Brevo review

Email marketing and CRM platform priced by emails sent per month, with SMS and WhatsApp bundled in at higher tiers

Unpaid review. We currently earn nothing if you sign up for Brevo — links here go straight to the vendor. We review it anyway because it's the honest answer, and scores never depend on commissions — how we test.

ToolsGavel verdict

Brevo's email-volume pricing is a genuine structural advantage for a business sitting on a big, rarely-emailed list, and the bundled CRM plus SMS and WhatsApp reach add real value for a small team that wants one bill instead of three. Automation sitting behind an $18/mo upgrade from the $9 Starter tier, and a pattern of unexplained account suspensions on Trustpilot, both deserve a close read before signing up.

4.3
out of 5
Email Marketing Software Free tier From $9/mo billed monthly, $8.08/mo billed annually

Audited price: $8.08/mo billed annually , $9/mo month-to-month (advertised: $9/mo (Starter, billed monthly), $8.08/mo billed annually) — verified 2026-10-30.

Best for: Small businesses with a large, infrequently-emailed contact list who want SMS or WhatsApp and a basic CRM bundled into the same platform

Try Brevo Last verified: October 30, 2026

What we liked

  • Brevo is the only tool in this guide that bills by emails sent instead of contacts stored, so a large list you only message occasionally doesn't inflate the bill the way a per-contact plan would (brevo.com/pricing)
  • The Free plan needs no credit card and never expires: 300 emails a day and up to 100,000 contacts stored, more storage headroom than the other free tiers compared in this guide (Brevo Free plan FAQ, help.brevo.com)
  • A CRM with deals, a pipeline and a connected calendar ships inside the same account instead of requiring a separate purchase (brevo.com/pricing)
  • Multichannel reach beyond email: SMS from the Starter tier, WhatsApp and push notifications from Professional (brevo.com/pricing)
  • Third-party review scores are strong: 4.5/5 on G2 from roughly 2,600 reviews and 4.6/5 on Capterra from roughly 3,500 (G2 / Capterra)

What to watch

  • Automation doesn't ship on the cheapest paid tier at all. Starter ($9/mo) has none; a buyer has to move up to Standard ($18/mo) just to get it, an easy detail to miss on a quick pricing skim (brevo.com/pricing)
  • Account suspensions with little or no warning, including for customers who had already paid, are the single most serious recurring complaint on Trustpilot (Trustpilot)
  • Slow, low-quality support shows up repeatedly in 1-2 star reviews, with reviewers describing agents who 'never fully understand' the issue raised (Trustpilot)
  • Even on Standard, landing pages are capped at just 1, with no obvious self-serve way to buy more at that tier (brevo.com/pricing)

How much does Brevo really cost?

Advertised price $9/mo (Starter, billed monthly), $8.08/mo billed annually
Real monthly cost, billed annually $8.08/mo
Real monthly cost, month-to-month $9/mo
Month-to-month premium +11% over the annual-billing rate
The billing catch Starter has zero automation; that only unlocks on Standard at $18/mo ($16.17 annually), easy to miss if you only skim the sticker price.
Permanent free tier Yes
Price last verified 2026-10-30, against the live pricing page at brevo.com

Model seats and billing cycles for Brevo in the true-cost calculator, or see every audited price in the Pricing Gap Index.

Brevo, rebranded from Sendinblue in 2023, is an email marketing and CRM platform aimed at small businesses that want one tool for sending campaigns, running basic automation, and reaching customers by SMS or WhatsApp alongside email. Unlike most of the other tools in this category, Brevo meters its plans by emails sent per month rather than by the number of contacts stored, a structural difference that changes who gets the best deal out of it. Pricing runs free forever for a limited daily send volume, then from $9 to $499-plus a month depending on tier and billing cycle, before CRM and branding-removal add-ons that bill separately. G2 rates it 4.5 out of 5 from roughly 2,600 reviews, and Trustpilot sits lower, at 3.8 out of 5 from 7,250 reviews, as of October 2026.

What Brevo is for

Brevo bundles a marketing and sales toolkit into one account: email and SMS campaigns, drag-and-drop automation workflows, a landing-page builder, and a CRM with deals and a pipeline, so a small team doesn’t need a separate tool just to track a sales conversation that starts from an email click. The free plan starts sending immediately, 300 emails a day with no credit card and no time limit, and every paid tier adds volume and features on top rather than swapping the core product for something different. WhatsApp and push notifications join SMS at the Professional tier, giving Brevo the widest channel reach of the tools in Best Email Marketing Software for Small Businesses.

What you get on each plan

PlanMonthlyAnnual (per mo)VolumeAutomation
Free$0 forever—300 emails/day, 100,000 contacts storedCapped at 2,000 contacts/workflow
Starter$9/mo$8.08/mo5,000 emails/moNot included
Standard$18/mo$16.17/mo5,000+ emails/moIncluded, plus A/B testing, 1 landing page
Professional$499/mo$449.08/mo150,000+ emails/moIncluded, plus AI segmentation and contact scoring
Enterprisefrom $2,499+/mocustomCustomFull suite, dedicated IP, SSO/SAML

One number worth flagging before you sign up: Brevo’s own pricing page shows “500 contacts” for the Free plan in places, but that figure reads like an artifact of the page’s interactive contact-count selector rather than the real Free-plan cap. Brevo’s help-center FAQ states the limit plainly, up to 100,000 contacts stored with sending capped at 300 emails a day, and multiple 2026-dated third-party reviews agree with the FAQ number, not the pricing-page one. Add-ons bill separately from any plan: removing the “Sent with Brevo” footer costs $10.80/mo, a Sales Essentials CRM add-on runs $27.92/mo, and Sales Advanced runs $58.50 per user per month. What happens when the Free plan’s daily cap is reached is clear: sending pauses until the midnight UTC reset, an 80%-reached warning email goes out first, and a “Requeue” option resends the same list the next day instead of losing the send. What happens on a paid plan once the monthly volume cap is hit is less clear; third-party pricing guides disagree on whether Brevo forces an upgrade or simply blocks further sends, and no Brevo-owned page spells it out.

