Brevo vs Mailchimp
Trying to choose between Brevo vs Mailchimp as your email marketing software? Here's when to choose each tool – and the pros and cons to know about.
- 4.5 GetApp
- 4.6 Capterra
- 4.1 TrustPilot
Average 4.4 / 5
Brevo
Brevo (ex-Sendinblue) is an all-in-one platform for marketing automation over email, SMS, WhatsApp, and chat.
Pricing
Dynamic, depending on sending volume, features, and add-on products, starts from $25/month.
Key features
- Email builder
- Email automation
- List management and segmentation
- Personalization
- Signup forms
- Landing pages
- SMS and WhatsApp marketing
- Native CRM
- Native tools for phone and video calls
- Push notifications
Support
Email and community support for all users, live chat and phone support for certain pricing tiers
- 1.4 TrustPilot
- 4.5 Capterra
- 4.3 G2
Average 3.4 / 5
Mailchimp
An email marketing software with automations and integrations. Plus, a hosting and website and landing pages builder.
Pricing
Starts at $13 a month for 500 contacts
Key features
- Email automation
- Hosting, websites, and online stores
- Landing page builder
- Marketing CRM
- Integrations with various services
- Drag-and-drop email builder
Support
24/7 support via email and chat on paid plans, phone support on Premium. Email support for the first 30 days on the Free plan.
General info about company
Brevo
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is a French company that was founded in Paris in 2007 and rebranded in 2023.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp was founded in Atlanta in 2001 by Ben Chestnut, Mark Armstrong, and Dan Kurzius. Headquarters in Atlanta, GA. Was acquired by Intuit in 2021.
Difficulty
Brevo
Beginner-friendly, since the product is minimalist feature- and UI-wise
Mailchimp
Creating emails doesn’t require design or coding skills. However, the interface can be confusing to novices.
Best for
Brevo
Small and medium-sized businesses, beginners in marketing automation, ecommerce businesses
Mailchimp
Small to medium e-commerce companies that want email marketing together with their website hosting.
Free plan
Brevo
The forever free Brevo Marketing Platform plan includes:
- 300 emails/day and unlimited contacts
- 1 shared inbox
- Automation limit for 2,000 contacts
- 500 push notification impressions
- Email support
- Basic email marketing and automation features
Mailchimp
Has a free plan for up to 500 subscribers and 1,000 emails a month and a daily send limit of 500. It has a lot fewer features than paid plans, fewer available templates, and customer support for 30 days only.
Pricing
Brevo
Dynamic, depending on sending volume, features, and add-on products. Brevo Marketing Platform offers 3 pricing tiers.
Starter: starts from $25/month, includes everything from Free plus:
- 20k emails/month, no daily sending limit
- Basic reporting and analytics
- Add-ons to pay for separately: Brevo logo removal and a dedicated IP
Business: starts from $65/month, includes everything from Starter plus:
- Unlimited automation
- Landing page builder
- A/B testing
- Send time optimization
- More push notification impressions and a multi-user access to pay for separately
- Advanced analytics
- Phone support
BrevoPlus: custom pricing, includes everything from Business plus
- Customized shared inboxes
- A dedicated IP
- Customized number of push notification impressions
- Multi-user access
- A dedicated manager and tailored onboarding
- SSO & SAML
- Service level agreement
Mailchimp
For up to 500 contacts, billed monthly:
- Essentials $13
- Standard $20
- Premium $350
Other pricing features:
- 1-month free trial for Essentials and Standard
- A Pay As You Go plan
- Two possible pauses of the account’s billing every 12 months
- 15% discount for nonprofit organizations
Support
Brevo
Email support is available for all users, including those on the free plan. Phone and live chat support channels are only available for Business and BrevoPlus users. The support is available in 6 languages: English, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and German.
Mailchimp
- Email support on paid plans and 30-day only on a Free plan
- 24/7 chat support on paid plans
- Support phone line for the Premium plan: Mon-Fri 6:30 am — 6:00 pm ET (UTC-5)
Features
Brevo
- Drag-and-drop email builder
- Email automation
- SMS campaigns
- WhatsApp campaigns
- Push notification campaigns
- Facebook ads
- Landing pages
- Signup forms
- Segmentation and personalization
- Autoresponders
- A/B testing
- Native CRM
- Transactional emails
- Pipeline management
- Shared inbox
- Sales reports
Mailchimp
- Email automation with pre-made customer journeys
- Hosting, websites, and landing pages builder
- Online store creator
- Marketing CRM
- Integrations with popular services
- Drag-and-drop email builder and pre-made templates
- A mobile app for iOS and Android to create and send emails, add clients, check analytics, etc.
