Brevo API & Zapier: Connect Brevo to 5000+ Apps

Master Brevo's API and Zapier integration. Connect Brevo to 5000+ apps, automate workflows across tools, sync data, and trigger emails from anywhere in 2026.

Brevo's official integrations cover the big platforms — WordPress, WooCommerce, Shopify, Salesforce — but real-world marketing stacks include dozens of niche tools that don't have native Brevo connectors. That's where Zapier and Brevo's REST API come in. Together they connect Brevo to virtually any tool with an API: Airtable, Notion, Slack, Pipedrive, Calendly, Typeform, Webflow, and roughly 4,995 others.

This guide covers both paths: using Zapier for no-code integrations that work in minutes, and using Brevo's API directly for custom workflows that need more flexibility. Choose based on technical comfort and budget — Zapier is faster but charges per task, while the API is free but requires development time.

Brevo Review & Tutorial 2026 — by One Hour Professor, covers the platform's broader capabilities including API access.

When to Use Zapier vs the API

The trade-off:

Zapier wins when:

You need integration working today
You don't have developer resources
Volume is moderate (under 10,000 tasks per month)
You're connecting one or two non-standard tools

Direct API wins when:

Volume is high (10,000+ events per month — Zapier costs add up fast)
You need complex logic Zapier can't handle
You're building a custom application or internal tool
You want zero ongoing per-task costs

Many businesses use both — Zapier for the long tail of small integrations, and direct API calls for the high-volume core flows.

Zapier: The 5-Minute Integration

Brevo has an official Zapier integration with 30+ triggers and actions. The most common:

Triggers (events from Brevo that start a Zap):

New contact added to list
New contact updated
Email opened
Email link clicked
Form submitted

Actions (things Zapier can do in Brevo):

Create or update a contact
Add contact to a list
Remove contact from a list
Send a transactional email
Trigger a marketing automation
Update contact attributes

To set up a Zapier integration:

Log in to Zapier at zapier.com (free plan available for low volume)
Click Create Zap
Choose your trigger app (e.g., Typeform, Calendly, Airtable)
Configure the trigger
Choose Brevo as the action app
Connect your Brevo account (Zapier asks for your API key — get it from Brevo's SMTP & API page)
Configure the action (which list to add to, which attributes to set)
Test the Zap
Turn it on

Common Zapier Workflows

A few high-value Zaps that take 5 minutes each to set up:

Typeform → Brevo: new form submissions automatically create Brevo contacts and trigger a follow-up automation.

Calendly → Brevo: new booking adds the prospect to a Brevo contact list and triggers a pre-meeting email sequence.

Stripe → Brevo: new payment subscribers get tagged with a customer attribute in Brevo, triggering a welcome series.

Airtable → Brevo: rows added to a "Newsletter Signups" Airtable base auto-create contacts in Brevo.

Pipedrive → Brevo: deals moved to "Won" stage trigger a customer onboarding sequence from Brevo.

Webflow → Brevo: form submissions on a Webflow site sync to Brevo contacts.

Notion → Brevo: new entries in a Notion database create Brevo contacts (useful for lead capture from internal team workflows).

Zapier Limitations

The big one: cost at scale. Zapier's free plan covers 100 tasks per month. Paid plans start at $20/month for 750 tasks. High-volume integrations hit $50 to $100+/month quickly. At those levels, building direct API integrations almost always pays back within months.

Other limitations:

Sync latency (typically 5 to 15 minutes between trigger and action, longer on free plan)
No complex conditional logic without Zapier's premium "paths" feature
Limited error handling visibility
Per-task pricing means accidentally creating a high-volume Zap can produce surprise bills

For workflows that need real-time sync or complex logic, direct API integration is the better path.

Brevo's REST API

Brevo's API documentation lives at developers.brevo.com. The API is well-organized, RESTful, and includes official SDKs for Node.js, Python, PHP, Ruby, Java, C#, and Go — covering essentially every backend stack.

Authentication uses an API key passed in the api-key header. Get your key from Brevo's SMTP & API page.

