Brevo vs Mailchimp: Paying per Email or per Contact

The short answer: if your list is large and you mail it a few times a month, Brevo is far cheaper, because it bills the emails you send rather than the contacts you keep: 30,000 emails a month on its Starter plan cost $39, against $270 for Mailchimp Essentials at 25,000 contacts (monthly prices on the Brevo pricing page and the Mailchimp pricing page, checked on 26 October 2026). If you mail a small list several times a week, the two land within a few dollars of each other and the choice moves to features: Mailchimp for store data, Brevo for transactional email, SMS and a CRM in one account.

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Everything here follows from the meter. Brevo sells email volume and sets a contact limit for each volume tier; Mailchimp sells contact tiers and sets a send limit for each. The same list can cost almost seven times as much on one as on the other, depending on how often you write to it.

Work this out first:

1. Your monthly emails. Multiply contacts by sends per contact. For example, 25,000 contacts x 1 newsletter = 25,000 emails a month, which fits Brevo Starter's 30,000 tier at $39; Mailchimp prices the same list at $270 on Essentials (Brevo pricing, Mailchimp pricing).
2. The contact count you start from. Mailchimp bills subscribed, unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts and not archived ones (plans article). Brevo's Starter and Standard tiers hold 500, 1,500 and 2,500 contacts up to 15,000 emails, then 500,000 contacts from 20,000 emails (Brevo pricing file).
3. The people who log in. Brevo's pricing file allows 1 seat on Starter, up to 3 on Standard and 10 on Professional; Mailchimp includes 3 seats on Essentials and 5 on Standard (Brevo pricing file, Mailchimp pricing).
4. The cost you will track. Bill divided by emails sent, month by month, in a spreadsheet. If the frequency rises, Brevo's line moves and Mailchimp's does not, until the send cap.

Attribute by attribute

What tips it one way or the other

How often you write to the list

A monthly newsletter is where Brevo's meter pays off. A brand that mails 5,000 contacts eight times a month sends 5,000 x 8 = 40,000 emails, which costs $89 on Brevo Standard and $100 on Mailchimp Standard, whose 12 times allowance covers 60,000 (Brevo pricing, Mailchimp pricing). Close enough that the price stops deciding.

Order emails and password resets

Brevo's pricing FAQ says every plan includes transactional email through its API, SMTP relay and outbound webhooks (Brevo pricing). Mailchimp sells Transactional as an add-on to Standard and Premium monthly plans, aimed at developers (plans article). If your product sends receipts and your marketing sends newsletters, Brevo puts both in one account.

What a store needs

Mailchimp's free store connections cover Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento and PrestaShop, with cart and order data in the emails (store guide). Brevo lists Shopify among 150+ integrations and keeps its advanced ecommerce features, product recommendations and back-in-stock alerts, for Professional, from $499 a month (Brevo pricing).

Four send patterns, priced

Monthly billing in USD, as checked on 26 October 2026 on the Brevo pricing page and the Mailchimp pricing page. Brevo's yearly billing takes 10% off.

Measure your volume before you buy

The free route is enough to decide. Export last quarter's campaign reports from Mailchimp, add up emails sent and divide by three; that figure picks your Brevo tier. Then open Brevo's free plan, which needs no credit card and sends up to 300 emails a day once Brevo approves the account (pricing FAQ), and send one real campaign to a segment.

Every vendor picks the meter it bills on, and each meter favours somebody. Mailchimp's counts the unsubscribed contacts you have not archived; Brevo's counts every email, the second and third reminder included. Choose the one that matches how you write, not the one with the smaller headline price.

An agent builds the campaign, a person sends it

Brevo documents an MCP server for Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code and other clients: you generate an MCP token under Account, SMTP and API, then API Keys, and connect either the full server or a focused one such as email campaign management (Brevo MCP docs). One step of a launch: the agent creates the campaign from your brief, adds the contact list you name and drafts the copy. My recommendation: keep the send button with a person, who checks the segment, the links and the unsubscribe footer in Brevo before scheduling. The docs show the agent creating campaigns and managing contacts; they do not describe a review gate, so that gate is yours to keep.

Choose Brevo if

• The list is large and you mail it once or twice a month.
• Receipts, password resets or order emails should leave from the same account as your marketing.
• SMS or a sales CRM belongs next to email.

Choose Mailchimp if

• You sell from a store and want cart and order data in your flows without a Professional plan.
• You send to a small list several times a week and want five seats on a mid-tier plan.
• You would rather not forecast volume each month.

If the question behind this comparison is how many tools your email, SMS and CRM should live in, that is a stack question; the Startup Fixer, which I sell as a one-week review, settles it before you migrate anything.

FAQ

Does Brevo limit how many contacts I store?

By tier. Its pricing file lists 500, 1,500 and 2,500 contacts on the 5,000, 10,000 and 15,000 email tiers of Starter and Standard, and 500,000 contacts from the 20,000 tier upward.

Can both send transactional email?

Yes, on different terms. Brevo includes transactional features on all plans (pricing FAQ); Mailchimp adds Transactional to Standard and Premium monthly plans and describes it as needing HTML and API knowledge (plans article).

Is there a daily cap on Brevo's free plan?

Yes. The pricing page's FAQ says that once the account is approved for sending, the free plan sends up to 300 emails a day.