Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) starts at $0 for up to 300 emails per day, then jumps to approximately $25/month for 20,000 emails with no daily send limits. That pricing sits below Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign but above pure budget options like Mailerlite. The question isn’t whether Brevo is cheap — it’s whether you’re getting enough for what you pay once you scale past the free tier.
I’ve run Brevo for two different clients over the past eighteen months. One was a consulting firm sending weekly newsletters to 4,000 subscribers. The other was an e-commerce store using it for abandoned cart sequences and post-purchase follow-ups. Both stayed on Brevo because the platform does three things well: it combines email and SMS in one place, it includes basic CRM functionality without upselling you to a separate product, and the automation builder actually works without requiring a YouTube tutorial every time you need to set up a new workflow.
What You’re Paying For Beyond Email
Most email platforms charge you for sends, then nickel-and-dime you for SMS, landing pages, and CRM features. Brevo bundles all of that into the base subscription. The SMS credits are sold separately, but the infrastructure is already there — you’re not paying for a Zapier integration or a second platform. For the consulting client, this meant they could send appointment reminders via text without adding another tool to their stack. For the e-commerce store, it meant tracking customer purchase history directly in Brevo instead of exporting spreadsheets from Shopify every week.
The landing page builder is functional but not impressive. If you’re running paid ads and need high-converting pages, you’ll want Unbounce or Instapage. But for lead magnets and simple opt-in forms, it gets the job done without paying for ConvertKit’s $29/month landing page add-on.
Where Brevo Falls Short
The email editor is serviceable but clunky compared to Mailchimp’s drag-and-drop interface. If you’re designing complex promotional emails with multiple columns and image-heavy layouts, you’ll spend more time fighting with alignment than you should. The template library is also thin — about two dozen options that look like they were designed in 2019.
Deliverability has been solid in my experience, but Brevo doesn’t publish detailed sender reputation metrics the way that dedicated ESPs like SendGrid or Postmark do. If you’re sending transactional emails for a SaaS product and need guaranteed inbox placement, you want a specialized tool. Brevo is built for marketing emails first.
Who Should Pay for Brevo
| Business Type | Best Fit? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Service businesses (coaches, consultants, agencies) | Yes | CRM + email + SMS in one place, no need for HubSpot |
| E-commerce under 10,000 subscribers | Yes | Automation + transactional emails without separate tools |
| Content creators, newsletters | Maybe | Editor isn’t great for design-heavy emails |
| SaaS products needing transactional email | No | Use Postmark or SendGrid instead |
The free tier is genuinely useful if you’re just starting out and can live within the 300-email daily limit. But once you hit 5,000 subscribers and need reliable automation, the $25/month Starter plan makes sense. You’re getting email, SMS infrastructure, basic CRM, and marketing automation for less than what ActiveCampaign charges for email alone.
If you need a single platform to handle client communication without juggling three subscriptions, Brevo justifies the cost. If you’re only sending newsletters and don’t care about SMS or CRM, Mailerlite gives you a cleaner editor for about the same price.
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Key takeaways
- Brevo’s $25/month Starter plan includes email, SMS infrastructure, landing pages, and basic CRM without upselling you to separate products
- The email editor is clunky for design-heavy campaigns — if you’re sending image-rich promotions, Mailchimp’s interface is worth the extra cost
- Service businesses and small e-commerce stores get the most value because they can replace multiple tools with one subscription
StackSmall – July 2026