Brevo
Email marketing and transactional email platform (formerly Sendinblue)
What it does
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is an all-in-one messaging platform: email marketing, transactional email, SMS, WhatsApp campaigns, a basic CRM, and a landing page builder in one account. It is priced on emails sent rather than contacts stored, which is unusual in the category and often the reason someone picks it. Compared to Mailchimp, Klaviyo, or ActiveCampaign, Brevo is the value pick: a smaller list of shiny features but a much cheaper monthly bill for the same job.
Free tier
Yes
Starts at
$25/mo
Setup
easy
Key features
Integrates with
Shopify, WordPress, WooCommerce, Zapier, Stripe
Who this fits
- Small businesses with a big contact list they email rarely (Brevo's per-send pricing wins here)
- Ecommerce stores under 5,000 orders/mo that want basic email marketing plus SMS and WhatsApp in one tool
- Nonprofits, membership organizations, and community groups on a fixed budget
- Solo founders sending occasional newsletters who cannot justify Mailchimp's contact-based pricing
- Any business currently paying Mailchimp $80+/mo for a list they email twice a month (Brevo is often half the cost)
- Businesses in Europe (Brevo is French, strong GDPR footprint, servers in EU)
- Transactional email users needing an SMTP relay cheaper than SendGrid
Who it does NOT fit
- High-volume ecommerce sellers over 10k contacts who send daily campaigns and flows (Klaviyo's ecommerce data model wins here)
- Sophisticated B2B SaaS marketing teams needing predictive sending, complex segmentation, dynamic content at scale (ActiveCampaign or HubSpot Marketing Hub)
- Any business needing a full CRM with real sales pipeline (Brevo's CRM is a starter; use Close, Pipedrive, or HubSpot Sales Hub for actual selling)
- Cold outbound / cold email teams (Brevo is opted-in marketing, not cold outreach; use Instantly, Smartlead, or lemlist)
- Marketing teams that already invested in HubSpot infrastructure
Pricing
Real gotchas
- **Serious ecommerce growth**: When email attribution starts driving 15%+ of revenue, Brevo's Shopify integration becomes the limiter. Migrate to Klaviyo.
- **Contact list balloon**: New auto-upgrade rule on Starter/Standard means crossing 500 or 1,500 contacts silently bumps you up a tier. Watch billing alerts.
- **Cold outbound temptation**: Do not try to run cold email out of Brevo. Deliverability tanks and they will suspend you.
- **Complex marketing ops**: If the team is building 40+ segment audiences with dynamic content variants, Brevo's automation builder gets clunky. Time for ActiveCampaign or HubSpot.
- **Ambitious CRM**: Brevo's Sales module is a checkbox, not a real product. Serious sales teams need Close, Pipedrive, or HubSpot Sales.
Integrations that matter
Otto’s take on this tool
> Example: "For your 2,000-contact wedding photography newsletter you send once a month, Brevo on the Business tier at $18/mo covers you cleanly. You will use around 2,000 emails/mo, well under any cap, and the landing page builder handles the freebie opt-in you mentioned. Mailchimp would be roughly $35-45/mo at that contact count because they charge you per contact stored, not per email sent."
Affiliate disclosure: if you sign up through the link above, Ottomately may earn a referral commission at no cost to you. We only feature tools we have actually used or vetted through our recommendation engine.Partnership: 5 EUR per referral via Direct.
Editor's curated reviews
7,190 reviews across TrustPilot - avg 4/5Curated by Otto from TrustPilot public reviews (fetched 2026-08-31). Brevo's TrustPilot is solid (76% 5-star of 7,190 total, 4.0 headline) - praise centers on price-to-features value at the free/entry tier and responsive support; critical reviews cluster tightly around unexpected account suspensions with limited appeal, so review deliverability policy before migrating a list. G2 and Capterra were consulted for aggregate context but not directly cited here. Not user-submitted on Ottomately.
“Brevo is the best value mailing list manager out there with some really good value free add ons.”
TrustPilot5.0/5“They made it very easy to get started, and their customer support has been prompt to fill in the gaps.”
TrustPilot5.0/5“Ease of use, simplicity of design, intuitive set up, CRM, coordinating - excellent support.”
TrustPilot5.0/5“I find it very easy to use and well-organized. Support team responded quickly and explained clearly.”
TrustPilot5.0/5“We have been suspended repeatedly. You follow their instructions, then suspended again. It's ridiculous.”
TrustPilot1.0/5“Absolutely terrible customer service - suspended my entire account without any clear explanation.”
TrustPilot1.0/5“They closed it without any reason for violating their TOS (didn't send or use anything yet).”
TrustPilot1.0/5
More in Email Marketing
Not Sure Brevo is Right?
Otto can pick for you.
30 seconds, one form, get a personalized stack with pricing and integration paths.
Get my recommendations