Brevo Review: Features, Pricing and Who It Suits Best

Brevo charges by emails sent, not contacts stored — so big lists stay cheap. Free sends 300 emails a day; Standard at $18 a month is the plan most buyers need.

By Galactic News Editorial · Published 2026-11-13T19:28:08+00:00 · Updated 2026-11-13T19:28:08+00:00

Brevo Review: Features, Pricing and Who It Suits Best

Brevo is the email platform formerly called Sendinblue. It charges by emails sent, not by contacts stored. That one choice makes it the cheapest serious option for large lists that email rarely. Its free plan sends 300 emails a day forever. Paid plans start at $9 a month. This review covers its features, its real pricing, and who it suits best, based on its official pricing page and help documentation.

What Brevo is

Brevo is an all-in-one marketing platform. It covers email campaigns, SMS, WhatsApp, live chat, a CRM, landing pages, and marketing automation. It also handles transactional email over API or SMTP on every plan. That combination is unusual. Most email tools sell marketing email only, and charge extra for transactional sending.

Brevo rebranded from Sendinblue in 2023. The product did not change with the name. It serves small businesses, ecommerce stores, agencies, and nonprofits. It is available in six languages. Its pricing model is its main selling point: contacts are unlimited on every plan, and you pay for the emails you send. A list of 100,000 contacts costs the same as a list of 1,000 contacts if you send the same number of emails.

That model flips the usual email pricing trap. Mailchimp charges by contacts stored, so a large list costs a lot even if you email it once a month. Brevo charges by volume sent, so a large list that hears from you rarely stays cheap. The trade-off is that heavy senders pay more as volume rises, and the price ladder is steep at the top.

Brevo review: pricing — free, Starter, Standard, Professional, Enterprise

Brevo has five tiers. The free plan costs $0 forever, with no credit card required. It allows 300 emails a day, which is about 9,000 a month. It stores up to 100,000 contacts. It includes templates, a drag-and-drop editor, and basic automation capped at 2,000 contacts per workflow. Brevo branding stays on your emails.

Starter costs $9 a month on monthly billing, or $8.08 a month on yearly billing, for 5,000 emails a month. It removes the daily sending limit. It adds advanced segmentation, forms, and basic reporting. It has no marketing automation at all. That is the catch most buyers miss: the cheapest paid plan does not automate.

Standard costs $18 a month on monthly billing, or $16.17 a month on yearly billing, for 5,000 emails a month. It adds marketing automation, A/B testing, advanced reporting, one landing page, and removal of the Brevo logo. It is the plan most businesses actually need, and the one Brevo recommends most. Standard scales with volume: $65 a month for 20,000 emails, and $129 a month for 100,000 emails.

Professional costs $499 a month on monthly billing, or $449.08 a month on yearly billing, for 150,000 emails a month and up. It adds WhatsApp campaigns, popups, web and mobile push, contact scoring, ten seats, and phone support. Enterprise is custom-quoted, with a dedicated IP, single sign-on, multi-account management, and a loyalty engine. Yearly billing saves about 10 percent on every paid plan.

Starter scales too: $29 a month for 20,000 emails, and $69 a month for 100,000 emails. The price you pay depends on two choices, your tier and your volume. Check both sliders on the pricing page before you commit, because the headline price covers only the smallest volume.

Brevo plans at a glance

Prices are US list prices from Brevo's pricing page, excluding tax. Volume tiers raise the price above the entry figure shown here.

Brevo features that matter

Email campaigns are the core. The drag-and-drop editor is simple and fast. The template library covers newsletters, promotions, and transactional messages. Personalization uses contact fields and segments. Send-time optimization is available on Standard and above.

Marketing automation is the feature that decides the plan. Starter has none. Standard unlocks unlimited automation workflows, A/B testing, and advanced reporting. Professional adds contact scoring and segmentation powered by Brevo's built-in tools. If you need welcome series, abandoned cart flows, or re-engagement campaigns, Standard is the minimum.

