Migrate ActiveCampaign to Brevo Without Losing Your Automations

The trigger is almost always pricing. You hit the next contact-count tier in ActiveCampaign and suddenly you are paying $229/month for a list that converts at the same rate it did when you were on the $49 plan. Brevo charges by email volume, not contact count, which flips the math entirely for teams sitting on large, segmented lists they do not email every week. The migration itself is not technically hard. It is unforgiving if you skip the prep. Blow your DNS setup, import unengaged contacts, or flip the switch before you rebuild your critical automations and you will crater your deliverability for months.

Before you migrate

Do not touch the Brevo account until this checklist is done inside ActiveCampaign. I have watched teams skip the export step, cancel their AC subscription, and then realize the engagement data they needed to build suppression lists was gone. That data does not come back.

• Export all contacts with custom fields. Go to Contacts > Export and include every custom field column. Map these field names before import because Brevo will not auto-match them.
• Export by engagement segment. Create three exports: opened in last 90 days, opened in 91-180 days, never opened. You will import these into separate Brevo lists so you can treat them differently on warm-up.
• Screenshot every automation. There is no XML or JSON export from ActiveCampaign that Brevo reads. Screenshots are your rebuild spec. For complex automations, write out the trigger, condition, and action in plain text in a doc.
• List your active sequences. Note which contacts are mid-sequence. Pause those sequences in AC before you migrate or they will keep firing from the old platform while you are standing up the new one.
• Verify your sending domain DNS. You will need to add Brevo’s SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records. Pull your current DNS config from your registrar before you start so you have a before/after reference.
• Record your current deliverability baseline. Pull your last 90-day open rate, bounce rate, and spam complaint rate from ActiveCampaign reports. You need this to compare against your first 30 days on Brevo.

What breaks and what does not transfer

The automation logic is the biggest rebuild effort. But three other things consistently catch teams off-guard, and I want to name them before you hit them at 11pm on a Sunday.

Tags become attributes and segments. ActiveCampaign’s tag system is flexible and often overloaded: teams use tags for behavior, lifecycle stage, product interest, and source attribution all at once. Brevo has no native tag object. The cleanest translation is to create a multi-value text attribute (or separate boolean attributes) for each tag category, then use Brevo’s dynamic segments to replicate the filtering. It is more structured and actually cleaner long-term. The initial mapping takes time, though. Budget a full day for this if you have more than 20 distinct tags.

Deal pipelines do not migrate. If you use ActiveCampaign’s built-in CRM, there is no export-import path to Brevo. Brevo has no deal pipeline feature. Teams that relied on AC’s CRM either need a separate tool (I would point you toward Pipedrive for field sales or Close for high-velocity inside sales) or accept that this layer lives elsewhere.

Lead scoring does not transfer. AC’s lead scoring is proprietary. You can approximate it in Brevo using automation-triggered attribute updates (add 10 to a “score” attribute on click, subtract 5 on no-open after 30 days), but there is no one-click port. For most teams migrating for cost reasons, this tradeoff is worth it. If lead scoring is central to your sales handoff process, stay on AC.

AC conditional wait (no direct equivalent):
→ Wait until: Contact Tag = "Qualified"

Brevo equivalent pattern:
Automation 1:
  Trigger: Form submitted
  Action: Add to list "Pending Qualification"
  [ends here]

Automation 2:
  Trigger: Contact added to list "Qualified"
  Action: Send email sequence

Verify it worked

Before you cancel ActiveCampaign, run these four checks. All four. In order.

1. DNS health check. In Brevo Settings > Domains, all three records (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) show verified. Cross-check with MXToolbox for an independent read.
2. Test automation fires. Add a seed contact to each rebuilt automation and confirm the correct emails send in the correct order with the correct delays. Check that conditional branches route correctly.
3. Deliverability baseline. After your first two campaign sends on Brevo, your open rate should be within 5 percentage points of your AC baseline. If it drops more than that, pause and audit your list hygiene before sending further. Poor cold email deliverability signals early in a new ESP relationship compound fast.
4. Unsubscribe sync. Confirm that unsubscribes captured in Brevo are reflected if you are still running AC in parallel. Import a fresh unsubscribe export from AC into Brevo’s suppression list before you send campaign two.

Should you switch, or stay put?

Choose Switch to Brevo if

• Your ActiveCampaign bill is driven by contact count, not send volume
• You have a large list you email infrequently or to small segments
• You do not rely on AC's built-in CRM or lead scoring features

Free up to 300/day; Starter from $9/mo Try Brevo →

Choose Stay on ActiveCampaign if

• Your automations use conditional wait steps or deep branching logic
• You actively use AC's built-in deal pipeline and contact scoring
• Your list is under 5k and you send high-frequency campaigns

Lite from $39/mo (1k contacts) Check ActiveCampaign →

Choose Consider GetResponse if

• You want a visual automation builder closer to AC's style
• You need webinar or landing page features bundled in
• You are coming from Automizy or a simpler tool and want more without the AC price jump

Free tier available; Email from $19/mo Try GetResponse →

Choose Consider Mailchimp if

• Your automations are simple (welcome series, abandoned cart)
• You prioritize template design and ease of use over automation depth
• You are a solo operator or small team with no dedicated RevOps support

Free up to 500 contacts; Essentials from $13/mo Try Mailchimp →

The migration is worth the weekend

The actual work is not exciting: exports, DNS records, attribute mapping, automation screenshots. But the math on Brevo’s pricing model is hard to argue with once your list crosses 15,000 to 20,000 contacts. Do the prep work cleanly, run the parallel period honestly, and you land on a platform that stops penalizing you for list size. If you are also evaluating tools for outbound sequences alongside your marketing automation, read the reply.io vs. Lemlist comparison separately. That is a different problem than what Brevo solves.