Brevo vs Mailchimp for Online Stores (2026): Pricing and Features

Short answer: Brevo usually costs less for stores with large lists that email moderately, because it prices by emails sent rather than contacts stored, and its free plan allows 300 emails a day. Mailchimp is a familiar, polished newsletter tool with a big template library. Its pricing is contact-based, and its free plan is limited to 250 contacts. For ecommerce flows and SMS on a budget, Brevo tends to come out ahead; for a small list and design-led newsletters, Mailchimp is fine.

This comparison is based on each vendor’s official pricing and feature pages as they read on 20 October 2026. We haven’t run side-by-side test accounts. Mailchimp’s page shows promotional prices that change with contact count and region, so where a fixed price wasn’t clear we write “see vendor”.

Brevo vs Mailchimp at a glance

	Brevo	Mailchimp
Free plan	300 emails/day, up to 100K contacts; automations limited to 2,000 contacts	Up to 250 contacts, with monthly and daily send limits
Paid pricing model	By monthly email volume (Starter from $9/month for 5,000 emails)	By contacts, with monthly send limits per plan
Paid plans	Starter, Standard, Professional, Enterprise	Essentials, Standard, Premium
Free trial	Free plan	14-day trial of paid plans shown on the pricing page
SMS	All plans, credits bought separately	See vendor (availability varies by country)
WhatsApp	Professional plan and above	See vendor
Ecommerce	WooCommerce plugin, Shopify app (Brevo PushOwl), abandoned cart on all plans	Ecommerce integrations and automations; see vendor for plan details

Pricing: the big difference

Brevo charges mainly for how many emails you send. Each plan has a contact ceiling, but you don’t pay per contact. That suits stores that collected a big list over time but email it only a few times a month.

Mailchimp charges by contacts and caps monthly sends per plan. Its pricing page showed promotional pricing for the first 12 months at some contact levels and a 15% saving for 10,000+ contacts. The exact price depends on your contact count, so see Mailchimp’s pricing page.

Worked example (illustrative only): a store with 8,000 contacts that sends four campaigns a month sends about 32,000 emails. On Brevo you’d price a plan for roughly 32,000 monthly sends. On Mailchimp you’d price a plan for 8,000 contacts. Run both numbers on the vendors’ pages before deciding.

Free plans

• Brevo Free: up to 300 emails a day, up to 100,000 contacts, abandoned cart recovery and ecommerce integrations. Automations are limited to 2,000 contacts, and emails carry Brevo branding.
• Mailchimp Free: up to 250 contacts, with monthly and daily send limits.

For a store with more than 250 contacts, Mailchimp’s free plan won’t fit, while Brevo’s can, as long as 300 emails a day is enough.

Ecommerce features

Brevo

Brevo includes a pre-built abandoned cart automation on every plan. It has an official WooCommerce plugin that syncs contacts, orders and products, and on Shopify the Brevo PushOwl app syncs customers, products and orders. Back-in-stock and price-drop alerts start on Starter; AI recommendations and dynamic coupons are on Professional. See our Brevo review and guides to WooCommerce abandoned cart emails with Brevo and connecting Brevo to Shopify.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp offers ecommerce integrations and automated customer journeys, and is known for its template library and design tools. Exactly which automations and integrations each plan includes changes over time, so check Mailchimp’s plan comparison for the features you need, especially abandoned cart.

Automation limits to watch

Brevo’s free and Starter plans limit automations to 2,000 contacts; Standard removes the cap. If your welcome series or win-back flow will include more people than that, budget for Standard. Mailchimp’s automation features vary by plan, so check its comparison table for the journeys you need, especially abandoned cart and multi-step flows. For both tools, start with three core flows (welcome, abandoned cart and post-purchase) and add more only when those are working. Our win-back guide explains when a fourth flow is worth building.

Multichannel

Brevo includes SMS on all plans (credits extra) and WhatsApp from Professional, and it has transactional email (API and SMTP) on every plan. That’s useful if you want order emails and marketing in one account. With Mailchimp, check its site for SMS availability in your country. Mailchimp’s transactional email is a separate add-on product.

Ease of use and design

Mailchimp’s long history shows in its polished editor and many templates, and it’s often the first tool people learn. Brevo’s drag-and-drop editor and templates cover ecommerce needs well. If brand-heavy newsletter design is your top priority, try both editors.

Which should you choose?

Your situation	Better fit
More than 250 contacts and a tight budget	Brevo
Large list, moderate sending	Brevo
Need SMS and transactional email in one account	Brevo
Small list, design-led newsletters	Mailchimp
Already know Mailchimp and only send occasionally	Mailchimp
Data-heavy Shopify retention	Consider Klaviyo or Omnisend

Moving from Mailchimp to Brevo

If you decide to switch:

1. Export contacts with consent status and tags from Mailchimp.
2. Import them into Brevo and keep the unsubscribes.
3. Authenticate your domain in Brevo (SPF, DKIM, DMARC); see our deliverability guide.
4. Rebuild your welcome and abandoned cart flows.
5. Warm up by emailing your most engaged contacts first for a couple of weeks.

Questions to ask before you decide

• How many emails will you really send each month? Count campaigns times list size, plus automated emails. This number drives Brevo’s price.
• How many contacts do you keep? This number drives Mailchimp’s price. If it’s large and many contacts are inactive, a clean-up may change the answer.
• Do you need SMS or WhatsApp? Brevo includes SMS on every plan with credits extra, and WhatsApp from Professional.
• Who designs your emails? If a designer spends hours on each newsletter, try both editors before you choose.

Real-world scenarios

A bakery supply shop with 6,000 contacts that emails twice a month sends roughly 12,000 to 14,000 emails a month, including flows. That’s a Brevo-friendly profile, since it pays for sends rather than for every contact it has collected. A ceramic artist with 180 subscribers who sends a monthly studio newsletter fits comfortably in Mailchimp’s free plan and may prefer its templates. A WooCommerce store that wants order confirmations, cart reminders and SMS shipping updates in one place will find Brevo’s plugin, SMTP and SMS more complete. These are illustrations based on the pricing models, not price quotes.

Support and learning resources

Both vendors publish extensive help centres. Brevo’s help articles cover the WooCommerce plugin, the Shopify app and its abandoned cart automation in step-by-step detail, and Brevo lists email support on all plans and phone support on Professional. Mailchimp has a long-established knowledge base, tutorials and a large community of freelancers and agencies, which helps if you want outside help with design or setup. Check each vendor’s current support channels for the plan you’ll buy, because support levels often differ between free and paid tiers. If you’re a solo founder, good documentation can matter more than a fast live chat.

Our take

For most small online stores, Brevo is better value, especially once your list grows past a few hundred contacts or you want SMS and transactional email together. Mailchimp remains a solid choice for small lists and newsletter-first brands. If you need deep ecommerce analytics, compare Omnisend vs Klaviyo too.

Frequently asked questions