A simple example: creating a contact via the API (Node.js):

const SibApiV3Sdk = require('sib-api-v3-sdk');
const defaultClient = SibApiV3Sdk.ApiClient.instance;
const apiKey = defaultClient.authentications['api-key'];
apiKey.apiKey = 'YOUR_API_KEY';

const apiInstance = new SibApiV3Sdk.ContactsApi();
const createContact = new SibApiV3Sdk.CreateContact();
createContact.email = 'newuser@example.com';
createContact.attributes = { FNAME: 'Jane', LNAME: 'Smith' };
createContact.listIds = [3];

apiInstance.createContact(createContact).then(
  data => console.log('Contact created:', data),
  error => console.error('Error:', error)
);

This creates a contact, adds them to list ID 3, and sets first/last name attributes. The same operation in Python, PHP, or any supported language is roughly equivalent.

Key API Endpoints

The most-used Brevo API endpoints:

Contacts:

POST /contacts — create a contact
PUT /contacts/{email} — update a contact
GET /contacts/{email} — retrieve a contact
DELETE /contacts/{email} — delete a contact
POST /contacts/lists/{listId}/contacts/add — add contact to list

Email campaigns:

POST /emailCampaigns — create a campaign
POST /emailCampaigns/{id}/sendNow — send a campaign immediately
GET /emailCampaigns/{id} — retrieve campaign details and statistics

Transactional email:

POST /smtp/email — send a transactional email (order confirmations, password resets, etc.)
POST /smtp/templates/{id}/send — send a templated transactional email

Marketing automation:

POST /events — trigger an event that starts/advances an automation workflow
POST /contacts/{email}/identify — identify a contact for tracking

SMS:

POST /transactionalSMS/sms — send a transactional SMS
POST /smsCampaigns — create an SMS campaign

The full API covers around 80 endpoints across contacts, campaigns, automations, transactional messaging, account management, and reporting.

Webhooks: Real-Time Events from Brevo

The opposite direction — your app receiving events from Brevo — uses webhooks. Inside Brevo, navigate to Transactional > Settings > Webhooks to create webhook subscriptions.

Brevo can notify your endpoint about:

Email delivered, opened, clicked, bounced, marked as spam
SMS delivered, failed
Contact unsubscribed
Hard bounce events

Your endpoint receives JSON POST requests with event details. Webhooks are essential for real-time dashboards, internal notifications, or syncing engagement data to other tools.

Rate Limits

Brevo's API rate limits:

400 requests per minute on the transactional API (higher with custom agreements)
100 requests per second burst limit
No formal hourly or daily caps for typical usage

These limits are more generous than Mailchimp's (which throttles aggressively at 10 simultaneous connections) and roughly equivalent to SendGrid's. For most applications, you'll never hit rate limits.

Authentication Best Practices

Treat your Brevo API key like a password:

Never commit keys to public repositories
Use environment variables in production code
Rotate keys periodically (regenerate in Brevo's dashboard)
Create separate keys for different applications so you can revoke one without affecting others
Restrict API key permissions if Brevo's interface offers granular scopes for your use case

For high-stakes applications, build a thin API proxy that holds the Brevo key server-side rather than exposing it to client code.

Building a Custom Integration: Example Architecture

For a custom CRM that needs Brevo integration:

Sync new CRM contacts to Brevo — POST to /contacts endpoint when a deal is created
Trigger Brevo automations from CRM stages — POST to /events endpoint when a deal moves stages
Show Brevo email history in CRM — webhook subscription that updates CRM records on email events
Send transactional emails from CRM — POST to /smtp/email when CRM workflows fire

This pattern — bidirectional sync plus event-triggered emails — works for almost any custom application.

Brevo Pricing 2026

Plan	Monthly Price	API Access	Webhooks
Free	$0	Full API + SDKs	Full webhook support
Starter	$9	Full API + SDKs	Full webhook support
Standard	$18	Full API + automation API	Full webhook support
Professional	$499	Full API + custom rate limits	Full + priority support
Enterprise	Custom	Full + dedicated technical contact	Full + SLAs

API access is identical across plans — Brevo doesn't gate API features behind premium tiers. The only difference is rate limit ceilings, which Enterprise plans can negotiate higher.

Get your free Brevo API key →