Brevo vs Metrilo
An independent, review-free comparison compiled by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Both products are profiled in full, and neither can pay for placement here.
The short answer
Both sides assessedBrevo compared with Metrilo
Same owner, different products. Brevo acquired Metrilo in 2021 as part of a roughly $47 million purchase of three ecommerce companies, and Metrilo still operates under its own name and pricing as an ecommerce analytics, CRM, and segmentation platform. They are not sold as one suite, so a brand paying for both should audit the email and automation overlap rather than assuming they are designed to sit together.
Metrilo compared with Brevo
Same parent, different products. Brevo is the email, SMS, and marketing automation platform for small businesses; Metrilo is the ecommerce analytics and customer database it acquired in 2021. They are not sold as one suite, so a brand paying for both should check the overlap in email and automation carefully rather than assuming the two are designed to sit together.
Choose Brevo if
European small businesses and anyone with GDPR or data-residency pressure, plus any business holding a large list it mails infrequently, and teams that want marketing email, transactional email, SMS, chat, and a light CRM on one invoice instead of five.
Choose Metrilo if
Direct-to-consumer brands, particularly outside Shopify, that want a real customer database with behavioral segmentation, retention cohorts, and email in one platform rather than assembling an analytics app, a segmentation app, and an ESP with three different definitions of a customer.
Side by side
13 attributes| Attribute | Brevo | Metrilo |
|---|---|---|
| Category | ESPs | Segmentation |
| Starting price | $0 (free, 300 emails per day), then $9/mo on Starter at 5,000 emails (free plan available) | $199 per month, about $165 billed annually |
| Pricing model | Marketing plans are metered by emails sent per month rather than by contacts stored, selected from volume bands, with prepaid non-expiring credit packs as the alternative to a subscription. SMS and WhatsApp are pay as you go by destination, and Conversations and the Sales Platform are priced separately per seat. | Flat monthly subscription in three tiers, discounted about seventeen percent on annual billing, with the CRM, segmentation, and retention layers arriving on the middle tier. |
| Free plan | 300 emails per day, roughly 9,000 a month, with the Brevo logo on every email. Historically contacts were unlimited on the free plan; the 2026 pricing page now shows a contacts selector starting at 500, so confirm the current ceiling for your account. | No |
| Free trial | No fixed trial; the free plan at 300 emails a day is the evaluation path, unlocked after account validation | No |
| Best for | European small businesses and anyone with GDPR or data-residency pressure, plus any business holding a large list it mails infrequently, and teams that want marketing email, transactional email, SMS, chat, and a light CRM on one invoice instead of five. | Direct-to-consumer brands, particularly outside Shopify, that want a real customer database with behavioral segmentation, retention cohorts, and email in one platform rather than assembling an analytics app, a segmentation app, and an ESP with three different definitions of a customer. |
| Setup time | A day, with one caveat unique to Brevo: new accounts go through a validation review before sending is unlocked, so you cannot sign up and send within the hour the way you can elsewhere. Budget for that. Once unlocked, list import, template setup, and a first campaign are straightforward, and pointing an application at the SMTP relay is a fifteen-minute job. | Connection to the store is quick, but the value depends on historical data loading and on behavioral tracking accumulating, so plan a few weeks before segmentation reflects a full picture rather than only recent activity. |
| Learning curve | Low to moderate. Campaigns and lists are conventional. The two things that take adjustment are thinking in emails sent rather than contacts stored when planning cost, and navigating a product surface that spans marketing, transactional, chat, and CRM, which makes the interface busier than a single-purpose ESP. | Moderate. There is more surface here than in a single-purpose segmentation app: analytics, a customer database, retention analysis, and email each have their own conventions. The upside is that unlimited seats let a team learn it together rather than through one gatekeeper. |
| Platforms | Web application, iOS and Android apps, SMTP relay, WordPress, WooCommerce, Shopify, and Magento plugins | Web app, Multiple ecommerce platform integrations |
| Compliance | ISO 27001:2022 certified, GDPR-native with a published DPA, B Corp certified since May 2025, CCPA and CASL support claimed | Holds individual customer profiles including browsing behavior, so GDPR and equivalent obligations sit squarely with the store, Email sending inside the platform carries the store's own consent and unsubscribe obligations, Owned by Brevo, a European company, which is relevant to data protection posture for EU brands |
| Founded | 2012 | 2014 |
| Headquarters | Paris, France | Sofia, Bulgaria |
| Ownership | Private, majority-backed by General Atlantic and Oakley Capital following a December 2025 buyout; not publicly listed | Owned by Brevo, formerly Sendinblue, since 2021 |
Strengths and limitations
Brevo
Strengths
- Billing by emails sent rather than contacts stored is a structural advantage for anyone with a large list and modest send frequency, and it eliminates the dead-weight contact problem outright.
- Transactional email and an SMTP relay ride the same plan as marketing sends, so one vendor covers both password resets and newsletters without a second subscription.
- Genuine breadth: SMS, WhatsApp, push, landing pages, live chat with a shared inbox, and a sales CRM with deal pipelines, all sharing one contact database.
- The strongest European compliance posture in this category: French company, EU data centers by default, ISO 27001:2022 certified, B Corp since 2025, and AI agents running on Brevo's own EU infrastructure.
