Brevo: Email Marketing Simplified or Still Too Clunky?

Tool Review: Brevo (yes, the artist formerly known as Sendinblue)

TL;DR

Brevo wants to be your all-in-one marketing sidekick: email, SMS, automations, CRM, landing pages—the whole buffet. It’s affordable, surprisingly robust, but occasionally reminds you it’s not the fanciest tool in the shed.

What is Brevo anyway?

Brevo is a marketing platform aimed at small-to-midsize businesses who want to send emails, ping customers via SMS, build automations, manage contacts, and not sell a kidney to pay for it.

Key offerings:

• Email marketing (drag-and-drop builder, decent templates)

• Marketing automation (from simple drip campaigns to “if user does X, send Y” logic)

• Transactional emails & SMS

• CRM & contact management

• Landing pages & signup forms

Pricing: starts with a generous free tier (300 emails/day) and scales up. Paid plans are usage-based (number of emails sent, not list size).

Why it might deserve your budget

• All-in-one factor: Email + SMS + CRM + landing pages under one login = less tab chaos.

• Affordability: One of the best bang-for-buck tools for growing lists without instantly hitting a paywall.

• Marketing automation: Visual workflows that are actually understandable (even on a Monday morning).

• Transactional email included: Nice for SaaS and ecommerce folks who hate juggling two tools.

Where it made us roll our eyes

• UI feels dated: Functional, but not what you'd call “sexy” (think 2016 rather than 2026).

• Template editor quirks: Drag-and-drop sometimes feels more drag than drop.

• CRM depth: Great for basic contact management, but don’t expect Salesforce-level wizardry.

How we tested it

We set up:

• A simple welcome drip campaign for new subscribers

• An abandoned cart SMS + email follow-up

• Built a landing page to collect emails Time spent: ~3–4 hours, using the free tier + starter paid plan.

📊 The verdict (with cheeky scorecard)

Alternatives worth a peek

• Mailchimp: Smoother UI, but pricier at scale

• MailerLite: Clean design, affordable, lighter feature set

• ActiveCampaign: More advanced automations, steeper learning curve & price

Bottom line

“Brevo is like a trusty hatchback: not the flashiest ride in the lot, but it’ll get your campaigns where they need to go—without emptying your wallet.”