Brevo Pricing: Complete Breakdown of Plans, Costs, and What You Actually Get

Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is one of the most affordable email marketing platforms out there. But "affordable" doesn't mean much if you don't understand what you're actually paying for-and what's going to cost extra.

Here's everything you need to know about Brevo pricing, including the hidden costs that catch people off guard.

Brevo Pricing at a Glance

Unlike most email marketing tools that charge by subscriber count, Brevo charges based on the number of emails you send. This is a big deal if you have a large list but don't email frequently.

Here's the current pricing structure:

You can save 10% by paying annually on any paid plan.

Brevo Free Plan: Good for Testing, Frustrating for Real Use

The free plan lets you store up to 100,000 contacts and access most core features including marketing automation, CRM, and web tracking. That's genuinely generous compared to competitors.

The catch? You're limited to 300 emails per day. That's roughly 9,000 emails per month if you max it out daily, but here's the problem: if you have a list of 500 people and want to send a newsletter, you'll need to spread it across two days. Time-sensitive campaigns become a nightmare.

Other free plan limitations:

The free plan works for testing the platform or if you have a tiny list. But if you're running a real business, you'll outgrow it quickly.

What you can actually do on the Free plan: You get access to email campaigns with 40+ templates, a drag-and-drop editor, basic automation workflows (for up to 2,000 contacts), signup forms, web tracking, transactional emails, and a basic CRM. The automation feature is particularly impressive for a free plan-most competitors lock this behind paid tiers.

The Daily Sending Limit Reality

The 300 emails per day limit resets every 24 hours, and unused emails don't roll over. If you send a campaign to 500 people, only 300 will receive it on day one. You'll need to manually resend using Brevo's "Requeue" option to reach the remaining 200 contacts the next day. For time-sensitive promotions or announcements, this is a dealbreaker.

Another important note: These 300 emails cover both marketing campaigns and transactional emails. If you're running an e-commerce store sending order confirmations and shipping notifications, those count toward your daily limit too.

Starter Plan: $9/month - The Budget Option

The Starter plan eliminates the daily sending limit and gives you a monthly email quota instead. At $9/month, you get 5,000 emails. Need more? Here's how the pricing scales:

You also get 24/7 email support (finally) and enhanced basic reporting.

The big problem with Starter: The Brevo logo still appears on your emails. To remove it, you need to pay an extra $9-12/month depending on current pricing. So that "$9/month" plan becomes $18-21/month if you want professional-looking emails. Not a dealbreaker, but worth knowing.

Marketing automation is still limited to 2,000 contacts on Starter. No landing pages. No A/B testing. No advanced reporting.

When Starter Makes Sense

The Starter plan works best for solopreneurs or small businesses just getting started with email marketing. If you're sending simple newsletters to a small list (under 5,000 emails per month), and you're okay with basic reporting, Starter can work. But be realistic about the limitations.

If you're paying for Starter plus the logo removal add-on, you're spending $18-21/month. At that point, you're almost at the Standard plan price ($18/month base), which includes significantly more features. Most users are better off jumping straight to Standard.

Standard (Business) Plan: $18/month - Where It Gets Good

The Standard plan (sometimes called Business) is where Brevo becomes a legitimate email marketing platform. Starting at $18/month for 5,000 emails, you get:

Pricing scales similarly to Starter:

If you're serious about email marketing-running automations, testing subject lines, using landing pages-this is the minimum plan you should consider.

Standard Plan Features That Matter

The unlimited automation contacts feature alone makes Standard worth it for most businesses. You can build sophisticated workflows with multiple triggers, conditions, and branching logic without worrying about hitting contact limits.

The A/B testing capability lets you test subject lines, sender names, and email content to optimize performance. Advanced reporting shows you click heatmaps (which parts of your email get clicked), geographic data, and device breakdowns (desktop vs mobile).

The AI send time optimization analyzes when each contact is most likely to open emails and sends accordingly. This feature can significantly improve open rates without any extra work on your part.

Professional Plan: For High-Volume Senders

The Professional plan starts at around $500/month and is designed for businesses sending 150,000+ emails monthly. It includes everything in Standard plus:

Unless you're sending massive volumes or need WhatsApp integration, you probably don't need this tier.

Who Actually Needs Professional?

The Professional plan makes sense for established e-commerce businesses, marketing agencies managing multiple clients, or companies with sophisticated multichannel marketing needs. The 10 included user seats alone are valuable for teams (Standard charges $9-12 per additional user).

The contact scoring feature helps prioritize leads based on engagement, and the analytics studio provides deeper insights into customer behavior across channels. If you're running complex marketing funnels across email, SMS, and WhatsApp, Professional provides the tools to manage everything in one place.

Enterprise Plan: Custom Pricing

Enterprise is for large organizations that need unlimited contacts, subaccounts, dedicated support, SLAs, and tailored onboarding. You'll need to contact sales for pricing-expect it to be significantly more than Professional.

