ActiveCampaign vs Brevo (2026): Per-Contact vs Per-Email Pricing

Brevo is cheaper than ActiveCampaign at every list size we priced, and the gap widens as the list grows. Brevo Starter costs $9 a month for 5,000 emails, while ActiveCampaign Starter costs $15 a month at 1,000 contacts on yearly billing, or $19 month to month. A 10,000-contact list emailed twice a month is $32 a month on Brevo Starter and $149 on ActiveCampaign Starter. ActiveCampaign earns its price when branching automations, a sales CRM and several seats are the job.

Toolradar data: Toolradar, the software directory we run, tracks 109 email marketing tools as of October 25, 2026 on its email marketing ranking. On its email marketing statistics page, ActiveCampaign is listed as an alternative to 90 other tools, first in the category, and Brevo to 28. ActiveCampaign is the tool people leave; Brevo is where many of them look.

For transparency: MarketingShot and Dupple's other newsletters are sent on beehiiv, not on ActiveCampaign or Brevo.

Every price below was read on October 26, 2026 on ActiveCampaign's pricing page, on Brevo's pricing page and its plan calculator, and on Brevo's full feature table. ActiveCampaign's cards show yearly billing at 1,000 contacts, so those are the figures in the tables unless a line says monthly.

At a glance

	ActiveCampaign	Brevo
Billing model	Contacts stored, with a send cap of 10 to 15 times the contact count	Emails sent per month, with a contact cap per plan
Free plan	None; 14-day trial, no credit card	Yes, 300 emails a day, up to 100,000 contacts, 1 user
Entry paid plan	Starter, $15/mo at 1,000 contacts billed yearly ($19 monthly)	Starter, $9/mo for 5,000 emails ($8.08/mo billed yearly)
Automation plan	Plus, $49/mo at 1,000 contacts billed yearly, unlimited automation actions	Standard, $18/mo for 5,000 emails, unlimited workflows
Mid plan	Pro, $79/mo at 1,000 contacts, 3 users, predictive sending	Professional, $499/mo from 150,000 emails, 10 seats
Top plan	Enterprise, $145/mo at 1,000 contacts, 5 users, SSO	Enterprise, from $2,499/mo, unlimited users
Seats on the entry plan	1 (a second seat is $10/mo on Starter)	1 on Starter; Standard allows up to 3 as an add-on
Yearly discount	Cards are yearly; monthly billing runs about 20% to 27% higher	10% on Starter, Standard and Professional

The billing model is the whole argument. ActiveCampaign bills every contact you store, whether you email them or not, and sells extra sends at $5 per 5,000 a month. Brevo bills the emails you send and stores up to 500,000 contacts on Starter and Standard. A list that is big but quiet is Brevo's best case; a list that is small but mailed daily is where the two converge.

How much does the same list cost on each?

We priced three list sizes at two sending rhythms, using ActiveCampaign's yearly-billed card prices and Brevo's monthly prices from its calculator. Brevo's yearly rate is 10% lower than the figures below, our arithmetic from its printed discount.

List and rhythm	Emails a month	ActiveCampaign Starter	ActiveCampaign Plus	Brevo Starter	Brevo Standard
1,000 contacts, weekly	4,000	$15/mo	$49/mo	$9/mo	$18/mo
5,000 contacts, twice a month	10,000	$79/mo	$145/mo	$17/mo	$35/mo
5,000 contacts, weekly	20,000	$79/mo	$145/mo	$32/mo	$69/mo
10,000 contacts, twice a month	20,000	$149/mo	$189/mo	$32/mo	$69/mo
10,000 contacts, weekly	40,000	$149/mo	$189/mo	$46/mo	$89/mo

At 5,000 contacts emailed weekly, Brevo Starter saves $47 a month against ActiveCampaign Starter, or $564 a year, our arithmetic. The automation-ready tiers are further apart: Brevo Standard at $69 against ActiveCampaign Plus is $76 a month. At 10,000 contacts mailed twice a month, the two Starter plans differ by $117 a month, because ActiveCampaign's price moved with the list and Brevo's did not.

The ActiveCampaign column does not change between the twice-a-month and weekly rows because the plan's send cap, 10 times the contact count on Starter and Plus, already covers 50,000 or 100,000 sends at those sizes. ActiveCampaign's cost is a function of how many people you keep; Brevo's is a function of how often you write to them. The full ladder for ActiveCampaign is in our ActiveCampaign pricing breakdown, and Brevo's volume steps are in the Brevo pricing breakdown.

