Brevo vs ActiveCampaign: Features, Pricing and Verdict

Brevo charges by emails sent, ActiveCampaign by contacts stored. That difference decides which is cheaper for your list. Here is the full comparison.

By Galactic News Editorial · Published 2026-11-12T22:38:11+00:00 · Updated 2026-11-12T22:38:11+00:00

Brevo vs ActiveCampaign: Features, Pricing and Verdict

Brevo and ActiveCampaign are two of the most popular email marketing tools for small businesses. They bill in opposite ways. Brevo charges by the number of emails you send each month. ActiveCampaign charges by the number of contacts you store. That single difference decides which one is cheaper for your list. Brevo starts at $9 a month for 5,000 emails. ActiveCampaign starts at $15 a month for 1,000 contacts on annual billing. This comparison covers pricing, automation, features and fit, so you can pick the right tool for your list size and your sending habits.

Brevo vs ActiveCampaign at a glance

Brevo vs ActiveCampaign pricing compared

Brevo's pricing is simple at the entry level. The free plan sends 300 emails a day and stores up to 100,000 contacts. Starter costs from $9 a month for 5,000 emails. Standard costs from $18 a month for 5,000 emails. Professional costs from $499 a month for 150,000 emails. Enterprise is custom priced, listed from $2,499 a month on the US page. Yearly billing takes 10 percent off the monthly rate.

Brevo's bill rises with volume. Starter costs $17 a month for 10,000 emails and $32 for 20,000. Standard costs $35 for 10,000 emails and $69 for 20,000. Each volume tier also caps how many contacts you can store. The entry 5,000-email tier allows only 500 stored contacts. That cap is the catch. A growing list pushes you to a higher volume tier even if your sending stays low.

ActiveCampaign's pricing is simple at the entry level too, but it scales differently. At 1,000 contacts on annual billing, Starter costs $15 a month, Plus $49, Pro $79 and Enterprise $145. At 10,000 contacts, Starter costs $149 a month and Plus $189. At 50,000 contacts, Plus costs $609. Starter is not sold above 25,000 contacts. Monthly billing costs about 20 percent more than the yearly rates.

Each ActiveCampaign plan includes a monthly send allowance. Starter and Plus allow 10 times your contact limit in sends. Pro allows 12 times. Enterprise allows 15 times. Go past the allowance and the help centre lists overage at $0.005 per extra email. Accounts created on or after 3 November 2025 count every contact toward the limit, including unsubscribed and bounced contacts. That rule makes list hygiene a billing issue, not just a deliverability issue.

The maths favours Brevo for large, rarely emailed lists. A 25,000-contact list mailed twice a month costs far less on Brevo Standard than on ActiveCampaign Plus. The maths favours ActiveCampaign for small, heavily emailed lists. A 1,000-contact list mailed weekly costs $15 a month on ActiveCampaign Starter, while Brevo charges by the send volume instead.

Automation and email features

Automation is where the two tools split most clearly. ActiveCampaign includes multi-step automation on every plan, including Starter. Starter caps each automation at five actions. Plus removes that cap and adds landing pages, predictive sending and lead scoring. Pro adds conditional content, advanced segmentation, attribution and split-path testing. ActiveCampaign's automation builder is the strongest in this price range. It handles branching, goals and site tracking with ease.

Brevo gates automation by plan. Starter keeps automation limited, and full marketing automation arrives on Standard at $18 a month. Standard adds A/B testing, send-time optimisation and one landing page. Professional adds contact scoring, AI segmentation and ecommerce features. Brevo's automation is capable, but it is not as deep as ActiveCampaign's. Teams that live in complex nurture sequences will feel the gap.

Both tools cover the email basics well. Both offer drag-and-drop editors, templates, segmentation and reporting. Brevo adds transactional email on every plan, which suits stores that send order confirmations from the same account. ActiveCampaign sells transactional email through a separate product, Postmark. Brevo also includes SMS on every plan, paid in credits, while ActiveCampaign sells SMS as a separate add-on. WhatsApp is limited to Brevo Professional and Enterprise, also paid in credits.

Ease of use, CRM and support

Brevo is the easier tool to learn. The interface is clean. The pricing page is machine-readable and plain. The free plan lets a new user send real campaigns without paying. Support is by email on Starter, with phone support from Professional. The basic CRM is included, and it covers contacts, deals and tasks without an extra charge.

ActiveCampaign is the more powerful tool, and it shows in the learning curve. The automation builder has more options, more conditions and more settings. New users need longer to get comfortable. Support is by email and chat on lower plans. The CRM is a paid add-on on Plus and above, which adds to the bill. Onboarding help is stronger on Pro and Enterprise, where the price justifies it.

Deliverability is hard to compare from public data. Both tools publish deliverability guidance and both run shared sending infrastructure on lower plans. Dedicated IP addresses arrive only on Brevo Enterprise and ActiveCampaign Enterprise. Small senders on shared IPs should focus on list quality and engagement, not on the vendor badge.

Bottom line: Brevo vs ActiveCampaign verdict

Choose Brevo if your list is large and you email it a few times a month. The send-based pricing is far cheaper in that shape, and the free plan is genuinely useful. Choose Brevo if you want SMS, transactional email and a basic CRM in one bill. The all-in-one value is real.

Choose ActiveCampaign if your list is small and you email it often. The contact-based pricing stays flat while your sending grows. Choose ActiveCampaign if automation is the core of your marketing. Its builder is deeper, its branching is stronger, and its segmentation is more flexible than Brevo's.

For most small businesses starting out, Brevo is the cheaper first step. For businesses that run serious nurture sequences and score leads, ActiveCampaign earns its higher price. Price your own list on both pages before you commit. The winner flips with list size and send frequency, so the right answer depends on your numbers, not on a feature list.