Brevo vs Ortto in 2026: Transparent Pricing vs Built-In Customer Data Platform
Brevo tells you the price on the website and lets you sign up today. Ortto makes you talk to sales, but bundles a real CDP, live chat, and analytics dashboards into the same subscription. The right pick depends on whether you already have clean product data to automate against.
Brevo
Ortto- Ortto includes a built-in customer data platform that unifies CRM, product usage, and third-party data; Brevo has no equivalent CDP and works off contacts you import directly.
- Brevo publishes transparent pricing starting at $9/month; Ortto requires a demo and does not list public pricing at any tier.
- Ortto includes a native live chat and support inbox product called Talk; Brevo also offers live chat, but Ortto's ties directly into its CDP for full customer history in every conversation.
- Ortto was recently acquired by Canva, introducing uncertainty about long-term pricing and roadmap that does not apply to Brevo.
- Brevo includes SMS, WhatsApp, and push notifications alongside email; Ortto also covers SMS, push, and in-app messages but is not built around WhatsApp specifically.
- Brevo's automation only unlocks at its Standard tier, $18/month; Ortto includes its journey builder and CDP on all three of its published tiers, though pricing for each requires a sales conversation.
Brevo and Ortto both promise to unify marketing channels under one login, but they start from different assumptions about your data. Brevo assumes you have a contact list and want to message it across email, SMS, WhatsApp, and live chat at a price that scales with send volume. Ortto assumes your product generates behavioral data worth centralizing, and builds a customer data platform underneath its journey automation so that triggers respond to real usage rather than static list membership. One is self-serve and transparently priced from $9/month; the other requires a sales conversation and, since its acquisition by Canva, carries some uncertainty about where pricing and roadmap go next.
The tools at a glance
Brevo
All-in-one email, SMS, WhatsApp, and CRM platform priced by emails sent, not contacts stored
Brevo's biggest practical advantage over Ortto is that you can see the price before talking to anyone. Plans start at $9/month, unlimited contacts are included at every paid tier, and the bill scales with how many emails you send rather than your database size, a structure that rewards businesses with large but selectively-emailed lists.
The platform covers email, SMS, WhatsApp, live chat, push notifications, and a CRM with deal pipelines on the Professional tier, with an AI content generator and AI send-time optimization from Standard upward. What it does not have is a unifying data layer underneath all of that: contacts, properties, and events live in Brevo's own system, and there is no equivalent to pulling in raw product usage data from Segment or a data warehouse to drive segmentation.
For a business whose marketing data lives mostly inside Brevo itself, transactional history, campaign engagement, form submissions, that is not a limitation in practice. For a SaaS company that wants automation to respond to what users actually do inside the product, Brevo's segmentation is thinner than a CDP-backed platform like Ortto can offer.
| Feature | Free $0 | Starter From $9/mo | Standard From $18/mo | Professional From $539/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly email sends | 300/day | From 20k | From 20k | From 150k |
| Contact storage | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Marketing automation | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| WhatsApp and push | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Built-in CRM | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Published pricing | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Ortto
Marketing automation, CDP, analytics, and customer support in one platform built for SaaS and high-growth teams
Ortto's core bet is that automation is only as good as the data feeding it, so it builds a customer data platform directly into the product rather than treating data unification as someone else's job. The CDP ingests website events, CRM records, product usage, and third-party tools into unified customer profiles, and custom activities let a team define branded events that matter specifically to their business.
That data layer feeds a visual, no-code journey builder covering email, SMS, push, and in-app messages, with triggers based on real behavior rather than static list rules. Ortto Talk adds native live chat, a shared inbox, and a knowledge base on top, so support agents see full customer history from the same CDP that drives marketing automation, removing the usual gap between support tools and marketing data.
