Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) took a fundamentally different approach to email pricing — one that makes it dramatically cheaper for a specific type of business. While every other platform charges by the number of contacts you store, Brevo charges by the number of emails you send. If you have a large list but don’t email it every week, this pricing model can save hundreds of dollars per month.
The Pricing Model Is the Differentiator
The standard industry model — charge per contact — penalizes businesses for accumulating a list. A company with 50,000 subscribers pays full price whether it sends one email per month or twenty. Brevo flips this: store unlimited contacts for free, pay only for what you actually send.
The practical impact is significant. A business with 30,000 contacts that sends one monthly newsletter would pay $299+/month on Mailchimp’s Standard plan. On Brevo’s Starter plan at $25/month for 20,000 emails, that same business pays a fraction of the cost. For nonprofits, seasonal businesses, or anyone with a large engaged list they email infrequently, Brevo is by far the most cost-effective option.
SMS and WhatsApp Are First-Class Features
Most email marketing platforms treat SMS as an expensive add-on or don’t offer it at all. Brevo includes SMS marketing and WhatsApp campaigns across all plans, with credits purchased separately but at reasonable rates. For businesses already running multi-channel outreach — confirmation texts, promotional SMS, WhatsApp broadcasts — having email, SMS, and WhatsApp in one platform eliminates integration headaches and keeps reporting centralized.
Transactional Email Built In
Brevo’s roots as a transactional email service (order confirmations, password resets, receipts) mean it handles this category better than pure email marketing tools. The SMTP relay is reliable, well-documented, and included in all plans. For e-commerce businesses or SaaS products that need both marketing and transactional email under one roof, this is a meaningful advantage.
How It Compares to Mailchimp
Mailchimp wins on template design and ease of use. Brevo wins on pricing for any list above a few thousand contacts and on multi-channel features. If you’re paying Mailchimp $50-100/month and you don’t send high-frequency campaigns, switching to Brevo’s send-based model is likely to cut your email bill in half immediately. The automation builder is functional but less polished than Mailchimp’s Standard plan — a trade-off worth making if the savings are significant.
Who Should Use Brevo
Brevo is the right choice for e-commerce businesses with large lists and variable send frequency, nonprofits that email donors infrequently, B2B companies with long sales cycles, and any business that wants email, SMS, and transactional messaging in a single platform. If you send to your entire list every week, the per-send model becomes less advantageous — at that cadence, compare carefully before switching.