Brevo vs MailerLite: Paying for Emails or for Subscribers

The short answer: if you suspect the cheaper tool depends on how often you send, you are right. For 2,500 subscribers mailed once a week, Brevo Starter costs $25 a month against $33 for MailerLite Comfort; mail them five times a week and MailerLite's Power plan at $49 undercuts Brevo Starter at $56 (Brevo pricing, MailerLite pricing, monthly billing, checked on 26 October 2026). Choose MailerLite if your job is a newsletter or creator business with a site, paid subscriptions and a few people in the account. Choose Brevo if your job is marketing email plus order and account emails from one plan, with SMS or WhatsApp to come.

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MailerLite says it plainly on its pricing page: every paid plan gets the full feature set, and you pay more only for a bigger list or more sending. Brevo meters the other way round, by emails sent each month, campaigns and transactional together, with a contact allowance attached to each step. Same job, two meters, and the meter decides the bill.

Before you compare plan names:

1. Run your own send frequency through both meters. For example, 2,500 subscribers x 4 sends = 10,000 emails a month, but Brevo's 10,000 step allows only 1,500 contacts, so you need its 15,000 step: $25 on Starter. MailerLite Comfort at 2,500 subscribers is $33 and includes 25,000 emails (Brevo pricing, MailerLite pricing).
2. Find out what sends your receipts today. If your shop or app already sends order emails, Brevo counts them inside the same plan. MailerLite sells transactional email as a separate product on the same pricing page, from $7 a month for 5,000 emails.
3. Clean the list before you pick a tier. On MailerLite the subscriber count sets the price, so people who stopped opening months ago raise it. Remove them first, and the tier you need may drop by one step.
4. Pick one automation to judge both on. A five-email welcome sequence is enough. On day 30, compare the click rate of each email and where readers drop out.

Point by point

Why the cheaper tool changes

Send frequency, because of the meters

MailerLite Comfort includes 10 times your subscriber count in monthly emails, and Power removes the limit (pricing). Brevo prices volume steps: 15,000 emails on Starter is $25, 20,000 is $32 and 50,000 is $56 (pricing). For a weekly sender who needs no automation, Brevo Starter comes out lower. Add automation and the fair pair is Brevo Standard, $49 at 2,500 contacts, against Comfort at $33. Only near-daily sending makes Power the cheapest of the four.

One plan for receipts, or a second product

Brevo's pricing FAQ includes transactional email on every plan, through API and SMTP, with unlimited log retention. MailerLite's transactional plans sit under their own tab on its pricing page: 500 free emails, then Hobby at $7 a month for 5,000, Starter at $35 for 50,000 and Professional at $110, on monthly billing. A newsletter with no shop never needs that second product. A store does.

Automation and seats on the cheap plans

Brevo's Starter lists forms that trigger a follow-up email on signup, but multi-step marketing automation starts on Standard at $18 (pricing). MailerLite's Comfort plan, $12 for 500 subscribers, already allows 50 automations and 3 user seats, and Power makes both unlimited (pricing). A three-person content team gets more for less on MailerLite's lower tiers.

Three sending patterns, priced

Monthly billing in USD for 2,500 subscribers, checked on 26 October 2026 on the Brevo pricing page and the MailerLite pricing page. Brevo's yearly billing takes 10% off, and so does MailerLite's.

Asking MailerLite's MCP where readers drop out

MailerLite's MCP connection works with Claude on a Pro plan or higher, ChatGPT, Cursor and VS Code, through https://mcp.mailerlite.com/mcp, and covers subscribers, groups, campaigns and automations. Ask it the question from step 4: which email in the welcome automation loses the most readers, and what the subject lines of the two weakest emails have in common. MailerLite's guide notes that connecting gives the AI tool permission to access and manage your data, and it gives no guidance on approving actions such as sends. So keep the human check on your side: use the session for questions, make the edits yourself in MailerLite, and send a test before the change goes live.

A pricing page that charges by subscribers earns more from every address you keep, including the ones that stopped reading years ago. Step 3 above is the free fix, and it works on Brevo's contact allowance too.

Choose Brevo if your job is

• Sending marketing email and order or password emails from one plan and one volume.
• Mailing a mid-sized list once a week at the lowest monthly price.
• Planning SMS now and WhatsApp later with the same vendor.

Choose MailerLite if your job is

• Running a newsletter or creator business, with a website, digital products and paid subscriptions.
• Mailing several times a week, where Power's unlimited sends cost less than Brevo's volume steps.
• Giving a small team automations and seats on the cheaper plans.

FAQ

Does Brevo's Starter plan include automation?

Partly. Its forms can trigger a follow-up email when someone signs up, but multi-step automated workflows are listed from the Standard plan, which starts at $18 a month for 5,000 emails (pricing).

Can MailerLite send order confirmations?

Yes, through its transactional product, priced separately from the marketing plans: 500 emails free, then from $7 a month for 5,000 emails on monthly billing (pricing).

Which free plan holds more contacts?

Brevo's. Its machine-readable pricing file lists 100,000 marketing contacts on the free plan, with sending capped at 300 emails a day. MailerLite's free plan stops at 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month (pricing).