Brevo, formerly Sendinblue, bundles email marketing, SMS, transactional email, a basic CRM and automation. Its defining commercial decision is charging for emails sent rather than contacts stored, which inverts the economics for any business holding a large list it emails occasionally.
Brevo ranking and coverage
- In Marketing
- #4 of 14
- Overall
- #37 of 122 tied
- Terms score
- 6.5 /10
- Referenced here
- 3 pages
Cost position 8.5 · Portability 5 · Subscription flexibility 6 - Ranked on published terms only: entry price against category peers, portability and subscription flexibility, equally weighted. This is not a quality score.How the rank is calculated.
Brevo: the short answer
Every line below is drawn from facts verified on 19 August 2026.
- What it is
- Priced on sends, not contacts, which changes everything for large lists
- Best for
- Businesses with large lists emailed infrequently
- Starts at
- Free forever plan; Starter from $9/month ($8 billed annually)
- Free option
- Free plan available, no trial
- Biggest strength
- Send-based pricing with unlimited contact storage
- Biggest drawback
- Template quality and editor are behind the leaders
- Based on
- Primary-source research, not hands-on use
- Closest alternative
- MailerLite - Cleaner product and better templates, priced on contacts
- True annual cost
- from $108 a year on Starter, the cheapest paid tier ($9 a month)
Brevo at a glance
| Best for | Businesses with large lists emailed infrequently, Teams wanting marketing and transactional email from one provider, Companies needing email and SMS without a second vendor |
|---|---|
| Category | Marketing, Sales, Ecommerce |
| Starting price | Free forever plan; Starter from $9/month ($8 billed annually) |
| Free plan | Yes |
| Free trial | No trial offered |
| Pricing model | subscription |
| Company | Brevo (formerly Sendinblue SAS) |
| Founded | 2012 |
| Headquarters | Paris, France |
| Founders | Armand Thiberge, Kapil Sharma |
| Platforms | Web, iOS, Android |
| Public API | Yes |
| Browser extension | No |
| Mobile apps | iOS + Android |
| Self-hosting | No |
| Affiliate programme | Affiliate programme advertised; rates vary by region |
| Data source | Vendor pricing page and public records |
| Last checked | August 2026 |
Brevo pricing
Prices below were read from the vendor's own pricing page on 19 August 2026. Pricing model: subscription. No free trial is offered.
| Plan | Price | Billing | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | per month | Unlimited contacts, 300 emails per day, Brevo branding |
| Starter | $9 | per month | $8 billed annually. From 5,000 emails per month, branding removable |
| Business | $18 | per month | $16 billed annually. Adds A/B testing, automation and multi-user access |
| Professional | $499 | per month | $449 billed annually. Higher volumes and advanced capabilities |
| Enterprise | Custom | Negotiated | - |
What Brevo actually costs over a year
A monthly price is not the same thing as a monthly contract. These are the plans above resolved both ways, per seat or unit where the plan is charged that way. Where a vendor quotes only a yearly figure it is divided by twelve rather than left out, and the Quoted column says which figure the vendor actually publishes.
| Plan | Quoted | Monthly | Over 12 months |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | per month | $9 | $108 |
| Business | per month | $18 | $216 |
| Professional | per month | $499 | $5,988 |
Which Brevo plan should you buy?
| Your situation | Recommended | Why |
|---|---|---|
| You have a large list you email infrequently | Free | Unlimited contacts and 300 emails a day. Because Brevo charges on sends rather than contacts, this suits big dormant lists better than any competitor. |
| You need Brevo branding removed | Starter | $9 a month, from 5,000 emails. The branding is the main reason to leave Free. |
| You need automation, A/B testing and several users | Business | $18 a month, and the tier where Brevo becomes a marketing tool rather than a sender. |
| You need marketing and transactional email from one vendor | Starter or Business | Both cover transactional sending, which avoids paying a second provider. |
| You email a small list very frequently | Consider MailerLite instead | Send-based pricing works against you here; contact-based pricing will be cheaper. |
Verdict by who you are
Business with a large, rarely emailed listYes
Charging by sends rather than contacts is the cheapest structure available for this shape, by a wide margin.
