ActiveCampaign vs Brevo: contact-priced CRM automation or email-volume pricing with transactional built in
The two tools charge for different things. ActiveCampaign's price climbs with the number of contacts you store ($49 for Plus with 1,000 contacts, and $189 with 10,000), and Brevo's climbs with the number of emails you send ($18 for Standard at 5,000 emails a month). For a SaaS team that means ActiveCampaign suits lists that are emailed often and tied to Stripe subscriptions and sales follow-up, while Brevo suits product and marketing mail sent from one account at low volume per user.
By Julian Pryor · Updated 7 Oct 2026
Short answer
Pick ActiveCampaign if Stripe subscriptions should feed contacts and automations without code, and someone in sales needs a CRM view. Pick Brevo if you want transactional email and campaigns in one account, expect fewer than about five emails per contact per month, and are happy to send billing events in yourself through its API or an automation tool. On Brevo, price Standard from the start: it is the first plan with workflows.
What each one lists, side by side
Both price tables come from the vendors' own pricing pages, read on 7 October 2026. ActiveCampaign's figures are monthly amounts on annual billing for its email plan; Brevo's are the monthly plan prices at the 5,000-email starting point.
| Plan | Price | What the page says it includes |
|---|---|---|
| ActiveCampaign Starter | $15 at 1,000 contacts; $79 at 5,000; $149 at 10,000 | 1 user, 5 actions per automation, limited segmentation |
| ActiveCampaign Plus | $49 at 1,000 contacts; $145 at 5,000; $189 at 10,000 | 1 user, unlimited automation actions, landing pages |
| ActiveCampaign Pro | $79 at 1,000 contacts; $205 at 5,000; $375 at 10,000 | 3 users, advanced segmentation, predictive sending |
| Brevo Free | $0 | 300 emails a day, storage for up to 100,000 contacts |
| Brevo Starter | $9 for 5,000 emails ($8.08 on yearly billing) | Email and SMS, segmentation, no daily limit; no workflows |
| Brevo Standard | $18 for 5,000 emails ($16.17 on yearly billing) | Unlimited multi-step workflows, A/B tests, web and event tracking |
| Brevo Professional | $499 from 150,000 emails | 10 seats, contact scoring, phone support |
Sources: activecampaign.com/pricing and brevo.com/pricing. Brevo's page also lists Enterprise as "Starting from $2,499 per month".
One worked case: 1,000 contacts, four emails each
Take a young SaaS with 1,000 contacts, a three-email trial sequence and one monthly product update. That is 4 × 1,000 = 4,000 emails a month, comfortably inside Brevo's 5,000 starting volume.
- Brevo Standard: $18 monthly, or $16.17 on yearly billing, with workflows included.
- ActiveCampaign Plus: $49 on annual billing, with unlimited automation actions.
- ActiveCampaign Starter: $15, but each automation stops at 5 actions, which a trial-to-paid sequence with a few waits and branches runs into quickly.
The gap between the two workflow-capable plans is $49 − $18 = $31 a month, or $372 over a year at those monthly figures. That is what the CRM, the Stripe sync and the contact-based scoring cost you. If none of those are on your list, Brevo wins this size outright.
Now flip it: the same 1,000 contacts emailed once a day send about 30,000 messages. ActiveCampaign Plus stays at $49, because its plans allow 10 times your contact limit in sends, which is 10,000 emails at 1,000 contacts and 100,000 at 10,000. Brevo's Standard price at that volume comes from its slider, which runs from 5,000 emails up to 100,000 and "More". Read your own number there before you decide, because the whole advantage of Brevo shrinks as sends per contact rise.
Stripe events: a built-in sync against a handler you write
ActiveCampaign's help article on its Stripe integration says the connection syncs customers, invoices, charges, checkout sessions and subscriptions, and that you pick a resource when you connect. Choosing Subscription is what makes the recurring-payment triggers and conditions available. The same article cautions that the Invoice event does not offer a payment-status filter, so a failed-payment flow is better built on the recurring-payment status change than on the raw invoice event. ActiveCampaign also publishes a recipe called "Stripe: Invoice Payment Failed Follow-up".
