What is Brevo? Complete Beginner's Guide (2026)

If you've been searching for an email marketing platform and keep seeing the name Brevo pop up, you're not alone. Brevo has quickly become one of the most talked-about tools in the email marketing world — and for good reason.

In this guide, we'll cover everything you need to know about Brevo: what it is, what it does, who it's built for, and whether it's the right choice for your business.

What is Brevo?

Brevo (formerly known as Sendinblue) is an all-in-one digital marketing platform that helps businesses of all sizes manage their email marketing, SMS campaigns, marketing automation, CRM, and transactional emails — all from a single dashboard.

Founded in 2012 and rebranded as Brevo in 2023, the platform now serves over 500,000 businesses across the globe. It's particularly popular among small to medium-sized businesses that want powerful features without the steep price tags found on competing platforms.

What Can You Do with Brevo?

Brevo is far more than just an email tool. Here's a breakdown of its core capabilities:

Email Campaigns Design and send professional email newsletters, promotional campaigns, and product announcements. Brevo comes with a drag-and-drop email editor, a growing template library, and A/B testing tools.

Marketing Automation Build automated workflows triggered by user behavior — like a welcome series when someone subscribes, or a follow-up sequence when someone clicks a specific link. We'll cover this in depth in our automation guides.

Transactional Emails Send order confirmations, password resets, and shipping notifications that arrive reliably in your customers' inboxes. Transactional emails are powered by Brevo's robust SMTP infrastructure.

SMS Marketing Beyond email, Brevo lets you send targeted SMS messages to your contacts — useful for flash sales, appointment reminders, and time-sensitive alerts.

Landing Pages & Forms Create standalone landing pages and embedded signup forms to grow your email list, directly within Brevo.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Brevo includes a lightweight built-in CRM for tracking contact history, deals, and conversations — a major advantage for small sales teams.

Who is Brevo For?

Brevo is designed to work for a wide range of users:

• Small business owners who want affordable, professional email marketing without needing a developer
• E-commerce stores running on WooCommerce or Shopify that need cart abandonment flows and transactional emails
• Freelancers and consultants managing newsletters and client communication
• SaaS companies needing reliable transactional email delivery
• Non-profits looking for a cost-effective communication platform

If you're just getting started with email marketing, Brevo's free plan makes it accessible at zero cost. If you're scaling, Brevo's paid plans offer significantly more sends and advanced features.

Why Brevo and Not Something Else?

The email marketing space is crowded. So what makes Brevo worth considering?

Generous free plan. Brevo's free tier includes unlimited contacts and 300 emails per day. This is genuinely useful — unlike some competitors that cap you at 500 contacts or 1,000 sends.

Automation is included at lower tiers. Tools like Mailchimp often lock automation behind more expensive plans. With Brevo, you get marketing automation workflows even on free and starter plans.

Email + SMS in one place. Managing both channels from a single dashboard simplifies your workflow and reduces costs.

Strong deliverability. Brevo operates its own email infrastructure, which means better sender reputation management and inbox placement rates compared to cheaper shared-server alternatives.

GDPR-compliant by design. Brevo is a European company and was built with data privacy compliance as a core principle — important if you have European subscribers.

Brevo's Pricing: A Quick Overview

Brevo uses a sends-based pricing model, not a contacts-based one. This is a key differentiator. You pay based on how many emails you send per month, not how many contacts you store.

• Free plan: 300 emails/day, unlimited contacts
• Starter plan: Starts from around $9/month for 5,000 sends/month
• Business plan: Advanced automation, A/B testing, multi-user access
• Enterprise plan: Custom pricing, dedicated IP, SLA

We have a dedicated article on Brevo's pricing plans where we break down exactly which plan is right for which stage of business growth.

Getting Started with Brevo

Creating a Brevo account takes less than five minutes. Head to Brevo's website, sign up with your email address, and you'll be taken through a brief onboarding flow where you'll set up your sender name and email address.

From there, you can import your existing contacts, choose a template, and send your first campaign the same day.

Final Thoughts

Brevo is one of the most complete and affordable email marketing platforms available in 2026. Whether you're sending your first newsletter or building complex behavioral automation sequences, Brevo has the tools to support you.

The best way to understand Brevo is to use it. Start with the free plan, explore the dashboard, and work through the guides here on Sendexy to get the most out of every feature.

Brevo Pricing at a Glance

All plans include unlimited contact storage. See full pricing on Brevo →