Team needing marketing plus transactional emailYes
One vendor for both, which removes a whole integration and a second bill.
Ecommerce brand wanting revenue attributionNo
Klaviyo or Omnisend model product and order data far better.
Designer-led brandCompare first
Templates and design tooling are weaker than MailerLite's. Judge on the editor first.
Should you buy Brevo?
Buy Brevo if…
- Businesses with large lists emailed infrequently
- Teams wanting marketing and transactional email from one provider
- Companies needing email and SMS without a second vendor
Do not buy Brevo if…
- Brands needing deep ecommerce revenue attribution
- Teams who care about template polish and design tooling
- Businesses emailing a small list very frequently
Key features
- Pricing based on emails sent rather than contacts stored
- Unlimited contact storage on every plan, including free
- Transactional email and SMTP relay in the same account
- SMS and WhatsApp campaigns
- Automation workflows with behavioural triggers
- Built-in CRM with deal pipelines
- Landing pages and signup forms
- Live chat and shared inbox as adjacent products
Integrations
- Shopify and WooCommerce
- WordPress
- Salesforce and HubSpot
- Zapier and Make
- Brevo REST API and SMTP
Brevo screenshots
Captured by us in August 2026 at 1440px, unedited. Interfaces change, so these show the product as it looked on the date we verified this profile. Pricing pages are captured from a US vantage point, so the currency shown matches the USD figures recorded above.
Our assessment
Brevo is the correct answer to a specific question: what if my list is large but I do not email it often? Because it charges on sends and stores contacts free, a business with 80,000 subscribers emailing monthly pays a fraction of what a contact-priced platform would charge. Bundling transactional email, SMS and a light CRM removes further vendors. The trade-offs are in the experience rather than the capability: templates and the builder are behind MailerLite and Mailchimp, the interface shows its many acquisitions, and shared-IP deliverability varies more than on the premium platforms.
What works in Brevo
- Send-based pricing with unlimited contact storage
- Transactional email and SMTP included in the same account
- SMS and WhatsApp without adding a provider
- Free plan allows unlimited contacts at 300 emails per day
What doesn't
- Template quality and editor are behind the leaders
- Interface feels assembled from several products
- Shared-IP deliverability is less consistent than premium rivals
- Professional tier jumps sharply to $499 per month
EveryAny Decision Score
3 of these 8 dimensions are calculated from verified facts; the rest are our judgement, shown as a band rather than a figure unless something specific sits behind them. How each score works.
- Cost position8.5/10
derivedentry tier at $9 a month against a category median of $20 a month across 13 comparable tools
- Portability5/10
derivedpublic API
- Subscription flexibility6/10
derivedfree plan, subscription, monthly billing
- Feature depthHigh
editorialour judgement, with no measurement behind it
- Ease of learningHigh
editorialour judgement, with no measurement behind it
- CollaborationModerate
editorialour judgement, with no measurement behind it
- AI capabilityModerate
editorialour judgement, with no measurement behind it
- Professional adoptionHigh
editorialour judgement, with no measurement behind it
What leaving Brevo would cost
moderate lock-in
Brevo scores on public API. Portability 5/10 ; lock-in is the inverse. How this is calculated.
Brevo competitors and alternatives
| Alternative | Why you might pick it instead |
|---|---|
| MailerLite | Cleaner product and better templates, priced on contacts. |
| Mailchimp | Wider integrations, and the most expensive of the three at scale. |
| Postmark or Resend | Better if you only need reliable transactional email. |
Mailchimp
Marketing
Email marketing and automation platform aimed at small and mid-sized businesses.
Checked Aug 2026
MailerLite
Marketing
The email tool most small businesses should buy instead of Mailchimp.