Templates
Brevo
Templates for email campaigns, automation (i. e. birthday emails), and transactional emails with dynamic content included. All templates are responsive and optimized for dark mode.
Brevo also offers creating custom templates for your business as a separate service.
Mailchimp
100+ templates for emails and landing pages
AI assistant for designing
The free plan has a limited number of pre-built templates
Templates for:
- Welcome messages
- Sales
- Newsletter
- Events
- Announcements
- Win-back
Video/screenshots
Brevo
Mailchimp
Integrations
Brevo
58 integrations are currently available, including WordPress, other ESPs like Mailchimp, CRMs like Zoho, e-commerce platforms like Shopify, and more. Brevo also provides an API for custom integrations.
Mailchimp
315 integrations including WordPress, Shopify, Facebook, Stripe, LiveChat, Canva, Unsplash, and more.
Devices
Brevo
A web app, a desktop app, and iOS and Android apps for phone calls and conversations (chatbot marketing). The two latter services are separate and not included in the Marketing Platform.
Mailchimp
- Website
- A mobile app for iOS and Android to create and send emails, add clients, check analytics, etc.
No installable solution.
Languages
Brevo
English
French
Italian
Spanish
Portuguese
German
Mailchimp
English
Spanish
Portuguese
Automation
Brevo
Automation templates for welcome series, cart abandonment, post-purchase, email or website action, anniversaries, and page visits.
Mailchimp
Many pre-built automations (called customer journeys):
- Welcome series
- Abandoned cart
- Product retargeting
- Lead generation
- Order notifications, and more
Pros
Brevo
- Great customer support
- Easy to set up and implement
- Very clean and user-friendly interface
Mailchimp
- Essential features for small businesses
- 315 integrations
- Website hosting
- A mobile app
- Stylish design and built reputation
- Landing page builder
Cons
Brevo
- Limited CRM functionality compared to other tools
- Many add-ons, which leads to extra costs
- Occasionally sluggish loading
Mailchimp
- Relatively high prices
- Free and Standard plans are very limited
- Limited customization
- Customer support is hard to reach and isn’t very helpful
- Many people find the interface not user-friendly
- Unsubscribed and inactive accounts are still included in sending limits
Reviews from experts
Brevo
We like that Brevo is liberal with its suggestions, making it extremely easy for beginners to get started. Pop-up messages and windows are packed with help whenever you initiate a task, be that a campaign, segmentation, or automation, highlighting some of the more common tasks within the category. For example, when creating a new segment, Brevo suggests pre-defined segments, such as ones for engaged email subscribers, inactive email subscribers, contacts from a specific country code, or contacts with a pending task. It's quite handy, and we appreciate the helpful suggestions, even though a seasoned professional might find the tips and onboarding a bit excessive.
Services outages became frequent and emails cannot be tested or sent during that time. Brevo is pushing its CRM and close features that were available for free before. For people who are never going to swtich to their CRM such moves are clearly wrong. For example, the conversations feature is much more limited as of now and to reply to Whatsapp conversations, subscribers need to pay.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is a perfectly good tool for most English-speaking users, with its ease of use and range of features, as well as their free and pay-as-you-go plans.
Keep in mind, though, that their subscription plans are relatively expensive compared to similar newsletter tools.
Perhaps if you’re a business with specific needs, like multilingual software, or use of your own tracking domain, then you may need to look further afield for the correct newsletter tool. But there really is a lot to like from Mailchimp.
The interface is simple and intuitive, and you don't need to be technically savvy to get up and running with email campaigns. I have easily trained non-technical colleagues and elderly clients on how to use Mailchimp to send newsletters. It's easy to add contacts on the go using the Mailchimp mobile app.
Cons: The biggest downside is that the free plan is very limited now compared to when I first started. The free option is really only good for very small lists and basic emails. To do anything more sophisticated with segmentation, automations, or larger lists, you need to pay for one of the monthly subscription plans.
*This information is current as of 02/20/2024. While we regularly update our articles, it`s possible that this article may not contain some of the latest information.
