Brevo Starter vs Standard: paying for emails sent instead of contacts stored

The volume ladder for both paid plans

Priced by monthly email volume with unlimited contacts; annual billing saves 10%. Pay-as-you-go credits exist as an alternative. Current amounts: the official Brevo pricing page.

The rungs are monthly email volumes, not list sizes. Standard costs roughly double Starter at each rung and adds the marketing depth: more automation, multi user access and reporting. Above the top published volume the ladder jumps to Professional, which starts far higher and is a different conversation from a newsletter budget.

To see what your own list and cadence produce in monthly sends before you pick a rung, run it through the cost calculator.

Who wins on volume billing, and who loses

Volume billing rewards a particular shape: a big list mailed occasionally. Thirty thousand contacts mailed once a month is thirty thousand emails, a low rung, while a contact priced platform would charge for all thirty thousand contacts every month whether you mail them or not. Reverse the shape, a small list mailed several times a week, and the advantage disappears: the sends pile up and a contact priced plan with generous allowances becomes cheaper.

This is the trade we set out in full on pay per email versus pay per contact.

The free plan is a daily cap, not a monthly one

Brevo's free plan is capped at three hundred emails a day, counting campaigns and transactional messages together. That is a real working allowance for a small list, and a trap for a campaign: a single send to a list of a thousand does not fit in a day. Plan around the daily ceiling rather than multiplying it by thirty.

No automatic overage, which cuts both ways

Brevo does not quietly bill you past your rung the way contact priced platforms bill overages. You move up a volume tier, or you buy credits for one off sending. Nothing surprises you on the invoice; the flip side is that an unplanned send can stop rather than cost. For a seasonal spike, buying credits ahead of the campaign is the controllable option.

Annual billing takes about a tenth off either paid plan, so compare annual totals if you are weighing Brevo against a platform with a steeper annual discount. The current amounts are on the official Brevo pricing page.

Which plan, in one pass

• Plain campaigns to a list you mail occasionally: Starter at the rung that covers your monthly volume.
• Automation, several users or reporting that matters: Standard, at roughly twice the price for the same volume.
• Small list, high cadence: check a contact priced platform first; volume billing works against you here.
• Volume above the published ladder: Professional is the next step and is priced for a different scale.