Checked Aug 2026
The pricing model is the product
This is the only thing you really need to understand about Brevo. Contact-priced platforms charge you for holding a subscriber whether or not you ever email them. Brevo charges for the sending.
Work through a realistic case. A business with 50,000 subscribers emailing once a month sends 50,000 emails. On a contact-priced platform, 50,000 contacts is an expensive tier regardless of frequency. On Brevo, it is a send volume. The comparison inverts entirely if you email that list three times a week, at which point contact pricing wins.
So the question is not which platform is cheaper. It is how often you send.
Unlimited contacts on the free plan
The free tier allows unlimited contact storage with a 300-emails-per-day cap. That is unusual and genuinely useful: you can import a large list, segment it, build automations and test everything, paying nothing until send volume requires it. Very few platforms let you do that.
Transactional and marketing in one place
Brevo includes SMTP relay and transactional email alongside campaigns. For a small business that currently pays one provider for newsletters and another for password resets and receipts, that is a vendor removed. Larger senders usually still prefer a dedicated transactional provider for reliability, but the option being present is worth something.
Where the experience disappoints
The editor and templates are the weakest part, and anyone moving from MailerLite will notice. The interface also reflects a product that grew by addition rather than design, so finding a setting is less obvious than it should be. Judge Brevo on economics and breadth, not on polish.
Brevo questions, answered
- Is Brevo worth it?
- Brevo is the correct answer to a specific question: what if my list is large but I do not email it often?
- How much does Brevo cost?
- Free forever plan; Starter from $9/month ($8 billed annually). The cheapest paid tier we recorded is Starter, published at $9 a month, which works out at $9 a month or $108 over a year. Verified against the vendor's pricing page.
- Does Brevo have a free plan or free trial?
- Brevo has a free plan. No free trial is offered.
- What is the best Brevo alternative?
- It depends on the job. MailerLite: Cleaner product and better templates, priced on contacts. Mailchimp: Wider integrations, and the most expensive of the three at scale. Postmark or Resend: Better if you only need reliable transactional email.
- Can I self-host Brevo?
- No. Brevo is a hosted service only, so your data lives on the vendor's infrastructure.
What this profile is based on
Every claim below is about our work, not about Brevo. A "no" is recorded rather than omitted, because the difference between a tested review and careful desk research is the reader's to weigh. How we research a profile.
-
Prices read from the vendor : yes
Read from Brevo's own pricing page on 19 August 2026
-
Plans and terms recorded : yes
5 rows, each with its billing period
-
Original screenshots : yes
2 captured by us: homepage, pricing page
-
Sources cited and dated : yes
1 primary source, each with the date it was read
-
Product used first-hand : no
Not tested. This profile is desk research from primary sources
-
Alternatives used first-hand : no
None, so comparisons here rest on published facts rather than use
-
Vendor contacted : no
Not contacted for this profile
Where Brevo appears on this site
3 other pages here reference Brevo. Every one is listed below, so the figure can be checked rather than taken.
- Buyer guide Best email marketing software in 2026, measured at your list size ranked #1
- Another profile Loops names it as a competitor
- Another profile MailerLite names it as a competitor
Counts pages on this site that name the product by choice - buyer guides, articles, deal records and other profiles. Category and directory indexes list everything automatically and are not counted.
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Provenance and freshness
When each fact was last checked
- Pricing ·
- Plans ·
- Free trial
- Features
- Platforms
- Integrations
- Affiliate programme
- Company details
What has changed
-
August 2026
- Prices re-read; Starter is $9 a month from 5,000 emails, Standard $18 from 150,000 emails, Enterprise $499
-
August 2026
- Pricing verified, including the daily send cap on the free plan
- Added plan picker and verdicts
Sources & verification
Facts on this page were read from the sources below on the dates shown. Where a vendor does not publish a figure, we record it as not disclosed rather than estimating it.
- Brevo pricing - checked 19 August 2026
Spotted something out of date? Email [email protected] and we will re-check it. Corrections are logged on the page.
