Activecampaign Vs Sendinblue | The 2025 Price Twist

Email platforms shape how you capture leads, send campaigns, and nudge buyers. One tool leans into deep automations and data. The other trims costs and keeps sending simple. You’ll get a fast verdict, the trade‑offs that matter, and the buying paths that fit most teams.

In A Nutshell

ActiveCampaign suits teams that want layered automations, granular segments, and a marketing CRM path. It scales into advanced campaigns across channels and ties cleanly to ecommerce and sales data. Brevo (the Sendinblue rebrand) suits small teams that want an easy start, a friendly bill, and multichannel touches like SMS or WhatsApp without extra tools.

The short trade‑off: ActiveCampaign takes more setup but pays off with control. Brevo ships fast and costs less at low send volumes, but its deeper workflows sit on the Standard plan and up.

Side‑By‑Side Specs

Feature	ActiveCampaign	Brevo (Sendinblue)
Cost	$15–$49+ / mo at entry (annual billing)	$9–$18+ / mo tiers by monthly sends
Pricing Model	By contacts; email sends ~10× contact count (plan rules apply)	By monthly emails; contact storage scales with tier
Automation Builder	Unlimited steps from Plus; Starter allows 5 actions per automation	Full workflows on Standard+; Starter is campaign‑first
Channels	Email; add‑ons for SMS and WhatsApp	Email, SMS, WhatsApp; live chat options
Integrations	900+ apps incl. Shopify, Woo, Square	150+ apps; strong ecommerce basics
Seats	1 (Starter), 3 (Plus), 5 (Pro), more on Enterprise	1 (Starter), 10 seats included on Professional
Deliverability Tools	DKIM/DMARC setup, predictive send, list hygiene tools	Dedicated IP add‑on on Pro; guidance for warm‑up

ActiveCampaign — What We Like / What We Don’t Like

✅ What We Like

• Automation depth with branching, goals, and rich triggers.
• Segments that stack conditions cleanly across events and attributes.
• Marketing CRM path with optional pipelines and sales engagement.

⚠️ What We Don’t Like

• Starter caps each automation to 5 actions, so growth pushes you up a tier.
• Pricing climbs with list size; buyers feel jumps at 5k–10k contacts.
• Learning curve is steeper if the team is new to marketing flows.

Brevo (Sendinblue) — What We Like / What We Don’t Like

✅ What We Like

• Starter pricing covers up to 5k emails/month, which suits many small lists.
• SMS and WhatsApp live in the same stack, handy for quick promos.
• Standard adds workflows without a big learning mountain.

⚠️ What We Don’t Like

• Contact storage and send caps tie together; larger lists move you up tiers.
• Reporting is simpler; deep revenue views need extra setup or tools.
• Dedicated IPs live on higher plans or as add‑ons, which raises the bill.

ActiveCampaign Or Brevo: Which Fits You Better

Automation & Flows

ActiveCampaign is built for branching journeys. You can stack triggers, split by conditions, wait for goals, and move contacts across paths with precision. From the Plus plan up, actions are unlimited, which frees you to map full lifecycle flows. The result is a system that adapts to lead behavior instead of blasting a calendar schedule.

Brevo keeps the builder simpler. The Standard plan unlocks automations like welcome series, drip campaigns, and basic behavior steps. It works well for stores and newsletters that want a few clean sequences. It won’t overwhelm a small team. If you expect layered rules, cross‑object moves, or complex scoring, ActiveCampaign gives you more room.

Segmentation & Personalization

ActiveCampaign’s segments mix contact fields, events, ecommerce data, and site tracking with fine control. You can nest conditions and reuse segments across campaigns and automations. Conditional content and predictive send windows add another layer of timing and message fit.

Brevo covers lists, tags, and attributes with enough logic for most newsletter and store use cases. You can send dynamic content, but the levers are lighter. That’s a benefit for speed, and a limit for teams that want micro‑audiences and progressive profiling across long funnels.

Deliverability & Compliance

Both platforms guide you to authenticate domains and keep lists clean. ActiveCampaign documents SPF, DKIM, and DMARC setup clearly and reminds senders that Gmail and Yahoo expect authentication from bulk senders. See the guide on SPF, DKIM, and DMARC for steps and context.

Brevo offers a dedicated deliverability section with articles on shared vs. dedicated IPs, warm‑up pacing, and sender identity. If your volume grows or you need full IP reputation control, read the help article on dedicated IPs before you scale. That decision changes how quickly you can recover from bounces and spam traps.

