Brevo Review 2026: The Best Free Email Marketing Tool for Freelancers?
Tim Wittke · Updated: Aug 17, 2026
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Ideal for
- Freelancers and solo business owners building their own newsletter
- Solopreneurs with a large contact list who email infrequently
- Coaches and consultants who want email marketing combined with CRM
USP
Pricing driven by email volume — often cheaper than Mailchimp or ActiveCampaign for large lists (since 2026 with per-tier contact caps)
Free to start?
Yes — permanently free plan (≈9,000 emails/month)
For freelancers, coaches and consultants, email is one of the most direct channels to your audience — no algorithms, no reach restrictions. Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) offers a genuinely free entry point as a GDPR-compliant European company.
What is Brevo?
Brevo is a French marketing platform, founded in 2012 as Sendinblue and rebranded in 2023. The core product is email marketing, but the platform also covers SMS marketing, transactional emails, an integrated CRM, forms, live chat and landing pages.
The key difference from competitors: Brevo charges by emails sent, not contact count. You can store a large contact list and only pay more when you actually email them — a real cost advantage over Mailchimp or ActiveCampaign for freelancers with growing lists and infrequent sending patterns.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Permanently free plan with storage for unlimited contacts
- Volume-based pricing — cheaper than contact-based models for large lists
- CRM, forms and live chat included in free plan
- Transactional emails in the same tool (welcome emails, order confirmations)
- European company (France) — GDPR-compliant by default
Cons
- Free plan: Brevo logo in all outgoing emails
- Automation in free plan limited to max. 2,000 contacts in automated campaigns
- Interface less intuitive than Mailchimp
- A/B testing only from Standard plan
Key Features
- Email campaigns: Drag-and-drop editor with responsive templates, segmentation by tags and attributes, send-time optimization (from the Standard plan).
- Marketing automation: Automatic email sequences triggered by signup, click or date — free plan up to 2,000 contacts (unlimited from the Standard plan onwards).
- Transactional emails: Welcome emails, order confirmations, password resets via SMTP or API — ideal for selling courses or digital products.
- CRM: Contact management, deal pipeline and notes directly in Brevo — no extra tool needed for basic client management.
- Forms & landing pages: Embeddable signup forms; landing pages from the Standard plan.
- SMS & WhatsApp: Direct messages on the same platform for campaigns or transactional messages.
Why Brevo Makes Sense for Freelancers
The free plan is genuinely generous: unlimited contacts, CRM and basic automation at no cost. Mailchimp's free plan caps at 500 contacts — a meaningful gap for a freelancer building a newsletter. You can see how Brevo compares with other free plans in our guide to free Mailchimp alternatives.
For European freelancers, Brevo's EU servers and ownership remove the data-transfer documentation burden that US services like Mailchimp require under GDPR.
Freelancers emailing infrequently can stay on the free plan for a long time and move to paid only when volume justifies it.
Your next step
- Compare all email marketing tools — our email marketing overview covers free tiers, automation depth and pricing side-by-side.
- Need funnels and webinars too? GetResponse bundles email, landing pages and webinars — our link includes 10 % off.
- Still comparing? The best email marketing tools for freelancers guide ranks them all.
Brevo free plan limits: what 300 emails a day actually means
Brevo's free plan gives you 300 emails per day and unlimited contacts, permanently, with no credit card. The daily cap is the number people search for — but the unlimited contacts are the part that decides whether Brevo is right for you, because that is where it differs from almost every competitor.
| Free plan limit | The number | What it means day to day |
|---|---|---|
| Contacts stored | unlimited | Brevo charges for emails sent, not contacts held — a 5,000-name list costs nothing until you mail it |
| Emails per day | 300 | Roughly 9,000 a month — but it is a daily cap, so one 400-person send breaks it even though the monthly total is fine |
| Brevo logo | in every email | The most visible limit. Removing it is a paid add-on on Starter, included from Standard |
| Automation | up to 2,000 contacts | Basic workflows work; beyond 2,000 contacts in a flow you need a paid plan |
The daily cap catches people out more than the volume does. 300 a day sounds generous, and 9,000 a month genuinely is for most freelancers — but the limit does not pool. If your list is 500 people and you send one newsletter, you are over the cap on that day regardless of how quiet the rest of the month was. Brevo will queue the remainder to the next day, which works, but it is not what most people expect. If that sending pattern doesn't match yours, our roundup of Brevo alternatives covers tools with different limits.
Brevo pricing 2026: when the free plan stops being enough
There are two distinct reasons to leave the free plan, and they cost different amounts.
| Plan | Monthly | Annual | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | 300 emails/day, unlimited contacts, CRM, forms, live chat — with the Brevo logo |
| Starter | $9 | $8.08/mo | From 5,000 emails/month, no daily cap, templates and AI content. Logo removal is a paid add-on |
| Standard | $18 | $16.17/mo | Unlimited marketing automation, A/B testing — and the logo is gone without an add-on |
The trap is Starter. Most people upgrade to remove the Brevo logo — and on Starter that is still a separate add-on of about $10/month, which brings the real cost close to Standard's $18 while giving you less. If branding is your reason for upgrading, go to Standard directly. Starter only makes sense if your reason is volume and you genuinely do not mind the logo.
