Brevo Buyer's Checklist: Twelve Tests Before You Sign or Upgrade

Use this before choosing Brevo, or before moving from its free plan to a paid one. It is built from the vendor's own pricing catalogue, help centre and terms, and from what 100 recent Trustpilot reviewers report. The items are ordered by what costs money or access if you get them wrong.

Each item has a test you can run yourself, a worked example from the published prices, and the thing to watch for.

1. Count your contacts before your emails

Brevo names its price in emails, but "your chosen email volume determines both your pricing tier and the maximum number of contacts you can have in Brevo." ^[7] The caps are 500, 1,500 and 2,500 contacts on the first three tiers, then 500,000 from 20,000 emails ^[5].

Test. Export your contact count, including unsubscribed contacts you keep for compliance. Find the first email tier whose contact cap holds it.

Worked example. A free account with 2,800 contacts sends a monthly newsletter, about 2,800 emails. By sending it would fit the 5,000-email tier at $9. By contacts it needs the 20,000-email tier: $32 on Starter, $69 on Standard ^[3].

Watch for. Contacts you no longer email but have not deleted. They count.

## 2. Decide whether you can live with 300 a day

The free plan sends 300 emails a day and stores 100,000 contacts ^[6]. For a list above 300, every campaign becomes a multi-day send: "if you send a campaign to more than 300 recipients, only 300 contacts will receive it on the scheduled day" ^[6].

Test. Divide your list by 300. That is how many days each campaign takes on Free.

Worked example. A 1,500-person list needs five days per campaign, each resent by hand. A time-sensitive offer reaches the last fifth of the list four days late.

Watch for. Transactional emails share the daily limit on Free; a password reset can be delayed by a campaign.

3. Price Standard against Starter with the add-ons you need

Starter is $9 and removing the Brevo logo costs $12 a month more ^[3]. Standard is $18 with logo removal included, plus automation for unlimited contacts, A/B testing and up to three seats ^[5].

Test. List the add-ons you would buy on Starter. Add them up.

Worked example. Starter with logo removal at the entry tier: $21. Standard at the same tier: $18. At 20,000 emails: Starter with logo removal $44, Standard $69. The crossover depends on volume.

Watch for. Automation. On Free and Starter, automations accept at most 2,000 contacts; Standard removes that limit.

## 4. Check the step to Professional before you need it

Standard at 150,000 emails is $179. Professional at 150,000 is $499 ^[3].

Test. Project your sending and team size two years out. If you will need more than three seats, phone support or WhatsApp, you will meet Professional.

Worked example. A team of five on Standard pays $18 plus credits, but Standard allows at most three marketing seats. Five people means Professional, at a minimum of $499.

Watch for. Yearly Professional plans, which can only be cancelled through a support ticket ^[10].

5. Know how the plan moves up

On the first three tiers, crossing the contact cap upgrades you automatically ^[8]. Adding emails yourself is "charged immediately, with a pro-rated charge" ^[7].

Test. If your list is within 20% of 500, 1,500 or 2,500, assume the next tier.

Worked example. A Starter account at 1,450 contacts on the 10,000-email tier ($17) runs a giveaway that adds 100 contacts. At 1,501 it moves to the 15,000-email tier, $25 a month.

Watch for. Imports. A single CSV can move the tier the same day.

## 6. Know how it moves down

"To downgrade a paid subscription, you first need to cancel it." ^[9] You cannot pick a lower tier while you hold more contacts than it allows; you must delete contacts first ^[7]. Prepaid credits are lost on a downgrade ^[9].

Test. Before buying prepaid credits, decide whether you might downgrade within their life.

Worked example. An account buys a 50,000-credit pack for a launch, uses 20,000, then downgrades. The remaining 30,000 credits are lost.

Watch for. Failed payments, which make a downgrade a support matter.

7. Read the commitment in the terms

"These Terms are non-cancellable by You prior to the end of your ongoing Subscription, and We will not provide refunds for any prepaid or unused fees." ^[14] Price changes come with "at least thirty (30) days" notice ^[14].

Test. Would you accept losing the rest of a year if the product does not work for you? If not, pay monthly.

Worked example. Standard yearly at the entry tier is $194. Cancelling in month three returns nothing; the plan runs to its end.

Watch for. Professional, which needs written notice of non-renewal at least fifteen days ahead.

## 8. Protect the account before the first campaign

This is the item that matters most in the reviews. Brevo tests early campaigns on "a random subset" of recipients and suspends when results are poor ^[13]. The published triggers include a hard bounce rate over 2%, unsubscribes over 1% and complaints over 0.2% ^[13].

Test. Run your list through a verification service before importing. Remove anything older than a year without engagement.

Worked example. A list of 5,000 with 3% invalid addresses produces 150 hard bounces on its first send, a 3% bounce rate, above the 2% line.

