Email marketing is a must when it comes to attracting and maintaining great customer relationships.

But, with dozens to choose from, how do you know which is best?

The reality is that not all platforms are created equally.

What’s right for one business may not be right for another.

In this guide, we’ll cover two of the most popular email platforms: beehiiv and Brevo (formerly Sendinblue).

In order to make the right decision for your business, I’ve laid out the unique features, pros and cons, and pricing structures for each.

beehiiv is one of the fastest-growing email newsletter platforms on the internet. 

Founded in 2021 by Tyler Denk, Benjamin Hargett, and Jake Hurd, beehiiv is considered the “new kid” on the block in the email newsletter game.

beehiiv’s mission is to pave the way for the next million creators, publishers, and companies to scale and monetize their audiences.

Its easy-to-use interface allows creators, writers, and businesses to grow and manage their email audiences seamlessly. 

Along with being user-friendly, beehiiv also gives you your own website that fully integrates with your newsletter — allowing for blog creation repurposing. 

This enhances search engine optimization (SEO), and enables you to get a wider content reach – so your newsletters don’t die in the inbox. Instead, they live on forever on your website.

Why Listen to Me? I’ve generated over $1 million with email and written over 1,000 blog posts. I run Storey Time, a newsletter where I teach people how to become full-time digital writers. Feel free to reach out to me on X anytime!

Here are some key features of the email platform:

Creating, scheduling, and sending newsletters is extremely easy and efficient with beehiiv’s user-friendly delivery system.

Within the clean dashboard, you can manage everything from subscriber lists, newsletter content, your website, and growth tools.

By allowing users to customize sign-up forms and create customized email segmentations, this platform makes it simple to help grow any subscriber base. 

Plus, with an integrated referral system and built-in recommendations, you can fast-track your growth better than other any email platform.

One thing that sets beehiiv apart is its integrated Ad Network.

With beehiiv, you can easily monetize your newsletter with sponsored ads by tapping into the thousands of advertisers on the platform.

Plus, you can also monetize with a paid newsletter, generating recurring revenue for your newsletter every month.

beehiiv Boosts lets you tap into the recommendation network by promoting other newsletters the moment someone signs up to your list – allowing you to earn passive income.

Tracking key performance metrics is paramount to the success of your newsletter.

beehiiv has an impressively detailed analytics tool that tracks metrics like email open rates, click-through rates, and subscriber growth, allowing the user to make necessary changes to their newsletter strategies to optimize their success.

With beehiiv’s 3D Analytics, you can track exactly where subscribers came from, so you can double down on subscriber acquisition.

Brevo was founded over 10 years ago (in 2012) by Armand Thiberge.

The company’s mission is to make marketing tools accessible to all businesses.

While beehiiv’s main focus is on growing and monetizing email and web-hosted newsletters, Brevo’s is a bit broader — offering itself as a full customer relationship management (CRM platform).

They focus on reaching customers through multiple channels including emails, SMS, marketing automation, WhatsApp, chatbots, and more.

Here are a few of Brevo’s main features:

Create and manage email campaigns and build an email subscriber list. You can leverage Brevo’s segmentation and automation features to offer a unique experience for each subscriber.

Unlike beehiiv, Brevo allows you to send time-sensitive messages about your product and services directly to a customer’s smartphone via SMS marketing.

Brevo is also unique in that it offers integrations with several ecommerce platforms including WordPress, WooCommerce, and Shopify.

Brevo lets you connect with customers directly on your website through chatbots. This means if your customer service team is offline, your chatbots will continue serving and supporting your customers around the clock.

What sets beehiiv apart?: beehiiv’s advanced email newsletter creation and distribution systems have helped it stand out as one of the best platforms. 

The growth-focused platform includes features like:

• Simple setup

• User-friendly interface

• Integrated growth features

• Several monetization options

• Automated email newsletter broadcasts

• Advanced targeted email segmentations

• Automation capabilities

• Performance tracking to optimize email engagement 

beehiiv is best for creators, marketers, and bloggers, all the way to medium and enterprise-sized businesses.

Their advanced email marketing and powerful features allow these types of users and businesses to prioritize direct communication and relationship building with their subscriber list on autopilot.

Here’s a quick breakdown of who should use beehiiv:

• Newsletters and publications that are content-focused.

• Businesses that need an all-in-one solution for email, website, email, growth, and data tracking.

• People who want to own their audience.

• Businesses looking for flat-rate pricing that makes it easy to scale.

• Enterprise solutions for big brands that need to master email.

