Brevo — formerly Sendinblue — has become one of the most competitive email marketing platforms for small businesses. In this Brevo review for 2026, I’ll break down its features, pricing, SMS integration, AI tools, and how it compares to Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, and GetResponse.

What Is Brevo?

Brevo is an all-in-one marketing platform built around email, SMS, and marketing automation. Rebranded from Sendinblue in 2023, it serves over 500,000 businesses globally with email campaigns, transactional emails, SMS marketing, WhatsApp campaigns, live chat, CRM, and landing pages — all from a single dashboard.

Core value proposition: pricing based on emails sent (not contact list size), with a free tier that’s among the most generous in the industry.

Brevo Pricing (2026)

Plan Price Sends/Mo Key Features
Free $0 300/day (9,000/mo) Unlimited contacts, basic automation
Starter From $9/mo 20,000+ No daily limit, A/B testing, reports
Business From $18/mo 20,000+ Full automation, landing pages, multi-user
Enterprise Custom Unlimited SSO, dedicated IP, SLA

The free tier’s unlimited contacts model is the biggest differentiator. Mailchimp charges based on list size — Brevo doesn’t. If you have 50,000 contacts but only email 9,000 per month, you pay nothing. This makes Brevo attractive for businesses with large segmented lists.

Key Features

Email Campaigns

Brevo’s drag-and-drop builder is clean and fast. The template library covers e-commerce, newsletters, and promotions. Mobile preview, spam checking, and send-time optimization are all on paid plans. Import your own HTML or start from a template.

Marketing Automation

The automation workflow builder lets you create multi-step sequences triggered by user behavior: opened email, clicked link, visited a page, made a purchase, or hit a custom event. The visual builder is comparable to ActiveCampaign’s at roughly half the price. Pre-built templates cover welcome sequences, cart abandonment, re-engagement, and birthday campaigns.

SMS and WhatsApp Marketing

Brevo is one of the few email platforms with natively integrated SMS and WhatsApp campaigns — no Zapier connector needed. You can trigger SMS messages within the same automation workflow as email sequences. For e-commerce businesses needing multichannel reach, this is a genuine differentiator from Mailchimp.

Transactional Email

Brevo’s transactional infrastructure is enterprise-grade. Order confirmations, password resets, invoices — sent via API or SMTP relay with real-time delivery tracking. Many developers use Brevo’s transactional layer even when they use a different tool for marketing campaigns.

AI Features

Brevo includes an AI writing assistant for email content and a predictive send-time feature that learns each contact’s open patterns and delivers emails when they’re most likely to engage. Both features are cleanly implemented without feeling bolted-on.

Built-in CRM and Landing Pages

The built-in CRM handles deal pipelines, contact notes, and task management — lightweight but functional enough for small teams to reduce reliance on a separate CRM. Landing pages and signup forms (Business plan) integrate directly with contact lists and automation workflows.

Brevo vs. Competitors

Tool Free Plan Pricing Model Best For
Brevo 300 emails/day, unlimited contacts By emails sent Large lists, multichannel, budget-first
Mailchimp 500 contacts, 1,000 sends/mo By contact count Beginners, simple campaigns
ActiveCampaign No free plan By contact count Advanced automation, CRM power users
GetResponse 500 contacts, 2,500 sends/mo By contact count Webinars, marketing funnels
ConvertKit 1,000 subscribers By subscriber count Creators, newsletters

Brevo’s structural pricing advantage grows as your list scales. ActiveCampaign wins on automation depth; ConvertKit wins for creator audiences. For most small businesses running mixed campaigns on a budget, Brevo is hard to beat at its price point.

Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Unlimited contacts on free plan — most generous pricing model in the industry
  • SMS and WhatsApp natively integrated — no third-party connectors needed
  • Solid automation builder — competitive with tools costing 2–3x more
  • Excellent transactional email deliverability
  • All-in-one: email + SMS + CRM + landing pages in one place

Cons

  • Free plan has a 300 email/day cap — can bottleneck campaign timing
  • Template design library not as polished as Mailchimp
  • Advanced reporting lags behind ActiveCampaign
  • SMS credits are purchased separately on top of email plan

Who Should Use Brevo?

Small businesses with large lists — Brevo’s per-send pricing means you’re not penalized for list growth the way you are with Mailchimp. E-commerce operators — multichannel (email + SMS) automation in one tool, integrated with Shopify and WooCommerce. Developers — Brevo’s SMTP infrastructure is reliable and cost-effective for transactional email. Budget-conscious marketers — you can go surprisingly far on the free tier.

Bottom Line

Brevo is the best-value email marketing platform for most small businesses in 2026. The unlimited contacts free tier, native SMS integration, and solid automation workflow builder deliver at well above their price point. Not the deepest tool — ActiveCampaign and Klaviyo win on sophistication — but for businesses that want reliable email + SMS without a growing bill, Brevo is the answer.

Try Brevo free — unlimited contacts, no credit card required.

Related: Best AI Email Marketing Tools 2026 | Mailchimp Review 2026 | ActiveCampaign Review 2026 | GetResponse Review 2026

Our Rating

????

4.1/5

Related Reviews