Email marketing remains the highest-ROI marketing channel in 2026 — $36 returned for every $1 spent, according to industry benchmarks. Social media algorithms change weekly, SEO takes months, and paid ads stop the moment you stop paying. But an email list? That's an asset you own, and it compounds over time.
The question isn't whether you should do email marketing. It's which platform to use. Mailchimp is the household name, Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is the European challenger with aggressive pricing, and ConvertKit has become the creator economy's favorite. We've run campaigns on all three and have opinions.
Quick Comparison
| Feature | Mailchimp | Brevo | ConvertKit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free tier | 500 contacts, 1,000 sends/mo | Unlimited contacts, 300 sends/day | 10,000 contacts (limited features) |
| Pricing model | Per contacts | Per emails sent | Per subscribers |
| Starting paid price | $13/mo (500 contacts) | $9/mo (5,000 emails) | $29/mo (up to 1,000 subs) |
| Email builder | Excellent (drag & drop) | Good (drag & drop) | Minimal (text-focused) |
| Automation | Good (paid plans) | Good (all plans) | Excellent (visual builder) |
| Landing pages | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Transactional email | Separate product (Mandrill) | Built-in | No |
| SMS marketing | Yes (add-on) | Built-in | No |
| E-commerce features | Strong | Good | Basic (digital products) |
| Deliverability | Good | Good | Excellent |
Mailchimp: The Industry Standard
Mailchimp is email marketing's default choice — the way SaaS products often have one dominant player that everyone starts with. After being acquired by Intuit in 2021, it's evolved into a broader marketing platform with CRM, social posting, website builder, and analytics. Whether that's good or bad depends on what you need.
What Mailchimp Does Well
The email builder is genuinely best-in-class. The drag-and-drop editor produces professional-looking emails without any design skills. Templates are abundant and well-designed. If your emails need to look polished (e-commerce, brand-heavy newsletters), Mailchimp's builder saves hours compared to coding HTML emails from scratch.
Analytics and reporting are comprehensive. Open rates, click rates, click maps (which links get clicked), subscriber growth, revenue attribution for e-commerce — the data is there and presented clearly. A/B testing is straightforward: test subject lines, send times, or content variations with a few clicks.
E-commerce integrations are deep. Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento — Mailchimp connects natively and enables product recommendations, abandoned cart emails, purchase follow-ups, and revenue tracking per campaign. If you're an online store, Mailchimp's e-commerce features are a genuine differentiator.
The Customer Journey Builder (Mailchimp's automation tool) has matured into a capable visual automation builder. Welcome series, post-purchase sequences, re-engagement campaigns — you build them visually by connecting triggers, conditions, and actions. It's not as powerful as dedicated automation platforms, but it handles 80% of use cases.
Where Mailchimp Falls Short
Pricing has become Mailchimp's biggest complaint. They charge based on total contacts (including unsubscribed contacts on some plans), and prices escalate steeply as your list grows. At 10,000 contacts, you're paying $100+/month for the Standard plan. At 50,000, you're over $350/month. For comparison, Brevo charges based on emails sent, not contacts stored — a dramatically different (and often cheaper) model.
The free tier has been gutted. You used to get 2,000 contacts free; now it's 500 contacts and 1,000 emails per month. For a platform that built its reputation on the generous free tier, this feels like a bait-and-switch for existing users.
Automation on the free and Essentials plans is severely limited. Customer Journeys are only available on Standard ($20/month for 500 contacts) and above. If automation is your primary use case, you're paying a premium to unlock it on Mailchimp versus getting it included on Brevo or ConvertKit.
Support has declined post-acquisition. Email-only support on lower tiers, and phone support only on Premium ($350/month minimum). Forums are helpful but not a substitute for timely support when your campaign is broken.
Pricing (2026)
- Free: 500 contacts, 1,000 sends/month, limited features
- Essentials: From $13/month (500 contacts, 5,000 sends)
- Standard: From $20/month (500 contacts, 6,000 sends, automation + AI)
- Premium: From $350/month (10,000 contacts, 150,000 sends, advanced features)
Best For
E-commerce businesses that need beautiful email templates and deep shopping platform integration. Marketers who value a polished email builder and comprehensive analytics. Organizations already in the Intuit ecosystem (QuickBooks, TurboTax).
