Migrate Mailchimp to Brevo Without Losing Automations

The trigger I see most often: a Mailchimp invoice lands, the contact count just crossed 500 (or 5,000, or 50,000), and whoever owns email marketing does the math and realizes they are paying for a list, not for sends. Or the EU data residency question surfaces in a compliance review and Mailchimp’s US-based infrastructure becomes a blocker overnight. Either way, the exit decision gets made fast. Then the migration gets botched because everyone underestimates what “export and re-import” actually breaks.

I’ve helped several B2B SaaS teams make this move. The list and contact import is the easy 20 percent. Automations, segments, sender reputation, and DNS are the other 80.

Before You Migrate: The Prep Checklist

Rushing the export phase is where I see teams lose segment data they can never fully reconstruct. Before you touch Brevo, lock down everything on the Mailchimp side.

Here is what to pull before you cancel or downgrade your Mailchimp account:

• Full audience export (CSV, all fields) for every audience in your account, not just the primary one
• Segment definitions, documented in a spreadsheet: every filter condition, logic operator, and tag combination that defines each segment
• Active automation maps: screenshot or document every active journey, trigger, wait step, condition branch, and email template. Do not rely on memory.
• All email templates as HTML files (Mailchimp lets you export HTML from the template editor)
• Suppression/unsubscribe list as a separate CSV so you do not accidentally re-mail opted-out contacts on Brevo
• Current DNS records: your existing SPF, DKIM, and DMARC settings from your domain registrar or DNS provider
• Sender reputation baseline: note your last 30-day open rate and bounce rate in Mailchimp so you have a benchmark to compare against post-migration
• Any active A/B tests: pause or complete them before migrating so you have clean data

One thing I always tell clients: do not cancel Mailchimp until you have sent at least two full campaigns from Brevo with healthy deliverability metrics. You will want to cross-reference open rates for the same segments across both platforms during the overlap period.

What Breaks (and What Does Not Transfer)

I want to be direct here because a lot of migration guides gloss over this: almost nothing in Mailchimp’s automation layer maps cleanly to Brevo. The contact data moves. The logic does not.

Mailchimp --> Brevo mapping reference

Audience         --> Contact List
Segment          --> List (imported) or
                     Filter (dynamic)
Tag              --> Contact Attribute
                     (or List membership)
Group            --> Contact Attribute
Merge Tag        --> Contact Attribute
Customer Journey --> Automation Workflow
Classic Automat. --> Automation Workflow
Signup Form      --> Brevo Form or API
Content Studio   --> Files (manual upload)
Multivariate     --> A/B test (limited)

What does NOT transfer:
- Journey trigger logic
- Behavioral activity data
- Historical campaign stats
- Mailchimp-native integrations
  (Shopify, WooCommerce must
   be reconnected via Brevo's
   own native integrations)

The historical campaign stats loss is the one that stings most in practice. Your engagement data, open history, click history: all of it lives in Mailchimp’s database and does not export in a way you can import into Brevo’s engagement tracking. You are starting fresh on behavioral data. This is exactly why I recommend running both platforms in parallel for at least one send cycle before cutting over fully. The teams who skip that overlap period are the ones who call me two weeks later wondering why their re-engagement sequence stopped firing.

Verify It Worked

Before you call the migration done, run through these four checks:

1. DNS authentication green: In Brevo under Senders and Domains, confirm DKIM status shows “Authenticated” and your DMARC record is passing. Tools like MXToolbox DMARC lookup give you an independent confirmation.
2. Unsubscribes are suppressed: Send a test import of five known unsubscribed emails and confirm Brevo shows them as “Unsubscribed” in contact status, not as active contacts.
3. Automation fires on a seed contact: Add a test email address to the trigger list or attribute for each automation and confirm it receives the correct email in the correct sequence order.
4. All inbound pipes confirmed: Check your CRM (HubSpot, Pipedrive, Salesforce, whatever you run), your website forms, and any automation tools writing contacts. Confirm zero new contacts are landing in Mailchimp after your cutover date.

Alternatives Worth Considering Before You Commit

Brevo is the right call for most Mailchimp exits, but not all of them. Here is the honest breakdown:

Which Mailchimp replacement fits your team?

Choose Brevo if

• You need EU data residency for GDPR compliance
• Your list is large but your send volume is moderate (free or Starter tier math works in your favor)
• You want a full marketing suite (email, SMS, CRM, forms) under one roof without enterprise pricing

Free up to 300/day; Starter from $9/mo Try Brevo →

Choose ActiveCampaign if

• Your Mailchimp automations are complex multi-branch journeys that need a real visual builder
• You need CRM-grade contact scoring and deal tracking alongside email
• You are willing to pay more for the most powerful automation layer in the mid-market

Lite from $15/mo (1,000 contacts) Try ActiveCampaign →

Choose GetResponse if

• You run webinars or courses and want email plus webinar hosting in one platform
• You want a Mailchimp-like UX with better automation at a similar price point
• Your list is under 5,000 contacts and you want a free plan with autoresponders included

Free up to 500 contacts; Email from $15.6/mo Try GetResponse →

Choose Loops if

• You are a SaaS product team sending transactional and lifecycle emails to product users
• You want event-triggered emails driven by your app data rather than list-based marketing
• Mailchimp always felt like the wrong tool for product email and you want a clean break

Free up to 2,000 contacts; from $49/mo Try Loops →

If you are running cold outbound email infrastructure, that is a separate category entirely. The tools above are for opted-in list email. For outbound sequencing, cold email deliverability has its own set of infrastructure requirements that Brevo and Mailchimp are both the wrong tool for.

Make the Switch With Eyes Open

Migrating from Mailchimp to Brevo is worth it for most teams at the contact-to-price break-even point or with EU compliance requirements. The free tier advantage is real. Unlimited contacts versus Mailchimp’s 500-contact wall is not a minor pricing quirk for a growing list; it is a structural cost difference that compounds fast. But go in knowing that your automations are a rebuild project, not a migration. Budget the time, document before you export, warm your sender reputation properly, and run both platforms in parallel long enough to validate deliverability. According to Brevo’s own contact import documentation, unsubscribe handling alone requires deliberate steps most guides skip entirely. The two-week disciplined approach beats the one-weekend scramble every single time.