying
Mailchimp's contact count includes subscribed, unsubscribed, and non-subscribed contacts. Archived, cleaned, and deleted contacts are excluded. Its documentation defines a send as an individual email to an individual contact. Those definitions matter more than the first promotional price you see. Contact and send definitions
Brevo Starter and Standard pair 5,000 monthly sends with 500 stored contacts, 10,000 with 1,500, and 15,000 with 2,500. The 20,000-send tier allows up to 500,000 stored contacts. Storage is not sending capacity. Storage and sending tiers
This corrects an especially persistent shortcut: “Brevo charges for emails, so contacts do not matter.” Contacts very much matter when they determine which tier you may buy. Someone with 3,000 stored contacts and a modest monthly newsletter should price a qualifying tier, not copy the lowest advertised number into a comparison spreadsheet.
Before comparing quotes, write down four figures: total stored contacts, marketable contacts, normal monthly sends, and peak-month sends. Use distinct labels. A contact who must remain on a suppression list is not the same thing as someone who should receive your sale announcement. Keep both numbers visible when comparing tiers.
Pricing: entry prices and the costs to check
Mailchimp's official Essentials page advertises a starting price of US$13 per month for up to 500 contacts. Its upgrade page advertises Standard starting at US$20 per month. These are starting anchors, not quotes for a larger list. Essentials pricing · Standard starting price
Brevo documents Starter from US$9 per month and Standard from US$18 per month, with the lowest tier's contact and send limits described above. Starter's logo-removal add-on is US$9 per month; Standard includes removal. At those entry prices, Starter plus that add-on totals the same $18 as Standard before applicable taxes or other charges. That is arithmetic, not a guarantee that every account sees identical checkout options. Plan prices and add-ons
Mailchimp's live pricing page can localize currency and show introductory offers. During this research it rendered a localized currency and promotional presentation, which is why the starting anchors above come from its official dollar-denominated landing pages. Its base-price comparison also explains the currency and pricing caveats. Confirm currency, contact tier, billing interval, renewal amount, taxes, and overage behavior in your own quote. A discount for the first year is not a permanent personality trait.
Do not multiply an annual-plan monthly equivalent by one and call it a monthly commitment. Record the amount due today and the full commitment separately. Also compare the post-promotion rate. The saving matters only if the regular price still fits your budget.
Free plans: contacts and sending limits
Mailchimp Free currently permits 250 contacts, with 500 monthly sends and a 250-per-day maximum. Its pricing matrix lists one user and no email scheduling. That can be enough to learn the basics or serve a genuinely tiny list; it is not a comfortable publishing schedule for a growing business. Current plan matrix
Brevo Free permits 300 sends per day, with unused sends not rolling forward, and storage for up to 100,000 contacts. For a campaign above the daily allowance, its help article says you must manually requeue the remaining recipients across subsequent days. It also limits automation entry to 2,000 unique contacts. Free-plan limits
Here is the practical difference. A hypothetical business with 900 recipients cannot send one time-sensitive announcement to all 900 that morning using Brevo Free's 300-send daily allowance. Three days of theoretical capacity are not the same as one launch window. For a sale that ends tonight, reaching everyone before the deadline is a basic requirement.
Similarly, a hypothetical 200-person list receiving four full-list newsletters requires 800 sends before any extras. That exceeds Mailchimp Free's 500 monthly allowance. You do not need a huge audience to outgrow a small sending budget.
Use a free account to evaluate the workflow, then calculate the paid plan you would actually run. Before starting a paid trial, check when billing begins and how to cancel. Staying free can be sensible. Repeated manual work to stay within a daily quota should be included in the cost comparison.
List organization can become a billing decision
Mailchimp treats audiences separately. The same email address appearing in two audiences counts as two contacts; its documentation recommends considering one primary audience with appropriate organization when that suits your needs. Duplicate-contact guidance · Audience setup guidance
Imagine a local business with customers, workshop attendees, and a general newsletter. Those categories overlap. Before creating three audiences, decide whether tags or groups within one audience better describe the relationship. This is not a universal instruction to merge everything. Distinct brands, permissions, or operational requirements may justify separation. Separate audiences should solve a real operational problem.
