Sendinblue Pricing: Too Good to be True?

Sendinblue’s prices are on the more affordable end of the spectrum when compared to most other newsletter services.

If that weren’t enough, it also has a decent free plan that comes with many of its features included.

And while the old saying ‘you get what you pay for’ is usually true, this isn’t the case with Sendinblue.

Despite its low prices, you actually get a surprising amount of advanced features, such as marketing automation, transactional emails, sophisticated forms, and even landing pages (on higher plans).

In this guide, we’ll take a look at their different plans and options, to help you decide which one might be right for your email marketing strategy if you’re considering Sendinblue.

Sendinblue Pricing Summary

If you’d prefer to just pay for what you use, Sendinblue also lets you purchase prepaid credits (which don’t expire) on their pay-as-you-go plan. We talk about the different packs available a little further down.

Note: In February 2022, Sendinblue did something that no company does ever: they decreased their prices and added an extra 10,000 emails to the entry-level Starter plan! And the price reduction will make a significant difference to small businesses; instead of paying $54/month for 40,000 emails, users will pay $35, and those on the 60,000 email tier will go from $69 to $49. Not bad at all.

Sendinblue’s very affordable prices make it a great Mailchimp alternative.

How Much Does Sendinblue Cost & What’s Included?

Sendinblue’s plans are priced based on the number of emails sent per month, rather than the number of contacts you have. This is a different approach to most of our other reviewed tools, and there’s good and bad to it, which we discuss a little later.

Aside from the Free plan, there are 2 different plans available. The difference between them is the features you’ll be able to access (landing pages, unlimited automation, advanced reporting, etc.).

Note: Sendinblue’s Enterprise plan is for users who wish to send 350,000+ emails per month. It includes everything in the Business plan, plus a dedicated account manager to provide setup and ongoing support. Custom pricing is available for this plan.

What’s quite nice about Sendinblue’s plans is that they all come with many of the key features included, e.g. marketing automation, web tracking, and support. This is true even of the free plan. So you get a decent chance to test things out before committing to the higher-level plans.

Plus, if your email volumes are fairly consistent from month to month, this pricing works out pretty well. It will be easy to predict your ongoing costs, and you won’t have to worry about going over any subscriber limits.

However, if your monthly email sends fluctuate, it might be less than ideal. Credits don’t roll over, so you’ll lose what you don’t use. And if you reach your sending limit before the end of the month, your campaigns will be paused (Sendinblue will notify you before this happens).

That being said, you do have the option of renewing your monthly plan early if this is the case, so Sendinblue does offer some flexibility in this approach.

Pay As You Go Options

Sendinblue’s prepaid packs are ideal if you don’t send a lot of emails very regularly.

Credits never expire, and you get all the features available on the Essential plan, including ad-free emails and advanced reporting.

Compared to other providers who offer prepaid options (e.g. MailChimp), Sendinblue’s pay-as-you-go packs are between 25-60% cheaper. It’s a very compelling proposition for small-volume senders.

Extras

Sendinblue also offers a few optional add-ons at an extra cost:

• SMS credits: You can buy SMS credits in packs starting from 100, and choose from over 100 countries. Charges vary based on country (for example, 100 SMSes to the USA costs $1.09, whereas sending the same number to the UK costs $3.45). A calculator is available on Sendinblue’s pricing page.
• Remove Sendinblue branding: For $10/month, you can remove the Sendinblue logo from your emails on the Starter plan.
• IP Plan: For big-volume senders, or those who would prefer to send from a non-shared IP, Sendinblue offers dedicated IPs for $145/year. Note that this is included for free in the Enterprise plan.

Which Plan Should I Choose?

Pay as you go: If you’re not a big sender, or your email sending volumes change from month to month, then purchasing prepaid credits is probably the smart way to go. You’ll save yourself a lot of money in the long run, and won’t have to worry about managing any month-to-month costs. Just be aware that you won’t have access to Sendinblue’s landing page feature. You’ll also be limited to 2,000 contacts in your marketing automation campaigns per month (although if you’re planning to run marketing automation, pay-as-you-go may not be the right option for you).

Free: Sendinblue’s free plan is generous, with features like marketing automation and web tracking included. What’s not so generous is the daily sending limit of 300 emails, so we’d only recommend it if your list is on the small side. You can of course stretch out your email campaigns over several days, but that might not be ideal for time-sensitive newsletters.

Starter plan: Sendinblue’s lowest-paid plan is reasonably priced, but the main catch is that you can’t remove the Sendinblue logo from your email footers without paying the extra $10/month. You’d also need to be prepared to go without landing pages and advanced reporting, so it’s probably best for those looking to only send newsletters and automated campaigns (keep in mind the limit of 2000 contacts for automations).

Business: The Business plan’s monthly email sending limits range from 20,000 – 1 million. If you’d like access to landing pages, marketing automation without monthly limits, and Facebook & retargeting ads, this is definitely the way to go.