Where the two models converge

A small list mailed every day is the one case where ActiveCampaign's per-contact bill stops looking expensive. ActiveCampaign Starter includes 10,000 sends a month at 1,000 contacts and sells more at $5 per 5,000 on monthly billing, so a 1,000-person list mailed daily, about 30,000 emails, costs $19 plus $20 in extra sends, or $39 a month. Brevo Starter at 30,000 emails is also $39 a month, so at daily frequency on a 1,000-contact list the two platforms cost the same on monthly billing, our arithmetic from both price lists.

Push the frequency higher and ActiveCampaign gets cheaper per email, because its extra-send price works out to $0.001 per email while Brevo's volume steps climb. Push the list size higher and Brevo gets cheaper per contact, because ActiveCampaign re-prices every band. Most newsletters and most lifecycle programs sit on the Brevo side of that line: a few sends a week to a list that keeps growing.

Where ActiveCampaign costs more than the card

The card price is the yearly rate. Month to month, Starter is $19, Plus $59, Pro $99 and Enterprise $179 at 1,000 contacts, so a team that will not commit for a year pays about a quarter more. There is no free plan, only the 14-day trial, and a 30-day money-back guarantee if the results are not there.

Contacts are priced in bands, and the bands get steep. On yearly billing, Starter is $39 a month at 2,500 contacts, $79 at 5,000 and $149 at 10,000, and it stops at 25,000 contacts, where it costs $391. Plus follows at $95, $145 and $189 for the same sizes, so the gap between Starter and Plus shrinks as the list grows, and at 25,000 contacts Plus is $2 cheaper than Starter.

Seats are sold one at a time. Starter and Plus include one user, Pro three and Enterprise five. Starter allows a second seat for $10 a month and no more, while an extra seat is $15 on Plus, $30 on Pro and $40 on Enterprise, all on monthly billing. A three-person team on Plus pays $30 a month on top of the plan for the two extra logins.

Starter automations are capped at 5 actions per automation, and A/B testing on Starter and Plus covers email only, not automation paths. Transactional email, SMS and WhatsApp are add-ons on every tier. Our ActiveCampaign review covers which of those caps bite first.

Where Brevo costs more than the card

The entry prices buy 5,000 emails. Starter rises to $17 at 10,000 emails, $32 at 20,000, $56 at 50,000 and $82 at 100,000 a month; Standard runs $35, $69, $97 and $139 at the same steps and reaches $429 at 500,000. A daily sender climbs that ladder fast, and Starter tops out at 100,000 emails a month, where Standard continues to 500,000.

Starter is a single-user plan, and its automations stop at 2,000 contacts. Brevo's feature table limits multichannel automation on Free and Starter to 2,000 contacts, so a 5,000-person list that wants a welcome sequence needs Standard. Standard allows up to 3 users as an add-on, at $12 a month per extra seat on monthly billing, and 10 seats arrive only on Professional at $499 a month.

Removing the Brevo logo is $12 a month on Starter ($10.80 on yearly billing); Standard includes it. Landing pages start on Standard with one page. SMS and WhatsApp credits are sold separately on every plan, and pay-as-you-go email credits never expire, which suits a sender who mails a few times a year. The Brevo review walks through the add-ons in order.

Which is cheaper for a team?

Seats are where ActiveCampaign claws back some ground, but only from Pro upward. Pro includes 3 users and Enterprise 5, where Brevo Starter is single-user and Standard caps at 3 with paid seats. A three-person marketing team on ActiveCampaign Pro at 1,000 contacts pays $79 a month with no seat add-on; the same team on Brevo Standard pays $18 plus $24 for two extra seats, $42 a month at 5,000 emails, our arithmetic.

Brevo still wins that comparison at the entry size, and the gap grows with the list, because ActiveCampaign Pro is $205 a month at 5,000 contacts and $375 at 10,000. A team of ten is the one size where Brevo's seat price flips: Professional includes 10 seats but starts at $499 a month from 150,000 emails, while ActiveCampaign Enterprise at 1,000 contacts includes 5 seats and charges $40 per extra seat, $345 a month for ten people. If ten seats matter more than the list size, price both.

When is ActiveCampaign worth the higher bill?

ActiveCampaign is a marketing automation and CRM platform that happens to send email; Brevo is an email platform with automation attached. Plus, Pro and Enterprise allow unlimited actions per automation, 950 or more automation recipes, sales automation from Plus, predictive sending and conditional content from Pro, and custom objects, SSO and HIPAA support on Enterprise. Every plan now includes 500 AI credits and the Active Intelligence builders.