Brevo's route is more manual. Its Stripe page lists a Brevo API v3 key with Zapier, n8n or Skyvia, and describes inbound webhooks that add a contact or create a custom event. If you write the handler yourself, POST /v3/events takes an event_name and at least one identifier, and an automation with a Custom event trigger can start from it (Brevo events API). ActiveCampaign has an equivalent for your own product events: its Event Tracking posts to a tracking endpoint with an account ID and event key, and the contact has to exist already. The "Event is recorded" start trigger is listed for Plus and above, so Starter does not get it.
Whichever you choose, map your billing events once: trial started, trial ending, payment failed, plan changed, subscription canceled. Decide which of them also gets a message from Stripe itself, so a failed card never produces two emails.
Receipts, resets and the API
Product mail is where Brevo pulls ahead. Its pricing FAQ says every plan has transactional email with a REST API, SMTP and outbound webhooks, so password resets, invoices and marketing can share one sender account. ActiveCampaign sells transactional email as an add-on on each plan, which adds a line to the bill. The decision to make is whether one vendor and one domain reputation is worth more to you than ActiveCampaign's CRM objects.
Where each plan runs out
- ActiveCampaign Plus has one user. A second teammate means Pro, which lists 3 users and advanced segmentation.
- Brevo Starter keeps the "Sent with Brevo" footer; removing it is a paid add-on, and Standard includes it. At the help article's $9 add-on price, Starter reaches $18 and sits level with Standard, so the cheaper plan stops being cheaper.
- Brevo's free plan caps at 300 emails a day: 300 × 30 = 9,000 a month at most, and trial sequences for a launch week can hit the daily wall.
- ActiveCampaign's higher plans are where predictive sending and conditional content live. Brevo's Standard lists AI send time optimization instead.
Switching without losing consent
- Export contacts with custom fields, tags and each contact's subscription status. Import unsubscribed addresses as unsubscribed on the new side.
- Rebuild trial and onboarding sequences from your written plan, not by cloning screens. ActiveCampaign automations use goals and conditions, while Brevo workflows use triggers, conditions and exit rules.
- Connect billing events last, and run old and new sequences side by side on a small cohort for one billing cycle.
- Authenticate the sending domain with SPF and DKIM on the new platform before the first send, and keep the old platform's records until the new stream has delivered cleanly for a week.
How to decide
Choose ActiveCampaign when Stripe subscription status should drive who gets what, when a salesperson works trials, and when sends per contact are high. Choose Brevo when the same account has to carry receipts and campaigns, when you can write a small webhook handler, and when monthly sends stay low relative to your list.
Related reading: Customer.io vs ActiveCampaign, Customer.io vs Brevo, Klaviyo vs Brevo, the SaaS marketing automation guide and the full comparison list.
ActiveCampaign vs Brevo: common questions
Is Brevo cheaper than ActiveCampaign for a SaaS product?
It is cheaper when you send few emails per contact. A product with 1,000 contacts and four emails each sends 4,000 emails a month, which fits inside the 5,000 that Brevo's $18 Standard plan starts with. ActiveCampaign's nearest plan with unlimited automation actions, Plus, lists at $49 for the same 1,000 contacts. The picture flips for a small list that is emailed daily, because ActiveCampaign does not price by volume while Brevo moves you up its email-volume slider.
Can ActiveCampaign read my Stripe subscriptions directly?
Yes. ActiveCampaign's help article on the Stripe integration describes syncing Stripe customers, invoices, charges, checkout sessions and subscriptions into contacts, orders and recurring payments, and starting automations from a "Stripe event received" trigger. Brevo's Stripe page points to a Brevo API key plus Zapier, n8n or Skyvia, and describes inbound webhooks that can add a contact or create a custom event.
Which one covers password resets and receipts?
Brevo does on every plan. Its pricing FAQ says all plans include transactional email features such as a REST API, SMTP relay and outbound webhooks. ActiveCampaign's pricing page lists transactional email as an add-on that is available on each plan, so budget for it separately.
Is Brevo's free plan enough for onboarding emails?
For a pre-launch product, partly. The free plan allows 300 emails a day and stores up to 100,000 contacts. Brevo's pricing page lists marketing automation starting at Standard, so a branching onboarding flow means paying $18 a month at the 5,000-email starting point. ActiveCampaign has no free plan, only a free trial.