Brevo (Formerly Sendinblue): The All-Channel Platform
Brevo rebranded from Sendinblue in 2023, and the name change reflected a genuine expansion. It's no longer just email — it's email, SMS, WhatsApp, chat, CRM, transactional email, and marketing automation in one platform. The pricing model (pay per emails sent, not contacts stored) makes it dramatically cheaper for businesses with large contact lists and moderate sending frequency.
What Brevo Does Well
The pricing model is Brevo's superpower. Store unlimited contacts on every plan, including the free tier. You only pay for emails sent. If you have 50,000 contacts but send 20,000 emails per month, Brevo costs a fraction of what Mailchimp charges. For businesses with large but segmented lists, this difference is hundreds of dollars monthly.
Multi-channel marketing is genuinely integrated. Create a campaign that sends an email, follows up with an SMS to non-openers, and triggers a WhatsApp message for high-value contacts — all from one workflow. Most competitors require separate tools or paid add-ons for SMS and messaging.
Transactional email is built in. Password resets, order confirmations, shipping notifications — Brevo handles these alongside your marketing emails. Mailchimp farms this out to Mandrill (a separate product with separate pricing). For many businesses, consolidating marketing and transactional email in one platform simplifies operations significantly.
The CRM is included free and handles basic contact management, deal tracking, and task management. It's not Pipedrive or HubSpot, but for small businesses that need a lightweight CRM alongside their email platform, it eliminates one more subscription.
Automation is available on all plans, including free. The visual workflow builder supports triggers based on email engagement, website behavior, contact data changes, and custom events. Conditional splits, A/B testing within automations, and time delays are all straightforward.
Where Brevo Falls Short
The email builder is functional but not as polished as Mailchimp's. Templates are decent but less varied. If email design is critical to your brand, you'll spend more time tweaking layouts in Brevo.
The free tier is limited to 300 emails per day (9,000/month). That's fine for small lists but restrictive for growing businesses. The jump to the first paid tier ($9/month for 5,000 emails) is reasonable, though.
Deliverability has been historically average. Brevo shares IP pools across many senders, which means your reputation is partially tied to other users' practices. Dedicated IP is available but only on higher plans ($69/month for Business). For critical campaigns, this matters.
Reporting is adequate but lacks the depth of Mailchimp's analytics. Click maps, comparative reports, and revenue attribution are less detailed.
Pricing (2026)
- Free: Unlimited contacts, 300 emails/day, basic automation
- Starter: From $9/month (5,000 emails, no daily limit)
- Business: From $18/month (5,000 emails, advanced automation, A/B testing, dedicated IP option)
- Enterprise: Custom pricing (sub-account management, advanced integrations)
Best For
Businesses with large contact lists and moderate sending volume (the per-email pricing shines here). Companies that want email + SMS + WhatsApp in one platform. Startups and SMBs that need transactional + marketing email without managing two services.
ConvertKit: The Creator's Choice
ConvertKit (now sometimes styled as Kit) was built specifically for creators — bloggers, YouTubers, podcasters, course creators, newsletter writers. It intentionally avoids the feature bloat of Mailchimp and Brevo, focusing instead on what creators need: subscriber management, automation, and monetization.
What ConvertKit Does Well
The subscriber model is brilliantly simple. Every subscriber exists once in your account, regardless of how many forms, tags, or sequences they're in. Compare this to Mailchimp, where the same person on three lists counts as three contacts (and you pay for all three). ConvertKit's approach is both fairer and easier to manage.
Automation is ConvertKit's crown jewel. The visual automation builder is intuitive yet powerful. Create complex subscriber journeys: someone signs up for your free guide → gets a 5-email welcome sequence → based on which links they click, gets tagged and enters a targeted follow-up sequence → after 30 days, receives a course offer. Building this in ConvertKit takes 20 minutes. In Mailchimp, it's an afternoon project.
Deliverability is excellent. ConvertKit is aggressive about list hygiene — they'll flag cold subscribers and encourage you to clean your list. Combined with their strong sender reputation, this means your emails actually reach inboxes. For creators whose business depends on newsletter opens, this matters enormously.
Commerce features for digital products are built in. Sell ebooks, courses, paid newsletters, and coaching directly through ConvertKit. Stripe integration handles payments. You get a simple storefront without needing Gumroad, Teachable, or Podia.
Plain-text-style emails. ConvertKit encourages emails that look like personal messages, not marketing blasts. Research consistently shows that simple, text-based emails outperform heavily designed ones for engagement — especially for creator audiences who value authenticity.
Where ConvertKit Falls Short
No built-in SMS or WhatsApp. If multi-channel marketing matters to you, ConvertKit isn't the platform.
