Brevo

Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) attacks the email-marketing category at its structural weak point: pricing. Where Mailchimp-class tools charge by contacts stored — so your bill grows with your list whether you email it or not — Brevo charges by emails sent, and lets you store up to 100,000 contacts even on the free plan. For the typical SME pattern of a large-ish list emailed modestly, the economics are simply better, and that structural contrast is the honest headline of this profile.

The free plan is among the most generous in the category: 300 emails per day (roughly 9,000 a month) with that 100k-contact allowance, which carries a small business further than the gutted free tiers elsewhere. Paid plans start at $9/month for 5,000 emails (Starter), with the Business tier adding marketing automation, landing pages and A/B testing (Business pricing scales by sending volume — record the current figure at publish; it was outside our Aug 2026 verification). Beyond campaigns, Brevo bundles transactional email, SMS and WhatsApp in one platform, and its EU heritage gives it a GDPR posture that sells itself to UK and European businesses.

The honest caveats: the template editor and reporting are serviceable rather than polished — Mailchimp still wins on finish; deliverability reputation is good but not elite; brand recognition trails the household names, which occasionally matters when stakeholders review the stack; and the AI features (subject lines, content assistance) are adequate box-ticking rather than a reason to choose it. Businesses needing deep behavioural automation should still look at ActiveCampaign — Brevo's automation is capable but a class below.

Full hands-on testing of Brevo's current automation builder is in progress; this profile reflects documented capabilities and pricing verified against the vendor and corroborating sources in August 2026.