What users say in reviews

Brevo’s G2 score (4.5/5, roughly 2,600 reviews) and Capterra score (4.6/5, roughly 3,500 reviews) both sit well above its Trustpilot score, 3.8 out of 5 across a much larger 7,250-review sample (13% one-star, 76% five-star). The gap lines up with what Trustpilot’s negative reviews actually describe. The most repeated complaint is account suspension with little or no warning, including for customers who had already paid: one reviewer wrote that their account was suspended even though they’d already paid for three months of service. Slow, low-quality support is the second recurring theme, with reviewers describing agents who “never fully understand” the issue raised. A smaller cluster describes the initial setup and interface as confusing to navigate.

Who should buy it

Brevo makes the most sense for a small business with a sizeable contact list it doesn’t email every day, since the emails-sent meter doesn’t punish storing a big list the way a per-contact plan does on Moosend or iContact. It’s also a reasonable pick for a team that wants SMS or WhatsApp alongside email without buying a separate tool. Read the Starter tier’s fine print before signing up for it specifically, since it ships with zero automation, a detail that’s easy to miss next to Moosend’s Pro tier, which bundles automation in at a similar price. Before sending at real volume on any Brevo plan, running the list through a verification tool like the ones covered in Best Email Deliverability Tools protects both your sending reputation and your email-volume quota from addresses that were only ever going to bounce.

Pricing note: Brevo has five tiers and meters by emails sent per month rather than by contacts stored, the reverse of how most of the other tools in this category price. Free costs $0 forever with no credit card: 300 emails a day, up to 100,000 contacts stored, automation capped at 2,000 contacts per workflow, and 1 user seat. Starter runs $9/mo billed monthly or $8.08/mo billed annually for 5,000 emails a month, but ships with no automation at all. Standard runs $18/mo billed monthly or $16.17/mo billed annually for 5,000-plus emails a month and adds automation, A/B testing and 1 included landing page. Professional runs $499/mo billed monthly or $449.08/mo billed annually for 150,000-plus emails a month, plus AI-driven segmentation and contact scoring. Enterprise starts from $2,499-plus a month, custom-quoted, with dedicated IP and SSO/SAML. Add-ons bill separately on every tier: removing the 'Sent with Brevo' footer costs $10.80/mo, a Sales Essentials CRM add-on runs $27.92/mo, and Sales Advanced runs $58.50 per user per month. The Free plan's overage behavior is clear: sending pauses once the 300/day cap hits, until the midnight UTC reset, with an 80%-reached warning email first and a 'Requeue' option to resend the same list the next day. What happens on a paid plan once you hit the monthly volume cap is less settled; third-party pricing guides disagree on whether Brevo forces an upgrade or simply blocks further sends, and no Brevo-owned page spells it out.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Brevo cost?

Brevo has five tiers, metered by emails sent per month rather than contacts. Free is $0 forever for 300 emails a day. Starter runs $9/mo billed monthly or $8.08/mo billed annually for 5,000 emails a month, with no automation included. Standard runs $18/mo billed monthly or $16.17/mo billed annually for 5,000-plus emails a month and adds automation and a landing page. Professional runs $499/mo billed monthly or $449.08/mo billed annually for 150,000-plus emails a month. Enterprise starts from $2,499-plus a month, custom-quoted.

Does Brevo have a free plan?

Yes, and it's permanent, with no credit card required: 300 emails a day, 1 user seat, and automation capped at 2,000 contacts per workflow. On contact storage, go by Brevo's help-center FAQ (up to 100,000 contacts stored), not the pricing page, which shows a '500 contacts' figure in places that looks like an artifact of its interactive contact-count selector rather than the real Free-plan limit.

Does Brevo's cheapest paid plan include automation?

No. Starter, at $9/mo, has no automation at all according to Brevo's own feature list. Automation only arrives at Standard, $18/mo billed monthly or $16.17/mo billed annually, which also adds A/B testing and 1 included landing page.

Is Brevo a good fit for a large contact list?

Often, yes, specifically because it meters by emails sent rather than by contacts stored. A business with a big customer database it only emails occasionally pays for actual sending volume instead of being charged more just for the size of the list sitting in storage, the opposite of how Moosend, iContact and Mailchimp price.

What do Brevo's negative reviews say?

The two most repeated complaints on Trustpilot are account suspensions with little or no warning, including customers who had already paid for service, and slow, low-quality support. A smaller cluster describes the initial setup and interface as confusing to navigate.

Bottom line

Brevo's email-volume pricing is a genuine structural advantage for a business sitting on a big, rarely-emailed list, and the bundled CRM plus SMS and WhatsApp reach add real value for a small team that wants one bill instead of three. Automation sitting behind an $18/mo upgrade from the $9 Starter tier, and a pattern of unexplained account suspensions on Trustpilot, both deserve a close read before signing up.

Alternatives in Email Marketing Software

Brevo
4.3
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