Brevo vs MailerLite for newsletters and automation

Quick answer: Brevo and MailerLite can both serve a newsletter, but choose the plan from your active audience, monthly sends, busiest day and automation shape. Brevo Free stores a much larger list but allows only 300 sends per day; MailerLite’s current Free plan has a much smaller active-subscriber ceiling but a monthly send allowance. On paid plans, Brevo’s selected send tier also sets contact capacity, while MailerLite’s Comfort send allowance follows its subscriber tier. Neither has a price winner without the same configured quote. Brevo plans · MailerLite Free update · MailerLite pricing

Current Free-plan limit: MailerLite changed its Free plan on June 16, 2026. The current documentation says 250 active subscribers, 2,500 monthly sends and three active automations. Older comparisons that cite 500 free subscribers or 12,000 monthly sends describe an earlier state. Verify the plan shown for your account, especially if you use MailerLite Classic. MailerLite’s update FAQ

Start with three newsletter calendars

For each case below, the new automation entrants are already included in the stated active-subscriber count; the audience count stays fixed during the modeled month. Assume every broadcast reaches that full audience and each eligible entrant receives every modeled automation message. These inputs let you calculate a plan gate; they do not predict opens, delivery, growth or price. If the entrants are additional subscribers in your real account, increase the audience count and recheck the tier before using the table. Add tests, resends and any other messages from your real schedule. Our monthly email-send worksheet can help if your broadcasts use different segments.

One more full-audience broadcast adds 200, 1,000 or 5,000 sends to A, B or C. One more email for every new entrant adds 50, 100 or 300. This sensitivity matters most when a plan appears to fit by a narrow margin. A business with a seasonal fifth newsletter should model the busiest plausible month instead of choosing solely from an average.

The largest single-day batch is a separate input. A 200-person broadcast can fit under Brevo Free’s 300-daily-send cap if that day has no other sends pushing it over. A 1,000-person same-day broadcast cannot. Spreading a single announcement over several days might be acceptable for an ordinary digest but unsuitable for a time-sensitive offer. Do not use a monthly total alone to decide that Brevo Free works.

What the capacity rules do to each case

Brevo’s plan guide says Free permits 300 daily sends and storage for up to 100,000 contacts. Its early paid Starter and Standard tiers pair 5,000 sends with 500 stored contacts, 10,000 with 1,500, and 15,000 with 2,500. Higher send tiers raise storage capacity, but the exact selectable tier and price must be checked in the current plan picker. The first three paid contact caps can trigger an automatic move to the next tier when reached, increasing the subscription cost. A large stored list is therefore not an unlimited free sending right, and a small paid send count is not an unlimited storage right.

MailerLite’s current Free FAQ gives 250 active subscribers, 2,500 monthly sends, three active automations and restrictions when its limits are exceeded. Its automation page sets the Free flow at up to five steps. The current paid Comfort plan’s monthly send allowance is 10 times the upper bound of the selected subscriber tier; Power advertises unlimited monthly sends subject to fair use. The selected subscriber tier and workflow rights still matter even when the simple arithmetic passes.

Case A needs particular care. Its 900 monthly total is below MailerLite Free’s documented 2,500, and Brevo does not state that same monthly metric for Free in the cited plan guide. If four 200-person broadcasts occur on separate days with light automation traffic, Brevo’s daily constraint may be workable; if a broadcast and enough automated messages coincide, it may not. Sketch the day-by-day calendar rather than treating the arithmetic as a guarantee. MailerLite’s subscriber ceiling is also an active count, not an invitation to leave contacts misclassified.

Case B shows why plan labels alone mislead. The modeled Brevo 5,000-send tier looks large enough for 4,300 sends, but it cannot store 1,000 contacts. MailerLite Free cannot hold the audience even though 4,300 would already exceed its send allowance too. Both services need a paid configuration, and neither public starting banner gives the actual price for that configuration. Case C increases the need for a live quote: Brevo’s exact higher send tier and MailerLite’s 5,000-subscriber tier must be selected in the same market and billing term before making a cost comparison.

Count the audience before it changes the bill

Brevo’s relevant paid capacity is stored contacts, including records retained in the account beyond the active newsletter segment. If you keep customer and prospect records for other workflows, count them even when only a portion receives each broadcast. At the first three paid tier boundaries, Brevo’s help page describes warning notices and automatic tier upgrades once the contact limit is reached or exceeded. A 1,000-contact case close to 1,500 stored records has less room for growth than the broadcast list alone suggests.

