SendPulse vs Brevo
Generous transactional SMTP and marketing suite versus a broader SMB all-in-one platform.
What matters for growth and lifecycle teams
Growth work lives or dies on targeting and measurement. What matters is whether behavioral triggers can be built without engineering time, whether the event stream supports attribution past the open, and whether deliverability holds when broadcast volume shares a reputation with product email.
| Priority | SendPulse | Brevo |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduling | Yes | Yes |
| Event stream | Yes | Yes |
| Deliverability | Broad platform with SPF, DKIM, DMARC setup, SMTP relay, API sending, and paid dedicated IPs. Free transactional throughput is capped at 50 messages per hour. | Reliable for marketing and transactional; per-day free-tier limits prevent spam abuse. |
| Operating since | Not published | 2012 |
| Suppressions API | Yes | Yes |
| Best published rate per 1,000 | Tiers not published in comparable form | Tiers not published in comparable form |
| Multi-tenant | No | No |
| Free tier | 12,000 transactional emails/mo on SMTP Basic, 50 messages/hour | 300/day permanent |
| Starts at | $15 pay-as-you-go for 10,000 emails, or $74.85/mo monthly for Pro 100,000 | $9/mo for 5,000 emails |
For lifecycle and activation work running behavior-triggered journeys, broadcasts, and winback campaigns measured on revenue, the two are level on every priority that can be scored here, so the choice comes down to price and to which product your team would rather operate. On free tier, SendPulse offers 12,000 transactional emails/mo on SMTP Basic, 50 messages/hour against 300/day permanent from Brevo. That ordering reflects this audience. Weigh the same table differently and the answer changes.
Side by side
| Feature | SendPulse | Brevo |
|---|---|---|
| Deliverability | Broad platform with SPF, DKIM, DMARC setup, SMTP relay, API sending, and paid dedicated IPs. Free transactional throughput is capped at 50 messages per hour. | Reliable for marketing and transactional; per-day free-tier limits prevent spam abuse. |
| Multi-tenant | No | No |
| Free tier | 12,000 transactional emails/mo on SMTP Basic, 50 messages/hour | 300/day permanent |
| Starts at | $15 pay-as-you-go for 10,000 emails, or $74.85/mo monthly for Pro 100,000 | $9/mo for 5,000 emails |
| Tagline | Marketing suite with a generous transactional SMTP tier. | All-in-one with a generous daily free tier. |
| Pricing model | tiered | tiered |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| SMTP | Yes | Yes |
| SDKs | None | node, python, go, ruby, php, java, dotnet |
| Templates | rich | rich |
| React Email | No | No |
| Webhooks | Yes | Yes |
| Inbound | No | Yes |
| Idempotency | No | No |
| Dedicated IP | Yes | Yes |
| DX score | 6/10 | 7/10 |
| Best for | Small teams that want free transactional SMTP volume plus optional marketing automation. | Small businesses that need email plus marketing plus SMS in one place. |
SendPulse
- ›Generous 12,000/mo free transactional SMTP tier
- ›SMTP relay and API sending are included
- ›Pay-as-you-go credits are available and valid for 12 months
- ›Marketing automation can live in the same account
- ›Broad suite can feel busy for pure transactional use
- ›Free transactional plan has a 50 messages/hour cap
- ›Paid monthly Pro plan is less attractive than the free tier at small volumes
Brevo
- ›Generous permanent free tier
- ›Marketing plus transactional plus SMS
- ›Inbound parsing
- ›Surface area is large; pure-API teams may not want the rest
- ›UI can feel busy