Brevo or ActiveCampaign? It comes down to how clever your emails need to be.
Both will send your newsletter, run your follow-up and keep a simple pipeline. Brevo is the one your accountant will love. ActiveCampaign is the one your inner automation nerd will love, right up until it's time to maintain all those workflows.
| Platform | What it really is | Who it's built for |
|---|---|---|
| Brevo | An email, SMS and transactional email tool with a light CRM add-on. | A generalist marketer who wears six hats. |
| ActiveCampaign | A marketing automation engine with a CRM add-on. | Someone who gets genuinely excited about automation flowcharts. |
The short answer depends on how much you send and how fancy it has to get.
Pick Brevo if you've got a big list, send a couple of times a month and want SMS, WhatsApp and transactional email in the same place.
Try BrevoPick ActiveCampaign if your follow-up depends on exactly what each reader did, and someone on your team will build and babysit the automations.
Try ActiveCampaign$139
about what Brevo Standard costs for 100,000 emails a month, in third-party figures
Brevo charges for emails, not people.
Brevo used to be Sendinblue, and it bills by emails sent instead of contacts stored. That's great news for anyone carrying a list full of people who signed up in 2019 and haven't opened anything since. A 50,000-person list that gets two issues a month (100,000 emails) runs about $139 on Standard. ActiveCampaign Plus runs about $759 for the same list, whether you send twice or twenty times.
It also does transactional email (receipts, password resets, booking confirmations) on every plan, plus SMS and, on Professional, WhatsApp. That matters if your business has an app or a store as well as a newsletter. It's based in Paris, so GDPR isn't an afterthought.
ActiveCampaign earns its price with automation.
ActiveCampaign tracks site visits and branches workflows on just about any condition you can dream up, and the Pipelines add-on scores leads too. A reader who keeps clicking on one service can get a tailored follow-up and a task for the account lead without anyone touching a spreadsheet. Brevo automates too, with unlimited workflows on Standard and up. It just runs out of tricks sooner.
The WTF Matrix shows where Brevo and ActiveCampaign each pull ahead.
Pick the rows that matter for your newsletter's job, then read across. The dots are our opinion, and we have a lot of those.
| What we judged | Brevo | ActiveCampaign |
|---|---|---|
| PublishingDoes it think like a publication or like a campaign tool? | It makes a clean email, but it doesn't know what a publication is. | The designer is solid, though its heart belongs to automated journeys. |
| Revenue toolsDoes it give you ways to earn beyond client work, like an ad network, sponsorships or paid subscriptions? | No ads, no sponsors and no paid tiers live here. | No ads, no sponsors and no paid tiers live here. |
| Growth toolsDoes it give you built-in growth tools, like referrals and recommendations? | You get forms and landing pages, and then you're on your own. | Forms and landing pages catch readers, but nothing helps them spread the word. |
| Ease of useCan a busy founder run it without hiring a wizard? | A generalist marketer can run it without crying. | The automation builder is powerful and takes a few weeks to tame. |
| Getting signal to salesCan a salesperson see who read what and do something about it? | Its sales add-on tracks deals and tasks, which covers a small team. | Site tracking is built in, and deals and lead scoring come with the Pipelines add-on. |
| Plays well with your stackDoes it talk to your CRM, website and the other tools you already pay for? | It connects to the usual website and e-commerce suspects, plus Zapier. | More than 1,000 integrations on every plan means it plays nice with everyone. |
| AI that actually helpsDoes it save real time, or just write filler faster? | Brevo Aura writes campaigns and picks send times so you don't have to. | Active Intelligence builds automations from a plain request, which saves real setup time. |
| Automation and segmentsHow clever can it get about who gets what, and when? | Email, SMS, WhatsApp and transactional email in one account is a sneaky-good combo. | It's the deepest automation engine for the money, full stop. |
| Price to startWhat does a small list cost you in year one? | You pay for emails sent, so a big quiet list costs next to nothing. | Plus runs about $49 to $59 at 1,000 contacts, which is fair for what you get. |
| Price at 50,000What happens to the bill when the list takes off? | Big lists that send rarely stay cheap, and big lists that send weekly land on Professional. | Plus hits about $759 at 50,000 contacts, and Pro costs a lot more. |
What you can sell, and what each platform skims off the top, varies a lot.
| Platform | Paid newsletter | Digital products and courses | Podcast hosting | Community | Sponsors and ads | What the platform takes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brevo | No | Payment links, France only | No | No | No | 1% on payment links |
| ActiveCampaign | No | Only through Stripe, Shopify or WooCommerce | No | No | No | No native selling |
The bill at 50,000 subscribers looks nothing like the bill at 1,000.
These are the prices we found at the time of publication for the plan most businesses would actually use. Vendors change pricing whenever they feel like it, so treat this as a snapshot, not a promise.
| Platform | Free plan | About 1,000 contacts | About 10,000 contacts | About 50,000 contacts | How it bills |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brevo | 300 emails a day, 100,000 stored contacts | About $18 on Standard | About $69 to $139 on Standard | About $499 on Professional (roughly 200,000 emails) | By emails sent, assuming weekly sends (third-party figures) |
| ActiveCampaign | No free plan, free trial | $49 to $59 on Plus | $239 on Plus | $759 on Plus | By contacts (third-party figures, billed annually) |
Most small businesses will be happy on Brevo.
A business that sends a solid newsletter and a few simple sequences gets most of what it needs from Brevo for a fraction of the cost. Spend the savings on the writing. Choose ActiveCampaign when someone on the team will own the automations and can name the workflows they'll build, because an automation nobody maintains is the most expensive feature in email marketing.
Read the other comparisons.
beehiiv vs HubSpot
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beehiiv vs Kit
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HubSpot vs ActiveCampaign
Both back up a sales team. HubSpot runs the whole revenue operation, and ActiveCampaign runs the automations for a lot less money.
HubSpot vs monday.com
If your team lives in monday.com, it can carry a simple client newsletter. HubSpot is the upgrade when the newsletter has to create pipeline.