Mailchimp vs Brevo

Mailchimp

The best-known email marketing platform, now part of Intuit, priced per contact.

Free

Free plan for small lists with limited monthly sends and Mailchimp branding.

Paid from

Essentials from roughly $13/month, rising with contact count

Good at

• Template editor and pre-built campaign designs are the best of the mainstream tools
• Enormous integration ecosystem — almost every ecommerce and CMS plugin supports it
• Reporting and A/B testing are mature

Weak at

• You pay for unengaged contacts, so costs creep
• Automation depth is limited unless you pay for higher tiers

Brevo

Email, SMS, transactional sending and a light CRM, priced mainly on emails sent.

Free

Free plan with unlimited contacts and a daily send allowance.

Paid from

Paid plans from roughly $9/month

Good at

• Unlimited contacts on the free plan — you pay for sending, not storing
• Transactional email API and SMS in the same account
• Cheaper at almost every list size above a few thousand

Weak at

• Templates and editor feel less refined
• Fewer third-party integrations than Mailchimp

Choose Mailchimp if

• You want templates that look good with no design work
• Your ecommerce or CMS plugin only supports Mailchimp cleanly
• The list is small and reporting matters more than price

Choose Brevo if

• You have a big list you email irregularly
• You need product emails and marketing emails from one place
• SMS is part of the plan