ActiveCampaign vs Brevo in 2026: Best-in-class deliverability vs contact-unlimited pricing
ActiveCampaign leads on AI-driven automation and a 94.2% deliverability rate. Brevo prices by emails sent instead of contacts stored and builds GDPR compliance into its architecture as a French company.
ActiveCampaign
Brevo- ActiveCampaign ranks first in independent deliverability testing at 94.2%. Brevo does not publish a comparable independently verified deliverability figure.
- Brevo prices by the number of emails sent per month and allows unlimited contact storage on every paid plan, while ActiveCampaign's pricing scales with contact list size.
- Brevo is a French company with EU data residency and GDPR compliance built into its architecture from the start, rather than added as a compliance layer.
- Active Intelligence 2.8 on ActiveCampaign stores brand memory and learns from historical campaign performance. Brevo's AI features include a content generator, send-time optimization, and the Aura AI sales assistant, but no equivalent brand-memory system.
- Brevo offers a genuine free plan with unlimited contacts and 300 emails per day. ActiveCampaign has no permanent free tier, only a 14-day trial.
- ActiveCampaign includes marketing automation from its cheapest paid tier, though with actions capped at 5. Brevo locks marketing automation and A/B testing behind its Standard plan, unavailable on Starter.
- ActiveCampaign supports over 1,000 native integrations. Brevo's core strength on the developer side is its transactional email infrastructure via SMTP relay and REST API with SDKs for major languages.
ActiveCampaign and Brevo both cover email, SMS, WhatsApp, and automation from a single platform, but they compete on different strengths. ActiveCampaign leads on deliverability, ranking first in independent testing at 94.2%, and its Active Intelligence 2.8 AI layer learns your brand voice and past campaign performance to generate new campaigns from a prompt. Brevo, formerly Sendinblue, is a French company built around GDPR-native architecture and a pricing model that charges by the number of emails sent rather than contacts stored, which matters a lot for businesses with large but infrequently emailed lists. Brevo also has a genuine free plan with unlimited contacts, while ActiveCampaign's cheapest tier caps automation actions at 5. The decision usually comes down to whether deliverability and automation depth or pricing structure and EU data residency matter more to your business.
The tools at a glance
ActiveCampaign
Autonomous marketing platform with AI that learns your brand style and builds campaigns from a prompt.
ActiveCampaign pairs marketing automation across email, SMS, WhatsApp, and landing pages with Active Intelligence 2.8, an AI layer that stores brand memory and learns from your best-performing past campaigns to build new ones from a prompt. It holds the number 1 position on G2 for marketing automation with over 14,500 reviews and a 94.2% email deliverability rate that ranks first in independent testing.
Pricing starts at $15 per month on Starter, though automation actions are capped at 5, which limits it to very simple use cases. Plus at $49 per month removes that cap and adds landing pages, making it the realistic entry point for most teams. A CRM is available as a paid add-on from Plus upward rather than included.
The platform connects to over 1,000 native integrations and offers an open API on every plan. The 14-day free trial comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee, though there is no permanent free tier for teams that want to test indefinitely before committing.
| Feature | Starter From $15/mo | Plus From $49/mo | Pro From $79/mo | Enterprise From $145/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active Intelligence (AI) | Limited | Limited | Yes | Yes |
| Automation actions | 5 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| SMS and WhatsApp | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| CRM add-on | No | Available | Available | Available |
| Free forever plan | No | No | No | No |
Brevo
All-in-one email, SMS, WhatsApp, and CRM platform priced by emails sent, not contacts stored.
Brevo, formerly Sendinblue, is a French marketing platform covering email, SMS, WhatsApp, live chat, push, and CRM from one dashboard, serving over 600,000 customers. Its defining feature is pricing by emails sent per month rather than contacts stored, so a business with a large but infrequently emailed list pays far less than on contact-based competitors.
