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Email Marketing

Brevo

The affordable European alternative to Mailchimp (ex-Sendinblue) with email marketing, SMS, and basic CRM. Native GDPR compliance and pricing by email volume rather than contacts. The French Swiss army knife ideal for SMBs with tight budgets.

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Who's it for?MarketerSalesOps

Review by a Growth Engineer

My verdict: affordable and GDPR-compliant, but basic.

Brevo (ex-Sendinblue) does email marketing + SMS + basic CRM. The free plan is generous, pricing is honest. But don't expect advanced features.

What I like less: the interface looks dated, marketing automation is very basic, and you'll quickly reach limits if you want to scale. For cold email, forget it - it's not made for that.

My advice: decent for starting with simple newsletters and a tight budget. But plan to migrate to HubSpot or ActiveCampaign as soon as your needs evolve.

Why add it to your stack?

Brevo is the logical choice for European teams who want affordable and GDPR-compliant email marketing. Pricing by email volume (not by contact count like Mailchimp) is more advantageous for large but infrequently contacted databases.

The suite is complete: email, SMS, chat, basic CRM. For an SMB that wants to centralize everything without breaking the bank, it's the right compromise. But for sophisticated marketing automation, HubSpot remains superior.

What you can do with it

  • 1Send weekly newsletters to your prospect/customer base
  • 2Create simple welcome or onboarding email sequences
  • 3Send transactional emails (confirmations, invoices) via API
  • 4Manage SMS campaigns for promos or events
  • 5Centralize your contacts in a basic CRM

What it does

  • Email marketing with drag-and-drop editor
  • Basic marketing automation
  • Integrated SMS marketing
  • CRM and contact management
  • Transactional emails (API)
  • Chat and WhatsApp business

How much?

Starting at Free

Generous free plan (300 emails/day). Starter at 25 EUR/month for 20k emails. Business at 65 EUR/month with marketing automation. Enterprise on quote. Pricing by email volume, not contact count.

The detailed verdict

Do I really need this?

Not indispensable at all - many alternatives exist (Mailchimp, ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign). Its only real advantage is the European GDPR-compliant positioning. If you already have an email tool that works, no reason to migrate.

Does it play nice with my stack?

Integrations cover the essentials: WordPress, Shopify, Zapier, Make. The transactional API is solid and well documented. However, native CRM integrations are limited - you'll often go through Zapier, which adds friction.

Is it easy to pick up?

Quick to get started for basic functions - 30 minutes is enough to create your first campaign. The interface is accessible to non-technical users. Support is decent but significantly better on paid plans.

Is the UX any good?

The interface is functional without being modern. The drag-and-drop editor does the job, templates are decent. But we're far from current UX standards - the interface looks dated compared to Mailchimp or ConvertKit. The automation builder is particularly basic.

Is it worth it?

The free plan (300 emails/day) is generous and Starter at 25 euros/month for 20k emails is competitive. Pricing by email volume benefits large databases with infrequent sends. However, advanced features are reserved for higher plans.

What I like

  • Basic email marketing and newsletters for SMBs and small businesses with tight budgets
  • Native GDPR compliance thanks to European data hosting
  • Companies that want to centralize email, SMS, and basic CRM in one place

What I like less

  • Advanced marketing automation where HubSpot remains better
  • Teams that need advanced and customizable features
  • Companies scaling significantly with complex segmentation and scoring needs

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