How to switch from ActiveCampaign to Brevo

Switch from ActiveCampaign to Brevo: the short answer

If you want to switch from ActiveCampaign to Brevo, the main reason is billing. ActiveCampaign charges by plan tier plus contact count, so your bill jumps every time your list crosses a threshold. Brevo charges by how many emails you send each month, so a large, quiet list doesn't force you into a pricier tier. Whether the move actually saves money depends on your list size and how often you email it, not just the sticker price of either tool.

This guide walks through the real cost delta at a few common contact counts, what carries over cleanly when you rebuild your automations, what you give up, and who should stay put.

The pricing model difference, in plain terms

ActiveCampaign prices four tiers, Starter, Plus, Pro, and Enterprise, against a contact-count baseline. At 1,000 contacts billed annually, the vendor's own pricing page lists Starter at $15/month, Plus at $49/month, Pro at $79/month, and Enterprise at $145/month. Move the contact slider up and every tier repriced, not just the marginal contacts. As of November 3, 2025, new signups are also billed on total stored contacts, including unsubscribed and bounced ones, so a list that looks smaller in practice can still cost more than expected.

Brevo drops contact count from the equation and prices by monthly email volume instead. The Free plan covers 300 emails a day with no card required, and it includes SMS, WhatsApp, and basic CRM access, not just email. Paid tiers are Starter at $9/month, Standard at $18/month, and Professional at $499/month, all billed monthly; paying annually cuts each by roughly 10%. A brand with 20,000 contacts that only sends a monthly newsletter pays for the emails it sends, not the names sitting quietly in its database.

The cost delta at your contact count

Here's what the two look like side by side at their published rates. Brevo's price depends on your monthly send volume rather than your list size, so treat the Brevo column as the tier you'd need for typical sending at that volume, not a strict contact match.

The gap is biggest for two kinds of accounts. First, anyone on ActiveCampaign's Plus or Pro tier mainly for automation depth, not the CRM, since Brevo's $18/month Standard plan includes automation and A/B testing. Second, anyone whose contact count has grown faster than their sending frequency, since that's exactly the case ActiveCampaign's model penalizes and Brevo's doesn't. If you send often to a smaller, highly active list, run your own numbers against Brevo's volume tiers before assuming you'll save; a high-frequency sender can land on Professional at $499/month faster than the contact-based comparison suggests.

What ports over when you switch

The core building blocks translate directly, because both tools use the same mental model: contacts, tags or lists, and a visual automation builder with triggers and actions.

• Contact data. Names, emails, custom fields, and tags export from ActiveCampaign as CSV and import into Brevo the same way. This is the easiest part of any switch.
• Segmentation logic. If your ActiveCampaign segments are based on tags, custom fields, or engagement, you can usually recreate the same logic in Brevo's list and segment tools, though you'll rebuild the rules by hand rather than import them.
• Simple automations. Welcome sequences, single-trigger drip campaigns, and basic tagging workflows rebuild quickly in Brevo's automation editor since the trigger-then-action shape is familiar.
• Transactional email. If you use ActiveCampaign mainly for marketing campaigns, note that Brevo includes transactional email, API, SMTP, and webhooks, on every plan including the free one, so you can consolidate marketing and transactional sending into one account if you weren't already.

What you lose moving to Brevo

A few things do not carry over cleanly, and you should know about them before you cancel ActiveCampaign.

• The bundled CRM and sales pipeline. ActiveCampaign includes a CRM and pipeline on its Plus tier and above. Brevo sells CRM functionality as separate add-ons, Sales Essentials and Sales Advanced, rather than folding it into the core email plans. If your sales team actively runs deals through ActiveCampaign's pipeline today, budget for that add-on or plan to keep a separate CRM.
• Predictive sending and deeper segmentation. These are ActiveCampaign Pro and Enterprise features tied to its own automation engine. There's no like-for-like feature in Brevo's plans; you're trading that layer for volume-based pricing, not getting an equivalent replacement.
• Complex branching automations. Multi-step, heavily branched workflows are not a drag-and-drop import between platforms. Expect to rebuild anything beyond simple triggers by hand, and test it before you rely on it in production.
• A brand-free inbox at the lowest tier. Brevo's Free and Starter plans show the Brevo logo on outgoing emails unless you pay extra to remove it, so factor that into the real cost if a clean sender look matters for your list.

When to stay on ActiveCampaign

Stay put if your sales team is actively working deals inside ActiveCampaign's CRM and pipeline today. None of the tools built for the same job as ActiveCampaign, including Brevo, bundle a comparable CRM into the same plan as email marketing and automation, so ripping that out means standing up a separate sales tool at the same time you're migrating email. Also stay if you rely on predictive sending or ActiveCampaign's more advanced segmentation on Pro or Enterprise; those specific features don't have a direct match on Brevo's side.

Switch if your list has outgrown your send frequency, if you're paying for Plus or Pro mostly for basic automation rather than the CRM, or if a real free tier to test on matters more than ActiveCampaign's deeper automation ceiling. If your team is split, some people rely on the CRM and others only touch email, it's worth pricing out a separate CRM alongside Brevo before deciding either way, rather than assuming one tool has to cover both jobs.

How to make the move

1. Export your ActiveCampaign contacts and any custom fields to CSV before you touch anything else.
2. Sign up for Brevo's Free plan and import that CSV, mapping fields as you go.
3. Rebuild your two or three most-used automations first, welcome series and any abandoned-cart or re-engagement flow, and test each one with a dummy contact before turning it live.
4. Run both platforms in parallel for one full send cycle. Compare deliverability and open rates before you cancel ActiveCampaign.
5. If you rely on ActiveCampaign's CRM, decide on a replacement (a standalone CRM or Brevo's Sales add-on) before cutover, not after.

For the full field of alternatives, including ones built for ecommerce or deeper behavioral automation instead of a straight cost swap, see our ActiveCampaign alternatives roundup.

Prices above are from each vendor's own pricing page as of the dates noted in our verified data and change over time. Confirm your own quote before you commit, especially on ActiveCampaign where the number shown depends on your exact contact count.