Transactional email is included on every plan, including free. You can send order confirmations, password resets, and receipts through Brevo's API or SMTP. That saves a second subscription to a transactional provider. It also keeps marketing and transactional sending on one bill and one dashboard.

The CRM is built in. It stores contacts, deals, and tasks without a separate tool. SMS campaigns reach more than 180 countries, with credits sold separately by destination. WhatsApp campaigns are available on Professional. Live chat and meetings booking round out the sales tools. None of these is best in class on its own. Together, they replace three or four subscriptions for a small business.

Brevo vs Mailchimp and Kit

Brevo beats Mailchimp on price for large lists. Sending one email a month to 5,000 contacts costs $32 a month on Brevo and $75 a month on Mailchimp Essentials. Sending to 20,000 contacts costs $32 on Brevo and about $195 on Mailchimp. The gap grows with list size, because Brevo never charges for contacts stored.

Mailchimp fights back on templates, integrations, and brand familiarity. Its template library is larger. Its integrations cover more tools. Its reporting is deeper. Its free plan is smaller, though: 250 contacts and 500 sends a month, against Brevo's 300 emails a day with up to 100,000 contacts stored.

Kit targets creators, not general marketers. Its free plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers, but it has no sequences and no automations. Creator costs $39 a month for 1,000 subscribers. Kit suits a creator who sells courses or a paid newsletter. Brevo suits a business that sends campaigns to customers and needs SMS, CRM, and transactional email in one place.

Brevo's weakness is deliverability support at the low end. The free and Starter plans share sending infrastructure. Dedicated IPs come only with Enterprise. Large senders who need tight control over reputation will outgrow Brevo or pay for Enterprise. Small senders rarely notice.

Brevo strengths and weaknesses

Brevo's strengths are clear. The free plan is genuinely usable, with 300 emails a day forever and no card required. Pricing by sends keeps big lists cheap. Transactional email is included on every plan. The CRM, SMS, and chat tools replace extra subscriptions. The interface is simple enough for a non-technical owner to run alone.

Its weaknesses are just as clear. Starter has no automation, which makes the $9 headline price misleading for anyone who needs it. The jump from Standard at $18 to Professional at $499 is huge, with nothing in between for a growing sender. Template design is plain next to Mailchimp. Support is email and chat on lower plans, with phone support only on Professional and above. The pricing page's contact-count display can confuse buyers, because the free plan stores up to 100,000 contacts while some page elements suggest far fewer.

Who Brevo suits best

Brevo suits a small business with a large list that emails a few times a month. A store with 20,000 past customers and a monthly newsletter is the ideal case. It suits a business that wants email, SMS, and a CRM on one bill. It suits a startup that needs transactional email without a second vendor. It suits a nonprofit or a small team that needs a free plan with real room to grow.

Brevo does not suit a creator who lives on automation and sequences. Kit fits that person better. It does not suit a team that needs advanced reporting or a large template library. Mailchimp fits that team better. It does not suit a high-volume sender who needs a dedicated IP and deliverability consulting. That sender belongs on Professional or Enterprise, or on a dedicated transactional provider.

Start on the free plan if you send under 300 emails a day. Move to Standard, not Starter, the day you need automation. Standard at $18 a month is the real entry price for a working marketing setup. Starter at $9 a month is a sending upgrade for a business that only broadcasts. Knowing which one you are saves you an upgrade a month later.

Bottom line

Brevo is the best-value email platform for businesses with big lists and modest sending. Its free plan sends 300 emails a day forever. Standard at $18 a month is the plan to buy, because Starter at $9 has no automation. Professional at $499 is a steep jump, and Enterprise is custom. If you email a large list a few times a month and want SMS, CRM, and transactional email in one place, Brevo is hard to beat. If you need deep automation, rich templates, or creator tools, look at Kit or Mailchimp instead.