Pay ActiveCampaign's price when the automation is the product: lead scoring and pipelines through the enhanced CRM add-on, revenue attribution on Pro, or a journey with a dozen branches that Brevo's workflow builder would make you split. The ActiveCampaign vs Klaviyo comparison covers the ecommerce version of that trade, and ActiveCampaign vs Mailchimp the newsletter version.

Pay Brevo's price when the job is campaigns, a welcome sequence and transactional email on one bill. Transactional email through SMTP and the API is included on every Brevo plan, including Free, where ActiveCampaign sells it as an add-on. MailerLite vs Brevo runs the same per-email logic against a per-subscriber rival, and Brevo vs Mailchimp covers the other contact-priced incumbent.

MarketingShot tracks price changes like these in its daily brief for marketers; subscribe at marketingshot.com if a platform switch is on this year's plan.

Which one to pick

Choose Brevo if your list will grow faster than your sending frequency, if you want a free plan that holds a real list, or if transactional email should sit on the same invoice. Brevo Starter undercuts ActiveCampaign Starter by $6 a month at the smallest size and by $117 a month at 10,000 contacts, and Standard adds unlimited automation for $18 at 5,000 emails.

Choose ActiveCampaign if the automations are the reason you are buying, if three or five people need logins without seat add-ons, or if the CRM, lead scoring and attribution features will replace another tool. Budget the yearly-billed card price, add the contact band you will reach within a year, and compare that number to Brevo's volume step, not the entry sticker.

If neither fits, our best email marketing for small business guide ranks the alternatives by price, and the best email marketing software guide covers the whole category. The benchmark open and click rates both vendors quote are in our email marketing statistics.

How we checked

We read ActiveCampaign's pricing page and plan table, and Brevo's pricing page, plan calculator and full feature table, on October 26, 2026. ActiveCampaign's figures are its yearly-billed prices per month at 1,000, 2,500, 5,000, 10,000 and 25,000 contacts, with monthly-billed prices quoted where stated; Brevo's are its monthly prices at each email-volume step, with the yearly discount stated as a percentage. Scenario bills multiply or add printed prices and are labelled as our arithmetic. Dupple has no test lab, so this comparison rests on the vendors' published plans and limits, not on sending campaigns ourselves.

FAQ

Is Brevo cheaper than ActiveCampaign in 2026?

Yes, at every list size we priced. As of October 2026, Brevo Starter costs $9 a month for 5,000 emails and Brevo Standard $18, while ActiveCampaign Starter costs $15 a month at 1,000 contacts on yearly billing and Plus $49. At 10,000 contacts emailed twice a month, Brevo Starter is $32 a month and ActiveCampaign Starter $149. The two only meet on a small list mailed daily.

How does ActiveCampaign pricing work compared with Brevo?

ActiveCampaign charges by the number of contacts you store, in bands from 1,000 to 25,000 on Starter and beyond on the other plans, with a monthly send cap of 10, 12 or 15 times your contacts and extra sends at $5 per 5,000. Brevo charges by the number of emails you send each month, from 5,000 on Starter and Standard, and stores up to 500,000 contacts on those plans. A big list emailed rarely costs less on Brevo.

Does ActiveCampaign have a free plan?

No. ActiveCampaign offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card and a 30-day money-back guarantee, then paid plans from the Starter rate at 1,000 contacts on yearly billing, or $19 month to month. Brevo's Free plan has no time limit, allows 300 emails a day and up to 100,000 contacts, and limits automation to 2,000 contacts.

How many users do ActiveCampaign and Brevo include?

ActiveCampaign Starter and Plus include 1 user, Pro 3 and Enterprise 5, with extra seats from $10 a month on Starter to $40 on Enterprise on monthly billing, and Starter allows at most 2. Brevo Starter is single-user, Standard allows up to 3 users as an add-on at $12 a month per extra seat, Professional includes 10 and Enterprise unlimited.

Which has better automation, ActiveCampaign or Brevo?

ActiveCampaign, on any plan above Starter. Plus, Pro and Enterprise allow unlimited actions per automation, add sales automation and automation A/B testing from Pro, and connect to the CRM add-ons for lead scoring. Brevo Standard and above allow unlimited workflows with event triggers and multi-branch testing from Professional, but Free and Starter limit automation to 2,000 contacts.

Can I send transactional emails on Brevo and ActiveCampaign?

Brevo includes transactional email on every plan, including Free, through its API and SMTP relay. ActiveCampaign sells transactional email as an add-on on every tier, so a team that needs order confirmations and password resets pays for it on top of the contact-based plan.

Cite this: MarketingShot, "ActiveCampaign vs Brevo (2026): Per-Contact vs Per-Email Pricing", October 2026.

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