Brevo's free plan stops at 300 emails a day. The count resets daily, unused sends do not roll over, and a campaign to more than 300 people reaches 300 on the day while the rest wait for you to requeue them by hand. The fix is either a paid Brevo plan, which drops the daily cap and bills by monthly volume, or a sending setup sized by daily capacity, such as a dedicated SMTP server. Which one is cheaper depends on how often you send and how big the list is.
What the Brevo daily sending limit actually does
Brevo's free plan help article sets out the rules. In plain terms:
| Rule | What happens |
|---|---|
| Daily cap | 300 email sends per day on the free plan |
| Reset | the allowance resets every day |
| Rollover | none, unused sends are lost |
| Campaign over 300 | 300 go out, the rest must be requeued manually |
| Scheduling after the cap | you cannot schedule tomorrow's campaign in advance |
The rule that catches people is the last one. You hit 300 at 11am, you want to line up the rest for tomorrow morning, and the tool will not let you. Somebody has to come back and requeue it, every day, until the list is done.
How long a campaign takes at 300 a day
Here is the arithmetic that makes the free plan stop working.
| List size | Days to send one campaign | Manual requeues |
|---|---|---|
| 300 | 1 | 0 |
| 1,000 | 4 | 3 |
| 5,000 | 17 | 16 |
| 20,000 | 67 | 66 |
| 50,000 | 167 | 166 |
A weekly newsletter to 5,000 people would take 17 days to go out, so the next issue is due before this one finishes. Anything time-sensitive, like a sale ending Friday, reaches most of the list after it is over.
One 5,000 contact campaign on the free plan: 17 days and 16 requeues
Does Brevo reset the limit at midnight?
Brevo says the quota resets every day, but the help center does not give a clock time or a time zone. Do not build a process around "it resets at 00:00". Check the remaining sends in your account before you queue anything, and assume that what is unused today is gone tomorrow.
If you see the count stuck after a day has passed, contact Brevo support. Users on the community forum have reported counters that needed a manual reset, but that is a support issue, not the normal rule.
How to raise your Brevo sending limit
The only way to lift the 300-a-day cap inside Brevo is to pay. Paid plans swap the daily cap for a monthly email allowance.
| Option | Daily cap | How you pay | Fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 300 a day | $0 | testing, tiny lists |
| Starter | none | by monthly email volume, from around $9 for 5,000 | small lists, regular sends |
| Business and up | none | higher monthly volume tiers, more features | marketing teams |
| Enterprise | none | custom quote | large senders |
Prices move, and Brevo has also changed how many contacts each plan includes since 2025, so check the live Brevo pricing page for your exact tier. The structure is what matters here: once you pay, you are buying a monthly number of emails, not a daily one.
That works well for a list mailed a few times a month. It works less well for someone sending every day, because the monthly tier you need climbs with every send.
Requeue, upgrade or move: which fits you
Pick the fix by how often you send and how much
Requeue if this was a one-off. A single 600-person announcement takes two days and one requeue. Annoying, but free.
Upgrade if you send to a few thousand contacts a few times a month. A paid Brevo plan at that size is cheap, and the editor, automation and contact management you already set up keep working.
Move sending to your own server if you send daily, or if your monthly volume puts you on a big Brevo tier. At that point you are paying every month for a number of emails that a fixed-cost server could send without a meter.
When Brevo's paid plans stop being the cheap option
Brevo is already cheaper than contact-based platforms like Mailchimp for big lists mailed occasionally, because it bills on sends. The picture changes with frequency.
| Your pattern | Monthly emails | Better fit |
|---|---|---|
| 5,000 contacts, 2 sends a month | 10,000 | Brevo Starter |
| 20,000 contacts, weekly | about 87,000 | Brevo paid plan or own server, compare quotes |
| 25,000 a day, every day | about 750,000 | own server |
| 200,000 a day | about 6,000,000 | own server with an IP pool |
The line sits roughly where your daily volume is steady and in the tens of thousands. Above it, per-email billing keeps climbing while a server's cost stays flat. Our Brevo vs a dedicated SMTP server post runs the numbers side by side, and Brevo alternatives covers the other platforms.
