Brevo Review (2026): Pricing, Limits, Terms and Who It Fits

Verdict: Brevo is a low-priced, send-volume-based email platform with a real free plan and transactional email on every plan. It suits senders who email on a schedule rather than constantly, but its terms are strict on quotas and refunds, and its Shopify app is currently unavailable. Stores that want built-in store automations should price a store-focused tool as well.

This review is based on Brevo’s pricing page, its Terms of Service (version October 1, 2025) and its Shopify App Store listing, all read on November 7, 2026. Prices for other tools come from our pricing tracker and are dated where used. We have not used Brevo to run a store, so this review makes no claims about how it feels to use, and we do not quote reviews we have not read. We may earn a commission if you buy through some links on this page; Brevo is not one of them.

Who Brevo fits, and who it doesn’t

It fits:

• Senders with a large list who email occasionally. Starter is priced mainly by monthly email volume; each tier caps stored contacts, but from the 20,000-email tier ($32) the cap is 500,000 contacts.
• Anyone who wants to try email marketing without a card. The Free plan needs no credit card.
• Teams that also need transactional email (receipts, password resets). Brevo says every plan includes transactional features through a REST API, SMTP and webhooks.

It fits less well:

• Stores that want abandoned cart and product-based flows ready to switch on. We did not verify Brevo’s store automations, and its Shopify app is unavailable (see below).
• Anyone who expects to scale volume down in some months. Unused quota does not carry over.
• Buyers who want to be able to get money back. Prepaid fees are not refunded under the terms.

Brevo plans and pricing

Per Brevo’s pricing page, checked November 7, 2026, in USD. The prices below are the list prices published in the page’s structured data. The page also notes that yearly billing is “-10%”.

Three notes on the table:

• “From” prices and contact limits. Starter and Professional say “From 5,000” and “From 150,000” emails a month. Brevo’s public pricing API (read November 7, 2026) shows how Starter climbs: $17 for 10,000 emails, $25 for 15,000, $32 for 20,000 and $46 for 40,000 a month. Each tier also caps stored contacts: 500 at 5,000 emails, 1,500 at 10,000, 2,500 at 15,000 and 500,000 from 20,000 emails up. So a 1,000-contact list needs at least the $17 tier even if you send fewer than 5,000 emails. Standard follows the same contact limits at higher prices ($35 for 10,000 emails).
• Yearly billing. By our arithmetic the yearly prices work out to about $8.08 (Starter), $16.17 (Standard) and $449.08 (Professional) a month, consistent with the “-10%” label.
• SMS is separate. Brevo says SMS credit is sold separately.

Brevo also offers a pay-as-you-go option. It says credits do not expire, one email sent equals one credit, and phone support is not included. We did not find a price for it on the pages we read.

What Brevo’s terms mean for you

Pricing pages rarely tell you what happens when your plans change. Brevo’s Terms of Service (version October 1, 2025) set out several rules that affect your costs.

Unused quota expires every month. Brevo says email quotas are allocated monthly, counted from your subscription anniversary date. It resets unused quotas on the anniversary date of the next month, and “all unused electronic communication quotas are cancelled.” The reset applies regardless of the length of your subscription. In practice, paying yearly does not give you a yearly pool of emails to spend whenever you like.

No refunds on prepaid fees. The terms say they are non-cancellable before the end of your ongoing subscription, and that Brevo will not provide refunds for prepaid or unused fees. Payment is upfront when you subscribe and renews automatically on each anniversary date. The pricing page says you can cancel at any time from your account, so read these together: cancelling stops renewal, it does not return money already paid.

Downgrades are limited. The general terms say you cannot downgrade your plan level before the end of your subscription, while a later service-specific section says you can upgrade or downgrade in your account at any time. Because the two read differently, ask Brevo how a downgrade would be billed before you choose a yearly plan. If you upgrade, Brevo issues an additional invoice for the pro-rated difference.

Free services can be withdrawn. If you use the free plan, Brevo reserves the right to discontinue all or part of the services at any time without prior notification. The terms say such changes may not affect your ability to export your data. Do not build a business that depends on a free plan staying as it is.

Prices can change at renewal. Brevo can revise prices on your subscription anniversary date and says it will notify you at least 30 days before. Brevo can also suspend or close an account for non-compliance, with no refund of prepaid fees or unused quotas.

