The two benches lean in opposite directions. Brevo is ahead on integrations (8.0 vs 7.7; two judges lean Brevo, four tie), sovereignty (6.7 vs 1.5; six judges lean Brevo) and pricing transparency (6.2 vs 5.3; four lean Brevo). Mailchimp is ahead on list data control (7.0 vs 5.5; six judges lean Mailchimp, resting on a documented whole-account export), campaign and automation (7.0 vs 6.5; three lean Mailchimp, three tie), deliverability (6.8 vs 6.3; four lean Mailchimp) and consent and proof (5.5 vs 5.2; three lean Mailchimp). The weighted totals split as well: Brevo leads with the data protection officer, integrator and skeptic; Mailchimp edges ahead with the CRM manager and deliverability engineer. Sovereignty attributes: Brevo lists a German legal entity and EU-only data residency; Mailchimp lists a US legal entity, foreign-controlled ownership and US-default data residency; both list US Cloud Act subprocessor exposure.
Choose Brevo if
You need EU-only data residency for your subscriber data — Brevo's data residency attribute is EU-only, and the sovereignty lean runs six judges for Brevo (6.7 vs 1.5).
Your developers build against a documented API — Brevo's integrations mean is 8.0 to Mailchimp's 7.7, with two judges leaning Brevo and zero leaning Mailchimp, on a REST API with published rate limits, seven official SDKs and real-time webhooks.
You want published tier prices before committing — pricing transparency leans four judges to Brevo with zero for Mailchimp (6.2 vs 5.3), with Starter from €7, Standard from €15, Professional from €499 and Enterprise custom.
Your data protection officer signs off on the tool — that judge's weighted total reads 6 for Brevo vs 4.6 for Mailchimp.
Choose Mailchimp if
You must be able to export your whole account on demand — list data control reads 7.0 vs 5.5 with six judges leaning Mailchimp, resting on a documented whole-account export as a zip.
Your team runs journeys with conditional and percentage splits — campaign and automation leans three judges to Mailchimp with three ties (7.0 vs 6.5).
Deliverability is your top criterion in the scorecard — four judges lean Mailchimp there (6.8 vs 6.3).
Your CRM manager or deliverability engineer has the final call — their weighted totals read 6.7 vs 6.6 and 6.3 vs 6.1 in Mailchimp's favor.
Read this comparison as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.
The Data Protection Officer
Signs off the tool that holds named people and records what each of them opened. Wants double opt-in with a proof that survives a complaint, tracking that can be switched off, and an answer to where the behavioural data lives that does not require a Schrems II argument.
Brevo
This judge's pick
Mailchimp
Criterion by criterion
Campaigns & automation
Brevo
A drag-and-drop editor, ready-made and custom automations triggered on website events, segmentation that includes web tracking, and subject-line A/B testing are all publicly documented, with automation workflows already in the free plan. We found no public information on journey branching, per-segment dynamic content, or testing that reports statistical significance rather than raw counts, so this stops short of the top of the range.
Mailchimp
The captured help pages show a visual journey builder with conditional and percentage splits, wait and trigger steps, entry filtered by segmenting conditions, and an API trigger so another system can start a journey; dynamic content and branded templates appear from the Standard tier upward. We found no public information on A/B testing, holdout groups or send-time optimisation, which is what keeps this short of the top band.
Deliverability infrastructure
Brevo
SPF, DKIM and DMARC configuration is documented with custom domain authentication and three verification paths, dedicated IP addresses are offered on higher plans, unengaged subscribers can be excluded automatically, and a Deliverability Center surfaces a score, bounce drivers and six months of history to the customer. We found no public information on IP warm-up guidance, seed or inbox-placement testing, or a stated bounce-suppression and complaint-loop policy; the 99% inbox placement figure appears as marketing copy.
Mailchimp
Authentication is properly documented — domain verification, two CNAME records for DKIM and a TXT record for DMARC, with automated setup and the Gmail and Yahoo requirement spelled out — and bounces are categorised from SMTP replies with subscriber engagement factored into cleaning, plus dedicated IPs with a roughly 30-day warm-up. We found no public information on complaint-loop handling, seed or inbox-placement testing, or published list-hygiene guidance, so it sits between the middle and upper bands.
