Brevo is a marketing platform with a transactional API on every plan: a free plan of 300 emails a day, Starter at $9 a month from 5,000 emails, and campaigns, contacts and automation in the same account. SendGrid is the incumbent email API: no free plan since May 2025, Essentials from $19.95 for 50,000 to 100,000 emails, seven SDKs, and the dedicated IPs and published SLA that high-volume senders buy. The table reads both from their own pricing pages, with the read date, and puts Notix in a separate third column so you can see where a smaller service with more in the box sits against each.
Brevo’s figures come from brevo.com/pricing, read on 2026-09-13; that page shows yearly prices by default, so the monthly and the yearly figure are both recorded. SendGrid’s come from Twilio’s Email API pricing page, read on 2026-09-13. The Notix column is read from its own pricing page and is there as a third option, not as the subject of this page.
| Criterion | Brevo | SendGrid | Notix |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free tier | 300 emails a day once the account is approved for sending; API, SMTP and webhooks on every plan | 60-day trial, 100 a day; sending stops when the trial ends (the free plan was retired from 27 May 2025) | 5,000 emails a month, 200 a day, no card, no end date |
| Entry paid plan | Starter $9 a month, $8 on the yearly plan | Essentials from $19.95 a month | Pro $15 a month |
| Included on that plan | From 5,000 emails a month (Standard: $18 a month, $16 yearly; Professional from 150,000 emails at $449 yearly) | 50,000 to 100,000 emails a month on Essentials, volume-priced | 50,000 emails, usage past that metered on the same invoice |
| SMTP relay | Yes, on every plan including Free | Yes | Yes, on every plan |
| SDKs | Node, Python, PHP | Node, Python, PHP, Ruby, Go, Java, C# | TypeScript, Python, Go, PHP |
| Webhooks | Yes; the docs recommend an IP allowlist rather than a signature | Yes | Yes, signed, for email, contact and domain events |
| OTP / verification API | No | No | Yes, email and SMS codes |
| Deliverability check before sending | No | Email validation API on Pro and above | Yes, a pre-send check API |
| Billing outside USD | By card through Adyen, or PayPal | USD by card | USD by card; naira and shillings from a prepaid wallet |
| SLA | Not stated on the pricing page | Stated for Pro and Premier plans | 99.9% on Pro, credits on the pricing page |
| Prices and limits read from the vendors' own pages: www.brevo.com on 2026-09-13. Notix figures are from its own pricing page. | |||
Brevo’s free plan is 300 emails a day once the account is approved for sending, and the transactional API, SMTP and webhooks are included on every plan, the free one included. That is about 9,000 emails a month for nothing. SendGrid retired its free plan from 27 May 2025; a new account gets a 60-day trial of 100 emails a day, and sending stops when the trial ends unless the account moves to a paid plan. A product still finding its first users can stay on Brevo’s free plan indefinitely; on SendGrid it has two months.
Brevo Starter is $9 a month ($8 on the yearly plan) from 5,000 emails, and Standard is $18 ($16 yearly). SendGrid has no tier that small: Essentials starts at $19.95 and covers 50,000 to 100,000 emails, volume-priced. At 5,000 a month Brevo costs less than half; at 50,000 the two are in the same range and the difference is what comes with the plan. Above 100,000, SendGrid’s Pro and Premier tiers are priced for scale, and Brevo’s Professional plan starts from 150,000 emails at $449 on the yearly plan.
Both are a JSON endpoint that takes from, to, subject and a body, and both accept SMTP on every plan, so an existing SMTP integration moves to either with a credential change. The difference is what the account is for: Brevo’s transactional API lives inside a marketing platform with contacts, campaigns and automation; SendGrid’s v3 API is the product, with dynamic templates, personalizations and scheduled sends, and marketing is a separate purchase.
SendGrid publishes Node, Python, PHP, Ruby, Go, Java and C#. Brevo’s official SDKs are Node.js, Python and PHP. If your stack is Ruby, Go, Java or .NET, SendGrid has a first-party library and Brevo is a plain HTTP call.
Both deliver webhooks for the transactional events. SendGrid’s event webhook can be signed, and it sells an email validation API on Pro and above, with dedicated IPs and managed warm-up on its higher tiers. Brevo’s documentation recommends an IP allowlist for its webhook endpoint rather than a signature, and it has no validation product on the plans read for this table. Neither offers a pre-send deliverability check on the message itself.
Brevo bills by card through Adyen or by PayPal, and its pricing page does not state an uptime commitment for its self-serve plans. SendGrid bills in US dollars by card and states a service level agreement for Pro and Premier. These are the commitments each vendor publishes, not measurements of either service’s uptime.
Pick Brevo if you send under a few tens of thousands of emails a month, want a free plan while you build, and want newsletters and receipts from one account and one bill. Pick SendGrid if you send at scale or plan to, want dedicated IPs with managed warm-up, need a published SLA, or already have Twilio as a vendor. At small volume Brevo is cheaper; at large volume SendGrid is built for it.
On the same criteria: a free plan of 5,000 emails a month and 200 a day with no card and no end date, Pro at $15 a month for 50,000 emails with usage past that metered on the same invoice, SMTP on every plan, TypeScript, Python, Go and PHP SDKs, signed webhooks, an OTP and verification API for email and SMS codes, a pre-send deliverability check, campaigns and journeys on the same suppression list as transactional mail, and billing in naira or shillings from a prepaid wallet as well as US dollars by card. It has fewer SDK languages than SendGrid and no dedicated IPs, and it is not a CRM.
The full picture is on Notix vs Brevo and Notix vs SendGrid.
A Brevo alternative when you need an email API first: templates, idempotency keys, an OTP API, one suppression list and billing in naira or shillings.
AlternativesA free plan that does not end after 60 days, a suppression import, and an API you can move to in an afternoon.
CompareA marketing suite with a transactional API against a developer email API, on price, sending, deliverability and billing regions.
CompareWhat changes when you leave a 60-day trial for a free plan that stays, and where SendGrid's scale still wins.
CompareEvery vendor in one table with read dates, and a straight answer to which transactional email API a startup should pick.
NotixA free plan with no card, and Pro at $15 a month for 50,000 emails. Only sent volume is metered.
Notix is free to try without a card: verify a domain, copy an API key, send one message, and compare it against the two above on your own traffic.