Brevo (Sendinblue) Alternative: Cllavio
Brevo is an all-in-one marketing platform: email, SMS, CRM, automation. Cllavio is what you use when you want email to be fast, predictable, and developer-friendly—without carrying the weight of a full CRM suite.
Best fit for Cllavio
SaaS products and lean ecommerce teams that want focused email campaigns and an email API, with inbox-first defaults and transparent pricing—no CRM bloat.
Best fit for Brevo
Teams who want email, SMS, simple CRM, forms, and marketing automation bundled together and are okay with a heavier UI and more moving parts.
TL;DR – When to pick Cllavio vs Brevo
Choose Cllavio if…
- Email is the core channel for your product (SaaS, ecommerce, transactional).
- You want campaigns and email API on the same infrastructure and billing.
- You care a lot about deliverability, warmup, and bounce protections—not just “send volume”.
- You're tired of navigating CRM screens when all you need is a clean email flow.
Stick with Brevo if…
- You want email + SMS + basic CRM + pipelines all in one tool.
- Your team lives in marketing automation and contact timelines all day.
- You're okay with a broader platform even if email itself isn't the sharpest or simplest part.
Core comparison
| Area | Cllavio | Brevo (Sendinblue) |
|---|---|---|
| Product focus | Email marketing and email API / SMTP relay. Inbox-first behavior, with a lean UI tuned for sending. | All-in-one marketing platform: email, SMS, basic CRM, pipelines, and automation. |
| Pricing model | Clear plans for Email API and Campaigns with included monthly volume (emails, contacts, validations). | Multiple plans by feature and volume; costs tied to email volume and contact/CRM usage as you expand. |
| Deliverability posture | Strong focus on domain warmup, SPF/DKIM/DMARC checks, bounce protections, and pausing risky sends before you burn a domain. | Solid infrastructure, but more generic tooling since email is one part of a broader marketing/CRM platform. |
| Developer experience | Modern REST Email API and SMTP built with SaaS and ecommerce workflows in mind; simple auth, predictable payloads. | APIs across email/SMS/CRM; flexible but more surface area and marketing-centric abstractions to understand. |
| Campaigns & UI | Fast, lean UI for campaigns, lists, and analytics. Minimal clicks from login to first send. | Heavier UI because of CRM, SMS, deals, and automation modules living side by side with email. |
| Automation | Email-focused automations and webhooks geared around product and lifecycle flows. | Broader marketing automation tied into CRM, pipelines, and multi-channel journeys. |
| Analytics | Clear sending metrics: deliveries, opens, clicks, bounces, and sender health signals optimized for email. | Wider reporting across email, SMS, and CRM touchpoints, with more complexity in how data is presented. |
| Support & ownership | Founder-led product with accountable support aimed at teams actively sending and shipping. | Larger org support and documentation servicing a broader marketing use case. |
Why teams move from Brevo to Cllavio
1. Less “platform”, more sending
If your team spends most of its time just trying to get clean campaigns and product emails out the door, a full CRM suite can feel like overkill.
Cllavio keeps you close to the essentials: lists, templates, segments, analytics, and a reliable API.
2. Clearer mental model and pricing
With Cllavio, there’s one mental model: email. Pricing is tied to email volume and contacts—not to how many CRM features you turn on.
That makes it easier to forecast cost as you grow your user base or order volume.
3. Inbox-first guardrails out of the box
Cllavio is opinionated about healthy lists, bounce monitoring, and pausing bad sends before your deliverability tanks.
Instead of just showing you charts, we actively try to keep you out of deliverability trouble.
4. Built for builders, not just marketers
Cllavio gives your devs a straightforward Email API / SMTP relay and your marketers a UI that doesn’t feel like a CRM cockpit.
Ideal when product and marketing sit next to each other and both care about deliverability and speed.
When Brevo might still be better for you
- You want to manage deals, pipelines, and contact timelines in the same place as your email.
- Your strategy leans heavily on SMS campaigns and multi-channel automation in one platform.
- You're okay with more UI complexity because CRM-like features are central to how your team works.
Cllavio is intentionally focused. If you need a full marketing suite with CRM, Brevo can still be a better fit.
How to move from Brevo to Cllavio without chaos
- Separate email from CRM use. List what you use Brevo for: newsletters, onboarding sequences, transactional emails, SMS, plus any CRM pipelines.
- Move email use cases first. Decide which flows should move to Cllavio (campaigns + transactional) and which CRM pieces will stay in your sales stack.
- Connect and verify your domains in Cllavio. Add your sending domains, then configure SPF, DKIM, and DMARC in DNS.
- Export and import contacts. Export contacts and segments from Brevo, then import via CSV into Cllavio campaigns with correct subscription status.
- Rebuild key campaigns. Recreate newsletters, product update emails, and lifecycle flows in Cllavio with templates and segments.
- Gradually switch transactional traffic. Point password resets, signups, invoices, and key product emails to the Cllavio Email API / SMTP relay, monitor, then move the rest.
If you have complex automations or multiple brands, you can phase the migration: start with simpler newsletters and non-critical product emails, then expand.
Ready to try Cllavio as your Brevo alternative?
Create a free Cllavio account, connect your domain, and run your next few campaigns and product emails through it. Compare the workflow, deliverability, and clarity against your current Brevo setup.