Brevo and Mailchimp bill on opposite axes: Brevo bills on emails sent with unlimited contacts, while Mailchimp bills on contacts held, including people who unsubscribed. Which one costs less for you depends on how big your list is against how often you email it. A large list mailed occasionally is the case the send-based model is built for; run your own list size and send volume through the calculator above before choosing either.
Plans and pricing checked October 2026, and every figure below is read live from our pricing database.
The pricing models are opposites, and that is the whole story
Brevo's model is Per email volume. Mailchimp's is Per contact.
Put concretely, Brevo bills Unlimited contacts (billed by sends) and Mailchimp bills All contacts including unsubscribed.
So work out which axis your business actually sits on.
If you have a big list that you email occasionally, a property agency with twenty thousand past enquiries, a school with an alumni list, a not-for-profit with a donor database, a retailer with years of accumulated customers, the send-based model is built for you: storing that list costs nothing on Brevo, while Mailchimp bills you every month for people you email four times a year.
If you have a small list that you email constantly, a daily deals mailer to a few hundred people, the arithmetic can flip, because your cost on Brevo is driven by volume and Brevo's send count climbs while Mailchimp's contact count sits still. That is the scenario where the contact-based model can work in your favour, and the calculator is the way to check it.
Work out which of the two patterns your list actually follows before reading either headline price.
What Brevo and Mailchimp charge at the entry plan
The entry plans are $11/mo (Starter) for Brevo and $18/mo (Essentials) for Mailchimp. Brevo publishes an Australian dollar rate card. Mailchimp's Australian dollar prices are indicative conversions from its US dollar list, and Mailchimp says the price actually charged follows the exchange rate on your billing day, so its bill moves with the currency.
The contact-billing difference is the one that compounds quietly. Mailchimp counts unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts toward your billable total until you delete them, so a list that has been running for a few years is carrying paid-for dead weight. Brevo has no such concept, because it is not counting contacts at all.
The calculator above takes your real contact count and your real monthly send volume and prices both platforms against them. That is the only comparison that answers the question, because the answer genuinely depends on your numbers, not on either brand's reputation.
Brevo and Mailchimp free plans, and Brevo's one real catch
- Brevo free plan: Yes (300 emails /day, unlimited contacts)
- Mailchimp free plan: Yes (250 contacts, 500 sends /mo)
Brevo's free plan has no contact cap, and unlimited contacts on a free plan is a genuinely unusual offer. But read the cap carefully, because it is a daily limit, not a monthly budget. The daily allowance cannot be banked: a single campaign to a list larger than that day's allowance cannot go out on the free plan in one day, and has to be split across several days.
That is a real constraint and we would rather you knew it now than discovered it the morning of a sale. If you send one campaign a month to a list of any size, Brevo's free plan will not do it and the paid plan is what you are buying. If you drip a small volume steadily, it is excellent. Mailchimp's free plan, capped on both contacts and monthly sends at the limits shown above, is a trial tier and not a serious option for either pattern.
Which businesses Brevo and Mailchimp each suit
Brevo suits Australian businesses that accumulate contacts as a by-product of trading: retailers, agencies, clubs, charities, service businesses with years of customer records. It also suits anyone who wants email, SMS and transactional mail in one account rather than three.
Mailchimp suits businesses whose priority is the campaign itself rather than the cost of the database: 100+ templates against Brevo's 70+, and 300+ integrations against Brevo's 60+. If a designed, on-brand campaign matters more to you than the cost of the database, compare those two pairs of figures before deciding.
Automation, segmentation and deliverability on Brevo and Mailchimp
Both platforms are honest performers here and 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 for a higher plan: Brevo is Basic (Starter), Advanced (Business+) and Mailchimp is Basic (Essentials), Advanced (Standard+). Neither entry plan is the automation plan, which is worth remembering when you compare their entry prices.
Segmentation differs in kind rather than degree: Brevo's is Advanced (behavioural, transactional) against Mailchimp's Moderate (tags, predicted demographics). Which you need depends on whether your segments are built on what people do or on who they are.
Brevo vs Mailchimp for Australian senders: Spam Act and SMS
Both meet the Spam Act 2003 requirements you are responsible for: Brevo is Yes and Mailchimp is Yes (consent tools, unsubscribe). Both give you consent capture through signup forms and a functional unsubscribe in every campaign, which is what the Act requires you to honour within five working days. The obligation to hold real consent and to identify yourself as the sender stays with you.
Both send SMS to Australian numbers, on different terms. Brevo's Australian SMS is Yes (AU supported). Mailchimp's is Yes (AU SMS, paid add-on). Brevo runs text inside the same account and automations as its email. Mailchimp sells SMS as a credit-based add-on to its paid plans, with credits priced by the sending country, and requires an approved SMS application for each sending number before the first message goes out. Note that the Spam Act covers SMS as well as email, so the same consent and unsubscribe rules apply to a text.
Where Brevo and Mailchimp each fall short
Brevo's case rests on unlimited contacts, send-based pricing, native Australian SMS inside its automations, behavioural segmentation and transactional email in the same account. Its trade-offs are a free plan whose daily cap makes it unsuitable for one big monthly campaign, and template and integration counts you should read from the table rather than assume.
Mailchimp's case rests on its template library, its integration ecosystem, mature reporting and being the tool your next marketing hire already knows. Its trade-offs are charging for contacts who have unsubscribed, segmentation built on tags rather than behaviour, and SMS sold as a paid add-on rather than included.
Brevo or Mailchimp: which fits your list
If you hold a large list and email it occasionally, the send-based model is built for you: storing contacts is free on Brevo and metered on Mailchimp, and a business that has been trading for a few years usually holds more contacts than it emails. Add native Australian SMS in the same account, where Mailchimp sells it as a paid add-on, and a multichannel sender with that kind of list has a second reason to land on Brevo.
Mailchimp fits two situations. The first is a small list emailed at high frequency, where send volume rather than list size drives your cost and the contact-based model can come out ahead: check it in the calculator rather than assuming. The second is when design and integrations matter more than the cost of the database: read the template and integration figures in the table, and if Mailchimp's suit the campaigns you need to send, that is a legitimate reason to choose it.
Everything turns on 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, and check the wider field in our Australian email marketing comparison, our Mailchimp alternatives guide, or Mailchimp vs Klaviyo if you run an online store.