Brevo Review
All-in-one email, SMS, WhatsApp, and CRM platform priced by emails sent, not contacts stored.
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is the strongest value play in email marketing, especially for EU-based teams who need GDPR compliance baked in rather than bolted on. Its contact-unlimited pricing model removes the growth tax that hits Mailchimp and Klaviyo users hard. The tradeoff is a UI that feels less polished than competitors at the same price, and real automation depth only arrives on the Standard plan and above.
Pros and cons
- Prices by emails sent, not contacts stored, so growing your list does not increase your monthly bill
- EU company with GDPR-native architecture, data residency in Europe, and built-in consent tools
- Free plan includes unlimited contacts with 300 emails per day, genuinely useful for early-stage teams
- Covers email, SMS, WhatsApp, live chat, push, and CRM from one platform without forced bundles
- Transactional email via SMTP and REST API is reliable and well-documented for developer teams
- Marketing automation and A/B testing are locked behind the Standard plan and not available on Starter
- UI feels dated in places compared to ActiveCampaign or Klaviyo, with some settings buried in menus
- WhatsApp and push notifications only unlock at the Professional tier, which jumps sharply in price
- Phone and priority support require higher-tier plans; email-only support on Starter can be slow
- Landing pages are capped at one page on Standard and require Professional for multiple pages
What is Brevo?
Brevo, formerly known as Sendinblue, is a French marketing platform covering email campaigns, transactional messaging, SMS, WhatsApp, live chat, push notifications, and CRM from a single dashboard. It serves over 600,000 customers worldwide and has positioned itself as the GDPR-friendly, contact-unlimited alternative to US-centric platforms like Mailchimp and Klaviyo.
The core pricing advantage is that Brevo charges by the number of emails you send per month, not by the size of your contact list. A business with 50,000 contacts but low send frequency pays far less on Brevo than on comparable plans from competitors who price per contact. This makes Brevo particularly attractive for retail and eCommerce businesses with large lists but seasonal or infrequent campaigns, and for teams that import contacts from multiple sources without knowing exactly how many will receive any given send.
On the technical side, Brevo has strong transactional email infrastructure via SMTP relay and REST API with well-maintained SDKs. The platform has added AI features including an AI content generator for email copy, AI send-time optimization, and an Aura AI agent layer for conversational marketing and sales assistance. Automation workflows, segmentation, and a built-in CRM pipeline round out the feature set, though automation depth still falls short of ActiveCampaign at comparable price points.
Core features
Email Pricing by Send Volume, Not Contacts
Unlike most competitors, Brevo lets you store unlimited contacts on paid plans and charges only for the emails you actually send. The Starter plan begins from around $9 per month for 20,000 monthly email sends. This model is significantly cheaper for businesses with large inactive lists, seasonal senders, or teams that import all their CRM contacts but segment tightly before each send. You can grow your database without your marketing bill growing in lockstep.
Multichannel Campaign Builder
A single platform covers email, SMS, WhatsApp, web push, mobile push, live chat, chatbot, and wallet passes. Each channel can be combined into automated multi-step journeys on the Standard plan and above. The drag-and-drop email editor includes responsive templates and an AI content generator for subject lines and body copy. SMS and WhatsApp credits are sold separately so you only pay for channels you actually use.
Marketing Automation
Available from the Standard plan upward, the automation builder supports multi-step workflows triggered by user behavior, campaign engagement, web tracking events, and custom data. Conditional branching, wait steps, and goal tracking are included. Standard adds A/B testing for subject lines and content variants, click heatmaps, geography and device reports, and AI send-time optimization that learns each contact's peak engagement window.
Transactional Email via SMTP and API
Brevo's transactional email infrastructure handles order confirmations, password resets, and real-time notifications with SMTP relay and a REST API. SDKs are available for PHP, Python, Ruby, Node.js, and others. Detailed delivery logs, bounce tracking, and webhook support make it a reliable choice for developer teams embedding email into their applications without managing their own mail server.