One dedicated IP is included in Enterprise by default.

Enterprise features include:

Hidden Costs and Add-Ons

This is where Brevo's pricing gets messy. The base plans look cheap, but add-ons stack up:

The dedicated IP is worth considering if you send at least 3 campaigns per week to 3,000+ subscribers. It gives you full control over your sender reputation instead of sharing IPs with other Brevo users.

Understanding SMS and WhatsApp Pricing

Brevo's SMS and WhatsApp features use a prepaid credit system. One credit equals one message, though the number of credits required per message varies by country and message length.

SMS pricing examples:

WhatsApp pricing: Available only on Professional and Enterprise plans. The first 1,000 WhatsApp messages per month are free to any country. After that, pricing varies by recipient country and message type (Marketing vs Utility). Note that as of April 2025, Meta suspended WhatsApp marketing templates for US phone numbers.

WhatsApp credits never expire, so you can purchase them in bulk and use them over time. The same applies to SMS credits-buy once, use whenever.

Pay-As-You-Go Credits

If you don't send emails regularly, Brevo offers prepaid credits that never expire. One credit = one email. When you buy credits, you get all Starter features and no Brevo branding.

This is a smart option for businesses that only send occasionally-you won't waste money on unused monthly quotas. However, you won't have access to landing pages, and automation is still capped at 2,000 contacts.

Pay-As-You-Go Pricing Structure

Prepaid email credits are available in packs ranging from 5,000 to 1 million emails. The more you buy, the lower the per-email cost. These credits can be used for both marketing and transactional emails, giving you flexibility.

For seasonal businesses or companies with irregular sending patterns, pay-as-you-go can save significant money compared to maintaining a monthly subscription you don't fully use.

Brevo vs Mailchimp: Which is Cheaper?

The short answer: Brevo is almost always cheaper, especially as you scale.

Mailchimp charges based on contact count. If someone is on multiple lists, they count multiple times. You also pay for unsubscribed contacts and people who haven't confirmed opt-in. This adds up fast.

Mailchimp's free plan limits you to just 500 contacts and 1,000 emails per month. Brevo gives you 100,000 contacts and 9,000 emails (300/day).

For growing businesses with large lists, Brevo can cost less than half of what Mailchimp charges. At 5,000 contacts on Mailchimp Standard, you're looking at around $75/month. With Brevo, you could send 20,000 emails to unlimited contacts for about $49/month.

The tradeoff? Mailchimp has more native integrations (300+ vs Brevo's 65ish), better templates, and more polish overall. But for pure email sending value, Brevo wins.

Real-World Pricing Comparison

Let's look at a concrete example: You have 10,000 contacts and send one email campaign per week (roughly 40,000 emails per month).

Mailchimp: With 10,000 contacts on their Standard plan, you'd pay approximately $110-150/month depending on features.

Brevo: For 40,000 emails per month on Standard, you'd pay approximately $69/month.

That's a savings of $40-80 per month, or $480-960 per year. As your list grows, the gap widens further.

However, if you have a large list but send infrequently (say, 10,000 contacts but only one email per month), Mailchimp might actually be more expensive since you're paying for contacts, not sends. Brevo's 10,000-email monthly plan would cost around $15/month on Starter, while Mailchimp would still charge you $110+ for those 10,000 contacts even if you barely email them.

Brevo vs MailerLite, Moosend, and GetResponse

While Mailchimp is the most popular comparison, other competitors offer different value propositions.

Brevo vs MailerLite

MailerLite charges based on subscribers, not email volume. Their Growing Business plan starts at $10/month for 500 subscribers with unlimited emails. For small lists (under 2,500 contacts), MailerLite is often cheaper. But once you cross 5,000 contacts, Brevo becomes more affordable.

MailerLite includes landing pages and websites on all paid plans, which Brevo doesn't offer on Starter. If you need landing pages and have a small list, MailerLite might be better. For larger lists or multichannel campaigns (SMS, WhatsApp), Brevo pulls ahead.

Brevo vs Moosend

Moosend offers all features on a single paid plan starting at $9/month for 500 contacts. You get A/B testing, automation, and advanced features that Brevo locks behind Standard. For businesses with small lists needing full features, Moosend offers better value.

However, Brevo's unlimited contacts on most plans and multichannel capabilities (SMS, WhatsApp, CRM) make it more comprehensive for businesses planning to scale.

Brevo vs GetResponse

GetResponse is more expensive than Brevo at scale. For 25,000 contacts, GetResponse charges around $170/month while Brevo would charge $49-69/month depending on email volume.

GetResponse offers more advanced features like webinars, conversion funnels, and better e-commerce tools. If you need those features, the extra cost might be justified. For straightforward email marketing, Brevo provides better value.

