Brevo alternative for small businesses

Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) has built a reputation as a comprehensive marketing platform with email, SMS, CRM, and chat all in one place. It’s impressive what they’ve packed in there. But if you’re a small business owner who just wants to bring back customers who’ve stopped visiting, all those features can feel like overkill.

Minutemailer takes a different approach. Instead of trying to be everything for everyone, we focus on one thing: helping small businesses reconnect with customers who disappeared. No learning curve for features you’ll never use. No complexity you don’t need.

How Minutemailer differs from Brevo

Built for customer retention, not marketing campaigns

Brevo excels at sending newsletters, promotional campaigns, and automated sequences. That’s great if you’re running regular marketing campaigns. But most small businesses we talk to have a simpler problem: customers came once or twice, then vanished.

Minutemailer is specifically designed for this. Simple reminder emails that bring people back. No fancy automation workflows needed. Just honest, personal messages that work.

Simple by design

Brevo’s interface offers incredible power. Workflow builders, segmentation tools, A/B testing, transactional emails, SMS campaigns, and more. For a marketing team, that’s valuable. For a salon owner, café manager, or yoga studio operator trying to fill appointment slots? It’s overwhelming.

We’ve stripped everything back to what actually matters for small businesses. Import your customers, write (or AI-generate) a simple message, send. That’s it. You’ll be up and running in minutes, not days.

Transparent, affordable pricing

Brevo’s free plan is generous with 300 emails per day. But as you grow, the pricing complexity grows too. Different tiers based on email volume, extra charges for advanced features, separate pricing for SMS. It takes real work to figure out what you’ll actually pay.

Minutemailer pricing is refreshingly straightforward. You can see exactly what you’ll pay based on how many emails you send. No hidden costs for “advanced” features because we don’t believe in holding back features behind higher tiers. What you see is what you get.

When Brevo might be better

Let’s be honest about where Brevo shines. If you’re running a marketing department or agency managing campaigns for multiple clients, Brevo’s comprehensive toolkit makes sense. Their marketing automation is genuinely sophisticated.

Brevo is also a solid choice if you need SMS marketing, transactional emails, or a built-in CRM alongside your email marketing. They’ve built a genuine all-in-one platform, and if you’ll actually use all those features, the complexity might be worth it.

Why small businesses choose Minutemailer

You’ll actually use it

The best tool is the one you’ll actually open and use. We’ve talked to dozens of small business owners who signed up for platforms like Brevo, spent a weekend trying to figure out automation workflows, then never used it again. The friction was too high.

Minutemailer removes that friction. Sarah, a salon owner in Brighton, told us: “I sent my first reminder email within 10 minutes of signing up. With Brevo, I was still watching tutorial videos after an hour.” Simple wins.

Focus on what actually works

Here’s something we learned from analyzing thousands of small businesses: the fancy automation and complex workflows rarely get used. What works is simple, personal reminders sent at the right time.

“Hey, we haven’t seen you in a while. We’d love to have you back.” That message, sent to the right people, brings back about 30% of “lost” customers. You don’t need complicated automation for that.

Customer retention over customer acquisition

Most email platforms are built around getting new customers. Newsletters, promotional emails, lead magnets. That’s fine, but there’s a massive opportunity most small businesses miss: the customers who already bought from you once.

They know you. They liked you enough to come once. They just… forgot. A simple reminder brings them back. That’s our entire focus, and we’ve built everything around making that as easy as possible.

Comparing features and pricing

Brevo’s free plan includes 300 emails per day, which is genuinely generous for getting started. Their paid plans start at around £21/month for unlimited contacts, but prices scale quickly based on volume and features.

Minutemailer starts free with 1,000 emails per month (perfect for testing if this works for your business), then simple monthly plans starting at $9 for 2,000 emails. Simple pricing for simple needs.

Both platforms offer solid email deliverability and templates. The difference is in focus: Brevo gives you a Swiss Army knife of marketing tools. Minutemailer gives you one really sharp knife for the specific job of bringing customers back.

Making the right choice

If you’re evaluating Brevo alternatives, ask yourself what you actually need. Do you need marketing automation workflows, SMS campaigns, and CRM integration? Brevo is genuinely excellent for that.

Or do you simply need to reconnect with customers who stopped coming? Do you want something you can set up in minutes and actually use, without watching hours of tutorials? That’s what we built Minutemailer for.

We’re not trying to be everything for everyone. We’re trying to be the best tool for small businesses who want to stop losing customers to forgetfulness.

Ready to bring back customers? Start free with Minutemailer. No credit card needed, and you can send your first reminder emails today. Most businesses see returning customers within the first week.