Brevo or Mailchimp for following up on inquiries?

For a small service business that wants to stay on a free plan, pick Brevo to follow up on inquiries. Mailchimp's Free plan cannot run an automation flow, and Brevo's free plan can.

Mailchimp is the better pick if you already use it or plan to pay. Every figure here comes from the vendor's own pages, read in October 2026. Prices and limits change, so check them again before you sign up.

What does an email tool need to follow up on an inquiry?#

Someone fills in the form on your site. You want them to get an email from you soon, without writing it by hand each time. Maybe a second one a few days later.

That takes three things from the tool:

1. A way to add the person from your form.
2. A way to sort people, so a Hot inquiry and a Cold one can get different emails.
3. An automation that starts when someone new is added and sends the email.

The third one is where the two free plans differ most. Without it, every follow-up is an email you write and send yourself.

What do the free plans allow?#

Sources, all read in October 2026:

• Mailchimp's plan comparison page lists automation flows as not included on Free.
• Mailchimp's pricing plans help page gives Free up to 250 contacts, 500 sends a month, a daily limit of 250, and one audience.
• Brevo's free plan limits page gives 300 email sends a day and up to 2,000 unique contacts in active automations.

Why does Brevo's free plan fit a follow-up better?#

A follow-up email only saves you time if it sends by itself. Brevo's free plan can do that. Mailchimp's Free plan cannot.

The numbers suit a business that gets a few inquiries a week. Three hundred emails a day is far more than a first reply needs. Two thousand people can enter your automations before the free plan stops letting more in.

That cap is the catch. After 2,000 unique contacts, Brevo's help says no more can enter. It points you to Standard, Professional, or Enterprise to let more in. Brevo's pricing plans page listed Standard from $18 a month in October 2026, with marketing automation for unlimited contacts.

How does each tool sort inquiries?#

The two tools sort people in different ways. That changes how you build the follow-up.

Mailchimp sorts with tags. Its audience help page recommends one main audience, organized with tags or segments. A flow can start on the trigger Tag added. Mailchimp's list of triggers says it adds a contact to the flow after you add a specific tag to them. So you make one tag for each kind of inquiry, and one flow for each tag.

Brevo sorts with lists. Its trigger Contact added to list lets a contact into an automation when they join a list you choose, as Brevo's triggers page explains. You can pick one list or several. Brevo's help says only people added after you turn the automation on are included.

Qualiform connects to both. In Mailchimp, each lead joins one audience with a tag for its priority, such as Qualiform Hot. In Brevo, each priority goes to a list you pick, or to Not sent. Only leads who say yes to OK to email them are added, and you start your automation on that tag or list.

When is Mailchimp the right choice?#

Brevo is not right for everyone. Pick Mailchimp in these cases:

1. Your contacts already live there. Moving contacts and rebuilding emails takes time. If you already pay Mailchimp, add the follow-up there.
2. You will pay anyway. Mailchimp's plan comparison page lists Essentials with flows of up to 4 steps, which suits a short follow-up. Its automation flows page listed Essentials at $13 a month and Standard at $20 a month in October 2026.
3. You want many flows. Standard and Premium allow up to 200 flows each.
4. You prefer one audience with tags. Mailchimp's own help recommends that setup.

One thing counts against Mailchimp on its Free plan. Its help says unsubscribed contacts still count toward your contact limit. With a limit of 250, that fills up faster than you might expect.

How do you know the follow-up works?#

Do not trust the setup until a real inquiry has gone through it. Mailchimp's pages do not say whether a contact tagged from another app starts a Tag added flow. Brevo's older help pages say contacts added from another app count. But Brevo's status page once recorded a problem, since fixed, where those contacts did not start the automation.

So run one test with your own email address:

1. Turn the automation on in Mailchimp or Brevo.
2. Fill in the form on your live site as a visitor, and say yes to emails.
3. Find yourself in the tool, with the right tag or list.
4. Check that the first email arrives in your inbox.

If you pick Brevo, the guide to building a Brevo automation when an inquiry joins a list walks through each step, ending with that test.