Built-in CRM and Sales Pipeline
The platform includes a CRM with contact scoring (Professional tier), deal pipelines, and task management. A shared inbox consolidates conversations across email and live chat. The Aura AI Sales Assistant enriches contacts automatically, assists with deal creation, and can draft sales emails. For small sales teams that do not want to pay for a separate CRM subscription, this covers the fundamentals without extra cost on mid-tier plans.
Pricing
| Feature | Free $0 | Starter From $9/mo | Standard From $18/mo | Professional From $539/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly Email Sends | 300/day | From 20k | From 20k | From 150k |
| Contact Storage | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Drag and Drop Editor | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| AI Content Generator | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Advanced Segmentation | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Marketing Automation | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| A/B Testing | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| AI Send Time Optimization | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Landing Pages | ✗ | ✗ | 1 page | Multiple |
| WhatsApp and Push | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Multi-user Access | 1 | 1 | 1 | 10 seats |
| Contact Scoring | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Brevo Logo Removed | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Phone Support | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
Who it is for
Companies operating in Europe or handling EU customer data who need a marketing platform with data residency in Europe, native consent management, and a vendor subject to EU data protection law directly. Brevo's architecture was built around these requirements rather than retrofitted as a compliance add-on.
Retail brands, publishers, or lead-gen businesses that have accumulated large contact databases but send to filtered segments rather than the whole list every time. The send-volume pricing means storing 100,000 contacts costs nothing extra, and you only pay for the emails that actually go out.
Engineering teams that need reliable SMTP relay or API-triggered transactional email for their application without managing their own mail infrastructure. Brevo's developer documentation is solid, SDK support is broad, and the free plan allows 300 sends per day to get started without a billing commitment.
Verdict
Brevo is the clearest choice when contact-based pricing is your main pain point or when GDPR compliance needs to be an architectural fact rather than a checkbox. It is a complete platform with genuine multichannel depth, but teams who need sophisticated automation from day one will find ActiveCampaign or Customer.io more capable at comparable spend.
Frequently asked questions
How does Brevo's contact-unlimited pricing actually work?
On all paid Brevo plans, you can store as many contacts as you want at no extra charge. You pay only for the number of emails you send per month. For example, the Starter plan at around $9 per month includes 20,000 monthly email sends. If you have 80,000 contacts but only email a segment of 5,000 each week, you stay within one plan tier regardless of total list size. This is the opposite of Mailchimp or Klaviyo, which charge based on the number of contacts in your account.
Is Brevo actually GDPR compliant?
Brevo is a French company headquartered in Paris, incorporated under French and EU law, and subject to GDPR directly as a data processor. Customer data can be stored on European servers. The platform includes consent form builders, double opt-in flows, unsubscribe management, and data deletion tools. This is materially different from a US company with a GDPR compliance page: the regulatory jurisdiction and data residency are EU-native.
Does Brevo include marketing automation on all plans?
No. Marketing automation, which is the ability to build multi-step triggered workflows, is only available on the Standard plan and above. The Starter plan gives you email sending, segmentation, and forms, but no automated journeys. If automation is core to your use case, budget for Standard at around $18 per month from the start.
How does Brevo compare to Mailchimp?
The main practical difference is pricing structure. Mailchimp prices by contacts stored, which means your bill grows as your list grows even if send frequency stays the same. Brevo prices by sends, which is cheaper for large lists with selective sending. On features, Mailchimp has a slightly more polished UI and stronger eCommerce integrations for US platforms. Brevo has stronger transactional email infrastructure and is the better fit for EU teams.
Can I use Brevo for SMS and WhatsApp alongside email?
Yes. SMS is available on Starter and above, with credits purchased separately. WhatsApp campaigns and push notifications are available on the Professional plan. All channels can be combined in a single automation workflow on Standard and Professional, so you can build a sequence that sends an email, waits for a click, then follows up via SMS without switching tools.