Brevo Getting Started: Complete Beginner Guide

Email marketing delivers the highest ROI of any digital channel — an average of $36 for every $1 spent. Brevo makes it accessible to businesses of any size with a free plan that never expires, unlimited contacts, and a full suite of tools that scale as you grow. This guide walks you through everything from signing up to sending your first campaign.

Step 1: Create Your Brevo Account

Go to brevo.com and click "Sign Up Free." You only need an email address and password to get started. No credit card required. Once you confirm your email, you land directly in the Brevo dashboard.

During onboarding, Brevo asks a few questions about your business — your industry, company size, and what you plan to use the platform for. Answer these honestly; Brevo uses them to tailor your getting-started experience and ensure your account is set up for the type of email you intend to send.

Step 2: Understand the Dashboard

The Brevo dashboard is your command centre. The left navigation gives you access to every feature:

• Campaigns — Create and manage email campaigns, SMS campaigns, and WhatsApp messages
• Contacts — Manage your subscriber lists, segments, and custom attributes
• Automation — Build automated workflows triggered by subscriber behaviour
• Transactional — Configure emails and SMS triggered by your website or app events
• Conversations — Live chat and inbox management
• Reports — View analytics across all your campaigns

At the top of the dashboard you see a quick stats bar showing recent campaign performance. As a new user, this will be empty until you send your first campaign.

Step 3: Complete Your Sender Profile

Before you send any email, set up your sender profile. Go to Settings → Senders & IPs → Senders and add your from name and from email address. This is the name and address your subscribers will see in their inbox.

Use a real domain-based address (youname@yourcompany.com) rather than a free email address like Gmail or Yahoo. Free email addresses are associated with much higher spam rates and lower deliverability. If you do not yet have a business email, getting one should be your first priority.

Step 4: Authenticate Your Domain

Domain authentication is one of the highest-leverage things you can do for email deliverability. It tells receiving mail servers that you are genuinely authorised to send emails from your domain, dramatically reducing the chance of landing in spam.

Brevo supports three authentication standards:

SPF (Sender Policy Framework) — A DNS record that lists which servers are allowed to send email from your domain. You add one TXT record to your DNS.

DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) — A cryptographic signature added to every email you send. Receiving servers verify this signature to confirm the email was not tampered with in transit.

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) — Builds on SPF and DKIM to give you visibility into who is sending email using your domain and what should happen to unauthenticated messages.

Find these settings under Settings → Senders & IPs → Domains. Brevo provides the exact DNS records you need to add. Most DNS providers (Cloudflare, Namecheap, GoDaddy) let you add these records in under five minutes.

Step 5: Import Your Contacts

If you are migrating from another platform or have an existing subscriber list, go to Contacts → Import Contacts. Brevo accepts CSV files with columns for email address, first name, last name, phone number, and any custom attributes you want to track.

Before importing, make sure your list meets Brevo's compliance requirements:

• All contacts must have explicitly opted in to receive email from you
• You must have a record of when and how they subscribed
• Purchased lists are not permitted under Brevo's terms of service

During import, Brevo lets you map your CSV columns to contact fields and assign contacts to a list. If this is your first import, create a list called "All Subscribers" as a starting point.

If you are starting from zero, Brevo includes a form builder that lets you create embeddable opt-in forms for your website. Find it under Contacts → Forms.

Step 6: Create Your First Campaign

Click Campaigns → Email Campaigns → Create an Email Campaign in the left navigation.

Step 1: Campaign Setup Give your campaign a name (internal only), choose your from name and from email, and write your subject line. A strong subject line is under 60 characters, specific, and communicates clear value. Add preview text — the short snippet that appears after the subject line in most email clients.

Step 2: Design Brevo offers three ways to build your email:

Drag-and-Drop Editor — The most popular choice. Select a template from the Brevo library or start from a blank canvas. Drag blocks (text, image, button, divider, social icons) onto your canvas and customise colours, fonts, and spacing.

Rich Text Editor — A simpler plain-text style editor. These emails often achieve higher deliverability and open rates because they look like personal emails from a colleague.

HTML Editor — Full code control for designers and developers who want pixel-perfect results.

Step 3: Recipients Select the list or segment you want to send to. You can also add exclusion lists to prevent certain contacts from receiving this campaign.

Step 4: Preview and Test Always preview your email on both desktop and mobile views. Send a test email to yourself before sending to your full list. Check that all links work, all images load, and the email looks correct in your email client.

Step 5: Schedule or Send Choose to send immediately or schedule for a specific time. For most audiences, Tuesday through Thursday between 9am and 11am local time produces the best open rates — but your own audience data will tell you more over time.

Step 7: Monitor Your Results

After sending, go to Reports → Email Reports to see your campaign performance. Key metrics to watch:

Delivery Rate — The percentage of emails successfully delivered. Should be above 98%. Lower rates indicate list quality issues.

Open Rate — The percentage of delivered emails that were opened. Industry averages vary from 15-35% depending on sector.

Click Rate — The percentage of opened emails where the subscriber clicked at least one link. Above 2.5% is strong.

Bounce Rate — Percentage of emails that could not be delivered. Hard bounces (invalid addresses) should be suppressed immediately. Soft bounces (temporary failures) are expected occasionally.

Unsubscribe Rate — Should remain below 0.5%. Higher rates indicate relevance or frequency problems.

Step 8: Build Your Sending Habits

Consistency matters more than frequency. Whether you email weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly, pick a cadence and maintain it. Inconsistent sending makes subscribers forget who you are, which leads to higher spam reports and unsubscribes when you do send.

As you grow comfortable with campaigns, explore Brevo's automation features. A simple welcome email sent automatically when someone subscribes will immediately improve your subscriber experience and engagement rates. The welcome email is the highest-opened email you will ever send — average open rates exceed 80%.

Getting Help

Brevo offers a comprehensive knowledge base at help.brevo.com with step-by-step guides for every feature. Paid plan subscribers get access to email and phone support. The Brevo community forum is also active and helpful for troubleshooting common issues.

Brevo Plan Comparison

Plan	Price	Emails/Month	Key Features
Free	$0/forever	300/day	Unlimited contacts, email campaigns, basic CRM, Brevo branding
Starter	From $9/month	5,000	No daily cap, no Brevo logo, basic reporting, email & phone support
Business	From $18/month	20,000	Marketing automation, A/B testing, advanced stats, multi-user access
Enterprise	Custom pricing	Unlimited	Dedicated IP, SSO/SAML, custom onboarding, dedicated account manager

Start with the free plan today — no credit card required. You can upgrade at any time as your list and sending volume grow.