Brevo vs Resend: A Marketing Platform or an Email API

The short answer: for a software company whose app sends 40,000 emails a month and whose marketer sends a newsletter to 5,000 users twice a month, the two land within $4 of each other: Resend charges $20 for transactional and $40 for marketing, $60 in all, and Brevo Starter covers 50,000 emails of both kinds for $56 (Resend pricing, Brevo pricing, checked on 26 October 2026). So price will not decide it. Choose Resend if your job is email that developers own in code. Choose Brevo if your job is campaigns, automations and SMS that a marketer runs from a dashboard, with app email riding along.

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Resend describes itself as email for developers: an API, SMTP relay and SDKs, with React Email for building templates in code, and broadcasts for marketing email added on top (homepage). Brevo starts from the other end, a marketing platform with campaigns, automation, SMS, WhatsApp and a CRM, which also gives every plan transactional email through API and SMTP (pricing FAQ). Resend has no entry in my glossary; its own site is linked throughout.

Before you split or merge the bill:

1. Price the month you will have in a year. For example, at 100,000 app emails a month Resend Pro is $35 (Resend pricing file), while Brevo Starter at its top step of 100,000 emails is $82 by its pricing file, a gap of $82 - $35 = $47. Add a newsletter and Brevo's volume grows with every send, while Resend prices marketing by contacts.
2. Start from how your templates are built today. If they live in your codebase as components, Resend's SDKs and React Email keep them there. If a marketer edits them in a drag and drop editor, Brevo keeps them there.
3. Decide how far back you need delivery logs. Resend keeps 30 days of data on its self-serve plans. Brevo's pricing FAQ lists unlimited log retention for transactional email. A customer who says a reset email never arrived in March is answered by one and not the other.
4. Pick the weekly number someone will read. Bounces and complaints per sending domain, every Monday, on whichever tool wins.

Need by need

The differences that decide it

Who opens it every day

Brevo's tools are screens: a campaign editor, an automation builder, segments, an SMS composer. Resend's tools are endpoints, and its dashboard exists to inspect them and to send broadcasts. My view: a team with no developer time gets little from Resend's endpoints, and a team where engineers own every email carries Brevo's marketing screens without using them.

Free tiers with different caps

Brevo's free plan sends 300 emails a day across transactional and marketing mail, once Brevo approves the account (pricing FAQ). Resend's free plan sends 3,000 transactional emails a month at no more than 100 a day, and keeps 1,000 contacts for marketing broadcasts (pricing file). A product launch that sends 400 welcome emails in one afternoon passes both daily caps.

Contracts and history

Resend's pricing file is explicit: self-serve plans are billed monthly only, with no annual plan and no discount for paying a year ahead. Brevo takes 10% off for yearly billing. On history, Resend keeps 30 days of logs on its self-serve plans and Brevo lists unlimited log retention for transactional email (Resend pricing, Brevo pricing).

Scoping an agent before it sends

Resend runs an official MCP server at https://mcp.resend.com/mcp that can create and send broadcasts, manage contacts and segments, and read request logs. Scope the agent to its job. An agent that only sends app email can run the local server on a key with "Sending access" restricted to one domain, which Resend's API key guide recommends unless a key needs full access. An agent that drafts newsletters needs the remote server, where you approve its access through OAuth in a browser. Ask that one to turn the month's changelog into a draft broadcast for the "customers" segment. Resend lets you send a test email from a draft broadcast before anything goes to a segment, so a person reads the test in their own inbox and presses send. Brevo's equivalent guard is its Claude connector, which only saves drafts; its full MCP token has read and write access to the whole account.

Resend prices transactional and marketing as two plans, each small enough to look harmless on its own page. Split that way, each plan gets approved on its own and Resend bills the sum, which then grows on two meters at once, emails sent and contacts kept. Add them together before you compare, as the table below does.

Monthly cost for four setups

USD, checked on 26 October 2026 on the Resend pricing page and the Brevo pricing page, with Brevo's 100,000 step from its pricing file. Brevo figures are Starter, which includes transactional email but not multi-step automation.

Choose Brevo if your job is

• Running campaigns, automations and SMS from a dashboard, with app email on the same plan.
• Keeping transactional logs for as long as support needs them.
• Paying yearly for a discount.

Choose Resend if your job is

• Sending app email from code, with templates kept in the repository.
• Paying monthly for exactly the transactional volume you use.
• Giving AI agents scoped access to sending, inboxes and logs.

FAQ

Does Resend offer an annual discount?

No. Its pricing file says self-serve plans are billed monthly only, and annual commitments at high volume go through its sales team.

Can Brevo send app emails through an API?

Yes. Its pricing FAQ says every plan includes transactional email through RESTful APIs and SMTP, with outbound webhooks.

Can a marketer use Resend without code?

For newsletters, yes. Broadcasts are composed and scheduled in a no-code editor in the dashboard, sent to segments of your contacts (broadcasts guide).