Reporting & Attribution

ActiveCampaign goes deeper on revenue‑linked reporting. You’ll find conversion tracking, attribution windows, and advanced cohort views on higher tiers. Ecommerce events and goal completions roll into dashboards that answer “who bought from which campaign and when.”

Brevo’s reporting focuses on opens, clicks, deliverability, and basic revenue ties. It’s easy to read and fine for newsletters and simple funnels. If you want multi‑touch attribution and pipeline views, plan to pair Brevo with your store analytics or a BI tool.

Integrations & APIs

ActiveCampaign connects to hundreds of tools across ecommerce, CRM, and forms—Shopify, WooCommerce, Square, and more. Webhooks and a mature API make it easier to push events and build your own triggers. That mix fits teams that stitch multiple systems together.

Brevo integrates with the common store stacks and site builders and exposes a clean transactional API. For a small business with a store and a few forms, that’s enough. If your data model spans custom objects and you want to sync across several CRMs or data warehouses, ActiveCampaign offers more headroom.

Team Roles & Permissions

Seats in ActiveCampaign expand by plan, and permissions granularly gate who can publish, edit, or view sensitive data. That matters when marketing, sales, and growth ops share the same account. SSO, audit logs, and stricter controls sit on top tiers.

Brevo includes one seat on Starter and jumps to 10 seats on Professional. Roles are simpler and match the product’s aim: small teams sending campaigns and building a few flows. If you need fine‑grained approvals and team workflows across regions, ActiveCampaign aligns better.

Data Model & Objects

ActiveCampaign supports custom objects on higher plans and lets you attach behavior and attributes beyond standard contact fields. That approach pays off when you track subscriptions, orders, or product usage and want to branch messages on those states.

Brevo centers on contacts and attributes with a clear path for ecommerce events. The separate Brevo data platform expands modeling, but that’s a different product track. For most small teams, tags and attributes do the job.

Pricing & Seats

Entry pricing in ActiveCampaign starts at around $15/month billed annually. The Starter tier fits small lists but caps each automation at five actions. The Plus plan removes that cap, adds landing pages, and bumps seat count. Pricing scales by contacts, and email sends track roughly ten times your contact count.

Brevo starts around $9/month for 5,000 monthly emails. Standard adds marketing automation and still keeps the bill low for modest sending. As your list and volume grow, contact storage and monthly send tiers step up together. Professional includes ten seats and opens the door to add‑ons like a dedicated IP.

Help & Onboarding

ActiveCampaign runs a 14‑day trial and a large library of recipes, guides, and templates. Support channels expand on higher plans. If your team wants a ramp program with structured sessions, its top tiers add more guidance.

Brevo offers a free plan (300 emails/day) and clear docs. The builder is friendly, which shortens the time from import to first send. Phone help and deliverability specialists arrive on higher plans.

Price, Value & Ownership

Here’s a quick view of real‑world costs and trade‑offs once you own the tool. Numbers reflect common entry tiers and typical usage patterns; your totals change with list size and monthly sends.

Factor	ActiveCampaign	Brevo (Sendinblue)
24‑Month Entry‑Tier Total	$360+ (Starter at ~$15/mo, annual)	$216+ (Starter at ~$9/mo for 5k sends)
Scale Triggers	List size raises price; send cap tied to contacts	Monthly send cap drives tier; contact storage increases with tier
Seats & Access	1–5 users by plan; SSO on enterprise level	1 seat on Starter; 10 seats on Professional; SSO on Enterprise
SMS/WhatsApp Costs	SMS/WhatsApp add‑ons billed separately	Native channels; pay per usage and plan tier
Deliverability Controls	DKIM/DMARC, list tools, optional CRM data for targeting	Shared IP by default; dedicated IP add‑on on Pro, included on Enterprise
Setup Time	Longer upfront to map flows and data	Quicker launch; fewer knobs to tune

Where Each One Wins

Decision Guide

Best Fit For Most Teams

If your business depends on behavior‑driven flows—cart steps, trial milestones, subscription nudges—ActiveCampaign is the safer bet. The workflow canvas lets you design once and iterate, and the segmentation tools keep messages tight as your data grows. That setup time pays for itself when you chain multiple triggers and want clean attribution.

If you just need a steady newsletter, promos for a small store, and an occasional SMS push, Brevo keeps costs in check and shipping fast. You can always grade up to Standard for workflows and jump later to a dedicated IP when volume rises.

Short version: power and scale lean to ActiveCampaign; speed and price lean to Brevo. Pick the track that matches your next six months, not your far‑off plans. Your stack stays calmer and your bill stays cleaner.

This guide compiles plan details from the vendors’ public pricing and help pages and keeps currency in USD for a U.S. audience.