Brevo

Brevo charges per email sent (not per subscriber), includes transactional email API natively, has marketing automation on all paid plans, and includes a basic CRM. Mailchimp charges per subscriber (expensive for large lists with low send frequency), requires a separate Mandrill account for transactional email, and offers basic automation only on paid tiers. For startups with growing contact lists, Brevo's pricing model is typically significantly cheaper.

Yes — Brevo provides both SMTP and REST API endpoints for transactional email with enterprise-grade deliverability. It supports dedicated IPs, custom domain sending, real-time webhooks for delivery events, and SDKs for major programming languages. Many startups use Brevo for both marketing automation and transactional email to unify deliverability management.

Yes — Brevo includes a visual workflow automation builder on all paid plans. You can build trigger-based sequences responding to email opens, link clicks, page visits, form submissions, API events, and date conditions. Multi-branch logic, delay steps, and CRM updates are all supported without any coding required.

Brevo's free plan includes 300 emails per day (approximately 9,000/month) with unlimited contacts. There is no subscriber count limit on the free plan — you can store as many contacts as you want and send to any subset within the daily limit. The free plan includes basic email campaigns but not automation workflows.

Yes — Brevo supports SMS campaigns and transactional SMS in supported countries. SMS can be triggered from automation workflows, sent as standalone campaigns, or sent via API for transactional notifications. SMS credits are purchased separately from email sending credits.

Brevo's CRM allows you to track contacts, deals, and pipeline stages. It's designed as a basic sales CRM — not a full Salesforce replacement — covering the essential needs of early-stage teams: contact profiles, deal stages, activity logging, and email history. The CRM is tightly integrated with Brevo's marketing automation, so all email engagement is visible in the contact profile.