Sendinblue (Brevo) Review 2024: Pros, Cons, Pricing
Brevo, previously known as Sendinblue, offers an all-in-one platform to manage customer relationships through email, SMS, and chat. It’s designed to streamline your marketing automation, sales pipeline management, and customer data analysis.
In our Sendinblue review, we’ll walk you through what the company has to offer and help you figure out if it’s the right choice for you. We’ll cover its features, pricing, how it stacks up against competitors, and who would benefit the most from using it.
A Quick Look at What Sendinblue (Brevo) Offers
Brevo started as Sendinblue in 2012 and rebranded to Brevo in 2023. You can think of Brevo as five platforms built into one: marketing, sales, communication, CRM, and transactional messages.
Its marketing platform mostly revolves around email marketing. With Brevo, you can create landing pages and sign-up forms to generate leads, design emails with a user-friendly drag-and-drop editor, set up email automation, and dive into your campaign results.
Besides emails, you can reach out to your audience via SMS, WhatsApp, and push notifications. Plus, there’s a handy meetings feature that lets you schedule and host meetings with customers right from Brevo.
Getting started with Brevo is relatively simple. It’s easy to create professional-looking emails and run automated campaigns.
But unless you have a sophisticated sales and marketing department, it’s hard to imagine a situation where you’ll use all the features in Brevo.
These are the Brevo features you’re likely to use most often as a small business:
| Feature | Description | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Email Marketing Automation | Send your emails to the right people at the right moment. | ★★★☆☆ |
| Email Editor | A drag-and-drop email editor with a variety of pre-set elements to customize your email design. | ★★★★☆ |
| Sign-up Forms | Customizable forms to help you bring on new subscribers and manage information requests | ★★★★☆ |
| Landing pages | Attract visitors and get new leads with pre-designed landing pages | ★★★★☆ |
| Segmentation Builder | Divide subscribers into groups based on demographics, behaviors, and interests. | ★★★★☆ |
| Customer Data Platform | Import customer data from multiple sources and sync across channels. | ★★★★☆ |
| A/B Testing | Try out different versions of your emails to see which one subscribers engage with best. | ★★★★☆ |
| WhatsApp Marketing | Run WhatsApp campaigns and manage customer replies via Brevo. | ★★★★☆ |
| SMS Marketing | Run SMS campaigns and monitor how customers engage with your messages. | ★★★★☆ |
What Do the Users Say?
Online Sendinblue reviews often give it thumbs up. They like how easy it is to use, its ability to handle marketing across different channels, and how well it plays with WordPress.
One user calls Brevo a “strong email marketing solution” with reliable automation and workflow features. The generous free plan and the platform’s support for multiple languages also get positive feedback.
But let’s look at the full picture.
Deliverability Is Underwhelming
When you stack Brevo up against other email marketing platforms, it seems to fall short in getting emails where they need to go — the primary inbox.
An independent study in 2023 found that:
- Brevo’s emails are about twice as likely to get marked as spam compared to the average (27.4% for Brevo versus a 14.8% industry benchmark).
- Brevo inboxing score is only 55.4%.
- Even with a new name from Sendinblue to Brevo, the change didn’t seem to improve deliverability.
While their numbers have improved to over 80 percent in 2024, it’s still too early to tell whether the company has made significant changes to their policies to maintain the upward trajectory.
Consider the frustration of a user who finds their emails are missing the inbox more often than they should.
Customer Support Falls Short
Many users are also disappointed with Brevo’s customer support. That’s because the kind of help you get from Brevo depends on how much you pay.
if you’re using Brevo for free, you’re on your own—no support included. If you’re on the Starter plan, you can reach out via email. But if you want someone to talk to on the phone, you need to be on the Business plan, and that starts at $65 a month.
This pricing strategy is in contrast to Brevo’s reputation as a budget-friendly alternative to Mailchimp or Klaviyo.
This user’s Brevo review sums it up nicely:
To give you a clearer idea of what people think about Brevo, we’ve put together the main points in the table below.
| Positive aspects | Negative aspects |
|---|---|
| Easy-to-use design | Steep learning curve in the beginning |
| Generous free plan | Less-than-stellar deliverability |
| Affordable pricing | Unhelpful customer support |
| WordPress integration | |
| Multilingual support |
Who Should Choose Brevo (Sendinblue)? And Who Shouldn’t?
To summarize our Brevo review and help you make an informed choice, we’ll go over our top recommendations.
