Mailchimp vs Brevo: Which Email Marketing Tool is Best?
Choosing the right email marketing platform is a foundational decision that impacts your entire digital strategy, from lead nurturing to customer retention. The competition between legacy giants and feature-rich newcomers is fierce. When businesses are forced to choose, the battle often comes down to Mailchimp vs Brevo.
While Mailchimp is the household name, Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) has rapidly gained market share by focusing on advanced features and transparent pricing. This comprehensive review breaks down the two competitors across critical categories so you can choose the best fit for your business needs.
Pricing and Scalability
Pricing models often dictate which platform a small business can afford to start with and, crucially, how much it will cost to grow. Therefore, let’s look at how the costs stack up.
Mailchimp Pricing Model
Mailchimp generally operates on a contact-based pricing model. This means as your list grows, your monthly bill increases, regardless of how often you email your contacts. While they offer a generous free plan (up to 500 contacts and 1,000 emails per month), scaling beyond the free tier can become expensive quickly, especially for businesses with large, but infrequently contacted, lists.
Brevo Pricing Model
Brevo offers a volume-based model, focusing on the number of emails you send, not the size of your contact list. Their free tier is highly competitive, allowing unlimited contacts and up to 300 emails per day. As a result, this model is significantly more cost-effective for businesses with large audiences who send fewer newsletters. This transparency makes Brevo a popular choice for aggressive scaling.
Automation and Segmentation
Effective email marketing requires sophisticated automation—sending the right message at the right time. Consequently, both tools offer automation, but their interfaces and feature depth vary.
Mailchimp Automation
Mailchimp provides robust, visual automation builders. They are excellent for simple tasks like welcome series and cart abandonment campaigns. However, complex logic (like advanced lead scoring or multi-channel integration) often requires a higher-tier plan. They recently improved their personalization features, but if you are looking to integrate advanced AI Email Marketing Automation, you might need to use external tools.
Brevo Automation
Brevo excels in multi-channel automation, including email, SMS, and even live chat. Their workflows are highly detailed and can handle complex “if/then/else” scenarios even on their lower-tier plans. For marketers who need advanced transactional email capabilities and SMS/Chat integrated into the same workflow, Brevo offers superior flexibility.
Ease of Use and Deliverability
A powerful tool is useless if you can’t figure out how to use it. Moreover, the best tool must ensure your emails actually reach the inbox.
User Experience
Mailchimp is famed for its intuitive, user-friendly interface. It’s often considered the ideal starting point for beginners, with a clean design focused primarily on email creation. Brevo, on the other hand, includes a broader suite of tools (CRM, sales pipeline, landing pages), which makes the interface feel slightly more complex, though highly integrated.
Deliverability
Both platforms have strong deliverability rates. However, Brevo’s focus on Transactional Email (emails related to purchases, password resets, etc.) and its robust technical infrastructure often give it a slight edge for companies that rely heavily on automated and time-sensitive messages hitting the inbox immediately.
Final Verdict: Which Tool Wins?
The battle of Mailchimp vs Brevo doesn’t have a single winner; it depends entirely on your business model:
- 🏆 Choose Mailchimp if… You are a small business owner prioritizing a user-friendly interface, simple list management, and the largest number of third-party integrations. It’s best for beginners.
- 🥇 Choose Brevo if… You are a fast-growing business needing advanced automation, multi-channel capabilities (SMS/Chat), and predictable pricing based on email volume rather than contact list size. It’s the superior choice for scaling and advanced features.
Consider your budget, growth trajectory, and how often you plan to communicate with your subscribers before making the final commitment.
