How to Migrate from Mailchimp to Brevo

Why Migrate from Mailchimp to Brevo?

Mailchimp is owned by Intuit, a US company subject to the CLOUD Act. Your subscriber list — including potentially sensitive personal data of EU residents — sits on US servers. For European businesses, this creates ongoing GDPR compliance friction: Standard Contractual Clauses, Transfer Impact Assessments, and the always-present risk of regulatory action against US transfers.

Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is a French email marketing platform headquartered in Paris with EU data residency by default. It handles transactional email, marketing campaigns, SMS, WhatsApp messaging, and basic CRM in one platform. Pricing is meaningfully cheaper than Mailchimp at scale, the free tier is generous (9,000 emails/month, unlimited contacts), and the GDPR posture is clean by architecture rather than by patch.

For French and European-focused businesses specifically, Brevo’s regional coverage (DSN bounces, local language support, EU compliance) is stronger than Mailchimp’s.

Detailed Migration Steps

Step 1: Create Your Brevo Account

Sign up at brevo.com. The free tier requires no credit card and gives you 9,000 emails/month. Verify your email and complete the sender authentication setup:

1. Add your sending domain in Senders & IP > Domains
2. Brevo provides SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records to add to your DNS
3. Wait for verification (typically 15-60 minutes)
4. Confirm your domain shows “Authenticated”

Skipping authentication is the #1 cause of poor deliverability after migration — don’t.

Step 2: Export Your Mailchimp Data

In Mailchimp:

1. Go to Audience > All Contacts
2. Click Export Audience (top right)
3. Select all data fields, including merge tags and consent timestamps
4. Download the CSV file

Repeat for each audience. Also export:

• Tags and segments (for re-creation in Brevo)
• Templates (download HTML for each frequently-used template)
• List of active automations (screenshot the journey builder for reference)

Step 3: Import Contacts into Brevo

In Brevo:

1. Go to Contacts > Import Contacts
2. Upload your CSV file
3. Map fields — pay particular attention to:
   • Email (required)
   • Subscription consent timestamp (preserve this for GDPR audit trail)
   • Custom fields and merge tags
4. Choose “Add to a list” and create lists matching your Mailchimp audiences

Brevo automatically deduplicates by email address. Custom fields can be created on-the-fly during import.

Step 4: Recreate Templates

Brevo’s drag-and-drop editor is similar to Mailchimp’s but not identical. For each frequently-used template:

1. Open Brevo’s Templates > Create Template
2. Either rebuild in the visual editor or paste HTML from your Mailchimp export
3. Test rendering across email clients using Brevo’s preview tool

Pro tip: simpler templates migrate cleanly. Complex Mailchimp blocks (like Product Recommendations or RSS-driven content) need rebuilding from scratch.

Step 5: Recreate Automations

Mailchimp Customer Journeys → Brevo Automations. The mental model is the same; the UI is different:

1. Go to Automations > Create Automation
2. Choose a trigger (subscriber added, anniversary, custom event, etc.)
3. Build the flow with delays, conditions, and email/SMS actions
4. Activate when ready

Common patterns to recreate:

• Welcome series → New subscriber automation
• Abandoned cart → E-commerce trigger automation
• Re-engagement → Inactivity-based automation
• Birthday/anniversary → Date-based automation

Step 6: Update API Integrations

If your application sends transactional emails or syncs contacts via API:

// OLD: Mailchimp
const mailchimp = require('@mailchimp/mailchimp_marketing');

// NEW: Brevo
const SibApiV3Sdk = require('sib-api-v3-sdk');

Brevo’s API documentation is at developers.brevo.com. Most Mailchimp endpoints have direct equivalents in Brevo. Endpoints with no direct match (like Mailchimp’s recommendation engine) require redesign.

Step 7: Send a Test Campaign

Before full cutover:

1. Create a small test list (5-10 internal addresses across Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, ProtonMail)
2. Send a representative campaign through Brevo
3. Check rendering, links, unsubscribe flow, and inbox placement
4. Use mail-tester.com to score deliverability

Aim for 9/10+ on Mail Tester before full cutover. Issues here usually point to authentication problems from Step 1.

Step 8: Cancel Mailchimp

Run both platforms in parallel for 2-4 weeks. During this period:

1. Send all new campaigns through Brevo
2. Keep Mailchimp active for any in-flight automations to complete
3. Monitor deliverability, list growth, and unsubscribe rates in Brevo

After the parallel period:

1. Verify all critical automations have run their full cycle in Brevo
2. Cancel Mailchimp subscription
3. Update DNS records: remove Mailchimp’s DKIM if present
4. Archive Mailchimp account for legal record-keeping

Tips for a Smooth Migration

• Don’t migrate your entire list to a single Brevo list. Recreate the segmentation structure you had in Mailchimp — it’ll preserve your engagement data hygiene
• Re-confirm consent for older list segments. This is a good moment for a re-engagement campaign before fully migrating
• Use Brevo’s automation library. They have pre-built workflows that often beat the equivalent Mailchimp Customer Journeys in flexibility
• For e-commerce: Brevo’s WooCommerce, Shopify, and PrestaShop integrations are stronger than Mailchimp’s for European stores
• Consider Brevo’s SMS and WhatsApp channels. These are first-class in Brevo (paid add-ons), useful for European customers who prefer non-email channels
• Set up Brevo’s API webhook for hard bounces and unsubscribes to keep your application database in sync
• EU data residency is on by default for new Brevo accounts. No additional configuration needed for GDPR compliance.