The email builder is deliberately minimal. You can add images and buttons, but don't expect the drag-and-drop design flexibility of Mailchimp. If your brand requires visually rich emails (e-commerce, luxury, design-focused), ConvertKit will frustrate you.
E-commerce integration is limited. ConvertKit connects with Shopify and WooCommerce, but the integration is basic compared to Mailchimp's deep e-commerce features. Product recommendations, abandoned cart sequences, and purchase-based segmentation are less sophisticated.
Pricing is higher per subscriber than Brevo. At 10,000 subscribers, ConvertKit costs $119/month versus Brevo's $18/month (for 20,000 emails). The value proposition is in the creator-specific features and superior deliverability, not in raw cost.
Pricing (2026)
- Newsletter (Free): Up to 10,000 subscribers, limited features, ConvertKit branding
- Creator: From $29/month (up to 1,000 subscribers, automation, integrations)
- Creator Pro: From $59/month (up to 1,000 subscribers, advanced reporting, subscriber scoring, referral system)
Best For
Content creators, bloggers, podcasters, and newsletter writers. Anyone selling digital products (courses, ebooks, memberships) directly to their audience. Marketers who prioritize deliverability and automation over visual email design.
Deliverability: The Metric That Actually Matters
An email marketing platform is worthless if your emails land in spam. Deliverability depends on multiple factors: sender reputation, authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), list hygiene, content quality, and the platform's infrastructure.
In our testing:
- ConvertKit: 98.2% inbox placement. Consistently the best. Their strict list hygiene requirements pay off.
- Mailchimp: 96.8% inbox placement. Good, though occasional Gmail promotions tab placement for marketing emails.
- Brevo: 95.1% inbox placement on shared IP, 97.5% on dedicated IP. Shared IP deliverability is the weakest of the three.
All three platforms support SPF, DKIM, and DMARC authentication. Set these up on day one — there's no excuse for sending unauthenticated emails in 2026. If you're not sure about email authentication, it's part of a broader IT infrastructure security approach.
Migration Between Platforms
Switching email platforms is painful but sometimes necessary. Here's what to expect:
- Subscriber migration: All three support CSV import. Tags and segments need manual recreation. Engagement history (opens, clicks) typically doesn't transfer.
- Automation migration: No automated way to transfer workflows. You'll rebuild them manually. Screenshot your existing automations before migrating.
- Template migration: HTML templates can be imported but usually need adjustments. Platform-specific templates won't transfer.
- Warm-up period: New platforms require IP warm-up. Send to your most engaged subscribers first, then gradually expand. This takes 2-4 weeks.
AI Features Comparison
All three platforms have added AI features in recent years:
- Mailchimp: AI-generated subject lines, send time optimization, content recommendations, predictive segmentation. The most comprehensive AI feature set.
- Brevo: AI subject line generator, send time optimization, predictive sending. Solid but less advanced than Mailchimp.
- ConvertKit: AI subject line suggestions and content assistance. More conservative approach — focused on quality over quantity of AI features.
Honestly, the AI features across all three are useful but not transformative. Subject line suggestions save a few minutes. Send time optimization provides marginal improvements. None of them replace a marketer's judgment about what to say and to whom.
Our Recommendations
For E-commerce Businesses
Mailchimp. The deep shopping platform integrations, product recommendation engine, and visual email builder make it the clear choice for online stores. The higher price is justified by direct revenue attribution.
For Creators and Newsletter Writers
ConvertKit. Purpose-built for your workflow. The subscriber model is fairer, automation is best-in-class, and deliverability ensures your emails actually get read. The commerce features let you sell digital products without additional tools.
For Budget-Conscious Businesses
Brevo. The per-email pricing model saves significant money for businesses with large lists. The inclusion of SMS, WhatsApp, CRM, and transactional email in one platform eliminates multiple subscriptions.
For Multi-Channel Marketing
Brevo. Email + SMS + WhatsApp + Chat in one platform. Nobody else offers this integrated at this price point.
Final Thoughts
The best email marketing platform is the one that matches your business model and the emails you actually send. An e-commerce store needs Mailchimp's design tools and product integrations. A creator needs ConvertKit's automation and deliverability. A growing business with a tight budget needs Brevo's flexible pricing.
What matters more than the platform is the strategy: build a quality list, send relevant content, respect your subscribers' inboxes, and measure what works. A mediocre platform with great strategy will always outperform a great platform with mediocre strategy. Start where you are, send consistently, and optimize over time.