Go with Brevo if:
- You’re running a small business and looking to kick off email marketing to stay in touch with your customers.
- You’re after a reliable option that won’t cost you anything at first so that you can grow your subscriber list without upfront investment.
- You plan to connect with your customers not just via email but also through SMS, WhatsApp, and push notifications.
- You manage a medium-sized company and you need a unified platform where both your marketing and sales teams can work together.
Look for a different option than Brevo if:
- You need top-notch email deliverability because you want your emails to land in your subscribers’ primary inboxes every time.
- You want high-quality, responsive customer support accessible across all plan levels, not just the premium ones.
- You rely on advanced analytics and reporting features to make data-driven decisions for your marketing strategies.
- Integration with other tools and platforms is a top priority, and you need a solution that seamlessly connects with a wide array of services.
Sendinblue (Brevo) Pros
Let’s acknowledge the strengths that make Brevo a popular choice among many users.
Easy-to-Use Visual Interface
Brevo’s user interface might take a bit of time to get used to at first, but once you’ve got the hang of it, it’s pretty user-friendly. The design is sleek, with big, easy-to-read fonts, so it’s comfortable to use for long periods.
Check out what this satisfied user has to say about the intuitive UI.
Creating an email campaign with Brevo is straightforward. Start by selecting “Email” under Campaigns on the left sidebar. The UI does a pretty good job of breaking the campaign settings into easy-to-follow steps so that you don’t feel overwhelmed.
Take a look at this screenshot of the campaign builder to see how it works.
Feature-Packed Email Editor
Brevo’s editor works with drag and drop and has some ready-made blocks for the most common types of content — images, headers, paragraphs, etc. You can pick your layout and template from a gallery of pre-designed options, upload your own HTML code, or write a plain-text email.
Here’s what the template gallery looks like.
If you want to give the templates a personal touch, you can Import your brand elements and the editor will automatically update all the templates with consistent branding. This way, your emails will be more effective in building brand awareness.
AI in email marketing is pretty popular right now, and Brevo offers an AI assistant that keeps you up-to-date. You can use it to come up with catchy email subject lines and engaging content that attracts your subscribers.
Simple Automation
When you automate your marketing, you save time and can offer a mass personalized experience to your contacts. This often leads to more engagement and sales.
Brevo’s customer journey builder lets you draw out the paths a contact can take. It’s a pretty simple tool with only a handful of triggers. Granted, it’s not as sophisticated as Klaviyo, but it’s a beginner-friendly tool for learning automation best practices.
You begin by setting a goal, like making a purchase. Then, you pick a starting point, for example, when someone signs up for your newsletter. Next, you’ll define the steps the contact has to take to travel in your email marketing customer journey.
If you don’t want to start from scratch, you can choose one of the pre-defined automation templates, such as cart abandonment and welcome messages. Unfortunately, there are only a handful of ready-made scenarios to pick from. So, Brevo is definitely behind other competitors when it comes to automation templates.
The screenshot below shows what the abandoned cart journey looks like.
Sendinblue (Brevo) Cons
Brevo has its perks, but it’s not without its flaws, especially since it positions itself as a one-stop shop. Platforms that try to fit too much into their software usually end up with no winning features or clear advantages over their competitors.
Let’s go over Brevo’s most important shortcomings.
Limited Customization
Brevo lets you tweak your email’s appearance, but the level of customization might not be enough if you want to create professional-looking designs from scratch.
These are the items you have control over:
- Email fonts (size, style, and typeface).
- Email colors (text and background).
- Email layout and structure.
- Button styles, sizes, and colors.
- Image placement and size.
- Padding and spacing for elements.
- Header and footer customization.
- Content alignment options.
However, the settings end here. You can’t apply gradients, create animations, or make your design look different on different browsers.
Underwhelming Segmentation
Your email segmentation strategy can make or break your efforts. It lets you split your contacts into smaller groups with common traits and customize your message to connect better with each one.
Brevo lets you create email and SMS segments based on:
- Engagement behavior.
- Demographics.
- Contact attributes, such as data added.
- Tags.
For example, you can easily separate the contacts who have opened an email from you in the past six months from those who have ignored all your messages during that period. This information can be helpful for running a re-engagement campaign.
You can even mix and match these criteria with “AND” or “OR” conditions for more detailed segments.
But there’s a limit to what the segment builder can do. You might not be able to create segments for more advanced scenarios. For example, if you want to target users based on a combination of their purchase history, geographic location, and email engagement, you’ll run into some limitations.
