Formerly Sendinblue. Free 9,000 emails/month plan with CRM and automation included. $9/month Starter when you outgrow it. The cheapest serious email platform in 2026.
Brevo (the rebrand of Sendinblue) charges by emails sent rather than contacts stored — which means you can store 100,000 contacts on the free plan and only pay when you send heavily. The free tier (300 emails/day, 9,000/month) includes CRM, automation, segmentation, and SMS — features Mailchimp gates behind paid plans. Starter at $9/month removes branding and lifts the daily cap. The 300/day limit on Free is the one real constraint; if you don't hit that, this is the best email deal in 2026.
Brevo's email-sent pricing model is a significant advantage. A list of 25,000 subscribers emailed weekly costs roughly $25-39/month on Brevo's Starter tier. The same list on Mailchimp Standard is over $200/month. Verify your actual sending pattern before committing — the savings depend entirely on send frequency relative to list size.
Most 'free' email marketing tools cap at 500-1,000 contacts. Brevo Free stores up to 100,000 contacts. That alone is unusual.
The full free tier includes:
Compare to Mailchimp Free: 500 contacts, 1,000 sends/month, no automation, no CRM. Compare to Kit Free: 10,000 subscribers but only 1 automation. Brevo's free tier is genuinely best-in-class for SMBs with large lists who don't send daily campaigns.
Brevo's daily send limit is the constraint that pushes users to upgrade. If your list is 5,000 subscribers and you want to send a single broadcast, you can't — the 300/day cap forces you to schedule the campaign across 17 days, which kills time-sensitive promotions.
For lists under 300 active subscribers, this is a non-issue. For lists between 500-2,000 subscribers sending weekly newsletters, you'll likely hit the cap and need to upgrade. The Starter plan at $9/month removes the daily cap and adds a 5,000-100,000 monthly send tier — meaningful headroom for the price.
The other Free plan limit worth knowing: emails carry 'Sent with Brevo' branding. Removal costs $10.80/month as a paid add-on, or you can upgrade to Starter ($9) which removes branding by default. The math here is funny — Starter is cheaper than the branding-removal add-on.
Mailchimp's pricing model charges per contact stored. Send a single campaign to 10,000 contacts and you pay for 10,000 contacts every month, even if you only email them once. Brevo flips this: pricing is based on emails sent per month, not contacts stored.
For a list of 50,000 contacts that you email once a month, Mailchimp Standard would run roughly $300/month. The equivalent Brevo Standard tier handles 50,000 monthly sends for around $39/month — almost 8x cheaper for the same use case.
The gap closes when you send frequently. Daily senders to small lists pay similar amounts on either platform. For high-frequency sending to small lists, Mailchimp can come out ahead.
Brevo's automation is functional but less sophisticated than Kit's tag-based segmentation or ActiveCampaign's visual automation builder. For creators selling courses, paid newsletters, or running complex behavior-triggered sequences, Kit or ActiveCampaign is the better fit.
Deliverability is good but not exceptional. Brevo's reputation as a budget option means it occasionally struggles with the 'Promotions' tab placement in Gmail. Higher-tier platforms like ActiveCampaign and Kit have better inbox placement at scale.
The user interface, while improved since the Sendinblue era, still feels less polished than newer platforms. For solopreneurs valuing UI design, Kit's interface is markedly cleaner. For users prioritizing budget over UI, Brevo wins on every dollar comparison.
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Yes — the free plan has no time limit. 9,000 emails per month, 300/day, 100,000 contact storage, automation included. The free plan adds Brevo branding to outgoing emails, which can be removed via paid add-on ($10.80/mo) or upgrading to Starter ($9/mo).
Brevo, almost always. Mailchimp charges per contact stored; Brevo charges per email sent. For lists over 5,000 contacts that you email less than weekly, Brevo can be 5-10x cheaper. For high-frequency daily sending to small lists, the gap narrows.
Sendinblue. The platform rebranded to Brevo in mid-2023, retaining the same product, pricing structure, and integration ecosystem. If you read older reviews referencing Sendinblue, the information mostly still applies.
Yes — SMS is supported across most plans. SMS credits are sold separately as add-ons rather than included in the base subscription. WhatsApp messaging is available on Professional and Enterprise tiers.
Yes. All Brevo plans include transactional email features (RESTful APIs, SMTP, webhooks, log retention) at no extra cost. This is a meaningful advantage over Mailchimp, where Mailchimp Transactional is a separate paid product.
Brevo works for these use cases but isn't optimized for them. For paid newsletters, course sales, and sophisticated tagging-based segmentation, Kit (formerly ConvertKit) is purpose-built and a better fit. Brevo wins on price; Kit wins on creator-specific workflows.
Formerly Sendinblue. Free 9,000 emails/month plan with CRM and automation included. $9/month Starter when you outgrow it. The cheapest serious email platform in 2026.