What Is Brevo? Email, SMS, WhatsApp and Transactional Mail
By Joris van Huët · Brevo's own site
The short answer: if your website or app sends order confirmations and password resets and you also want newsletters and automations, Brevo does both from one account, counting campaign and transactional emails in one monthly volume. Starter costs $9 a month on monthly billing for 5,000 emails and 500 contacts; the free plan sends 300 emails a day (pricing page, checked on 24 October 2026).
Disclosure: I may earn a commission through some links on this site. It does not change what this page says.
Rule of thumb before you choose:
- Turn the daily cap into a monthly one. The free plan's 300 emails a day is at most 300 x 30 = 9,000 a month, but a single campaign to more than 300 people reaches only 300 on the day and must be requeued for the rest (free plan FAQ).
- Add up the mail you already send. Order and account emails from your site count against the same volume as newsletters on paid plans, because the pricing page measures "campaigns & transactional" together.
- Name the report you will trust. Transactional mail has its own Statistics and Logs pages (SMTP guide); decide who reads them each week.
What Brevo does
Brevo covers email campaigns, marketing automation, transactional email through SMTP and API, SMS, WhatsApp campaigns, web and mobile push, live chat, a chatbot and a sales CRM, according to its homepage. Its AI, branded Aura, writes copy, suggests segments and answers data questions in plain language.
Its MCP server gives outside AI tools one endpoint for all 27 modules, or narrower ones such as campaign analytics, from the Starter plan up.
Who it suits, and who should look elsewhere
It suits a small or mid-sized business that wants transactional and marketing email from one domain and one bill. A store that lives on cart and browse flows will find more of that prebuilt in an ecommerce-first tool, and WhatsApp campaigns, popups and multi-user access start on Professional.
Prices
USD, from the Brevo pricing page on 24 October 2026:
| Plan | Monthly billing | Yearly billing, per month | Included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | 300 emails a day |
| Starter | $9 | $8.08 | 5,000 emails, 500 contacts |
| Standard | $18 | $16.17 | Adds automation and A/B tests |
| Professional | $499 | $449.08 | 150,000 emails, 2 million contacts, 10 seats |
| Enterprise | From $2,499 | Quoted | Custom |
On Starter, removing the Brevo logo is an add-on at $12 a month on monthly billing. The free plan stores up to 100,000 contacts, lets 2,000 unique contacts into active automations and allows one user, according to the free plan FAQ.
How it compares
Mailchimp. Mailchimp's Standard plan starts at $20 a month for 6,000 emails and charges overages when you pass a contact or send limit (Mailchimp pricing). The decider is whether transactional mail should share the plan; on Brevo it does by design.
Sender. Sender gives its free plan a monthly allowance, 15,000 emails to 2,500 subscribers (Sender pricing). For a weekly newsletter to under 2,500 people, that avoids Brevo's 300-a-day queue.
Omnisend. Omnisend starts from the store connection and prices by contacts, $16 a month for 500 on Standard (Omnisend pricing). Choose it for cart recovery; choose Brevo when order emails and newsletters share a sender.
A free plan exists to get your contacts imported, the vendor's goal before it is yours; Brevo's pricing FAQ says sending starts once Brevo approves the account. Keep your own export, so leaving stays as easy as arriving.
Where to begin
Authenticate the domain, create a sender, connect SMTP, then send a campaign: How to use Brevo covers each step from Brevo's help centre.
FAQ
Does the free plan include transactional email?
Yes. All plans include transactional features, and on the free plan the 300 daily sends cover both kinds, with up to 1,000 extra transactional emails held in a retry queue (free plan FAQ).
Can I remove the "Sent with Brevo" footer for free?
No. Free plan emails always carry it; Starter removes it with the paid add-on, and Standard and above remove it without one.
Does Brevo charge per contact or per email?
Mostly per email: plans are sold by monthly volume, with a contact allowance beside it, 500 on Starter and 2 million on Professional (pricing page).