by Brevo (Sendinblue SAS)Email marketing and newsletters
Email, SMS and marketing automation priced by monthly email volume, with servers in the EU and ISO 27001; Standard costs $79 for 25,000 emails.
Email marketing, SMS and automation priced by emails sent rather than contacts stored, with servers in the EU and an ISO 27001 certificate.
Brevo charges for the emails you send each month, so a large list that you email rarely costs less than on contact-based plans: the free plan stores up to 100,000 contacts, and Standard sends 20,001 to 30,000 emails for $79 a month. Standard has unlimited automation, A/B testing, a landing page and no Brevo branding. Its servers are in the EU, it holds ISO 27001:2022, and the DPA is part of the terms, which suits teams with European customers. Transactional email and SMS run from the same account.
Against 3 other products we reviewed in Email marketing and newsletters: what you pay for with each, the five access facts, the plan limits we recorded and each review's bottom line. The note under the table says how each one was checked.
| Metric | Brevo | Klaviyo | Mailchimp | Kit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What you're paying for | Worth the priceEmail marketing, SMS and automation priced by emails sent rather than contacts stored, with servers in the EU and an ISO 27001 certificate. | Saves engineering timeEmail marketing on top of a customer data platform: store and order data drive segments and flows, with SOC 2 Type II, SSO and MFA on paid plans. | Easy to adoptAn all-round email marketing tool with forms, landing pages, automation flows and 300+ integrations, priced by how many contacts you store. | Built-in reachA newsletter and email platform for creators: free up to 10,000 subscribers, with paid newsletters, digital products and a recommendation network built in. |
| Overall score | 7.2 | 7.4Best | 6.9 | 6.8 |
| Free option | Free plan | Free plan | Free plan | Free plan |
| Card to start | No card needed | –Not measured | –Not measured | –Not measured |
| Getting access | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve |
| Starter priceCheapest paid plan | $9/mo | $20/mo | $13/mo | $39/mo |
| Pricing model | Tiered | Tiered | Tiered | Tiered |
| Pricing page | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices |
| Billing unit | Monthly email volume tier; contacts up to the plan limit | Active profile tier, with a monthly email limit | Contact tier, with a monthly email limit of 10 to 15 times the contacts | Confirmed subscriber tier; emails are not counted |
| Free plan | 100,000 contacts, 300 emails a day, automation up to 2,000 contacts | 250 active profiles, 500 emails/mo, flows included | 250 contacts, 500 emails/mo (250 a day), no automation flows | Up to 10,000 subscribers, unlimited broadcasts, no sequences or automations |
| Reference scenario (5,000 contacts, monthly) | $79/mo on Standard ($18 + $61 for 20,001 to 30,000 emails) | $100/mo (3,501 to 5,000 active profiles, 50,000 emails) | $100/mo on Standard (60,000 emails) | $89/mo on Creator (3,001 to 5,000 subscribers) |
| Annual billing | About 10% off ($853 a year for the scenario, computed) | Not stated on the pricing page | Through sales only (Premium, or Standard with 10,000+ contacts) | 10 times the monthly price a year (about 17% off) |
| Automation on the cheapest paid plan | Starter: limited to 2,000 contacts; unlimited from Standard | Flows on every plan | Essentials: flows of up to 4 steps | Creator: unlimited visual automations and sequences |
| Users on the scenario plan | 1 user; up to 3 at $12/mo each | Not stated; custom roles on all plans | 5 seats, 4 roles | 2 users (Admin or Editor); unlimited on Pro |
| SMS | Every plan; credits sold separately by destination | Mobile messages billed by credits; $5 a month on the free plan | Add-on from Essentials in select countries; credits billed separately | Listed on Creator; price not stated |
| Paid newsletters | Not offered | Not offered | Not offered | Every plan; 3.5% + 30¢ per transaction |
| SOC 2 / ISO 27001 | ISO 27001:2022; SOC 2 not stated | SOC 2 Type II; ISO 27001 and ISO 27017 | SOC 2 reports (type not stated); ISO 27001 | Hosting providers' only (AWS, Cloudflare) |
| Data location | Servers in the EU | United States; Germany for new accounts (EU Residency) | United States | Not stated; transfers to the US under the DPF or SCCs |
| SSO | Add-on on Professional (price not published); included on Enterprise | SAML on any paid plan | Enterprise SSO on Premium | Not listed |
| Contact export | Export button in the account; Export contacts API endpoint | CSV export of lists and segments | CSV export of audiences, segments, tags and groups | CSV export of subscribers |
| Bottom line | From its public pages, Brevo has the lowest price for our scenario and keeps data in the EU, with unlimited automation from Standard. It includes one user on Standard, and SSO and the Professional total need a conversation with sales. | From its public pages, Klaviyo pairs email and SMS with a customer data platform, with flows on the free plan and SOC 2 Type II, SSO and MFA on paid plans. Its user limit is not stated and its pages disagree on EU storage. | From its public pages, Mailchimp is a broad, familiar email marketing tool with landing pages on every plan and seats with roles on Standard. Multi-step automations start on Standard, overage prices are shown only in the account, and data stays in the US. | From its public pages, Kit is a creator-first platform with the largest free plan in this group and paid newsletters on every plan. Automations start on Creator, and its compliance file relies on its hosting providers. |
Evidence: Brevo: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Klaviyo: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Mailchimp: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Kit: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run. Prices in USD as listed, excluding tax. "–" means not recorded.