Limitations
- The send meter penalizes high-frequency senders. A small list mailed daily costs more on Brevo than on a flat contact-priced plan, which is the exact inverse of its strength.
- The 2026 lineup puts a $499 Professional tier directly above an $18 Standard tier, which is a severe cliff, and it moved web push, popups, automatic IP warmup, and phone support up into it.
- The historically unlimited contacts position now appears qualified by a contacts selector on the pricing page, so the flagship claim needs checking against your own plan.
- Charging separately to remove the Brevo logo on the Starter plan is a poor look at a $9 price point.
Metrilo
Strengths
- A genuine customer database rather than a reporting layer, with individual profiles carrying browsing and purchase history.
- Works across multiple ecommerce platforms rather than being locked to Shopify, which is rare in this category.
- Segmentation, retention analysis, and email in one product, removing the problem of maintaining the same audience in several tools.
- Cohort comparisons and lifetime metrics that make retention a property of specific customer groups rather than one company-wide number.
Limitations
- The customer database and segmentation start on the $379 Pro tier, so the $199 entry price is misleading for segmentation buyers.
- No syncing of segments to Meta, Google Ads, or TikTok as advertising audiences.
- Several times more expensive than the Shopify segmentation apps that cover the same core job.
- Heavy overlap with Klaviyo for brands already committed to it, particularly on email and behavioral segmentation.
Pricing compared
Brevo
Marketing plans are metered by emails sent per month rather than by contacts stored, selected from volume bands, with prepaid non-expiring credit packs as the alternative to a subscription. SMS and WhatsApp are pay as you go by destination, and Conversations and the Sales Platform are priced separately per seat.
- Free$0
- Starter$9 at 5,000 emails, about $29 at 20,000, about $39 at 40,000, about $69 at 100,000
- Standard (formerly Business)$18 at 5,000 emails, about $65 to $69 at 20,000, about $129 at 100,000
- Professional$499
- EnterpriseQuoted
Brevo is the best-value general-purpose ESP in this category for a specific and common shape of business: one holding a large list it mails occasionally. At 50,000 contacts mailed monthly you are looking at roughly $89 a month on Standard against roughly $450 on Mailchimp Standard and considerably more on Klaviyo, and that gap only widens as the list grows without the send frequency growing with it. Bundling transactional email, an SMTP relay, SMS, WhatsApp, chat, and a light CRM into the same account compounds the saving by removing subscriptions rather than discounting one. The value case weakens for high-frequency senders, where the send meter punishes exactly what a contact meter rewards, and the new $499 Professional tier is a jarring cliff above $18 Standard that will push some growing accounts into a decision they did not expect. For EU buyers, the ISO 27001 certification and EU-default hosting are worth real money on their own.
Metrilo
Flat monthly subscription in three tiers, discounted about seventeen percent on annual billing, with the CRM, segmentation, and retention layers arriving on the middle tier.
- Essential$199
- Pro$379
- PremiumFrom $599
Priced against the Shopify segmentation apps, Metrilo looks expensive: $379 for the tier with segmentation, against $19 for By the Numbers or $149 for Tresl. Priced against what it replaces, it looks different, because it is analytics, a customer database, and email in one product with unlimited seats and no platform lock to Shopify. The decision comes down to two questions. If you are on Shopify and already use Klaviyo, most of this is duplicated and the specialists are far cheaper. If you are on another platform, or you want one system rather than three, there are very few alternatives at any price.
Editorial verdict on each
Brevo
Brevo is the value pick in this category, and unusually its value comes from a structural pricing decision rather than from being a cheaper version of the same thing. Charging for emails sent instead of contacts stored genuinely changes what a small business can afford to do with a large list, and bundling transactional email, an SMTP relay, SMS, WhatsApp, chat, and a light CRM on top removes subscriptions rather than discounting one. For European buyers the ISO 27001 certification and EU-default hosting are worth money on their own. The weaknesses are real: an unremarkable editor, no meaningful ecommerce attribution, a logo-removal upsell that should not exist at $9, no published SOC 2 or HIPAA, and a 2026 repackaging that opens a punishing gap between $18 Standard and $499 Professional. Buy Brevo if you hold a big list you mail occasionally, if you need transactional and marketing email from one vendor, or if EU data residency is a requirement rather than a preference. Look elsewhere if you mail a small list daily, or if ecommerce revenue attribution is the job.
Read the full Brevo profileMetrilo
Metrilo is the option for DTC brands that want to own the customer database rather than rent a view of it, and for the many brands whose platform is not Shopify and who therefore cannot use most of this category. Individual behavioral profiles, cohort retention analysis, and email in one system solve a real coordination problem, and unlimited seats mean the whole team can work in it. Two things should decide the purchase. The price of the capability is $379, not the $199 on the pricing page, because segmentation starts on the Pro tier. And if you are a Shopify store already running Klaviyo, most of what this does is duplicated for far less money by the specialists in this category. Off Shopify, or consolidating three tools into one, it earns the premium.
Read the full Metrilo profileBrevo profile last reviewed 2026-08-22; Metrilo last reviewed 2026-09-02. Pricing is compiled from public sources and can change without notice. See our methodology.