How to Migrate from Mailchimp to Brevo (2026 Step-by-Step)

Migrate Mailchimp to Brevo (2026): verdict at a glance — the move pays off if your Mailchimp bill has climbed past $50/month or your list has grown past 1,500 contacts. Brevo costs roughly 40-60% less at every tier, includes transactional email on the same plan, and offers a true free tier (300 emails/day, unlimited contacts). The migration takes 2-4 hours of focused work; this guide walks through the exact steps to migrate Mailchimp to Brevo without losing subscribers, automations, or deliverability.

Migrate Mailchimp to Brevo: the short answer

The decision to migrate Mailchimp to Brevo usually comes down to one of three triggers: your Mailchimp bill went up after a price tier change, you outgrew the contact-based pricing model (Brevo charges per email sent, not per contact), or you want transactional email on the same platform as marketing. Whichever applies, the migration itself is the same five-step process: export your audience, set up Brevo authentication, import contacts, rebuild automations, then cut over your forms and sending domain. Industry pricing and deliverability data was cross-checked against the EmailToolTester 2026 ESP comparison.

At a glance: Mailchimp vs Brevo (why migrate)

Dimension	Mailchimp	Brevo
Pricing model	Per contact	Per email sent (contacts are unlimited)
Free plan limits	500 contacts, 1,000 sends/month	Unlimited contacts, 300 sends/day
Paid plan entry (10k contacts)	~$100/month (Standard)	~$45/month (20k sends)
Transactional email	Separate Mandrill add-on, ~$20+/mo	Included on free + paid plans
Automation depth	Solid; behavior-based triggers	Comparable; visual builder included on free
Inbox placement Q1 2026	~83%	~88%
CRM	Limited; separate paid product	Built-in CRM, free tier
SMS	Add-on	Included (pay per SMS)

The pre-migration checklist

Do these five things before you switch from Mailchimp to Brevo. Skipping any one of them is the most common reason a migration loses subscribers or breaks deliverability.

• Audit your audience size and segments — note how many active contacts, suppressed, unsubscribed. Brevo imports all three; you decide later what to keep.
• Inventory active automations — list every Mailchimp Journey, Customer Journey, or classic Automation. Each will need to be rebuilt in Brevo (no auto-import path exists).
• Note your transactional volume — if you use Mandrill for password resets/order confirmations, calculate the daily volume so you can pick the right Brevo plan.
• List custom fields and tags — Brevo calls these “Attributes” and “Lists/Folders”. Map Mailchimp tags to Brevo lists or attributes ahead of time so the import lands cleanly.
• Identify RSS-to-email and integration touchpoints — RSS campaigns, WordPress plugins, Zapier zaps. Each integration needs to be re-pointed to Brevo after migration.

Mailchimp to Brevo migration, step-by-step

This is the actual Mailchimp to Brevo migration playbook. Budget 2-4 hours for a list under 10k contacts; longer if you have many automations to rebuild. Run the steps in this order — out of order is the leading cause of duplicate subscribers and broken signup forms.

Step 1: Export contacts from Mailchimp

In Mailchimp: Audience → All contacts → Export Audience. Mailchimp emails you a ZIP with multiple CSVs: subscribed, unsubscribed, cleaned, and any tags. Download all of them. The “subscribed” file is your primary import; the “unsubscribed” file matters because Brevo needs those addresses suppressed so you do not accidentally re-mail people who opted out. Keep custom fields, tags, and signup date columns intact — Brevo can ingest all of these.

Step 2: Set up Brevo authentication (SPF, DKIM)

Before importing a single contact, set up domain authentication so Brevo can send as your domain. In Brevo: Settings → Senders & IP → Domains → Add a domain. Brevo gives you DNS records to add at your DNS provider (Hostinger, Cloudflare, etc.). SPF, DKIM, and an optional DMARC entry. This is the single biggest deliverability lever in the whole process — sending unauthenticated from a new ESP guarantees spam folder placement. For a deeper walkthrough see our Email Deliverability Guide 2026.

Step 3: Import your contacts into Brevo

In Brevo: Contacts → Import contacts → Upload CSV. Map the Mailchimp columns to Brevo Attributes (Email → EMAIL, First Name → FIRSTNAME, etc.). For tags, you have two options: either create a Brevo “List” per important tag, or use the IMPORT step’s “Attributes” tab to preserve them as text fields. For a clean migration we recommend Lists for the 3-5 segments you actively send to, and Attributes for everything else. Upload the unsubscribed CSV separately into the Suppression List — this is non-negotiable for compliance with GDPR, CAN-SPAM, and CASL.

Step 4: Rebuild automations in Brevo

This is the most time-consuming step in the migration. There is no import path for Customer Journeys; you rebuild each one. Brevo’s automation builder is visually similar to Mailchimp’s: triggers (new contact, list join, custom event, date-based), conditions (attribute checks, A/B branches), and actions (send email, update attribute, add to list, webhook). Start with your most-used automation (usually the welcome series) and verify it works end-to-end with a test address before moving on. Keep the old Mailchimp automations active until the cut-over (Step 5) — running both temporarily is fine and prevents subscribers from falling through the cracks.