Also resist the urge to delete records solely to make a price look better. Preserve consent and suppression information, and understand what any archiving operation changes. The useful goal is a clean operational model, not an artificially impressive count on the afternoon you request a quote.
For either platform, create a small data dictionary before import. Define “customer,” “prospect,” “newsletter subscriber,” and “do not contact.” Write down who can change each status. This helps avoid duplicate records and accidental sends to people who have opted out.
Automation: buy the journey you will actually maintain
Mailchimp's current comparison matrix lists Essentials automation with up to four flow steps; Standard adds more extensive automation capabilities and includes dynamic content and custom reports. Essentials and Standard also differ in included seats. Check the specific flow you need against the current matrix rather than treating “automation” as a single yes/no feature. Automation plan comparison
Brevo Standard includes automation for unlimited contacts, A/B testing, and advanced reports. That automation statement does not erase the selected tier's stored-contact or sending limits. The limits describe different things. Standard plan details
A useful first automation is boring on purpose: someone signs up, receives what they requested, gets one relevant follow-up, and stops receiving the sales sequence after buying. Draw that on paper. Include the exit condition. An exit condition prevents the workflow from continuing after its purpose has been met.
Then test the awkward cases. What happens if the same person registers twice? Buys between messages? Unsubscribes during a delay? Changes their email address? These everyday events can expose gaps that a simple demonstration misses.
If your desired flow exceeds a lower plan's constraints, price the higher plan immediately. A cheaper tier that forces weekly manual cleanup is not automatically economical. Conversely, do not buy elaborate branching just because the canvas looks impressive. A flowchart can become a very expensive houseplant: technically alive, occasionally watered, and making no contribution to sales.
Integrations: the logo wall is not the test
Mailchimp advertises an integration directory covering ecommerce, scheduling, analytics, and other categories. That breadth gives existing users a practical place to begin checking their stack, but an integration's existence does not prove it syncs the exact event or field you need. Integration directory
The trial assignment should be specific. Connect a test source if you are authorized to do so, create one test contact, update a field, complete a test purchase where appropriate, and inspect the resulting record. Check timing, duplicate handling, consent status, and whether a refunded purchase changes anything. A contact sync alone is insufficient if your workflow depends on purchase events.
Ask whether the connection is native, requires a third-party automation service, or needs custom development. Include that extra subscription and maintenance time in your comparison. A hypothetical $10 monthly saving may disappear once another subscription and maintenance time are included.
Do the same exercise with Brevo using your actual tools. There is no honest universal winner for an unspecified stack. A restaurant using a particular booking system and an online shop using a particular checkout can reach different conclusions without either one being confused.
Deliverability: no winner declared from a marketing page
This comparison does not award either product an inbox-placement victory. That would require a defined, current, independent test with comparable sender conditions. Sending a test email to yourself and seeing it arrive is useful quality assurance; it does not establish comparative inbox placement.
Mailchimp recommends verifying and authenticating domains you control and distinguishes domain verification from authentication. Its setup documentation explains automated and manual authentication routes. Domain verification · Authentication setup
For your evaluation, reserve time for sender setup, permission checks, mobile previews, link checks, and monitoring actual responses. Compare meaningful outcomes such as qualified replies or completed purchases alongside reporting metrics. Reporting should help you make decisions, so check that the figures connect to actions you can actually take.
Keep the initial test controlled. Use a small, permissioned audience and a real message. Avoid changing platform, sender identity, content style, frequency, and offer simultaneously if you want to understand what caused a result. With several changes at once, you will have less evidence about which change helped or hurt.