The tradeoffs are real: pricing is not published and requires a demo, which adds friction for a buyer used to comparing plans on a pricing page. Ortto is also not built for B2B cold outreach or sales sequences, it is an inbound and lifecycle tool, and its recent acquisition by Canva introduces genuine uncertainty about how pricing and product direction evolve over the next few product cycles.
| Feature | Professional Contact for pricing | Business Contact for pricing | Enterprise Contact for pricing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Journey builder | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Built-in CDP | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Live chat (Talk) | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Lead scoring | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Custom activities | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Dedicated success manager | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
Head-to-head feature comparison
| Feature | Brevo | Ortto |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing transparency | Fully published, from $9/month | Not published, requires a demo |
| Built-in customer data platform | No, works off contacts imported directly | Yes, native CDP unifying CRM, product, and third-party data |
| Journey / automation builder | Yes, from Standard tier ($18/mo) up | Yes, visual no-code journey builder on all tiers |
| Live chat and support inbox | Yes, native live chat included | Yes, native Talk product tied to full CDP history |
| CRM included | Yes, on Professional tier | No, not designed as a sales CRM |
| Multichannel messaging (SMS, WhatsApp, push, in-app) | SMS and WhatsApp from Starter, push on Professional | Email, SMS, push, and in-app messages |
| Lead scoring | Basic contact scoring, Professional only | Yes, from Business tier up |
| API access | Yes, REST API with SDKs | Yes, from Business tier up |
| Recent ownership change | No | Yes, acquired by Canva |
| Target company type | General businesses, EU-focused especially | SaaS and tech companies with product usage data |
| Starting price | $9/month (Starter) | Custom, contact sales |
Which should you choose?
BrevoOrttoBrevoOrttoBrevoOrttoThe deciding factor here is less about features and more about how your data is structured today. If your marketing data mostly lives as contacts and campaign engagement inside one tool, Brevo's transparent pricing and self-serve setup are hard to argue with. If your product already throws off meaningful usage data that a CDP could turn into real segmentation and triggers, Ortto's built-in data layer does something Brevo genuinely cannot replicate without external tooling. The Canva acquisition is a real factor to weigh, not a footnote; ask directly about roadmap and pricing stability during any Ortto demo.
Bottom line
Choose Brevo if you want to see the price today, sign up without a sales call, and your data needs are met by contacts and campaign history. Choose Ortto if you are a SaaS company with product usage data worth centralizing and you are comfortable booking a demo to get there, but go in with specific questions about how the Canva acquisition affects your contract terms and product roadmap before committing.
Frequently asked questions
Why does Ortto not publish pricing while Brevo does?
Ortto sells through a demo and sales conversation, which is common for platforms bundling a customer data platform, journey automation, and support tools where pricing depends on data volume and feature needs. Brevo is built for self-serve signup, so publishing prices starting at $9/month is essential to how it acquires customers directly through its website.
Does Brevo have a customer data platform like Ortto?
No, Brevo does not include a built-in CDP. It works with contacts and properties you send it directly, rather than unifying CRM records, product usage events, and third-party data the way Ortto's CDP does. If centralized behavioral data is central to your automation strategy, Ortto's architecture is purpose-built for that in a way Brevo is not.
Is the Canva acquisition a reason to avoid Ortto?
Not necessarily, but it is a reason to ask specific questions before committing. Ortto joining Canva could mean expanded resources and reach, or it could mean roadmap and pricing changes as the product integrates into a larger company. Existing and prospective customers should ask directly about contract terms and product direction during the sales process rather than assume continuity.
Can I use Brevo for a SaaS product with behavioral triggers?
You can, but with more manual setup. Brevo's automation builder supports triggers from web tracking events and custom data on its Standard plan, but it lacks the native CDP that automatically unifies product usage, CRM, and third-party data the way Ortto does. A SaaS team with complex behavioral triggers will need to build more of that data pipeline themselves in Brevo.
Does Ortto support SMS and WhatsApp the way Brevo does?
Ortto supports email, SMS, push notifications, and in-app messages from the same journey builder, but it is not built around WhatsApp specifically the way Brevo is on its Professional tier. If WhatsApp is a required channel, verify Ortto's current WhatsApp support directly during a demo rather than assuming parity with Brevo.
Which tool is better for a support team that also wants marketing context?
Ortto is the stronger fit here. Its Talk product gives support agents full customer history from the same CDP that drives marketing automation, which removes the usual disconnect between a support tool and a marketing platform. Brevo's live chat is functional but does not carry the same depth of unified customer data behind each conversation.