Brevo

Brevo, formerly Sendinblue, is a cloud-based marketing and CRM platform founded in 2012 by Armand Thiberge in Paris, France. The company rebranded to Brevo in 2023 to reflect its evolution beyond email marketing. The platform serves over 500,000 customers across 180 countries with more than 700 employees representing 67 nationalities.

What Brevo Does

Brevo combines email marketing, transactional email, marketing automation, SMS campaigns, WhatsApp marketing, live chat, landing pages, Facebook ads, and a built-in CRM into one platform. The software allows businesses to manage customer communications across multiple channels from a single dashboard.

In 2023, Brevo launched an AI-powered writing assistant to generate subject lines and content, and acquired mobile push provider WonderPush and customer data platform Octolis to expand its capabilities.

Pricing

Brevo uses a unique pricing model. Rather than charging based on contacts, Brevo prices plans based on the number of emails sent each month. This benefits businesses with large contact lists who send infrequently.

The Free Plan allows up to 300 emails daily with 100,000 contacts. The Starter Plan begins at $9 monthly for 5,000 emails, the Standard Plan starts at $18 monthly for 5,000 emails adding A/B testing and landing pages. The Professional Plan starts around $15 per user monthly with WhatsApp campaigns and AI features. Enterprise pricing is custom for organizations with over 1 million contacts.

Target Market

Brevo primarily targets small and medium-sized businesses as well as mid-market companies. The company aims to give small businesses access to marketing tools that large enterprises use, without the enterprise price tag. The platform appeals to ecommerce stores, startups, and small businesses needing affordable, easy-to-use marketing automation.

Competition

Main competitors include HubSpot, Salesforce, Freshworks, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, and Klaviyo. Brevo is significantly more affordable than Mailchimp and charges based on emails sent rather than total contacts. While ActiveCampaign offers more sophisticated automation and HubSpot provides comprehensive enterprise features, Brevo maintains competitive pricing with professional-grade capabilities.

Market Position

In 2020, Brevo raised $160 million in Series B funding led by Bridgepoint, Bpifrance, and BlackRock. In 2023, the company surpassed $100 million in annual recurring revenue while remaining profitable. The French government has recognized Brevo multiple times on its "Next40" list of promising tech companies.

The platform includes over 50 email templates, drag-and-drop builders, marketing automation with visual workflow creation, and a CRM with pipeline management. Enterprise customers access advanced features like dynamic content, product recommendations, and real-time analytics dashboards. Brevo integrates with over 150 tools including WordPress, Shopify, and WooCommerce.

Considerations

Brevo pauses campaigns when you exceed monthly sending limits, which can be problematic for businesses with unpredictable sending volumes. Key features like landing pages and A/B testing require upgrading to the Standard plan or higher, and marketing automation is limited to 2,000 contacts on the Starter tier. The template library is smaller than competitors like Mailchimp, and customer support has received mixed reviews.