ActiveCampaign is sold on automation depth, and for a lot of accounts that depth is exactly what they're paying for and never using. Look honestly at your workflow list and you'll usually find a welcome sequence, a cart or lead follow-up, and a re-engagement flow doing almost all the work, while another ten sit there unused since the person who built them left. That gap is the whole case for this migration.
Brevo won't replicate ActiveCampaign's automation builder feature for feature — the conditional branching and scoring are shallower. What it does offer is send-based pricing instead of contact-tier pricing, transactional email and SMS bundled into the same account, and a simpler interface that a small team can actually maintain without a dedicated automation person.
This guide is built around auditing first, because that's the step people skip and regret. Work out which automations actually fire before you export a single contact, then treat the migration itself as a rebuild of only that shortlist rather than a like-for-like copy of everything ActiveCampaign has ever held.
How long this takes
3–4 hours
Most of that time goes into rebuilding automations and repointing forms, not the import itself.
Why switch from ActiveCampaign to Brevo?
Switch if…
- You’re paying for ActiveCampaign’s upper tiers for automation features that two or three workflows barely touch.
- Your contact count is growing faster than your send frequency, and ActiveCampaign’s per-contact pricing is climbing with it.
- You want transactional email and SMS in the same account instead of a separate transactional provider.
- Your team finds ActiveCampaign’s builder more complex than the automation you actually run day to day.
- You want a simpler, cheaper base for straightforward broadcast and drip sending without a CRM-grade tool attached.
Stay put if…
- You rely on ActiveCampaign’s site tracking, lead scoring, or deep conditional automation logic — none of it survives the move intact.
- Your sales team lives inside ActiveCampaign’s CRM and pipeline view daily; Brevo’s CRM is far lighter.
- You send frequently to a relatively small list, where send-based pricing can end up costing more than ActiveCampaign’s contact tiers.
ActiveCampaign vs Brevo: the key differences
| What changes | ActiveCampaign | Brevo |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Per contact, tiered by feature set | Per email sent, unlimited contacts |
| Automation depth | Deep branching, scoring, site tracking | Solid but shallower branching logic |
| CRM | Full pipeline and deal management | Light CRM, deals as a secondary feature |
| Transactional email | Separate product/add-on | Included in the same account |
| SMS | Add-on, limited | Built in, native to workflows |
| Lead scoring | Native and configurable | Not available |
| Site tracking | Native event tracking | Limited, mostly ecommerce-event based |
| Learning curve | Steeper, more configuration surface | Faster to get a team running |
Before you switch, have this ready
- Admin access to both ActiveCampaign and Brevo.
- A full list of every ActiveCampaign automation with its last-triggered date.
- DNS access for your sending domain to publish SPF, DKIM, and DMARC in Brevo.
- Export of contacts with tags, custom fields, and list membership intact.
- A record of every form, landing page, and integration currently posting into ActiveCampaign.
- Half a day set aside — the audit takes longer than the technical move.
Step-by-step: ActiveCampaign to Brevo
Step 1: Audit which automations actually fire
Open Automations in ActiveCampaign and sort by last run. Anything that hasn’t triggered in 90 days is dead weight — it doesn’t need rebuilding, and if you rebuild it anyway you’ll spend hours on a workflow nobody enters.
For the workflows that are active, screenshot every step: triggers, wait times, conditional splits, and the emails inside each branch. You’ll need this reference because nothing automated transfers between platforms.
Be honest about complexity too. If a workflow relies on lead scoring thresholds or site-visit triggers, flag it now as something that won’t survive the move in its current form — you’ll need a simpler substitute in Brevo, not a direct copy.
Screenshot
ActiveCampaign Automations list sorted by last-triggered date
Step 2: Export contacts with tags and custom fields
In ActiveCampaign, go to Contacts, apply the fields you want in the export view, and use the export tool to pull a CSV. Include every custom field and make sure tags are exported as a column rather than left off by default.
Export separately by list if you segment that way, and pull an unsubscribe/bounce export too — you need it to build a suppression list in Brevo so you never re-send to someone who opted out.
Open the file and check tag formatting before you leave ActiveCampaign. Multiple tags per contact are usually comma-separated in one column, and you’ll want to know that before you map it in Brevo’s import tool.
Screenshot
ActiveCampaign Contacts export field selection screen
Step 3: Set up Brevo and authenticate your domain
Go to Senders, Domains & Dedicated IPs in Brevo and add your sending domain. Publish the DNS records it gives you — this can take a few hours to propagate, so do it before the import, not the day of your first send.
Set your sender name and reply-to to match what your ActiveCampaign contacts already recognise. A new platform and a new from-name at the same time gives you two unfamiliar signals instead of one.
Add a DMARC record if you don’t already have one. Bulk sender requirements from Gmail and Yahoo make this a hard requirement now, not a nice-to-have.
Screenshot
Brevo domain authentication screen with SPF and DKIM verified
Step 4: Create matching attributes and lists, then import
In Brevo, create contact attributes matching every ActiveCampaign custom field before you import. Doing this after the import leaves you with duplicate, unmapped columns you’ll be tidying up for weeks.