Review from public pages
Written from Brevo's public pages (pricing, security or privacy, and docs) as read on Oct 16, 2026. We did not sign up, and no hands-on run is published yet.
We read Brevo's pricing page, its machine-readable pricing.md and the USD pricing API it links to, the all-features comparison, the data security page, the GDPR page, the terms of service with the DPA, and the developer docs on Oct 16, 2026; we did not sign up or call the API. The help center returned an access error to our requests, so plan facts come from the pricing, features and legal pages.
Brevo's model differs from contact-based tools: you pick a monthly email volume, and the contact limit follows from it. A base price per plan plus a published price per volume tier gives the total: for 25,000 emails, Starter is $9 + $30 = $39 and Standard $18 + $61 = $79 a month. The features page is what decides our scenario: automation on Free and Starter is 'Limited to 2,000 contacts', so a welcome series for a 5,000-contact list needs Standard.
Two prices are not clear from the pages. SSO is an add-on on Professional without a published price, and Professional's own total is not stated: the price data lists a $350 base, $149 for the first 150,000 emails and a $109 plan fee.
Brevo states that its servers are in the EU, with backups encrypted, and the DPA is part of its terms.
vs Mailchimp: Mailchimp, Kit and beehiiv store or transfer data to the United States; Klaviyo offers Germany only to new accounts.
Standard sends 20,001 to 30,000 emails for $79 a month, with unlimited automation and up to 500,000 stored contacts.
vs Mailchimp: Mailchimp Standard and Klaviyo cost $100 for 5,000 contacts; beehiiv Lite $109.
The free plan stores up to 100,000 contacts and sends 300 emails a day, with automation for up to 2,000 contacts.
SMS on every plan, plus WhatsApp, push and transactional email through the same API and SMTP relay.
Standard includes one user; up to 3 are possible at $12 a month for each extra user, and Professional includes 10.
Workaround: User permissions are on Standard, so the extra users can have limited access.
The terms say sending is suspended when you reach the plan’s sending limit, and unused emails do not carry over.
Workaround: Pick a volume tier with room for automated emails, or upgrade before a busy month.
The SSO add-on on Professional has no published price, and the Professional total combines a base, email credits and a plan fee without a stated sum.
The security page lists ISO 27001:2022; we found no SOC 2 report on the pages we read.
Brevo bills a base price per plan plus a published price per monthly email tier; contacts are not billed. For our scenario, 25,000 emails on Standard cost $18 + $61 = $79 a month, before tax, or $853 a year (computed from the yearly prices). Starter would be $39 but limits automation to 2,000 contacts. Unused emails reset every month and sending stops at the limit. Extra users cost $12 a month each, landing pages beyond the first $24 for 5 more, and SMS and WhatsApp credits are bought separately by destination. Professional starts at a $350 base with email credits and a plan fee listed separately, and Enterprise is priced by sales.
The DPA in the terms says you can retrieve your data at any time with the export button in the account, and the API has a documented Export contacts endpoint. After termination Brevo destroys customer data on request within three months; the pricing FAQ says you can cancel at any time.
From its public pages, Brevo has the lowest price for our scenario and keeps data in the EU, with unlimited automation from Standard. It includes one user on Standard, and SSO and the Professional total need a conversation with sales.
| Limit | As recorded |
|---|---|
| Billing unit | Monthly email volume tier; contacts up to the plan limit |
| Free plan | 100,000 contacts, 300 emails a day, automation up to 2,000 contacts |
| Reference scenario (5,000 contacts, monthly) | $79/mo on Standard ($18 + $61 for 20,001 to 30,000 emails) |
| Annual billing | About 10% off ($853 a year for the scenario, computed) |
| Automation on the cheapest paid plan | Starter: limited to 2,000 contacts; unlimited from Standard |
| Users on the scenario plan | 1 user; up to 3 at $12/mo each |
| SMS | Every plan; credits sold separately by destination |
| Paid newsletters | Not offered |
| SOC 2 / ISO 27001 | ISO 27001:2022; SOC 2 not stated |
| Data location | Servers in the EU |
| SSO | Add-on on Professional (price not published); included on Enterprise |
| Contact export | Export button in the account; Export contacts API endpoint |
Read from the vendor's public pages on Oct 16, 2026. No hands-on run is published yet. How we check
We have not published a sign-up run for Brevo yet. The access facts above were read from its sign-up and pricing pages on Oct 16, 2026.
We have not published API calls for Brevo yet.
Brevo lists 5 plans. The cheapest paid plan, Starter (5,000 emails a month), costs $9/mo.
Prices as listed, USD, excluding tax; observed 2026-10-16.
Source: brevo.com pricing page. Prices change; the observed date above is when our agent read them.
We read the pricing, trust, legal, help center and developer pages of three email marketing platforms on the same day and scored them on the same six indicators. What 5,000 contacts with a welcome series cost, where automations, SSO and EU data sit, and who should pick which.