Step 5: Warm up the new domain and cut over

Do not send to your full list from Brevo on day one. Mailbox providers see a new sender; reputation needs building. Recommended warm-up: send to your 200 most-engaged subscribers (opened your last 3 emails) on day 1, expand to 1,000 on days 2-4, 5,000 on days 5-10, then full list. Once Brevo’s deliverability is steady (check Postmaster Tools at postmaster.google.com), update your website signup forms to post to Brevo’s endpoint, pause Mailchimp automations, and cancel the Mailchimp subscription. We recommend keeping Mailchimp on the free plan for 30 days as a fallback in case any integration was missed.

Timing your switch

Choose your migration week deliberately. The worst time to migrate is the week of a major campaign (product launch, Black Friday, Christmas sequence). A good rule: pick a 2-week window where you only have routine broadcasts going out, so if anything breaks you have time to fix it before it matters. The best months for a stress-free migration are January (post-holiday lull), late spring, or the first half of November (after the busiest e-commerce cycles end). Avoid migrating in the week before a big sale — even a small deliverability dip during warm-up can cost real revenue during peak season, and reverting a half-completed migration is significantly more painful than waiting two weeks to start. The calmest possible window is the week after a quarterly review, when active campaigns are paused anyway.

Common gotchas when you migrate Mailchimp to Brevo

Three failure patterns we have seen most often:

• Tag explosion — Mailchimp accounts that have accumulated 50+ tags create a messy Brevo import. Consolidate to under 10 tags before exporting; archive the rest.
• Signup form drift — embedded Mailchimp forms keep collecting subscribers into Mailchimp after you “cut over”. Update every form on every site/page before pausing Mailchimp automations.
• Confirmation/double-opt-in mismatch — if Mailchimp used double opt-in and Brevo defaults to single opt-in (or vice versa), some imported subscribers may need re-confirmation. Match the settings before importing to avoid this.

Should you migrate Mailchimp to Brevo? Verdict by use case

Yes, migrate Mailchimp to Brevo if: your monthly Mailchimp bill is over $50, you want transactional + marketing on one plan, you have a list growing past 5,000 contacts, or your audience is mostly inactive (Brevo charges per send so dead contacts are free to keep). For a side-by-side product breakdown, our Brevo Review 2026 covers the full feature set.

Stay on Mailchimp if: you are deeply embedded in the Mailchimp ecosystem (CRM, Mailchimp Sites, postcards), you send under 1,000 emails/month and the free tier covers you, or your team has invested heavily in learning Mailchimp’s specific automation UI and migration would slow campaigns mid-quarter.

Consider other alternatives first if: your needs are creator-focused (Kit is stronger for newsletter writers — see our 7 Best Mailchimp Alternatives in 2026) or e-commerce-heavy (Klaviyo dominates Shopify; check our Best Email Marketing for Shopify 2026).

FAQ: migrate Mailchimp to Brevo

How long does it take to migrate Mailchimp to Brevo?

For a list under 10,000 contacts with 2-3 active automations, plan on 2-4 hours of focused work plus 7-10 days of warm-up sending before you fully cut over. Larger lists with complex Journeys can take a full week of build-and-test. The actual contact-import step is fast (under 30 minutes); rebuilding automations is the bottleneck.

Will I lose subscribers when I migrate Mailchimp to Brevo?

No — Brevo imports every CSV row you give it, including subscribed, unsubscribed, and cleaned. The only “loss” risk comes from forgetting to import the unsubscribed CSV (which would let you re-email people who opted out — a CAN-SPAM violation). Always import suppression lists alongside the active subscriber list.

Can I import Mailchimp automations directly into Brevo?

No. There is no automation-import path between Mailchimp and Brevo (or any other ESP). You have to rebuild each Journey/Automation manually in Brevo’s automation builder. The good news: most accounts have 3-5 active automations, not 30, so the rebuild is manageable.

Will my deliverability drop when I migrate Mailchimp to Brevo?

Temporarily, yes — any ESP change creates a deliverability dip until your domain reputation rebuilds on the new sending infrastructure. The 7-10 day warm-up cadence above limits the dip to single-digit percentage points and the recovery is typically complete within 30 days. Brevo’s long-term inbox rate (~88% in 2026) is actually higher than Mailchimp’s (~83%), so you usually end up better off.

Is the migration reversible?

Yes. Keep your Mailchimp account on the free tier for 30 days after cut-over. If something goes badly, you can re-import the Brevo contact list back into Mailchimp (Brevo exports the same way) and resume sending. We have never had to do this, but the safety net is worth the $0 of free-tier cost.

Our verdict: migrate Mailchimp to Brevo for the 2026 economics

For 80% of Mailchimp users with growing lists, the decision to migrate Mailchimp to Brevo is straightforward: same feature depth, better deliverability, lower bill, transactional email included. The 20% who should stay on Mailchimp are deep ecosystem users (Mailchimp Sites, postcards, CRM) and the very small senders for whom the Mailchimp free tier still works. If your bill has crossed $50/month, do the 4-hour migration this quarter — the annualized savings usually exceed $500 even for modest-sized lists. For most growing senders, the call to switch from Mailchimp to Brevo makes itself.

Want the full ESP-by-ESP comparison? See our MailerLite vs Mailchimp 2026 for one more alternative angle.

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