Consent, proof & tracking limits
Brevo
Double opt-in is documented as the default and the consent groups plus preference centre give each contact self-serve, topic-level control — with documented handling of access and erasure requests including removal across Brevo accounts — which is real progress. But the proof a complaint demands is only half-built: we found no public information on what the stored consent record contains beyond timestamps, and no public information on switching open, click or web tracking off, while tracking is advertised as an included feature.
Mailchimp
Double opt-in exists with a customisable confirmation email, and the GDPR fields each contact saw are recorded in plain text and viewable on their profile — genuinely usable proof when a complaint lands. But double opt-in must be enabled per audience rather than being the default, and we found no public information on switching open or click tracking off per campaign, on an unsubscribe honoured across lists, or on retention rules for inactive subscribers.
List ownership, import & exit
Brevo
Contacts import and export are documented API operations with selectable attributes, added and modified timestamps, list membership and email and SMS subscription status, and deletion of a subscriber across all records — including across Brevo accounts — is written down. The exit door is narrow: content is downloadable in an interoperable format only during the subscription and within twenty-four hours after termination, an account unused for six months is deleted, and we found no public information on exporting engagement history, campaigns or templates.
Mailchimp
The account export is full-fidelity — audiences, campaign and template content, contact events and reporting data in one zip, with per-contact activity files covering opens and clicks — and permanent deletion and a forget action are both documented. Against that, exports are throttled to one per 24-hour period and can take minutes to days to build, bounce reasons cannot be exported in bulk, and a contact in multiple audiences has to be exported from each audience individually.
Integrations & API
Brevo
More than 150 named integrations include Shopify with purchase and abandoned-cart sync, official SDKs cover seven languages, real-time webhooks report delivery, opens, clicks, bounces and spam complaints, rate limits are published per plan, and an API playground lets developers test live before writing code, with transactional and marketing sending on the same API. We found no public information on webhook retry behaviour or a versioned deprecation policy, which is what separates this from the very top.
Mailchimp
Over 300 integrations include a two-way Salesforce sync plus Shopify, Stripe, Square and Zapier, and there is a documented Marketing API at version 3.0 with batch operations, list webhooks and inbound events, alongside a separate transactional API with its own webhooks and stated per-method rate limits. Marketing and transactional sending sit on two APIs rather than one, and we found no public information on webhook retries or a sandbox.
European sovereignty
Brevo
Hosting is EU-standard with named providers — OVH in France and Germany, Google Cloud in Belgium — under a French contracting entity, with ISO 27001 published and a TÜV Rheinland report on the technical measures. My standing question still needs a Schrems II argument to answer: the privacy policy documents transfers to the USA and India on the basis of the Data Privacy Framework or standard contractual clauses, the named third parties include US companies such as OpenAI and PayPal, and a complete subprocessor list on the vendor's own captured pages was not confirmed.
Mailchimp
The contracting entity is US-based (The Rocket Science Group under Intuit), US hosting is the fixed default with no EU option offered anywhere in the captured pages, and the entire transfer story rests on Data Privacy Framework certification with standard contractual clauses as fallback — exactly the argument I would have to make rather than avoid. No subprocessor list is published on the vendor's own pages; the privacy statement names FullStory, Medallia and generative-AI providers touching the data, and export files are themselves hosted by Google.
Pricing transparency
Brevo
Every named tier carries a public price with billing period and monthly send volume — Starter from €7 a month at 5,000 emails, Professional €499 a month at 150,000 — and the terms state prices exclude VAT and follow the currency of the buyer's region. The invoice still cannot be computed end to end: we found no public information on overage or per-email credit rates, dedicated IP pricing, or SMS rates beyond a price that depends on volume and destination, and contact allowances for the middle tiers are not stated.
Mailchimp
Monthly from-prices are public per tier with send limits stated (Standard up to 6,000 emails, Premium 150,000), feature tables show where flows, audiences and seats begin, and annual plans, pay-as-you-go and a free tier under 250 contacts are documented. Overage is announced but its rate is not stated, SMS credits and high-volume plans above 200,000 contacts are price-on-request, no VAT treatment is given, and the captured pages give different figures for the same tier — Essentials from €11.34 and from €11.50, Standard from €17.45 and from €17.68.
Sovereignty, side by side
Dimension
Brevo
Mailchimp
Legal entity
Incorporated in DE
Not determined
Ownership
Not determined
Foreign-controlled
Data residency
EU only
Not determined
Subprocessors
Not determined
Not determined
Facts, side by side
Only facts both products carry under the same definition — anything else would not be a fair row.