Email and newsletters decision
Brevo
A technical user can build a useful subset (transactional email, contact lists, basic campaigns and automations) in about a week, but reproducing Brevo’s multichannel features, AI agents, deliverability expertise, integrations catalog and enterprise services is impractical for a small self-hosted project.
Visit website↗$9/mo
$108/yr
Not verified against a pricing page.
$50one-off30 h to build
$20/mo10 h/mo upkeep
On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 3 seats.
Open-source builds that already do this
Every project below is open source and already does this job today. Fork one, self-host it, or take the parts you need - the build prompt further down assumes an empty file, and this is the shortcut past that. Licences differ; check the one on each card before you ship. All Brevo alternatives, with the arithmetic →
What a replacement has to do
- Accept contact list, design/send email campaigns, trigger transactional sends via API/SMTP, run simple automation workflows, track opens/clicks.
What it still won’t have
- Built-in multichannel channels: managed SMS, WhatsApp, push, mobile wallet
- Aura AI features (AI content, send-time optimization, AI Data Analyst)
- 150+ one-click integrations catalogue
- Deliverability team and dedicated IP management included in plan
- Enterprise features: multi-account management, dedicated SSO/SAML, custom loyalty engine, phone/support SLAs
What remains hard
- Product polish and ongoing maintenance
First-year cost
Keep paying
Paying is—cheaper in year one.
On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 3 seats.
Money you would actually spend
Time you would spend
—
What you would spend
What we assumed
The verdict above measures whether you could build it. This one is only about money.
Runnable build prompt
Build a minimal self-hosted email marketing and transactional messaging service using Node.js (or Python), Postgres, and Amazon SES for delivery. In scope: REST API for transactional sends + SMTP relay; web UI to upload/manage contacts and create/send HTML email campaigns; simple templating (handlebars or similar); a one-step automation engine triggering emails on 'subscribe' and custom webhook events; open/click tracking with basic reports. Out of scope: managed SMS/WhatsApp channels, AI content generation, enterprise SSO, multi-account billing, large-scale deliverability optimizations. Include input validation, retry/backoff for SES, domain DKIM/SPF setup docs, unit tests for API and automation logic, and an integration test that sends to a sandbox SES address.
How we checked
How the score was reached
- Partly verdict base52
- An open-source build was found+5
- 5 cited sources+3
- Evidence score60
The base comes from the verdict. Everything under it is a check that either happened or did not, and each one is a fact frozen in this record rather than a judgement made at render time - so the same evidence always produces the same number.
How scoring works →Cited sources · 5
Every page the run actually retrieved.
- official productBrevo homepage
- official pricingBrevo pricing
- official docsBrevo features
- open sourcemautic/mautic
- open sourceMailtrain-org/mailtrain
Integrity checks
What held up, and what did not.
