Best for
Best for teams that want email alongside SMS and WhatsApp on one contact base, with automation and pricing by sending volume rather than list size.
- Freelancers
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
Email Marketing Comparison
Brevo vs. listmonk
At a glance
At a glance
Best for
Best for teams that want to send newsletters at scale on their own servers, without a per-contact bill.
Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.
Full Comparison
| Criterion | Brevo | listmonk |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $9 / month Starter plan with no daily sending limit; the price scales with monthly email sending volume. A free plan sends up to 300 emails per day. | Free and open source, self-hosted There is no licence fee. The server and the email sending provider are your own, and the project offers no hosted service. |
| Free trial | Free plan with up to 300 emails per day and storage for up to 100,000 contacts | Not stated |
| Commercial use | Not stated | Yes, AGPL v3 |
| API | Yes, a unified REST API for email, SMS and WhatsApp with contacts, events, webhooks, OAuth 2.0 and SDKs, plus an official MCP server for AI assistants | Yes, a REST API across subscribers, lists, campaigns, media, templates, transactional email, bounces and imports, with SDKs and granular API tokens |
| Hosting | Cloud (SaaS) | Self-hosted on your own infrastructure, as a single binary or through Docker, with PostgreSQL |
| Made in | France | Not stated |
| Campaign types | Yes, email newsletters and campaigns, plus SMS and WhatsApp on the same contact base, with A/B testing | Newsletters and email campaigns, plus transactional messages through the API. Messenger webhooks send SMS, WhatsApp or FCM notifications through providers you supply |
| Automation and journeys | Yes, unlimited multi-step marketing automation workflows | No, listmonk is a one-way mailing list manager with no journey or drip builder; sequenced sends are driven from outside through the API |
| Segmentation and personalisation | Yes, list segmentation and personalisation, with predictive send-time optimisation | Yes, subscribers are queried and segmented with SQL expressions, across single and double opt-in lists |
| Templates and editor | Yes, a drag-and-drop editor with templates, and AI-generated designs through Aura | Yes, a visual drag-and-drop builder, a WYSIWYG editor, Markdown, syntax-highlighted raw HTML or plain text, with Go templating and 100+ functions in subject lines and content |
| Deliverability and testing | Yes, A/B testing and predictive sending, with a dedicated IP available as an add-on | Multi-threaded, multi-SMTP sending queues with throughput and sliding-window rate limiting, bounce processing, and analytics for campaign performance, bounces and top links. The sending provider is your own |
| Ecommerce and CRM data | Yes, a built-in CRM plus ecommerce data sync for products and orders | No built-in ecommerce or CRM data; external systems connect through the REST API and webhooks |
| Integrations and API | Yes, a unified REST API for email, SMS and WhatsApp with webhooks, OAuth 2.0 and SDKs, plus an official MCP server for Claude, Cursor, VS Code and other AI tools | Yes, extensive API coverage for all features with SDKs, granular API tokens, messenger webhooks and a media library on an S3-compatible backend |
| AI features | stated Yes | No |
| MCP-ready | stated Yes | No |
| Deployment | more entries Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based | On-premise |
| Support | Email helpdesk, Phone | Not stated |
| Onboarding | more entries Documentation and knowledge base, Live online demos and webinars, Guided onboarding, Personal consulting | Documentation and knowledge base |
| Company size | Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise | Not stated |
| Integrations | more entries WordPress, WooCommerce, Shopify, BigCommerce, Stripe, Zapier | PostgreSQL, SMTP, Docker, Amazon S3 |
Add a tool
Adds a column to the table, from the tools in this category.
Row where the values differ The small markers point at the lower number, the longer list or the stated feature. They describe the data, they are not a verdict.
The short version
Key Differences
- Starting price Brevo From $9 / month listmonk Free and open source, self-hosted
- Deployment Brevo Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based listmonk On-premise
- Hosting Brevo Cloud (SaaS) listmonk Self-hosted on your own infrastructure, as a single binary or through Docker, with PostgreSQL
- AI features Brevo Yes listmonk No
- MCP-ready Brevo Yes listmonk No
Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.
The trade-offs
Strengths and Limitations
Brevo
Strengths
- Email, SMS and WhatsApp on one contact base
- Unlimited marketing automation workflows
- Email plans priced by sending volume, with a free plan storing up to 100,000 contacts
- Unified REST API with webhooks, OAuth 2.0 and SDKs
Limitations
- The free plan is limited to 300 emails per day
- Email plan prices scale with monthly sending volume
listmonk
Strengths
- No licence fee and no per-contact charge, so list growth does not change the bill
- Single binary with PostgreSQL, with a small CPU and memory footprint
- SQL segmentation over subscriber attributes, and Go templating in subject lines and content
- API coverage for all features, plus OIDC single sign-on with roles and permissions
Limitations
- No journey or automation builder; it is a one-way mailing list manager
- You supply, configure and pay for the SMTP sending provider
- SQL segmentation assumes someone on the team writes SQL
- No hosted service from the project, so running and patching the server is your own work
Plans
Pricing
Brevo
- Free $0 / month Up to 300 emails per day and storage for up to 100,000 contacts, with the Brevo logo on emails.
- Starter From $9 / month No daily sending limit; the price scales with monthly email sending volume.
- Standard From $18 / month Adds marketing automation, A/B testing and reporting for growing teams. Scales with sending volume.
- Enterprise Not stated Custom sending volumes, advanced security and dedicated support, quoted by sales.
listmonk
- Self-hosted $0 The open source application under AGPL v3. No licence fee; the server and the SMTP provider are your own.
What users say
Review Scores · opens after launch
Brevo
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Nothing has been published here yet, and no score is shown. How a review is checked before it appears is described below.
listmonk
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Nothing has been published here yet, and no score is shown. How a review is checked before it appears is described below.
How we check reviews
Before sending, the author has to confirm three things: that they have used the product themselves, that they work neither for the vendor nor for a competitor, and that nobody is paying them for the review. We also ask whether the vendor invited them to write it. That answer is required, either answer is accepted, and it stays with the review.
Every review is read by a person before it appears. An email address is required and is confirmed: we send a link to it, and a review does not reach us until the author opens that link, so a review has a sender who was reachable at least once rather than being anonymous. Where what somebody writes needs backing, we ask them for evidence that they used the product, and a review that does not get it is not published. We publish positive and negative reviews alike, we pay nothing and offer nothing for a review, and we accept none that was bought or incentivised.
What we cannot do is verify a purchase. There is no shop here and no account, so whether the author really used the tool rests on their own declaration, on whatever we ask them for, and on the plausibility of what they write. We say so rather than implying a check that does not exist.
A vendor cannot buy a review, and cannot have one removed or changed because they dislike it. We remove or edit a review only if it breaks our rules or the law, for example a false statement of fact. Paid placement has no effect on which reviews appear or on any score.
Where this comes from
Where this comes from
Brevo https://www.brevo.com · checked against the official source on 2026-08-19
listmonk https://listmonk.app · no check date recorded yet
This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.