Brevo vs MailerLite: pricing, features, and best fit

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Photo: Hanna Pad (Pexels)

Comparing two solid email marketing platforms is rarely about finding the “winner.” It’s about finding your fit. In Brevo vs MailerLite: pricing, features, and best fit, the answer depends on how you send, what you sell, and how much automation you need. Both tools offer free tiers and competitive paid plans — but they’re built with different users in mind.

What each platform is built for

Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is a multichannel platform. Email is its core, but it also handles SMS, transactional emails, live chat, and a basic CRM. It prices by email volume sent per month, not by the number of contacts you store.

MailerLite is a focused email marketing tool. It’s designed to be clean, fast to learn, and affordable for growing lists. It prices by the number of subscribers, which is the more traditional model.

That single structural difference — send volume vs. subscriber count — shapes nearly every pricing and workflow decision you’ll make.

Brevo vs MailerLite: pricing, features, and best fit — free plan comparison

Both platforms offer free tiers worth using seriously, not just for testing.

Brevo Free:
– Unlimited contacts
– 300 emails/day (9,000/month)
– Basic email editor and templates
– No daily sending limit on paid plans
– SMS marketing available (pay-as-you-go)
– Basic automation workflows

MailerLite Free:
– Up to 1,000 subscribers
– 12,000 emails/month
– Drag-and-drop editor + rich text editor
– Landing pages and pop-up forms included
– Basic automation (up to 1 active workflow)
– MailerLite branding on emails

The practical difference: if you have a large contact list but email infrequently, Brevo’s free plan is more generous — you can store 50,000 contacts and still pay nothing. If you have under 1,000 subscribers and want landing pages included from day one, MailerLite’s free plan delivers more built-in tools.

Paid plan pricing breakdown

Key pricing reality: MailerLite’s $9/month applies to 500 subscribers. Once your list hits 2,500 subscribers, that same tier costs $25/month. At 10,000 subscribers, you’re paying $73/month. Brevo’s $9/month covers 20,000 emails per month regardless of how many contacts you store — scaling the list doesn’t raise your bill unless you increase send frequency.

Email editor and template library

MailerLite’s drag-and-drop editor is consistently praised for its intuitive interface. Blocks are easy to reorder, and the preview experience across desktop and mobile is reliable. The template library includes [verify exact count] free templates across categories like newsletters, promotions, and announcements. The rich text editor option is also useful for plain-text-style campaigns that tend to feel more personal.

Brevo’s editor is competent but slightly heavier to navigate. Its template library is solid for transactional and marketing emails, and it includes a drag-and-drop option plus a code editor for developers. The standout advantage: Brevo supports email, SMS, and WhatsApp campaigns from a single campaign dashboard — something MailerLite doesn’t offer.

For pure newsletter creation and design speed, MailerLite has an edge. For multichannel campaigns managed in one place, Brevo is the stronger option.

Automation capabilities

This is where the gap becomes meaningful.

MailerLite automation

MailerLite’s automation builder uses a visual workflow canvas. You set triggers (subscriber joins a group, clicks a link, completes a purchase) and build branching sequences from there. Conditional splits, time delays, and goal-based exits are all available on paid plans. For a blogger running a welcome sequence or a course creator nurturing leads, MailerLite’s automation is clean and sufficient.

Limitations: the free plan allows only one active automation workflow, and some advanced conditions (like website event tracking) require integrations with tools like Zapier or a direct integration with Shopify.

Brevo automation

Brevo’s automation is deeper out of the box. It supports multi-step workflows triggered by email behavior, CRM events, website visits (via tracking script), SMS actions, and transactional email activity. The visual builder handles branching logic similar to MailerLite’s, but the available data sources are more varied.

If you’re running an e-commerce store and want to trigger an SMS cart-abandonment message and a follow-up email in the same workflow, Brevo handles that natively. MailerLite would require a third-party bridge.

Deliverability and sending infrastructure

Both platforms have strong deliverability reputations. Brevo operates its own sending infrastructure and offers a dedicated IP address on higher-tier plans — useful for high-volume senders who need to isolate their reputation. For transactional email specifically (order confirmations, password resets), Brevo’s SMTP relay is a mature product used by developers independently from the marketing email features.

MailerLite uses shared IP pools for most plans. Deliverability on shared IPs is generally solid for legitimate senders, and MailerLite monitors sending practices carefully. Most bloggers and small businesses see inbox placement rates comparable to Brevo’s.

For transactional email at scale, Brevo is the more purpose-built option. For standard newsletter sending, both platforms are competitive.

Landing pages and forms

MailerLite includes landing page creation on all plans, including the free tier. The landing page builder uses the same drag-and-drop interface as the email editor, which keeps the learning curve flat. Pop-up forms and embedded signup forms are also available without an upgrade.

