MailerLite vs Brevo — which should you choose?

MailerLite and Brevo often end up on the same shortlist, because both are affordable and both have a usable free plan. They solve different problems, though.

The short answer

Choose Brevo if price decides. It is cheaper at every list size we compare, and at a 10,000-contact list the difference is €51 a month. Text messages go out from the same tool too.

Choose MailerLite if you send to the same list often. The contact-based price does not move with sending pace, so the cost is predictable even when the newsletter goes out weekly.

Comparison table

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Prices exclude VAT, billed monthly unless stated otherwise.

• The price is the monthly price of the cheapest paid plan at that list size. The Free plan column shows when you do not have to pay.

The pricing model is the biggest difference

This is the point that decides which one becomes cheaper for you specifically. MailerLite bills by contact count: a 2,500-name list costs €29 a month whether you send to it once a month or ten times. Brevo bills for emails sent: a 2,500-name list fits 15,000 emails, i.e. six newsletters a month, for €21.

A practical rule of thumb: multiply subscribers by sends per month. If the figure exceeds Brevo’s package, MailerLite’s model is more predictable. At a sending pace below it Brevo is cheaper — and at a 10,000-name list it is cheaper at almost any realistic pace.

When list cleaning shows on the bill

In the contact-based model the counting rule is part of the price, and it is on the help page, not the price list. According to MailerLite’s own help page, the limit counts subscribers in Active status, so the unsubscribed and bounced do not count. The period is counted cumulatively, though: an address that was active at any point in the billing period counts toward the limit until the end of the period, even if you delete it immediately.

In practice this means one timing question. If you clean the list to stay on a cheaper tier, do it well before the billing date — cleaning mid-period does not reduce that month’s bill. At Brevo you do not need to think about this, because the price does not follow contact count at all. Help page read 5 September 2026; the rules for all seven services: how contacts are counted.

Data location

Here the comparison separates less than is often assumed. Brevo is a French company and stores the data in the EU. MailerLite’s contracting party for EEA customers is Irish MailerLite Limited, and according to its privacy policy the data centre is in the EU (ISO 27001). Both therefore keep your list in the EU. The difference is contractual: Brevo is a French group, while MailerLite has an Irish contracting party for EEA customers and a separate US company for other customers. Both facts were read from the services’ own privacy policies on 3 September 2026.

Prices side by side

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Monthly prices on the cheapest paid plan excluding VAT, read from the price lists on 3 September 2026. At Brevo the plan is Starter, at MailerLite Comfort. Brevo’s figure assumes two newsletters a month.

The gap grows steeply with the list, because MailerLite bills by list size and Brevo by emails sent. At a 10,000-name list the difference is already over €600 a year.

Free plans side by side

Both offer a free plan, but they limit from different ends. MailerLite holds 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month. Brevo does not limit list size, but you may send 300 emails a day, about 9,000 a month.

The practical difference: at a 250-name list MailerLite’s free plan carries ten newsletters a month, while on Brevo’s free plan a campaign to the same list stops after 300 recipients and continues only the next day. If, on the other hand, you are building a 3,000-name list and hardly send to it yet, MailerLite’s limit came up long ago and Brevo’s never does. Neither is still the most generous in the comparison — that is EmailOctopus with its 2,500 subscribers.

Integrations

MailerLite says it connects to over 130 services. Brevo does not publish a total at all, so we give it no figure — by name it mentions the same common platforms. The practical difference is negligible: both have a ready connector to WordPress, Shopify, Stripe and Zapier, and beyond those both rely on automation hubs. If the integration library decides the choice, neither of these is the tool — the widest in the comparison are ActiveCampaign’s (over 1,000 apps) and Mailchimp’s (300+). The figures are the services’ own, read from their integration pages on 5 September 2026.

A third option if price is the only criterion

If you landed on this page because of price, neither is the cheapest. At a 2,500-contact list EmailOctopus costs €16 a month, while Brevo asks €21 and MailerLite €29 — and its free plan holds the whole 2,500-name list. Only at around 5,000 subscribers does Brevo overtake it: Brevo vs EmailOctopus.

EmailOctopus lacks text messages, a CRM and conditional automations, though, so it does not replace Brevo for an online shop.

Deliverability: one measures, the other cleans

We do not test deliverability ourselves. Below are two things: Tooltester’s 2017–2024 series as history — it ended in January 2024, and the source no longer stands behind its method — and eight points from the services’ own help pages, which are the current basis of this comparison.

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Tooltester ended the series with the January 2024 round and explained why in August 2026: seed lists proved unreliable and providers started optimising for them. The figures are therefore history, not a measurement of current deliverability.

Source: Tooltester deliverability test, 12 rounds 8/2017–1/2024. About 80 seed addresses, 28 providers, shared IP addresses. Average across all platforms in the latest round 83.1%. Average and range calculated from the published rounds.

Deliverability features from the help docs

Eight points read from each provider’s own help pages on 13 September 2026. This replaces percentages as a buying basis: a feature can be checked and dated, a seed-list result no longer can. Every cell links to the article it was read from.

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Yes = the help page describes the feature. No = the help page says it is absent or points to an external tool. — = not found in the help pages; that does not mean the feature is absent.

As history: in Tooltester’s series MailerLite’s average was 90.9% and Brevo’s 82.7%, and Brevo’s range of 67.7–96.3% was the widest of the five we compare. The series ended in January 2024, and the source no longer stands behind its method — the figures are history, not a buying basis.

Read from the help pages, the difference is in three points, and they go in different directions. Brevo shows a deliverability score in the app (Deliverability center) and handles DMARC as part of guided authentication; MailerLite’s help page describes no meter and points DMARC to a consultant. MailerLite has a “Clean up inactive” view for removing the inactive, while Brevo’s help page tells you to segment and blocklist by hand. A dedicated IP and a deliverability team are at both only for large senders: at MailerLite from 50,000 weekly emails, at Brevo on the Professional plan.

Most of deliverability is still the sender’s own responsibility — authentication, list quality and sending pace: what Gmail and Yahoo require of senders.

Which one for you