Both platforms sell email marketing, both have a free tier, and both quote prices in euros on their own pricing pages once you view them from Europe. The differences that matter are structural: Brevo prices sending volume and gives you SMS, WhatsApp, live chat and a CRM in the same bill; Mailchimp prices contacts and keeps its best automation, testing and reporting behind progressively higher tiers.
TL;DR
Brevo's free plan is measured in sending volume (up to 300 emails a day, with no contact ceiling that matters at small size), while Mailchimp's free plan is measured in contacts (250 of them) and pauses sending when you pass the limit. In Europe, Brevo's paid tiers start lower on the page (Starter at EUR 7/month, Standard at EUR 15/month billed monthly) and bundle SMS, WhatsApp, chat and a CRM into the same subscription; Mailchimp's Essentials starts at EUR 11.50/month and its strength is the paid ladder above it, where automation, testing and reporting get noticeably deeper. Pick Brevo when channel breadth and per-send cost decide it. Pick Mailchimp when you want the more mature campaign, automation and reporting toolset and are willing to pay for it.
The free plans are where most small teams actually start, and they behave differently. Brevo's free plan lets an account send up to 300 emails a day, which is roughly 9,000 a month, and its own help text tells you the plan is approved for sending once your account clears review. Mailchimp's free plan is capped at 250 contacts, and its pricing page states plainly that sending is paused when you exceed the contact or send limit.
Below are the tiers and limits both vendors publish on their pricing pages, the features each plan includes, and the cases where one clearly beats the other. Prices are the EUR figures shown on brevo.com and mailchimp.com at the time of writing; Brevo's figures are from the default 5,000-emails-per-month view of its price slider. One caveat worth stating once: neither vendor's paid tier is a fixed number independent of your list size. Brevo scales price with email volume and contacts, Mailchimp scales it with contacts, so the numbers below are entry points at the smallest configuration each page shows.
| Feature | Brevo | Mailchimp |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Sends up to 300 emails/day after account approval | Up to 250 contacts, sending paused past the limit |
| Entry paid tier | Starter, EUR 7/month (EUR 6.33 billed yearly) | Essentials, EUR 11.50/month |
| Mid tier | Standard, EUR 15/month (EUR 13.50 billed yearly) | Standard, EUR 17.68/month |
| Top tier | Professional, EUR 499/month (EUR 449.08 yearly) | Premium, EUR 309.48/month for 10,000+ contacts |
| Above the top tier | Enterprise (custom price) | Premium scales to 15% off on 10,000+ contacts; higher contact bands on request |
| Sends at entry tier | Priced by monthly email volume; default view is 5,000 emails/month | 5,000 emails/month on Essentials at 0-500 contacts |
| Sends at top tier | Volume-based | 150,000 emails/month on Premium |
| Seats | Included per plan, scaled with tier | 3 seats Essentials, 5 seats Standard, unlimited on Premium |
| Audiences | Contact lists with web-tracking segmentation | 3 audiences Essentials, 5 Standard, unlimited Premium |
| Channels in the subscription | Email, SMS, WhatsApp, push, Mobile Wallet, live chat, chatbot, phone | Email; SMS is a paid add-on |
| Automation | No-code automation and Aura AI agents | Flows with up to 200 flow points; Intuit Assist AI on paid tiers |
| CRM | Included (sales pipelines, deals, shared inbox) | Not part of the email plans |
| Integrations | 150+ listed including Shopify, WordPress, Stripe, Zapier | Shopify, WooCommerce, Salesforce and hundreds more |
| Trial | Free plan to start; no card required | 14-day paid-tier trial, no card; 1-month Premium trial for qualified customers |
| Best fit | Small teams that want several channels and a CRM on one bill | Teams that want the deeper campaign, automation and reporting toolset |
Pick Brevo if
Brevo wins on the arithmetic small teams feel first: a free plan measured in sends rather than contacts, an entry tier listed at EUR 7/month, and SMS, WhatsApp, chat and a CRM inside the same subscription instead of bolted on. If you are running marketing and early sales conversations from one place and watching monthly cost per channel, this is the shorter path.
Pick Mailchimp if
Mailchimp's paid ladder buys real depth: 200-flow-point automation, unlimited audiences and 150,000 sends a month on Premium, seats and roles that scale with the tier, and a reporting layer that marketing teams already know. It starts higher and it caps the free plan at 250 contacts, so pick it when campaign sophistication matters more than the entry invoice.
Both vendors advertise their own review scores on their homepages. We did not independently collect or verify user reviews, ratings or quotes for this comparison, so no third-party sentiment is reproduced here - only the figures the vendors publish about themselves.
Brevo. Its free plan allows up to 300 emails a day, roughly 9,000 a month once the account is approved for sending. Mailchimp's free plan is limited to 250 contacts and pauses sending once you pass the contact or send limit.
On the EUR views of both pricing pages, Brevo's Starter is listed at EUR 7/month (EUR 6.33 billed yearly) and its Standard at EUR 15/month, from a default 5,000-emails-per-month configuration. Mailchimp lists Essentials from EUR 11.50/month and Standard from EUR 17.68/month.
Not inside the subscription. Mailchimp's plan comparison shows SMS as an add-on. Brevo includes SMS, WhatsApp, push and Mobile Wallet in the same platform subscription.
Brevo does: sales pipelines, deals, a shared inbox and chat are part of the platform. Mailchimp's email plans are campaign-focused, so a CRM means another vendor.
It applies to Premium, which lists unlimited users and unlimited audiences. Essentials lists 5 seats and unlimited audiences, while Standard lists 5 seats and 5 audiences.
Brevo, on the figures both pages show: EUR 7/month against Mailchimp's EUR 11.50/month Essentials. The gap narrows or widens depending on your contact count, because the two vendors price different things.
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