Prices as published by Brevo, last checked 11 August 2026. The 300 emails/day free limit and unlimited contacts were re-verified on brevo.com on 17 August 2026.
Alternatives to Brevo
- GetResponse — stronger for webinars and landing pages, contact-based pricing
- RGE Studio — email template design tool only, no sending infrastructure
- Beehiiv — built for newsletter creators, strong monetization features
- ActiveCampaign — more powerful automation, but more expensive and complex
Pricing
Free
Free
free forever
- ≈9,000 emails/month (300/day)
- Unlimited contacts
- CRM, forms & live chat
- Basic automation
- Brevo logo in emails
Starter
€9
per month ($8.08/month annual)
- From 5,000 emails/month
- Drag-and-drop editor & templates
- AI content generator
- Email support
- No Brevo logo add-on ($10/mo, $10.80 billed annually varies)
Standard
€18
per month ($16.17/month annual)
- Everything in Starter
- Marketing automation (unlimited)
- A/B testing
- Landing pages (1 included)
- Advanced reporting
Prices may change — check the official website for current plans.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the Brevo free plan limits?
300 emails per day and unlimited contacts, permanently, with no credit card. The unlimited contacts are the part that matters most: Brevo charges for emails sent, not contacts stored, so a 5,000-name list costs nothing until you mail it — the opposite of Mailchimp's model. The catch is that 300 is a daily cap, not a monthly pool. It works out to roughly 9,000 a month, but one send to a 500-person list breaks it on that day no matter how quiet the rest of the month was (Brevo queues the remainder to the next day). Two further limits: the Brevo logo appears in every email, and automation is capped at 2,000 contacts per workflow.
Was Brevo called Sendinblue?
Yes — Sendinblue rebranded to Brevo in 2023. Same company, same product, same account; only the name and domain changed. Old Sendinblue tutorials and integration guides still apply, and existing customers kept their logins and data. The rename reflected the product growing past email marketing into CRM, transactional email, SMS and live chat. You will still see the old name in third-party integration directories, which lag behind rebrands.
Is Brevo really permanently free?
Yes — the free plan runs without a time limit and without a credit card. You can store unlimited contacts and send 300 emails per day (≈9,000/month). Limits: Brevo logo in all emails, automation capped at 2,000 contacts.
What's the difference between Brevo and Mailchimp?
The pricing model: Mailchimp charges by contact count — once you have 500+ contacts it gets expensive. Brevo charges by emails sent. Anyone with a large list who emails infrequently pays significantly less with Brevo. Mailchimp has a more intuitive interface; Brevo offers more in the free plan (storage for unlimited contacts). Full head-to-head: our Brevo vs Mailchimp comparison.
What are the best free alternatives to Brevo?
If the 300-emails-per-day cap doesn't fit your sending pattern: MailerLite gives you 1,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month free, and Kit is free for up to 10,000 subscribers with a creator focus. Mailchimp's free plan was cut to 250 contacts in 2026 and is rarely the better pick. All options are compared in our email marketing tools guide.
Is Brevo GDPR-compliant?
Yes — Brevo is a European company headquartered in Paris that stores data on EU servers. This simplifies GDPR compliance compared to US providers like Mailchimp, where a valid data transfer agreement (SCCs) must be documented.
When does upgrading from Free to Starter make sense?
Once you send more than 300 emails per day or want to remove the Brevo logo. Starter costs $9/month ($8.08 annual) for 5,000+ emails. Removing the Brevo logo in Starter is an add-on ($10.80/month) — in Standard ($18/month) it's already included along with full automation and A/B testing.
Brevo Free plan: how many emails per day in 2026?
Brevo's Free plan allows 300 emails per day — that's roughly 9,000 emails per month if you send daily. Other free-plan limits in 2026: unlimited contacts (the standout feature vs. Mailchimp's 250-contact free cap), marketing automation up to 2,000 contacts, transactional emails included, drag-and-drop builder, SMS marketing (pay-per-send), CRM with unlimited contacts, sales pipeline. Brevo logo appears on all sent emails until you upgrade to Starter+ with the logo-removal add-on, or to the Standard plan and above where it's included.
Brevo vs Mailchimp vs Kit (ConvertKit) — which is best for freelancers?
Brevo is best when your contact list is large but you send infrequently — the email-volume pricing model is dramatically cheaper than Mailchimp's contact-count model at scale. Mailchimp wins on UX polish, template variety and integration ecosystem, but pricing scales aggressively past 500 contacts. Kit (formerly ConvertKit) is the strongest for creators and content-based freelancers — clean tag-based subscriber management, strong automation for digital products. For freelancers with newsletters and growing lists: Kit. For client work + transactional: Brevo. For e-commerce + visual heavy: Mailchimp.
Verdict
Brevo is especially attractive for freelancers with a growing contact list who don't email frequently. The free plan is fully sufficient for getting started and small newsletters. Anyone sending more than 9,000 emails per month should upgrade to Starter ($9/month). For unlimited marketing automation and A/B testing, Standard ($18/month) is the right plan.
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