Brevo

What is Brevo?

Brevo is an email and SMS marketing platform that charges by the number of emails sent rather than contacts stored. Formerly Sendinblue, it rebranded to Brevo in 2023 and now serves more than 500,000 businesses worldwide as of 2025, according to the company. The send-based model makes Brevo dramatically cheaper for teams with large contact lists.

The platform covers email campaigns, native SMS and WhatsApp, marketing automation, a lightweight CRM, and a transactional messaging API. Brevo sits in the situational tier of the 80/20 of email marketing tools we cover. It is the budget pick when contact count drives competitors’ bills beyond reason.

How does Brevo work?

Brevo works by letting you store unlimited contacts for free and billing only for the emails you actually send. You build campaigns in a drag-and-drop editor, segment contacts, and trigger automations from behavior. SMS and WhatsApp campaigns run from the same platform, and a transactional API handles app-triggered messages like receipts.

Send-based pricing

The defining mechanic is pricing by sends, not contacts. Competitors like Mailchimp charge more as your list grows, even if you email it rarely. Brevo stores contacts free and charges per email volume. For a 50,000-contact list emailed monthly, this difference can cut the bill by more than half compared with contact-based pricing.

Email, SMS, and WhatsApp

Brevo combines email, SMS, and WhatsApp campaigns in one platform rather than three separate tools. You run a multichannel sequence — email first, SMS follow-up — from a single contact record. SMS is billed per message separately from email plans. This consolidation is a real advantage for teams that would otherwise pay for and integrate multiple providers.

Automation and transactional messaging

Brevo’s automation builder runs workflows triggered by behavior, signups, or dates, with segmentation to target the right contacts. The transactional API sends app-triggered messages — password resets, order confirmations — through the same platform as marketing email. Running both in one tool consolidates sender reputation and simplifies the stack, though the automation depth trails ActiveCampaign.

How does Brevo compare to Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign?

Brevo leads on price and multichannel sending. Mailchimp leads on brand recognition and template polish. ActiveCampaign leads on automation depth and CRM. The table below shows when Brevo’s send-based model wins.

Attribute	Brevo	Mailchimp	ActiveCampaign
Pricing basis	Emails sent	Contacts stored	Contacts + features
Free tier	Unlimited contacts, 300/day	500 contacts	None
Native SMS	Yes	No	No (add-on)
Automation depth	Moderate	Basic	Deepest
Built-in CRM	Lightweight	Limited	Strong
Starting price	$9/month	$13/month	$15/month
80/20 verdict	Pick for budget + big lists	Pick for simple sends	Pick for automation

“Brevo wins on a simple math problem — if you store a huge list but only email it now and then, paying by sends instead of contacts is the difference between a reasonable bill and a painful one,” said Marcus Reed, Go-to-Market Editor at tools8020.

Who uses Brevo in 2026?

Budget-conscious small businesses use Brevo to email large lists without the contact-based bill that competitors charge. Teams that need both email and SMS use Brevo to run multichannel campaigns from one platform. Small SaaS companies use the transactional API to send receipts and password resets alongside marketing email, consolidating two providers into one.

The common profile is a team where cost is a primary constraint and the list is large relative to send frequency. These users accept lighter automation and less polished templates in exchange for pricing that does not punish them for storing contacts. For complex workflows, they would choose ActiveCampaign instead.

When should you skip Brevo?

Brevo is the wrong choice in three scenarios. Use the listed alternative instead.

• You need deep branching automation. Use ActiveCampaign, whose visual builder handles conditions, goals, and lead scoring that Brevo’s automation does not match.
• You want the most polished templates and brand familiarity. Use Mailchimp, whose template library and editor are more refined and widely recognized.
• You run high-volume daily campaigns on the free tier. Brevo’s free plan caps at 300 emails per day. Large recurring blasts require a paid plan or a different tool.

How much does Brevo cost?

The free plan allows unlimited contacts and 300 emails per day. The Starter plan at $9 per month removes the daily cap and raises monthly send volume. Pricing scales by emails sent, and SMS is billed separately per message.

Plan	Price	Key inclusions
Free	$0	Unlimited contacts, 300 emails/day
Starter	from $9/month	Higher send volume, no daily limit, no logo
Business	Higher tier	Automation, A/B testing, advanced stats
Enterprise	Custom	SSO, dedicated IP, advanced support

Pricing verified at brevo.com/pricing on 2026-05-24. SMS and WhatsApp are charged per message on top of email plans — factor those costs in separately if multichannel sending is your reason for choosing Brevo.

How we evaluated Brevo

This review draws on Marcus Reed’s experience building email and multichannel marketing systems across small businesses, plus hands-on testing of Brevo’s send-based pricing, automation, and SMS against Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign on equivalent lists. We re-verify pricing every 90 days.

See our evaluation methodology for the full criteria. Brevo is a situational pick in the 80/20 of email marketing tools, and it fits the lean approach we describe in our stack for solo founders.