Brevo vs Mailchimp - The Honest 2025 Comparison

Pricing, transactional email, automation, template design - the real differences between Brevo and Mailchimp, with a clear recommendation.

Sumitkumar Pandit

Jun 8, 2025 9 min

Brevo vs Mailchimp is one of the most-googled comparisons in email marketing. I have shipped real products on both. Here is the honest 2025 breakdown.

Pricing

Mailchimp bills by contact count. Brevo bills by emails sent. For a 10,000-subscriber list emailing weekly, Brevo can be 50-70% cheaper. As your list grows this gap widens dramatically.

Transactional email

Brevo wins decisively. Mailchimp's transactional (Mandrill) is now bundled into expensive plans, while Brevo includes solid SMTP + API on every tier including free.

Template designer

Mailchimp wins. Its drag-and-drop is faster, its templates are more modern, and its photo library is larger.

Automation

Both are capable. Mailchimp's Customer Journey Builder is slightly more polished. Brevo's is more transparent - you can see exactly what runs when, which I prefer as an engineer.

Verdict

Pick Brevo if: you care about pricing, send transactional email, or want one tool with CRM + SMS included.
Pick Mailchimp if: design polish matters more than cost, or your team is non-technical and lives in templates.

BrevoMailchimpComparison

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