Brevo vs Mailchimp for Small Business Email: Honest Comparison

Mailchimp is the name everyone knows for newsletters; Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is the challenger that bundles marketing, transactional email, SMS and a light CRM at a lower price. Both are marketing platforms, not mailbox providers, which is the first thing a small business should understand before choosing. Here is how they compare and where a proper business inbox fits.

Quick answer

Brevo is the better value for a small business that wants marketing plus transactional email in one account and is priced on emails sent rather than contacts stored. Mailchimp has the more polished builder, bigger template library and stronger e-commerce integrations, at a price that rises with your audience size. Neither replaces name@yourbusiness.com; for that, OquMail provides free mailboxes on your domain.

Feature comparison

• Mailboxes: neither provides inboxes; both send campaigns from an address you must already own
• Free plan: Brevo has a free plan with a daily send cap; Mailchimp has a small free plan limited by contacts and monthly sends
• API: Brevo includes a transactional API and SMTP on all plans; Mailchimp uses its paid Mandrill add-on for transactional mail
• DNS guidance: both ask you to authenticate your sending domain with DKIM (and DMARC) and verify it in settings
• IMAP/SMTP: Brevo offers SMTP relay for transactional; Mailchimp does not act as a mail host; neither has IMAP
• Storage: both store contacts and campaign analytics; neither stores your team's regular correspondence

Where Brevo wins

• Pricing by email volume suits businesses with large lists and modest send frequency
• Transactional email, SMS and WhatsApp campaigns in the same account
• Built-in sales CRM and meeting scheduler at no extra cost
• EU company with EU data hosting, which simplifies GDPR paperwork

Where Mailchimp wins

• Template gallery, drag-and-drop editor and brand kit are the most refined
• Deep Shopify, WooCommerce and Stripe integrations with revenue attribution
• Audience segmentation and predictive tools on higher plans
• Largest ecosystem of agencies and tutorials

Total cost at 5 and 15 users

Marketing platforms price by contacts or volume, not by staff, so a 5-person and a 15-person business pay the same for the same list. The variable is list size: Mailchimp's price climbs with every thousand contacts, while Brevo lets you store contacts freely and pay for emails sent. Either way, add a business email host for staff inboxes, since a campaign platform does not give your team addresses.

The free third option: OquMail

OquMail is the mailbox half of the picture. Put your team on name@yourdomain.com for free, then send campaigns from Brevo or Mailchimp using a subdomain such as news.yourdomain.com so marketing reputation stays separate from your everyday mail. For order confirmations, the OquMail send API handles low-volume transactional mail without an add-on.

• Free plan: up to 15 mailboxes, 3 domains, 5 GB per mailbox, no credit card
• Webmail included; IMAP/SMTP for Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird and phones
• IMAP mail.oqumail.com port 993 (SSL/TLS); SMTP mail.oqumail.com port 587 (STARTTLS)
• Guided SPF, DKIM and DMARC with live DNS verification; MX is mail.oqumail.com priority 10
• Transactional send API at https://api.oqumail.com/api/v1/emails with Bearer API keys (from, to, subject, html)
• Per-message delivery logs so you can see the exact response a receiving server gave

Verdict by scenario

• Local business with a big contact list and monthly newsletter: Brevo
• Online store that wants abandoned-cart flows and revenue reporting: Mailchimp
• Company that needs receipts and notifications alongside marketing: Brevo
• Any of the above that still lacks staff mailboxes on the domain: OquMail

Common questions

Can Mailchimp or Brevo be my business email?

No. They send campaigns but do not host a mailbox you log into. You need an email host for name@yourdomain.com; OquMail does this free for up to 15 people.

Should marketing email use the same domain as business email?

Use a subdomain for campaigns (news. or mail.) with its own SPF and DKIM. If a campaign triggers complaints, your staff mailboxes on the root domain are not dragged down.

Which has the better free plan?

Brevo's free plan is limited by daily sends but not by contacts; Mailchimp's is limited by contacts and monthly sends. For a growing list, Brevo's free tier lasts longer.