Over the years, Brevo has earned itself a reputation of being a budget-friendly email marketing service for small-to-medium businesses. At EmailTooltester, we’ve used Brevo ourselves for many years, so we’ve seen firsthand what it offers when it comes to email marketing and deliverability. With our new 2025 methodology, we’ve shifted our focus from inbox placement tests to evaluating the built-in features platforms offer to help improve deliverability.
That means we’re now looking at the tools and systems each provider uses to protect sender reputation and ensure messages reach the inbox. From authentication setup to list hygiene and IP management, and more.
In this article, we’ll provide you with an overview of how Brevo performs in this area, taking a look at its email deliverability features.
Let's dive in…
Understanding Brevo Email Deliverability and How It’s Measured
First, let's delve into the concept of “email deliverability” and distinguish it from “email delivery” – two terms often confused.
Email delivery refers to emails that have successfully reached the receiving server – that is, emails that haven’t bounced. Even if it lands in spam or junk folders, it's considered delivered.
Email deliverability determines whether your emails make it to recipients' inboxes or get stuck in spam folders (or even go missing on the way). Even if you follow all the best practices for crafting emails, there's no guarantee they'll avoid spam filters. That's why we regularly test top email marketing services to measure their deliverability rates. These tests often revealed unexpected changes from one round to the next.
Under our new methodology, instead of measuring deliverability rates through seed lists, we assess the actual deliverability features platforms provide to support strong inbox placement. This gives users a clearer, more consistent view of how each service helps users improve their deliverability
Brevo Email Deliverability Rate
According to our older deliverability tests, Brevo had its ups and downs in getting emails delivered over the years. When we first started running our deliverability tests in 2017, they started strong with an average deliverability rate of 83.9%, but hit a bump in 2018 when their deliverability rate fell to 75.6%. They managed to stabilize slightly after that, a sign that they were working on improving things.
Things really looked up for Brevo between 2020 and 2022 when they made big gains in getting emails through, reaching a high point in deliverability (96.3% in March 2021). But afterward, they had some trouble keeping up that success, facing challenges in maintaining steady performance, and falling to an all-time low of 67.7% in June 2023.
In the our final test round in January 2024, Brevo managed to hit a solid deliverability rate of 88.3%. While they haven't matched their best performance, it’s clear they're still working hard to make sure emails get where they need to go.
PROVIDER | AUG 2017 % | MAR 2018 % | JAN 2019 % | JULY 2019 % | FEB 2020 % | SEPT 2020 % | MAR 2021 % | OCT 2021 % | APR 2022 % | JAN 2023 % | JUNE 2023 % | JAN 2024 % |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Brevo (Sendinblue) | 83.9 | 75.6 | 77.4 | 88.8 | 95.4 | 76 | 96.3 | 84.6 | 90 | 68.2 | 67.7 | 88.3 |
Our Email Deliverability Test Insights
Our bi-annual tests on email deliverability shed light on the differences in delivery rates among various email marketing service providers (ESPs). Over multiple rounds of testing, we've gathered data to assess the average delivery rates of popular providers like ActiveCampaign, AWeber, Benchmark, Constant Contact, Kit, and HubSpot, among others.
The findings reveal fluctuating delivery rates over time. However, certain providers consistently excel, like MailerLite, who earned recognition with our Best of 5 Email Deliverability award this year.
On the other hand, some providers struggled to maintain steady delivery rates, experiencing significant declines in performance.
However, effective email deliverability relies on more than just choosing the right email marketing service. While selecting the right ESP is crucial, other factors also play a significant role.
Maintaining a clean email list, building a positive sender reputation, and crafting engaging content are equally important factors. As the volume of emails increases, the impact of the ESP alone diminishes.
That’s why we decided to update our deliverability testing methodology to better reflect these realities. Our new approach focuses on helping users identify which providers offer the features and tools that support strong inbox placement.
Brevo Dedicated IPs: Can They Impact Deliverability?
By default, Brevo users send emails using shared IPs, meaning multiple senders use the same IP. In our deliverability tests, we also used Brevo’s shared IPs to send our emails.
Many businesses opt for shared IPs as they require no management on their part and also carry lower costs. However, the downside is that your sender reputation can be affected by other users on the same IP. Therefore, all senders must adhere to best email marketing practices, including maintaining good list hygiene and other factors that impact deliverability.