Watch for. The second suspension. "If your account is suspended again, we won’t be able to reactivate it." ^[13]

9. Remember that suspension does not stop billing

"Note that your subscription remains active during the suspension." ^[13] Twenty of our 100 sampled reviews describe a suspension, all at one or two stars ^[15].

Test. Before a large send, ask what happens to your launch if sending stops for a week.

Worked example. A Standard account at $69 a month suspended for ten days during a sale pays for the whole month and sends nothing during those ten days.

Watch for. Support response times below Professional, where tickets are the route.

10. Log in to a free account regularly

The cancellation page warns free users to "log into Brevo every four months to prevent the automatic deletion of your Free account" ^[10]. The terms describe six months ^[14].

Test. Put a calendar reminder every three months for any free Brevo account you keep.

Worked example. A club uses a free account for an annual event and does not log in between events. After the inactivity period, the account and its contacts can be deleted.

Watch for. Former paid accounts that fell back to Free after a cancellation. They are free accounts now.

11. Confirm the integration you depend on

Brevo lists over 150 integrations ^[2]. Its WordPress plugin scores 4.1 from 285 reviews ^[16]. Its Shopify App Store listing reads "This app is not currently available on the Shopify App Store." ^[17]

Test. If your list grows through a store, ask Brevo which Shopify integration path is supported today, and test it before committing.

Worked example. A Shopify store relying on a 4.9 rating found in search results would be relying on a listing that can no longer be installed.

Watch for. Old ratings attached to withdrawn listings.

12. Plan the exit

Closing an account is final: "This action is irreversible, and all data will be permanently lost." ^[12] Cancelling, by contrast, moves you to Free and keeps your data.

Test. Export contacts, campaign history and any CRM deals before you cancel, not after.

Worked example. An agency leaving Brevo cancels at the end of the billing period, exports, and only closes the account once the new platform has sent its first campaign.

Watch for. Aggregated data, which the vendor keeps for three months after closure.

A worked first month on Brevo

Here is how the checklist plays out for a small consultancy moving from a spreadsheet to Brevo, with 2,200 contacts, a monthly newsletter and a three-email welcome sequence.

Day 1. The free plan accepts all 2,200 contacts, because it stores up to 100,000 ^[6]. The first newsletter can reach only 300 people a day, so it takes eight days to send by hand.

Day 3. The consultancy decides to pay. By sending volume, about 3,000 emails a month, the 5,000 tier would do. By contacts, 2,200 needs the 15,000-email tier. Starter costs $25 there, Standard $49 ^[3]. They want the welcome sequence for every new contact and no Brevo logo, so Standard.

Day 4. Before the first paid send they verify the list and remove 140 addresses that bounce or never engaged. The first campaign goes to the 500 most recent contacts.

Day 10. The full newsletter goes out. Bounces are under 1%, unsubscribes under 0.5%, so the account stays clear of the published thresholds ^[13].

Day 30. The bill is $49. The cost of skipping the verification step would have been a possible suspension in week one, with the subscription still billing ^[13].

Questions to ask Brevo before signing

Five questions the help centre answers only partly, worth asking support in writing:

1. Which Shopify integration path is supported now that the App Store listing is unavailable?
2. If our account is suspended during a launch, what is the expected review time on our plan?
3. Which inactivity rule applies to a free account, four months or six?
4. Can we reduce the email tier mid-term if we delete contacts, and when does it take effect?
5. What is the "Professional plan fees" line in your pricing catalogue, and does it apply to us?

Keep the answers. They are the only commitments you will have beyond the published terms.

If you are an agency setting this up for a client

Create the account in the client's name, with the client as owner, and invite yourself as a user. Seats are limited: one on Starter, up to three on Standard ^[5]. Agree in advance who is the account owner, because only the owner can permanently close the account ^[12] and only users with billing permission can change the plan.

Run items 1, 8 and 10 for every client. Contacts decide the tier, list quality decides whether the account survives its first month, and a free client account left idle can be deleted.

Red flags in your own data

Before signing, look for four signals in the list you plan to bring. Each one predicts trouble with either the price or the suspension thresholds.

• More contacts than you email. They still set your tier.
• Addresses added more than a year ago that never opened anything. They drive bounces and complaints.
• Contacts collected at events or from purchases without a marketing opt-in. They drive unsubscribes.
• A list that grew in bursts from imports rather than steadily from forms. Bursts are what early campaign testing looks at.

If two or more apply, clean first and import second. It is cheaper than a higher tier, and much cheaper than a second suspension.

## The short version

Count contacts first, emails second. Price Standard before Starter with add-ons. Clean the list before the first send, because the thresholds are strict and the second suspension is final. Pay monthly until you are sure. And log in to any free account at least every three months.