These two cannot be compared on price alone, because they do not charge for the same thing. MailerLite bills on subscribers stored; Brevo bills on emails sent and gives every plan unlimited contacts. Which is cheaper depends entirely on how often you mail your list — and the crossover is sharper than most comparisons admit.
Both vendors’ pricing pages were read on 8 August 2026 in the USD view, on monthly billing. Neither product was tested hands-on, so nothing here is a performance claim — the page compares published terms and the arithmetic that follows from them, and names no overall winner.
The Short Version
If you have a large list you mail rarely, Brevo will be dramatically cheaper — it does not care how many contacts you store. If you have a small list you mail often, MailerLite will usually win, because Brevo starts metering the thing you do most. Read each in full in our MailerLite review and Brevo review.
Free Plans Compared
| MailerLite Free | Brevo Free | |
|---|---|---|
| Contacts | 250 | Unlimited |
| Sending | 2,500 emails/month | 300 emails/day (about 9,000/month) |
| Daily ceiling | None stated | 300 — you cannot blast a large list at once |
| Automations | 3, capped at 5 steps each | Included |
| Landing pages | 1 | Included |
| Websites | 1 | — |
| User seats | 2 | Included |
| Before first send | Account review | Account approval required |
| Branding removal | No | No |
On paper Brevo’s free tier is far larger — unlimited contacts and roughly three and a half times the monthly send allowance. The catch is the shape of that allowance. Brevo’s 300 emails a day cannot be pooled: a 5,000-contact list cannot be mailed in one go on the free plan at all, no matter how few emails you send the rest of the month. MailerLite’s 2,500 a month can be spent however you like, but only across 250 contacts.
Paid Pricing, Matched by Workload
Because the billing bases differ, a like-for-like table has to fix the workload rather than the plan. Below, each row assumes a list size and a sending frequency, then shows the cheapest plan on each platform that covers it.
| Workload | Emails/month | Cheapest MailerLite | Cheapest Brevo | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 contacts, mailed weekly | ~4,000 | Comfort $19 | Starter $9 | Brevo |
| 5,000 contacts, mailed monthly | ~5,000 | Comfort $49 | Starter $9 | Brevo, by a wide margin |
| 10,000 contacts, mailed monthly | ~10,000 | Comfort $89 | Standard $18 | Brevo, by a wide margin |
| 500 contacts, mailed daily | ~15,000 | Power $25 (unlimited sends) | Standard $18 | Brevo, narrowly |
| 250 contacts, mailed twice weekly | ~2,000 | Free $0 | Free $0 | Tie — both free |
The pattern is consistent and worth stating plainly: contact-based pricing punishes list size, send-based pricing punishes send frequency. MailerLite charges $89/month to store 10,000 subscribers whether you mail them or not. Brevo stores them for nothing and charges only when you press send.
Where MailerLite Wins Anyway
Price is not the only axis. MailerLite bundles a website builder, landing pages, digital product sales and appointment bookings into every tier including Free, and takes no commission on sales beyond Stripe’s own fee. Brevo is a messaging platform with a broader channel mix — email, SMS, chat, CRM — rather than a place to host and sell. If you want one subscription to run a small creator business, MailerLite covers more of it.
MailerLite’s pricing is also easier to forecast. You know your subscriber count; predicting your annual send volume before you have sent anything is harder, and Brevo’s tiers step in ways that are not obvious until you cross one.
Where Brevo Wins Outright
Any list that is large relative to how often it is mailed. Seasonal senders, event organisers, membership bodies, anyone with a big dormant database — Brevo stores all of it for free and charges only for activity. It is also the only platform in this category whose pricing page opens on the real monthly rate. Kit, MailerLite and Omnisend all default to a discounted view, so the first number you see is not what you would pay monthly. Brevo shows the monthly price and puts the annual saving beside it.
The Number That Actually Decides It
Divide your monthly send volume by your contact count. If the answer is below about four — you mail your list less than once a week — Brevo is almost certainly cheaper, and the gap widens with list size. Above four, MailerLite’s flat per-subscriber pricing starts to win, and above roughly ten it wins comfortably. That ratio, not the headline price, is the decision.
Verdict
No overall winner, because they are priced for different behaviours. Brevo is the better economics for storing an audience; MailerLite is the better economics for working one, and the better product if you also want to build pages and sell things. Anyone comparing only the entry prices — $9 against $12 — is comparing two numbers that do not measure the same thing.
Disclosure
RightToolHQ’s affiliate application with MailerLite is pending approval, and RightToolHQ has no affiliate relationship with Brevo at the time of writing. This page contains no affiliate links. If that status changes, this notice will be updated and any affiliate link clearly marked. See our editorial policy and affiliate disclosure.