| Functionality | 8 <p>Brevo offers almost all functionality most companies will need. In addition to email campaign automations (e.g. creating flows, lists, and segmentations), Brevo also allows you to:</p><p><br></p><ul><li>Drag and drop to build emails</li><li>Run SMS campaigns</li><li>A/B test cammpaigns.</li></ul><p><br></p><p>However, a few advanced features are missing - such as landing pages (only available to paying users), as well as the ability to send surveys.</p> | 4 <p>SendGrid only offers the key set of email marketing features - no other channels (e.g., SMS and Whatsapp) or website-related features (e.g., landing pages, website builder) are available. Automation, reporting and customisation are also quite basic. In our books though, this is enough for SMBs with simple needs.</p> |
| Ease of Use | 9 <p>All key features are extremely easy to locate (email campaigns, templates, automations, and analytics), and there is practically no learning curve. Of all the products we tested, Brevo really shines in its ease of use.</p> | 8 <p>Mostly due to its limited functionality, key workflows were intuitive and easy to navigate. It was also generally easy to locate key information.</p><p><br></p><p>However, we found a few UX nits:</p><ul><li>There was no way to take bulk actions on contacts e.g. bulk select them and add to list.</li><li>There was only 1 email automation template.</li></ul> |
| Look and feel | 9 <p>Brevo is a beautiful piece of software. The drag-and-drop builder has a delightful look and feel, and most pages have blazingly fast load times.</p> | 5 <p>We were not so impressed by the slow page loads - even with only 100 contacts, loading times were 3-4 seconds per page, making the platform frustratingly slow at times. <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Another thing to note is that the design is not fully responsive, sometimes text escapes containers when browser window is shrunk.</span></p><p><br></p><p>In terms of interface, SendGrid is very plain, but clean.</p> |
| Customisability | 6 <p>Brevo is a 'ready out-of-the-box' kind of software, meaning that most of its features don't require high levels of customisation to begin using.</p><p><br></p><p>The downside is that fewer customisation options are offered compared to its competitors (e.g., cannot create custom analytics dashbaords, fewer options to use own CSS templates).</p> | 4 <p>SendGrid offers good customisability even without code, including the ability to:</p><ul><li>Make basic stylistic changes to client facing assets e.g. emails, signup forms</li><li>Complete basic personalisation for emails with contact information</li><li>Create basic email automation workflows</li></ul><p>However, it's notably lacking in the ability to create custom dashboards and advanced segments (based on custom events, such as website clicks or email interactions).</p> |
| Ease of Setup | 9 <p>We love that Brevo comes ready to use, and takes almost no time to fully set up. It has a full wealth of pretty email and automation templates, meaning that hours spent manually mapping workflows, and days spent designing emails are now saved.</p> | 7 <p>SendGrid is very easy to set up. We particularly liked how easy it was to locate key features (though note slower loading times).</p><p><br></p><p>It takes around 30 minutes to an hour to complete basic setup, while full customisations (such as integrating with current tools or creating advanced workflows) takes at most 1-3 days. </p> |
| Customer Support | 5 <p>A big drawback for Brevo is their lack of live chat functionality - meaning that if you run into problems, there's no guarantee of how long it'll take before you hear back from their email-only customer support team.</p><p><br></p><p>There is, however, a self-serve support function (i.e., a help centre).</p> | 5 <p>Support is only available through ticket submission in the Help Centre, as there is no live chat option. However, responses are typically provided within a few hours. The Help Centre itself is of high quality, offering detailed explanations and video guides.</p> |
| Integratability | 9 <p>Brevo has pre-built integrations with most relevant 3rd party products. If you want to add more integrations, an API is also available where needed.</p> | 4 <p>There were some pre-built integrations with 120 tools - though we note that these were mostly technical and developer focused tools.</p><p><br></p><p>SendGrid was, however, lacking many key integrations - notably, there was no integration with even the most common CRM or e-commerce sites. The only web builder it integrates with is Wordpress.</p> |
| Ease of Migration | 6 <p>Contacts are exportable directly off of the Brevo platform, but for other types of exports (e.g., exporting analytics) we had to contact the customer support team.</p> | 8 <p>There's the capability to self-serve export contacts from any segments/ lists into CSV files. Other exports (such as analytics) are not available directly through the platform.</p><p><br></p><p>A strength, however, is that there is an email API product available to extract any other information.</p> |
