Brevo is cheaper for most US senders, and the reason is structural: it bills for emails sent and stores unlimited contacts, while Mailchimp bills for every contact you hold, including the ones who unsubscribed. Choose Mailchimp only if its template library and integration depth are worth paying to store a list you rarely mail.
Plans and pricing checked July 2026, and every figure below is read live from our pricing database.
The two pricing models are opposites
Brevo's model is Per email volume. Mailchimp's is Per contact.
In practice, Brevo bills Unlimited contacts (billed by sends) and Mailchimp bills All contacts including unsubscribed.
So the useful question is not "which is cheaper", it is "which axis is my business on".
A big list mailed occasionally is the common American small-business shape: a realtor with years of past leads, a nonprofit with a donor file, a clinic with a patient list, a store with a decade of customers. On Mailchimp you pay every month to store all of them and you email them four times a year. On Brevo you store them for nothing and pay only for the four sends. Brevo wins that comparison outright, and it is not a small win.
A small list mailed constantly is the exception that flips it. If you send a daily offer to a few hundred people, your Brevo bill climbs with the send count while your Mailchimp contact count sits still, and Mailchimp's flat per-contact fee can come out ahead. That is a real scenario, and it is a narrow one.
Pricing and plans compared
On the headline number Brevo also starts lower: $9/mo (Starter) against Mailchimp's $13/mo (Essentials). Both bill in US dollars, so this is a like-for-like comparison with no currency conversion in play.
The contact-billing rule is the part that quietly costs money. Mailchimp counts subscribed, unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts toward your billable total until you delete them yourself, so a list that has churned for a few years is carrying paid dead weight. Brevo does not count contacts at all, so the concept does not exist there.
The calculator above takes your real contact count and your real monthly send volume and prices both against them. Do that before you decide, because the honest answer depends on your numbers rather than on either brand.
The free plans, and the catch in Brevo's
- Brevo free plan: Yes (300 emails /day, unlimited contacts)
- Mailchimp free plan: Yes (250 contacts, 500 sends /mo)
Brevo's is much the more generous of the two, and unlimited contacts on a free plan is genuinely rare. But read the cap precisely, because it is a daily limit, not a monthly allowance. Three hundred emails a day cannot be spent all at once, so a single campaign to a list of two thousand people cannot go out on the free plan in one day. It would have to be spread across a week.
That matters more than it sounds. If your pattern is one campaign a month to a real list, Brevo's free plan will not do it and the paid plan is what you are actually evaluating. If your pattern is a steady trickle, it is excellent. Mailchimp's free plan, capped at both a few hundred contacts and a few hundred monthly sends, is a trial tier and will not carry either pattern.
Who each one is built for
Brevo suits businesses that accumulate contacts as a by-product of trading and want email, SMS and transactional mail in one account instead of three. Its segmentation is Advanced (behavioral, transactional), so it can act on what a customer did rather than on a tag you remembered to apply.
Mailchimp suits businesses whose priority is the campaign itself: 100+ templates against Brevo's 70+, and 300+ integrations against Brevo's 60+. If a polished, on-brand campaign that plugs into a long tail of other tools matters more than the monthly fee, that gap is the argument for paying it. Mailchimp's segmentation is Moderate (tags, predicted demographics), which is the trade-off.
Automation and deliverability
Neither has an inbox advantage worth choosing on. Brevo's deliverability reputation is High and Mailchimp's is High (89% in independent tests).
On automation, both hold their better workflows back: Brevo is Basic (Starter), Advanced (Business+) and Mailchimp is Basic (Essentials), Advanced (Standard+). Neither entry plan is the automation plan, which is worth remembering the moment you compare their entry prices, because the automation-capable tiers are a different comparison entirely.
Where Brevo pulls ahead is channel coverage inside a single workflow. SMS and transactional email live in the same account, so a text can be step three of a sequence rather than a separate campaign in a separate tool.
US considerations
Both bill in US dollars, so your invoice is a fixed amount with no exchange rate to track.
On compliance, Brevo is Yes (unsubscribe, sender ID, address footer) and Mailchimp is Yes (unsubscribe, sender ID, address footer). Both handle the CAN-SPAM mechanics: an unsubscribe that works and is honored promptly, accurate sender identification, and a physical mailing address in every campaign footer. Neither removes your own duty to mail only people who want to hear from you.
On SMS, Brevo is Yes (US supported) and Mailchimp is Yes (US SMS, paid add-on). Both can reach a US mobile number, but Brevo's sits inside the same workflows as email while Mailchimp's is a separately priced product bolted alongside your campaigns. Whichever you pick, TCPA requires express written consent for marketing texts, and that is a separate opt-in from your email consent. An email list is not a text list.
One more US-specific note: Brevo is a French company and hosts in the European Union. For most US businesses that is a neutral fact, but if you have European customers on your list, EU hosting removes a transfer question that Mailchimp's US hosting does not.
Pros and cons for this matchup
Brevo wins on unlimited contacts, send-based pricing, a lower entry price, native SMS inside its workflows, behavioral segmentation and transactional email in the same account. It loses on a smaller template library, fewer integrations, and a free plan whose daily cap rules out a single large campaign.
Mailchimp wins on the largest template library, the widest integration ecosystem, mature e-commerce reporting and being the tool most marketers already know. It loses on billing you for contacts who have unsubscribed, a higher entry price, weaker segmentation, and SMS that is a separate paid product.
The verdict
For most US small businesses, Brevo is the better buy, and on price Mailchimp loses. Storing contacts is free on Brevo and metered on Mailchimp, and nearly every business that has been trading a few years holds far more contacts than it emails. Paying a monthly fee to warehouse people you mail quarterly is the single most common way to overspend on email marketing.
Mailchimp earns its price in two cases. First, a small list mailed at high frequency, where send volume drives your cost and Brevo's model works against you. Second, when design and integrations genuinely matter more than the bill: if your campaigns must look polished and connect to a long tail of other software, Mailchimp is better stocked and that is a legitimate reason to pay more.
It reduces to one question: does your cost come from how many people you store, or how many emails you send? Put your real contact count and monthly send volume into the calculator above. For the wider field, see our US email marketing comparison, our Mailchimp alternatives guide, or Klaviyo vs Mailchimp if you run an online store.