Mailchimp has been the default email marketing platform for over a decade. It's the tool most people try first, the one recommended in countless "how to start a business" guides, and the one with the most recognizable brand in the space. Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is the scrappy challenger that has been quietly building a feature-rich alternative at a fraction of the price — and it's getting increasingly difficult to justify Mailchimp's premium when Brevo offers comparable or superior features for significantly less money.
This comparison is important because many businesses are on Mailchimp by default, not by deliberate choice. If that describes you, it's worth understanding exactly what you're paying for — and what you might be overpaying for.
| Feature | Brevo | Mailchimp |
|---|---|---|
| Starting Price | $9/mo (5,000 emails) | $13/mo (500 contacts) |
| Free Tier | 300 emails/day, unlimited contacts | 500 contacts, 1,000 emails/mo |
| Best For | Cost-conscious businesses, multichannel marketing | Small businesses wanting broad marketing tools |
| Ease of Use | Easy — modern, clean interface | Easy — familiar, well-established UX |
| Key Strength | Price-to-feature ratio, multichannel capabilities | Brand recognition, design tools, platform breadth |
Mailchimp's email builder is excellent. It's been refined through years of iteration and offers a smooth drag-and-drop experience with hundreds of polished templates. The Creative Assistant uses AI to generate on-brand designs automatically, and the overall design experience feels premium. For creating beautiful marketing emails, Mailchimp remains one of the best in the business.
Brevo's email builder is good and getting better. It offers drag-and-drop editing, responsive templates, and a clean interface. It gets the job done without fuss, but it doesn't quite match Mailchimp's design polish or template variety. If visual design quality is your top priority, Mailchimp has an edge. For most practical purposes, both builders produce professional-looking emails.
Brevo's automation (available on the Business plan at $18/mo) includes a visual workflow builder with triggers, conditions, branching, and multi-step sequences. You can automate based on email engagement, website behavior, transactional events, and contact attributes. The automation is capable enough for most small business needs — welcome series, abandoned cart recovery, re-engagement campaigns, and lead nurturing.
Mailchimp's "Customer Journeys" automation is available from the Standard plan ($20/mo for 500 contacts). It offers visual workflow building with basic branching, pre-built journey templates, and triggers based on sign-ups, purchases, and engagement. The automation is functional but somewhat rigid compared to Brevo's — particularly when it comes to conditional logic and the range of available triggers.
Surprisingly, Brevo's automation is at least as capable as Mailchimp's, and arguably more flexible — at a lower price point. This is not where Mailchimp differentiates itself.
Mailchimp uses audience-based segmentation with tags, segments, and groups. You can segment by demographics, purchase behavior, engagement, and predicted demographics. The segmentation interface has improved but can still feel cumbersome when building complex multi-condition segments.
Brevo's segmentation covers similar ground — contact attributes, engagement history, purchase behavior, and custom conditions. Neither platform offers particularly advanced segmentation, and they're roughly comparable in this area. Both handle the common use cases adequately.
Mailchimp offers polished reporting with campaign metrics, comparative reports, revenue tracking for e-commerce, and audience insights. The interface is clean and data is presented clearly. The content optimizer suggests improvements based on past campaign performance.
Brevo provides campaign analytics, real-time statistics, heat maps, and engagement scoring on the Business plan. The reporting is solid but less visually polished than Mailchimp's. For most users, both platforms provide the metrics needed to evaluate campaign performance.
This is an area where Brevo can hold its own or even gain an advantage, depending on the plan. Mailchimp's deliverability has become more variable in recent years as the platform's user base has expanded dramatically, including many free-tier users who may not follow best practices. Independent deliverability tests have shown Mailchimp's inbox placement rates fluctuating.
Brevo faces similar challenges with a large free-tier user base, but the dedicated IP option on the Business plan ($18/mo) provides more deliverability control. For businesses that invest in a dedicated IP, Brevo's deliverability can be very consistent. On shared IPs, both platforms are in a similar position.
Brevo's multichannel capabilities are a significant differentiator. Beyond email, Brevo offers SMS marketing, WhatsApp campaigns, live chat, chatbots, and transactional email — all from one platform with one contact database. The built-in CRM adds deal tracking and pipeline management. For businesses that want to communicate with customers across multiple channels, Brevo provides exceptional consolidation.
Mailchimp has expanded beyond email into website building, social media posting, postcard mailing, and Google/Facebook ad management. These features add breadth but are generally basic compared to dedicated tools. The built-in CRM is rudimentary. Mailchimp's approach is "a little bit of everything," while Brevo focuses on being genuinely good at multiple messaging channels.
At 50,000 emails/mo: Starter ~$39/mo, Business ~$59/mo.
At 10,000 contacts: Essentials ~$100/mo, Standard ~$135/mo. At 50,000 contacts: Essentials ~$385/mo, Standard ~$410/mo.
The pricing gap is enormous at scale. A business with 10,000 contacts sending 50,000 emails per month might pay $59/mo with Brevo (Business plan) versus $135/mo with Mailchimp (Standard plan). That's $912/year in savings for comparable features. At 50,000 contacts, the savings become even more dramatic — potentially thousands of dollars per year.
Brevo is the smarter choice for:
Mailchimp still makes sense for:
There's no diplomatic way to say this: Brevo offers better value than Mailchimp for most businesses. The pricing difference is significant, the feature set is comparable or superior in key areas (automation, multichannel messaging, transactional email), and the platform has matured to the point where it's no longer the "budget alternative" — it's a legitimate first choice.
Mailchimp's advantages are real but increasingly narrow. The email builder and templates are genuinely best-in-class, and the brand recognition provides a comfort factor. But brand recognition doesn't send emails, and a pretty builder doesn't justify paying 2-3x more per month for similar results.
Our recommendation: choose Brevo for new projects and seriously consider migrating from Mailchimp if cost is a factor. The only strong reasons to stick with Mailchimp are if you're deeply embedded in their ecosystem with complex integrations, or if email design quality is truly your highest priority. For everyone else, Brevo delivers more for less. The money you save can be invested in your actual marketing efforts rather than your marketing platform.
| Brevo | Mailchimp | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | Formerly Sendinblue, Brevo is an all-in-one marketing platform offering email, SMS, chat, and CRM at competitive pricing. | All-in-one email marketing platform with automation, landing pages, and audience management for businesses of all sizes. |
| Pricing | Freemium ($0-65/mo) | Freemium ($0-350/mo) |
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