Things that look like the daily limit but are not
A few problems get mistaken for the cap:
- A validation hold on a new account. Brevo reviews new senders. Sends can pause while that happens, even under 300. See Brevo suspended me for bulk sending if your account was flagged.
- A contact limit, not a send limit. Since 2025 Brevo plans include a set number of contacts. Importing past it is a different wall from the 300 sends.
- Throttling at the receiver. Gmail or Outlook deferring your mail looks like slow sending, but the cap is theirs, not Brevo's. Our why is my email deferred guide explains how to tell.
Before you move off the free plan
Whichever way you go, a few things carry over:
- Export your contacts and unsubscribes. You need the suppression list wherever you send next.
- Clean the list. A bigger daily allowance makes a bad list fail faster. Our email list cleaning guide covers it.
- Authenticate your domain. SPF, DKIM and DMARC on your sending domain, so the move does not cost you inbox placement.
- Ramp up, do not jump. Going from 300 a day to 20,000 a day overnight looks like a compromised account to Gmail. Grow over a few weeks.
If you are still on a free tier somewhere and it is holding you back, outgrew the free SMTP tier compares the next steps across providers.
How BulkEmailSetup helps
We set up a dedicated SMTP server that you own, sized by how much you can send per day, with no monthly email meter and no contact limit.
| Plan | One-time fee | Emails per day | Dedicated IPs | Hosting you pay your host |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $549 | 25,000 | 3 | about $11 a month |
| Advance | $1,199 | 200,000 | 15 | about $49 a month |
That is 83 times Brevo's free daily allowance on the Basic plan, every day, with SPF, DKIM and DMARC done, a campaign platform, bounce handling and an IP warm-up plan included. There is no monthly fee to us, and the 15-day money-back guarantee applies until server access is handed over. See the Basic plan or compare all pricing.
Frequently asked questions
What is Brevo's daily sending limit?
On the free plan, 300 emails a day. Brevo's help center says the count resets every day and unused sends do not roll over. A campaign to more than 300 people reaches 300 on the day and the rest must be requeued by hand. Paid plans drop the daily cap and bill by monthly email volume instead.
How do I raise my Brevo sending limit?
Upgrade to a paid plan. Starter and the plans above it remove the 300-a-day cap and charge by how many emails you send per month, from around $9 a month for 5,000 emails as of 2026. If you need tens of thousands a day every day, compare that monthly bill against a dedicated server with a fixed daily capacity.
Does Brevo reset limits at midnight?
Brevo says the free quota resets daily, but its help center does not publish an exact clock time. Treat it as a daily allowance, not a rolling 24-hour window you can plan to the minute. Check the remaining count in your account before you queue the next batch, because you cannot schedule tomorrow's campaign once today's 300 are used.
What sends more per day than Brevo?
Any paid Brevo plan does, because the daily cap goes away. Outside Brevo, Amazon SES, Mailgun and SMTP2GO all send far more per day once approved. A dedicated SMTP server is sized by daily capacity instead: BulkEmailSetup's Basic plan sends 25,000 a day for $549 one-time plus about $11 a month in hosting, with unlimited contacts.
Can I schedule a Brevo campaign for tomorrow after hitting the limit?
No. Brevo's help center says that once you reach the 300 daily emails on the free plan, you cannot schedule a campaign in advance for the next day. You have to wait for the quota to reset and then send or requeue. That is the main reason teams with lists above a few hundred contacts outgrow the free plan quickly.
How long does a 5,000 contact campaign take on Brevo free?
About 17 days. At 300 a day, 5,000 contacts needs 16 full days plus a partial 17th, and each day after the first needs a manual requeue. A 20,000 contact list takes 67 days, which means a newsletter would still be going out when the next one is due. Past a few hundred contacts the free plan is a testing tool, not a sending plan.