Three small businesses, three different decisions
The occasional sender with a larger database: Start by pricing Brevo at the tier that accepts the entire stored database and covers the busiest month. Then compare Mailchimp's appropriate contact tier and, if genuinely relevant, its documented Pay As You Go option. Mailchimp itself positions that option for infrequent sending. Payment options
The key question is whether the database is valuable and permissioned, not merely large. An old address list may include people who no longer want or expect to hear from you. Do not let a storage allowance turn an untended list into a strategy.
The existing Mailchimp business with working integrations: Stay unless the savings or new capabilities justify migration. Estimate the hours needed to rebuild forms, map fields, recreate sequences, test links, and train whoever covers during vacations. Familiarity is not a technical feature, but replacing it has a real operational cost.
The small team starting with automated follow-up: Compare the fully configured Brevo Standard quote with the Mailchimp tier that supports the complete flow. Include user access. Use separate authorized accounts so access and responsibility remain clear.
These are decision patterns, not declarations that every business in a category should buy the same product. The correct answer changes when the integration, audience structure, or staffing changes.
Make migration part of the comparison
If you already use either tool, a lower monthly quote is only the beginning of the calculation. List every place a signup form appears, every sequence that sends automatically, and every system that changes a contact record. Assign an owner to each item. A small business can have a surprisingly complicated setup even when its newsletter itself is simple.
Plan the move around one normal campaign rather than a major launch. Export the records you are allowed to retain, preserve their consent and suppression status, and check a sample after import. Rebuild a form and follow its path from submission to the correct audience or segment. Review message links, sender details, unsubscribe behavior, and the rule that ends each sequence. Keep a record of what passed and what still needs attention.
Also decide how to prevent duplicate sends while both systems are available. Someone should know which platform owns each campaign and when the old automation stops. Do not cancel the old service merely because the new template looks finished. Finish the operational checks, retain any reports you need, and confirm the cancellation timing before ending the subscription.
For a rough payback estimate, divide your one-time migration cost by the expected monthly saving after extra subscriptions and ongoing work. For example, a hypothetical $300 migration that saves $25 a month takes twelve months to recover its cost. That arithmetic does not predict better results or account for every risk; it simply makes the trade-off easier to discuss. If the move also fixes an important missing workflow, evaluate that benefit separately rather than pretending it is a guaranteed revenue increase.
The strongest argument against choosing Brevo by default
The counterargument is simple: a lower suitable subscription quote may still lose on total operating cost. If Mailchimp fits an established process, supports the data connection you rely on, and lets your team finish campaigns with fewer mistakes, paying more can be rational. Saving money on the tool while spending it on coordination is mostly a change of costume.
Likewise, Brevo's sending-oriented pricing needs forecasting. A promotional month can behave very differently from your quiet-month average. New subscribers entering sequences, resends, and multiple campaigns all consume capacity. Budget for the actual busy period rather than relying on a quiet-month average.
The strongest argument against defaulting to Mailchimp is the mirror image: familiarity can hide avoidable expense. If nobody uses the differentiating capabilities and the team is already rebuilding its marketing process, the familiar option deserves a fresh comparison. “We have always used it” is context, not an invoice audit.
Your decision checklist
- Count stored contacts separately from marketable subscribers, preserving suppression information.
- Calculate normal and peak sends, including automated messages and likely resends.
- Sketch one complete workflow, including purchase and unsubscribe exits.
- Verify the exact integration events and fields you need.
- Obtain matched quotes with currency, tier, seats, add-ons, billing interval, renewal price, and applicable charges.
- Build the same real campaign in each trial and note where human work accumulates.
- Choose the least expensive setup that reliably completes the job, including staff time.
My final recommendation: shortlist Brevo first for a fresh, cost-conscious setup whose volume and storage fit its tiers; give Mailchimp the edge when existing workflows or verified integrations make it materially easier to operate. Pay for capabilities you will use and can maintain.
Which would change your decision most: the cost of your peak sending month, or the time needed to keep your existing integrations and automations working?