Alternatively, Brevo offers the option of a dedicated IP, which is ideal for high-volume senders (those who send at least three email campaigns per week to a minimum of 3,000 contacts, or if more than 100,000 emails/month). With this option, users have exclusive control over their sender reputation, minimizing the risk of being penalized for actions by other parties sharing the IP.
Learn more about the pros and cons of a dedicated IP for email marketing, and about Brevo’s dedicated IP service.
Brevo Deliverability Features
When it comes to supporting strong inbox placement, Brevo offers a solid set of deliverability tools and best practice guidance. From domain authentication and bounce handling to IP warmup and live support, these features can play an important role in improving your email performance.
Here’s a closer look at the key deliverability features Brevo provides:
Deliverability Feature | Score (out of 0.5) | Comment |
Enforces proper SPF, DKIM, and DMARC setup | 0 | SPF/DKIM/DMARC supported, but unfortunately, lacks full SPF alignment |
Authentication wizard/guide | 0.5 | Authentication wizard available during domain setup |
Automatic suppression of bounces, unsubscribes, and spam complaints | 0.5 | Bounces, unsubscribes, and complaints auto-suppressed |
Feedback loop (FBL) data | 0.5 | No FBL data or complaint-level insights provided |
Access to deliverability team | 0.5 | Access to deliverability specialists via support |
Deliverability dashboard | 0.5 | Basic dashboard with metrics and bounce info |
Health score/indicator | 0.0 | No health score or deliverability rating shown |
Built-in list cleaning or integration | 0 | No built-in list cleaning or integrations |
Strict on purchased lists | 0.5 | Strict policy against purchased/rented lists |
IP warmup guidance or dedicated IP support | 0.5 | Guidance provided for warming up dedicated IPs |
Total Score | 3.5 | Brevo offers strong basics like authentication and bounce handling, but lacks advanced tools such as FBL data, list cleaning, and health scoring. |
Authentication Compliance
Brevo supports SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, and offers an automated setup wizard to help users configure authentication quickly. However, it falls slightly short of full SPF alignment, which can affect deliverability for some senders.
Spam Complaint Handling
The platform automatically handles bounces, unsubscribes, and spam complaints — a key foundation for maintaining sender reputation. While you get general complaint stats, Brevo does not currently provide detailed feedback loop (FBL) data for identifying individual complaints.
Dedicated Deliverability Support
Brevo has a responsive support team and offers IP warmup guidance for dedicated IP users. There’s also a basic deliverability dashboard available, but it doesn’t include a dedicated health score or deep inbox placement insights. There's no access to a specialized deliverability team.
List Hygiene
Brevo automatically suppresses problematic contacts like bounces and unsubscribes, but it does not include built-in list cleaning tools or integrations with third-party list hygiene services. However, they do maintain a strict policy against using purchased or rented contact lists.
Final Deliverability Score: 3.5/5
Brevo provides solid core features that support email deliverability — especially in terms of authentication, bounce handling, and IP warmup. But it lacks more advanced tools like list cleaning, FBL reporting, and detailed performance insights, which keeps it just below the top tier in our rankings.
Watch our Email Deliverability Best Practices video:
Brevo Deliverability: Conclusion
While Brevo’s deliverability rates haven’t always been the most consistent, there are signs that things may be improving. Our most recent round of tests has shown that they are capable of achieving decent rates of deliverability, so we’re interested to see if this trend continues in future tests.
In any case, deliverability depends on more than just your email service provider. It’s even more important to make sure that you’re following best practices such as authenticating your emails, maintaining your list hygiene, and sending quality content. In short, deliverability rates can vary from sender to sender, so our results might not reflect your individual experience.
What’s more, Brevo offers a lot that many other email marketing services don’t, including excellent value for money and an impressive feature range that covers automations, CRM, live chat, and other sales and marketing tools. All of this is worth keeping in mind if you’re considering Brevo for sending your email marketing campaigns, as choosing a service based on deliverability alone could make you miss out on features that are more important to your business.
Have any questions about Brevo deliverability? Let us know in the comments below!
We keep our content up to date
20 June 2025 - Rewrite of article due to new deliverability tests
Our Methodology
This article has been written and researched following our EmailTooltester methodology.
Our Methodology