The free plan includes unlimited contacts and 300 emails per day at no cost, a genuinely usable starting point. Marketing automation and A/B testing only unlock on the Standard plan at $18 per month and above; the Starter plan at $9 per month covers sending, segmentation, and forms but no automated journeys. WhatsApp and push notifications require the Professional tier at $539 per month, a steep jump from Standard.
As a French company, Brevo is subject to GDPR directly under EU law with European data residency, consent tools, and double opt-in built into the platform. Its transactional email infrastructure via SMTP and REST API is a strength for developer teams, and AI features include a content generator, send-time optimization, and the Aura AI sales assistant.
| Feature | Free $0 | Starter From $9/mo | Standard From $18/mo | Professional From $539/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contact storage | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Marketing automation | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| A/B testing | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| WhatsApp and push | No | No | No | Yes |
| AI content generator | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Head-to-head feature comparison
| Feature | ActiveCampaign | Brevo |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing basis | Contacts + tier | Emails sent |
| Free forever plan | No | Yes, unlimited contacts, 300 emails/day |
| Independently ranked deliverability | Yes, 94.2%, ranked #1 | Not independently published |
| AI brand-memory campaign generation | Yes (Active Intelligence 2.8) | No (content generator and send-time AI, not brand memory) |
| Marketing automation on entry paid tier | Limited (5 actions) | No, Standard plan required |
| GDPR / EU data residency by default | No, US company | Yes, French company, EU-native |
| WhatsApp support | Yes, from Plus | Yes, Professional only |
| Transactional email API | Available on all plans | Yes, SMTP and REST API |
| CRM | Add-on from Plus | Yes, included, contact scoring on Professional |
| Starting paid price | $15/mo | $9/mo |
Which should you choose?
ActiveCampaignBrevoBrevoActiveCampaignBrevoBrevoThe core tension is deliverability and AI depth versus pricing structure and compliance posture. ActiveCampaign wins on the metric that most directly affects revenue for email-heavy businesses, and Active Intelligence 2.8 is a more mature AI layer than Brevo's content generator and send-time optimization. Brevo wins on cost predictability for large lists and on GDPR architecture for EU-based teams, and its free plan removes risk from the initial evaluation in a way ActiveCampaign's trial-only model does not.
Bottom line
Pick ActiveCampaign if deliverability and AI-driven campaign generation are the priority and you are ready to pay from day one. Pick Brevo if you are EU-based, have a large but infrequently emailed contact list, or want to validate the platform on a free plan before spending anything, and can live without full automation until you reach the $18 per month Standard tier.
Frequently asked questions
Is Brevo cheaper than ActiveCampaign for a large contact list?
Usually yes, if you do not email your full list every send. Brevo charges by emails sent and stores contacts for free on every paid plan, while ActiveCampaign's pricing tiers are built around contact volume. A business with 80,000 contacts but selective sending will often pay less on Brevo than on an ActiveCampaign plan sized for that many contacts.
Does Brevo have anything like Active Intelligence 2.8?
Not directly. Brevo's AI features include an AI content generator for email copy, AI send-time optimization, and the Aura AI sales assistant for CRM tasks, but none of them store brand memory or learn from historical campaign performance the way ActiveCampaign's Active Intelligence 2.8 does.
Which tool is better for GDPR compliance?
Brevo, because it is a French company incorporated under EU law and subject to GDPR directly, with European data residency and native consent tools. ActiveCampaign can support GDPR-compliant workflows, but it is a US company, so the regulatory jurisdiction and data residency situation are structurally different.
Can I get real marketing automation on Brevo's cheapest paid plan?
No. Brevo's Starter plan at $9 per month covers sending, segmentation, and forms, but marketing automation and A/B testing require the Standard plan at $18 per month or above. ActiveCampaign includes automation from its cheapest paid tier, though Starter caps actions at 5, which is also limited for real use.
Does either platform have a free plan?
Brevo does, with unlimited contacts and 300 emails per day at no cost. ActiveCampaign does not have a permanent free tier; it offers a 14-day free trial with a 30-day money-back guarantee instead.