Decide how tags translate. ActiveCampaign tags usually become either Brevo lists or attribute values depending on whether you use them for segmentation or for automation triggers — pick one convention and apply it consistently.
Import the main contact file through Contacts → Import, mapping every column deliberately, then import your unsubscribe/bounce file to Brevo’s blocklist so those addresses can never receive a send.
Screenshot
Brevo import mapping screen with tags mapped to list attributes
Step 5: Rebuild only the automations that earn their keep
Working from your audit, rebuild the handful of automations that were genuinely firing: typically a welcome sequence, a purchase or lead follow-up, and a re-engagement flow. Resist the urge to rebuild everything ActiveCampaign ever held.
In Brevo, Automation → Create a workflow gives you triggers on list entry, attribute changes, and ecommerce events. Map your ActiveCampaign trigger to the closest match and check every wait step, since delay logic is configured differently between the two builders.
Where ActiveCampaign used a conditional split based on lead score or site behaviour, replace it with a simpler tag- or attribute-based split in Brevo. It won’t be identical, and treating it as identical is how workflows misfire after launch.
Test each workflow with your own address before turning it live — walk the trigger yourself and confirm every branch fires correctly and in the right order.
Screenshot
Brevo automation builder showing a rebuilt welcome workflow
Step 6: Repoint forms, landing pages, and integrations
Work through your list of forms, embedded landing pages, Zapier or Make scenarios, and any CRM or ecommerce integration currently posting to ActiveCampaign, and repoint each one.
Replace embedded ActiveCampaign forms with Brevo forms rather than trying to keep the old markup working against a new endpoint. If a developer built a custom form against the ActiveCampaign API, swap the endpoint and key and test a live submission.
Leave ActiveCampaign active for at least two weeks after launch. New contacts still landing there tell you exactly which form or integration you missed.
Screenshot
List of connected integrations with ActiveCampaign endpoints to replace
Step 7: Test with a small send, then widen volume
Send a real campaign to a seed group of your most engaged 200–500 contacts and compare open rate against your ActiveCampaign baseline, checking placement across Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Mail.
If placement holds, widen to 90-day openers and then your full active list over the following days rather than all at once. A new sending domain doesn’t need to prove itself against your whole database on day one.
Keep long-dormant contacts out of the early sends entirely — they’re the group most likely to complain and least likely to engage, and they do nothing for a new domain’s reputation.
Screenshot
Brevo campaign report showing opens and placement for the seed send
Integrations you need to update
Every one of these is a place contacts or data currently flow into ActiveCampaign. Work through the list before you stop watching the old account — a missed form is invisible until someone complains they never got your email.
| Integration | What to do |
|---|---|
| Website signup forms | Replace ActiveCampaign embeds with Brevo forms and test a live submission. |
| WordPress | Deactivate the ActiveCampaign plugin, install Brevo’s, and reconnect every form. |
| Shopify or WooCommerce | Connect Brevo’s app and confirm order and customer sync before disconnecting ActiveCampaign. |
| Zapier / Make | Rebuild each scenario against the Brevo connector — automations do not remap automatically. |
| CRM (if separate) | Repoint the sync so lead and contact updates flow into Brevo instead of ActiveCampaign. |
| Facebook / Instagram lead ads | Reconnect lead forms to Brevo so new leads don’t land in an inbox you stop checking. |
| Transactional email provider | If you’ve been running a separate transactional tool, consolidate it into Brevo and verify with a test order. |
| SMS provider | Move SMS sends into Brevo’s native SMS feature if you were paying for a bolt-on with ActiveCampaign. |
Troubleshooting: common post-migration problems
Automation triggers immediately instead of waiting
A wait step imported as zero delay. Open the workflow, check every timing field, and correct it before re-enabling.
Tags didn’t translate into usable segments
Re-check whether you mapped tags to lists or attributes on import — pick one convention, rebuild the segment in Brevo using that field, and re-import if needed.
A conditional split behaves differently than it did in ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign’s scoring- or behaviour-based splits don’t have a direct equivalent. Rebuild the split using a tag or attribute instead of trying to force a like-for-like copy.
Deliverability dipped after the first send
Confirm SPF, DKIM, and DMARC pass in Brevo, then shrink the send to your 30-day openers and rebuild volume gradually.
Contacts previously unsubscribed in ActiveCampaign are receiving Brevo campaigns
You only imported the active list. Import your unsubscribe/bounce export to Brevo’s blocklist and pause sending until it’s confirmed.
New leads still appearing in ActiveCampaign
A form or ad integration was missed. Check the source field on the new ActiveCampaign contacts to identify which one.
Should you make the switch?
The migration itself is rarely the hard part — it is the automations you rebuild and the forms you forget. If the reasons in the "switch if" list above describe your situation, Brevo is worth the afternoon. If you are only moving because you are frustrated with an interface, fix the emails first and keep the platform.
Read both sides before you commit: our ActiveCampaign review covers what you would be giving up, and our Brevo review covers what you are buying, including current pricing and where it falls short. Every switch we document is listed on the migration guides hub.