Brevo includes landing pages on its Business plan and above. The free and Starter plans don’t include this feature — a meaningful gap if you’re building a list primarily through opt-in pages.

If landing pages are central to your list-building strategy, MailerLite’s free inclusion is a significant advantage over Brevo’s gated approach.

CRM and contact management

Brevo’s built-in CRM

Brevo includes a lightweight CRM that lets you manage deal pipelines, track contact activity, add notes, and assign tasks — all without leaving the platform. This isn’t a replacement for a full CRM like HubSpot or Salesforce, but it’s genuinely useful for small sales teams or service businesses managing a handful of active leads alongside their email list.

MailerLite’s contact organization

MailerLite uses a groups and segments model. Contacts can belong to multiple groups, and segments can be built dynamically based on activity, custom fields, or signup source. It’s a clean system for email-focused audience management, but there’s no deal pipeline or sales task tracking built in.

For businesses that want email + light CRM in a single tool without paying for a separate platform, Brevo offers more. For pure email list management, both handle it well.

Integrations

MailerLite integrates with Shopify, WooCommerce, WordPress, Squarespace, Zapier, and most major tools bloggers and creators use. Its integration library covers the most common use cases without requiring technical setup.

Brevo’s integration list is similarly broad and includes native e-commerce integrations, Zapier, Make (formerly Integromat), and direct API access. Brevo also offers a WordPress plugin that handles both marketing and transactional email from a single install — useful if you run a WordPress site and want to replace a separate SMTP plugin.

Brevo vs MailerLite: pricing, features, and best fit — verdict by use case

So what is the right call when weighing Brevo vs MailerLite: pricing, features, and best fit for your specific situation? Here’s the breakdown.

Where other tools fit in

If you’re weighing Brevo vs MailerLite: pricing, features, and best fit but neither feels quite right, a few other platforms from our focused list are worth considering.

Kit (formerly ConvertKit) is built specifically for content creators. Its tagging system and Creator Network make it a better fit for bloggers with paid newsletters or digital products, though it’s more expensive than both Brevo and MailerLite at scale.

AWeber offers a similar free-up-to-500-subscribers model and has been a stable platform for small business owners for over two decades. It lacks some of the modern UX polish of MailerLite but has a reliable sending reputation.

GetResponse adds webinar hosting and a paid ads tool to its email marketing suite, which can simplify your tech stack if you run regular webinars.

ActiveCampaign is the step up when you’ve outgrown both Brevo and MailerLite on automation depth — it handles complex conditional branching and lead scoring at a level neither platform fully matches, though it starts at a higher price point.

Frequently asked questions

Is Brevo or MailerLite better for a beginner?

MailerLite has a cleaner, more intuitive interface for beginners. The drag-and-drop editor, simple automation builder, and included landing pages make it faster to get a working setup running. Brevo is not difficult to use, but its broader feature set adds complexity that beginners may not need immediately.

Can I switch from MailerLite to Brevo later without losing my list?

Yes. Both platforms let you export your subscriber list as a CSV file, including custom fields and tags. The main migration task is recreating your automation workflows and templates — the subscriber data itself transfers cleanly. Plan for 2–4 hours of rebuild time depending on your workflow complexity.

Does Brevo’s free plan actually work for a real business?

For businesses that don’t need to send daily emails, yes. Storing unlimited contacts and sending up to 300 emails per day (9,000/month) is functional for many small businesses. The main limitation is the daily cap — if you have 5,000 subscribers and want to send a broadcast on one day, you’ll hit the cap and need to split sends across three days or upgrade.

Which platform has better deliverability?

Both are competitive for standard newsletter sending. Brevo has a slight edge for transactional email infrastructure and offers dedicated IPs on enterprise plans. For typical blog newsletters or promotional campaigns to an engaged list, the deliverability difference between the two is not meaningful in practice.

What happens if my subscriber count crosses MailerLite’s tier threshold?

MailerLite automatically moves you to the next billing tier at your next renewal. At 1,001 subscribers you move from free to the Growing Business paid plan ($9/month for up to 1,000 subscribers, or $15/month for 1,001–2,500 at current pricing [verify]). It’s worth checking your subscriber count regularly to avoid unexpected billing changes.

The Brevo vs MailerLite: pricing, features, and best fit question doesn’t have a universal answer — but the logic is clear. If your list is small and you want landing pages and automation without paying, start with MailerLite. If you have a large contact database, need SMS capabilities, or want light CRM functionality alongside email, Brevo is the stronger fit. Both are legitimate tools used by real businesses; the right one is simply the one that matches your current workflow and growth path.

For more detail on how these tools compare to the broader email marketing field, see the full breakdown of email marketing platforms on MailerLite’s official pricing page.

Want more comparisons like this? Bookmark twofunnelsaway.com and check back as we add in-depth breakdowns across every major email marketing platform.