MailerLite’s billing FAQ centers on active subscribers. Unsubscribed and bounced contacts are not counted as active, but an address that was active during the billing cycle can remain in that cycle’s count until it resets. Paid subscriber tiers may rise automatically when active count grows. Record the live account’s count before forecasting a bill, and rerun the quote if a signup drive might cross the selected tier’s upper bound. Removing a contact from a mailing segment and changing its billing state are not the same operation.

Neither definition is intrinsically better for every newsletter. Brevo may be attractive to an operator storing a broad contact database but sending comparatively few campaigns once the applicable storage cap is met. MailerLite may be straightforward for an operator whose active subscriber count is stable and whose broadcasts fit its tier multiple. Both assessments change if the business keeps more records, sends more often or crosses a plan boundary. An honest purchase comparison uses the count each provider would actually apply, not a convenient common number that one of them does not bill on.

Choose by the automation you need to build

Case A’s two-message sequence could be simple, but the number of emails is not the whole workflow. A trigger, delay, condition and exit may occupy steps too. On MailerLite Free, a flow can have up to five steps, with three active automations. Comfort lists 50 active automations and 100 steps; Power lists unlimited active automations with 100 steps per flow in its current feature FAQ. Before choosing a plan, draw the entry trigger, each action and any branch; then recreate the sketch in the current builder to see how its limits apply.

MailerLite’s trigger guide places multiple triggers on Power, while ecommerce triggers rely on a supported store integration or API. If a newsletter should start the same flow after either a form signup or a purchase, the plan and integration may matter more than its three-message length. Do not assume a marketing page’s automation badge means every trigger type is available on Free or Comfort.

Brevo’s plan guide documents automation on Free, with a 2,000-contact allowance; Standard removes that automation-contact cap. In A, only 50 new people are modeled as entrants; in C, 300. These counts alone are below 2,000, but other active flows or a one-time backfill of the existing audience can change the unique-entrant requirement. Count people entering active automations separately from messages those people receive and from all contacts stored.

For the operator, an editor matters because somebody must revise a subject, fix a broken link and inspect a sequence before each launch. EmailTooltester reports preferring MailerLite’s editor in its own campaign use and sees Brevo as broader in CRM-related tools. Treat that as a prompt for a short working trial: create the same newsletter and the same welcome branch on both. The reviewer’s preference cannot substitute for your team’s task, and an editor advantage is irrelevant if the selected tier cannot hold the list.

Forms, landing pages and transactional mail

A newsletter typically needs a signup route and a place to manage the audience. In the trial, build the actual form or landing-page path you intend to publish, then check its plan rights, consent wording and destination list. Do not buy a tier simply because its product grid lists “forms” or “landing pages”; the needed templates, number of pages and approval steps may differ. On Brevo, the Standard plan lists one landing page. If the business already has a working website form, that entitlement may not justify an upgrade by itself.

If the same business sends order confirmations, invoices or password resets, separate that requirement from the newsletter’s campaign count. MailerLite’s pricing page points transactional email to MailerSend, a separate product with its own evaluation. Brevo’s platform also covers transactional messaging in its plan documentation, but the route, sender setup and allowance need their own check. A newsletter comparison should not quietly treat two marketing-plan quotes as a complete transactional-email comparison. If WordPress is involved, the Brevo transactional setup guide addresses that separate path.

Compare the same purchase, then make the call

The public pages do not establish a dollar winner for A, B or C. For each service, choose the required audience tier, sending allowance, automation rights and any extra seats or features, then capture the US monthly checkout for the same period. Note currency, taxes, trial or promotion length, annual prepayment and the renewal amount. Brevo’s low starting plan price does not quote a 5,000-contact workload; MailerLite’s starting rate does not quote the selected 5,000-subscriber Comfort tier. Promotional rates and unlike billing terms are not comparable recurring costs.

Make one short decision sheet with the actual subscriber/stored-contact count, planned sends, busiest day, flow steps and triggers, and configured total. In A, both Free configurations deserve a workflow and calendar check before paying. In B, price the paid configurations that actually hold 1,000 people. In C, prioritize the exact higher Brevo send tier and MailerLite subscriber tier before judging cost. A team that also sells creator products may want the distinct Brevo–Kit comparison; a team rebuilding a five-email welcome journey against Mailchimp may find the MailerLite–Mailchimp workflow guide more specific. For this newsletter choice, the right next step is to quote and build the same calendar and flow on both platforms.