Plans start with a free option with basic features and work their way up to more expensive plans with increased subscriber limits, additional customization options, growth and monetization options, and advanced data analysis tools. 

• Launch (free)

• Grow ($42/month billed annually)

• Scale ($84/month billed annually)

• Enterprise (custom pricing)

The pricing of the plans is structured depending on the number of features the users need, the number of email subscribers they have, and the size of the business.

beehiiv is a versatile email newsletter platform that can help you build and nurture a relationship with your audience that’s monetizable.

Here are some pros and cons of the platform:

• Free plan for up to 2,500 subscribers

• All-in-one email newsletter capabilities

• Build relationships with your readers easily.

• Simple, user-friendly interface

• Built-in growth features (referral program, Boosts)

• Several monetization options (Ad Network, Boosts, premium newsletter)

• Advanced data tracking and analytics that help users track email performance and allows them to optimize their emails for audience engagement.

• Limited growth features on the free plan

• beehiiv is launching new features monthly which may include a learning curve

• Bigger plans are better for those focused on faster growth and monetization

What Sets Brevo Apart?: 

Brevo prides itself on being a full customer relationship management (CRM) tool. It allows users to track customer interactions and helps them engage with their audience through social media and other marketing platforms.

Brevo also offers plenty of email newsletter functionalities:

• Several newsletter templates on all plans

• Drag-and-drop email builder

• Email previewing functionality

• A/B testing capabilities

• Marketing automation

• Analytics for every campaign

• Send time optimizations

• Customizable signup forms

• E-commerce integration via plugins for WordPress, Shopify, and WooCommerce.

With its use of Facebook Ads, landing pages, and signup forms, the user can reach consumers better through various social media channels.

Brevo has created a platform that is widely known for its powerful performance and reliability. Built to manage multiple areas of digital marketing, Brevo can target audiences through automated emails, SMS, and even chatbots on websites.

Brevo is widely used for larger-sized businesses that have a customer base that needs to be targeted through multiple channels. 

While smaller to medium-sized businesses can leverage some of the features Brevo offers, it’s a bit more targeted towards bigger brands rather than small businesses and creators.

Here’s a quick breakdown of who should use Brevo:

• Medium to large businesses that need an all-in-one marketing solution for CRM, email, SMS, and more.

• Ecommerce stores who want to manage all of their marketing

• Enterprise businesses that need a robust infrastructure.

• Businesses who are looking to leverage multiple channels at once.

Brevo’s pricing structure ranges from a free option with basic features, up to a custom-priced option:

• Free

• Starter ($27/month)

• Business ($69/month)

• Custom (custom pricing)

The customized pricing includes sending tens of thousands of emails a month, full marketing automation, personalized support, and multi-user access. 

These plans cater entirely to the user’s specific requirements. The pricing is structured on the amount of features provided and the size of the business or team using the platform.

Brevo is an all-in-one marketing tool that you can use to master multiple channels from within one centralized dashboard.

Here are some pros and cons of the platform:

• Unlimited number of contacts in your subscriber list for free

• Complex automation setup that allows the user to automate just about anything

• Easy-to-use platform that allows users with varying levels of technical skills to operate it effectively.

• Advanced sign-up forms and landing pages that allow subscribers to sign up seamlessly

• Several marketing channels included

• Ecommerce integrations

• Built-in customer relationship management (CRM)

• Landing pages are not offered in the free version. These are critical for creating subscriber lists but are only available starting with the $69/month Business Plan.

• Basic level analytics prevents you from optimizing your campaigns. If you want more than just open and click data, you must upgrade to the premium plans.

• Even though Brevo allows unlimited contacts, it has a small sending limit of 300 emails per day on the free plan. If you have more than 300 subscribers you must upgrade to a paid plan in order to reach the rest of your subscriber list.

beehiiv and Brevo are both powerful email marketing platforms you can leverage to nurture your audience, generate more revenue, and grow your business.

But, there isn’t a hard and fast rule as to which one you should use.

Depending on your business, your goals, and your needs, you’ll want to pick one over the other.

If your primary goal is to master multiple channels at once, including ecommerce, then Brevo is a great option.

But, if your goal is to master email with a newsletter that’s positioned to grow fast and monetize sustainably, then beehiiv is your best bet.

If you’re a creator or business owner looking to own, grow, and monetize your audience, then get started with beehiiv today.

Built by the same team that grew Morning Brew to over 1 million subscribers, beehiiv is the newsletter platform built for growth.