None of this is unusual enough to rule Brevo out. It does mean that picking the right volume tier matters, and that monthly billing is the safer way to test.

Brevo for Shopify stores

On November 7, 2026, Brevo’s listing on the Shopify App Store read: “This app is not currently available on the Shopify App Store. If you have support questions, contact Brevo directly.” The page still names Brevo as the developer and support provider.

Brevo’s own pricing page lists Shopify among the 150+ tools it connects with, so a connection may exist outside the app store. We could not confirm how it works today, what data it syncs, or whether store automations such as abandoned cart are included on each plan. Ask Brevo support before you plan around it.

Be careful if you look at that Shopify page yourself: it also shows ratings for other apps, such as Shopify Messaging and Klaviyo. Those are not Brevo’s ratings, and the page showed no rating for Brevo. Brevo’s pricing page mentions review counts without naming the review sites, so we do not cite them as a score either.

For store-specific setups, see best free email marketing for Shopify.

Brevo nonprofit discount, SMTP settings, Reddit and Resend

These searches come up with Brevo, and we will only report what we found.

• Nonprofit discount: we could not confirm one. Nothing on the pages we read mentions it, and the help article we tried returned an access error. Ask Brevo.
• SMTP settings: we did not confirm the server details. Brevo says SMTP is included on all plans. Take the host, port and credentials from your own account.
• Reddit: we did not survey it. We will not summarize opinions we have not read.
• Brevo vs Resend: we did not review Resend, so there is no comparison here.

Brevo vs the alternatives

Entry paid prices are monthly, regular list price, USD, at 1,000 contacts. Omnisend and GetResponse are from our November 2, 2026 tracker, Kit from our October 29, 2026 check; EmailOctopus, Moosend and Benchmark were read November 5, 2026. Brevo is from its pricing API on November 7, 2026: its $9 Starter tier caps contacts at 500, so 1,000 contacts need the $17 tier (10,000 emails a month).

Price is only half the story, and plans differ:

• Omnisend builds e-commerce workflows into the product, which Brevo’s pages did not clearly show for stores. Read our Omnisend review.
• EmailOctopus is a simpler sending tool with a larger free plan than Brevo’s by subscribers, but fewer e-commerce features.
• GetResponse lists unlimited monthly sends, but abandoned cart recovery starts on its Marketer plan. See our GetResponse review.
• Kit has the largest free plan and suits creators and digital products more than physical-product stores. See our Kit review.

For a wider comparison, see best email marketing platforms, and for how Brevo’s main rival prices contacts, read our Mailchimp review.

Omnisend

Store-first

Best for: Online stores that want abandoned cart and welcome flows built in

Pros

• E-commerce workflows listed on every plan
• Free plan available
• Shopify listing with a public rating

Cons

• Standard lists at $20 at 1,000 contacts, above Brevo Starter's entry price
• Free plan limited to 250 contacts and 500 emails a month

Visit Omnisend

EmailOctopus

Low price, big free plan

Best for: Small lists and newsletters where cost matters most

Pros

• Free plan covers 2,500 subscribers
• Pro lists at $13.50 at 1,000 subscribers

Cons

• Fewer built-in e-commerce features
• Free-plan emails carry EmailOctopus branding

Visit EmailOctopus

So, is Brevo worth it?

• Choose Brevo if you send in volume but not often, want a card-free free plan, or need transactional email alongside campaigns, and you are comfortable with monthly quota resets and no refunds.
• Look at Omnisend if you run a store and want ecommerce automations out of the box.
• Look at EmailOctopus or Kit if a bigger free plan matters more than anything else.
• Look at GetResponse if you want landing pages and webinars in the same tool.

Whichever you pick, check the vendor’s pricing page on the day you buy, and start on monthly billing.

Compare with Omnisend

How we reviewed Brevo

This is a research-based review of official pages, not a product test. We read Brevo’s pricing page and Terms of Service and its Shopify App Store listing on November 7, 2026, and quoted its own wording where we could. Competitor prices come from our pricing tracker (checked November 2, 2026) and from vendor pricing pages read on November 5, 2026. Brevo’s volume tiers and contact limits come from its public pricing API, read November 7, 2026. We did not use Brevo, so we say nothing about its editor, deliverability or support. Anything we could not confirm is marked as such. Prices change often, so check the vendor’s page before you buy. See our methodology page for how we handle sources.