Limited Basic Plan
Most Sendinblue reviews praise the platform for its affordable pricing. And that’s true to some extent — sending emails on Brevo generally costs less, and there’s a generous free plan.
However, if you want the marketing platform’s full functionality, you’ll have to upgrade to the Business plan.
Users on this tier get these exclusive features:
- Remove Brevo’s branding.
- Landing page builder.
- A/B testing.
- Send time optimization.
- Facebook ads.
- Geography and device reporting.
- Advanced open and click stats.
Brevo Pros and Cons Overview
Here’s a balanced look at what Brevo has to offer:
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| User-friendly interface | Variable deliverability rates |
| Affordable pricing | Limited free plan features |
| Generous free plan | Customer support quality depends on your tier |
| Simple email editor | Limited segmentation options |
| Intuitive automation builder | Too many superficial features |
| Large template gallery | |
| Multi-channel support |
Review Sendinblue (Brevo) Pricing
Brevo’s pricing depends on how many emails you plan to send. You can get started for free and send up to 300 emails every day. However, these emails will show Brevo’s logo, and you won’t have access to all the features.
There are three paid plans:
- Standard: This plan gives you the basic features, but you’ll have limited customer support and lower usage limits.
- Business: You get most of the platform’s features with this plan, and the usage limits are more generous.
- Enterprise: This is the all-in package. You get every feature Brevo offers, no usage limits, and you’re at the front of the line for customer support.
For each plan, you decide how many emails you want to send each month. The table below lists how much you’d pay for the starting option — 20,000 emails:
| Tier | Monthly commitment | Annual commitment |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | $25 | $22 |
| Business | $65 | $58 |
| Enterprise | Custom pricing | Custom pricing |
From here, Brevo’s pricing gets complicated because there are multiple addons. You can include extra landing pages, extra admin users, push notification credits, and more.
The snapshot below shows your options for the Business plan.
Sendinblue (Brevo) Alternatives in Review
So, let’s assume you’re among the growing number of users who find that Brevo doesn’t quite meet your needs or expectations. What are your options?
MailerLite
MailerLite is a digital marketing platform that started as an email marketing solution. While it doesn’t offer a CRM, it boasts an impressive website builder loaded with integrations and templates.
Similar to Brevo, it doesn’t come with a hefty price tag. It’s a great fit for small businesses, freelancers, and content creators who need a simple tool for their online marketing efforts. That’s why it’s a solid choice if you’re considering alternatives to ConvertKit, Brevo, or Beehiiv.
With MailerLite, you also get to enjoy other features, like:
- A landing page builder,
- Pop-up and embedded signup forms,
- A/B testing to see what works best,
- An online store for selling your digital products,
- E-commerce integrations to make selling easier,
- Transactional and confirmation emails to keep your customers informed.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign’s biggest strength lies in its automations. You can craft almost any scenario you need, covering a wide range from marketing to CRM and sales activities. The platform allows you to put together these complex automations with an easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor, which offers more than 800 ready-to-go templates for a variety of scenarios and businesses.
ActiveCampaign’s other top features include:
- Site and event tracking to understand user behavior.
- Messaging across multiple channels, including SMS and social media.
- Dynamic content to personalize emails.
- Advanced reporting and analytics.
- A/B testing for optimizing campaigns.
- CRM with sales automation.
- Machine learning for predicting the best sending times.
Campaign Refinery
At Campaign Refinery, our main goal is simple: we want to make sure your emails land right in the primary inbox.
We skip a lot of the fancy features you might see on other platforms, and there’s a good reason for it.
We’ve found that sticking to the essential elements of email marketing lets us help you significantly grow your audience and increase your engagement rates.
Joining Campaign Refinery gives you access to:
- Top-notch email deliverability.
- Easy-to-use tag-based segmentation.
- A straightforward yet effective automations builder.
- Unique SOPs and learning materials.
- A clean email list with only valid addresses.
- Ready-to-go campaign templates to spark your creativity and streamline your workflow.
- A chance to join an exclusive circle of reputable, high-volume email senders.
Looking for more features? Our integrations have you covered!
With support for over 1000 integrations, either directly or via Zapier, Campaign Refinery makes it easy for you to link up with the tools you already know and love, enhancing your email campaigns without a hitch.
Get Your Emails Seen with Campaign Refinery
Say goodbye to unnecessary extras and focus on what really matters – stellar deliverability.
Apply to join Campaign Refinery now and see your email performance reach new heights!