Understanding Brevo's Pricing Model: Send-Based vs Contact-Based

Brevo's send-based pricing is fundamentally different from most competitors' contact-based models. Understanding this difference is crucial for determining if Brevo is right for you.

When Send-Based Pricing Works Best

When Send-Based Pricing Doesn't Work

For businesses sending 4+ emails per month to their entire list, contact-based pricing often becomes more economical. Do the math based on your actual usage.

What Happens When You Hit Your Sending Limit?

If you reach your monthly email limit before the billing period ends, Brevo will pause your campaigns. You'll receive notifications before this happens, giving you options:

  1. Purchase additional email credits to continue sending
  2. Renew your subscription early to reset your monthly limit
  3. Wait until your next billing cycle starts
  4. Upgrade to a higher-tier plan with more emails

Unused emails don't roll over to the next month, so you'll lose what you don't use. This makes accurate forecasting important.

Brevo Deliverability: What You Need to Know

Pricing doesn't matter if your emails don't reach inboxes. Brevo's deliverability has been inconsistent historically but has improved recently.

Recent independent testing shows Brevo achieving approximately 88-90% inbox placement rates, which is decent but not industry-leading. For comparison, dedicated email service providers often achieve 95%+ deliverability.

Deliverability by Email Provider

Performance varies significantly by recipient email provider:

If your list is primarily Gmail users, expect roughly 25-30% of emails to land in spam folders. This isn't catastrophic, but it's worth considering.

Improving Deliverability on Brevo

You can improve your deliverability by:

Brevo provides deliverability monitoring tools and will suspend accounts with consistently poor metrics (high bounces, spam complaints), so maintaining good practices is essential.

What Brevo Does Well

What Brevo Gets Wrong

Common Brevo Pricing Questions Answered

Does Brevo charge for contacts?

No, Brevo charges based on email volume sent, not the number of contacts you store. You can have unlimited contacts on most plans (Free plan caps at 100K contacts). However, recent plan updates have introduced contact caps on lower email-volume tiers.

Can I switch plans mid-month?

Yes, you can upgrade at any time and you'll be charged a prorated amount. Downgrading requires canceling your current plan, which takes effect at the end of your billing period.

Do email credits expire?

Prepaid email credits never expire. However, monthly plan allowances reset each billing cycle and unused emails don't roll over.

Is there a free trial for paid plans?

Brevo doesn't offer traditional free trials for paid plans. Instead, they have a generous free plan you can use indefinitely to test features before upgrading.

Can I get a refund?

Brevo doesn't offer money-back guarantees, but the low entry prices and free plan minimize financial risk.

How does annual billing work?

Annual billing saves 10% compared to monthly billing. You pay once per year, but your email credits are topped up monthly according to your plan.

Who Should Use Brevo?

Brevo is a good fit if you:

Brevo isn't ideal if you:

How to Choose the Right Brevo Plan for Your Business

Here's a decision framework to help you choose:

Start with the Free Plan if:

Choose Starter if:

Choose Standard if:

Choose Professional if:

Choose Pay-As-You-Go if:

Brevo Pricing: Making the Final Decision

Here's my recommendation based on common business scenarios:

For most small businesses doing real email marketing, Standard is the sweet spot. The Starter plan is too limited once you actually try to do anything beyond basic newsletters.

Tips for Maximizing Value on Brevo

Here's how to get the most out of Brevo while controlling costs:

  1. Clean your list regularly: Remove inactive subscribers to reduce waste and improve deliverability
  2. Use segmentation: Send targeted campaigns to segments instead of blasting your entire list
  3. Leverage automation: Set up automated workflows to nurture leads without manual sending
  4. Monitor your usage: Track how many emails you're sending to avoid overage surprises
  5. Start with Standard, not Starter: The extra features justify the $9 difference
  6. Buy SMS/WhatsApp credits in bulk: Larger purchases reduce per-message costs
  7. Use transactional emails: They're included free on all plans
  8. Take advantage of the CRM: It's included, so use it instead of paying for separate CRM software
  9. Consider annual billing: Save 10% if you're committed to Brevo

Bottom Line

Brevo delivers solid value for businesses watching their budget. The email-based pricing model is genuinely better than paying for contact counts, and you get features like automation and CRM that competitors charge extra for.

But don't be fooled by the low starting prices. Factor in the add-ons you'll actually need-especially branding removal and extra landing pages-and compare the total cost to alternatives before committing.

For most businesses with larger lists (5,000+ contacts) who send 2-4 campaigns per month, Brevo offers significant savings compared to Mailchimp and similar platforms. The Standard plan at $18/month is the best value for small to medium businesses serious about email marketing.

If you're considering AWeber as an alternative, check out our detailed AWeber pricing breakdown. For a broader comparison, see our guide to the best email marketing software.

Looking for tools to complement your email marketing? Explore our reviews of Clay for data enrichment, Instantly for cold email, or check out our roundup of CRMs for small business.