Lessons from Switching Email Platforms: Our Experience with Brevo

Who We Are and Why Our Experience Matters 

Tecosys builds and powers multiple SaaS products within the various industries we serve. Tecosys creates an operationally efficient infrastructure for:

• High-volume daily email campaigns

• Transactional and marketing email communications

• Customer lifecycle messaging

• Communication between internal and external stakeholders

For Tecosys, email is not simply an additional communication channel but a mission-critical component of our operations. During our experience in evaluating and using the different email marketing and CRM platforms in the industry, Brevo was initially our preferred platform.

At first, Brevo worked. However, as Tecosys continued to grow, we placed more expectations on Brevo and ran into some serious limitations in our blooming SaaS market.

Why did we choose Brevo in the first place?

Brevo had many appealing benefits during our initial experience, so credit must be given where credit is due. It offered a user-friendly onboarding experience because the training was not overwhelming, allowing us to quickly get started. The email campaign application was bundled with additional features similar to a CRM system (CRM), meaning we could use Brevo for managing both customer communication and customer data in the same place easily. 

Also, Brevo’s strong brand image within the industry was another plus, with a proven track record of reliable delivery and the ability to scale. These features would have benefitted many growing teams initially, but like most companies that offer software as a service (SaaS), it was easy to believe that we could just use software that was very well established on the market to help us evolve as our needs changed. This ultimately was an expensive and erroneous belief.

Small Problems Become Unmanageable Problems

Brevo’s problems were not immediately visible. There were actually just tiny ‘problems’ that began to pop up. However, as we grew larger, these problems became larger and unbelievably worse.

1. High and Unclear Pricing

• Brevo’s Pricing Raised Red Flags Early.

• Pricing Increased Unpredictably.

• There Were No Clear Usage Thresholds.

• Justifying ROI Became More Difficult With Increased Scale.

When running large scale campaigns, we need clarity of cost and predictability. We were spending time justifying bills instead of working on campaigns.

2. Tracking and Reporting Appeared to Be Unreliable.

The Accuracy of Data Is Very Important for a SaaS Company.

Over Time, We Noticed That:

• Inconsistent Open and Click Tracking.

• Delayed Reporting on Campaign Performance.

• Limited Flexibility in Analytics.

When leadership is making decisions based on campaign data, even small mistakes add up to major strategic risks.

3. Campaign Execution Elements Were More Complex Than They Should Have Been

An Email Campaign Should Be Quick and Easy to Execute and Manage.

Instead, We Face:

• Too Many Steps for Basic Workflows.

• Rigid Automation Logic.

• Limited Customization in Alignment with Real Business Processes.

On a daily basis, teams running campaigns at scale add up to a lot of friction. But, none of the above issues were the breaking point.

The Breaking Point: Our Official Email Account Was Blocked

The moment that finally forced our decision was both simple and alarming. Brevo blocked our official Tecosys email account while we still had an active, paid subscription, without providing a clear explanation or any timeline for resolution. For a SaaS company trusted by clients and partners, having an official domain blocked without transparency is not merely inconvenient—it is dangerous and risks credibility, communication, and business continuity.

The Support Experience That Broke Our Trust

When Brevo Support finally answered our support ticket, we were expecting to receive prompt and clear responses. Instead, we were given vague answers that simply stated how sometimes things break and that they were investigating the matter. After waiting for days, then weeks, without receiving any concrete information regarding what had caused the problem, no accountability from them, nor any visible escalation paths and ultimately no resolution for the issue.

This experience left us with many very real and uncomfortable questions about Brevo as a preferred tool for our business given its large number of users. Questions such as “Who really owns all of my data?” “Who controls my most vital communication channels?” And “What happens when a mission-critical system can just stop working and no one tells you why?” At this point in time, the issue was no longer just related to broken features and inefficiencies within pricing models, but rather became more about a lack of trust, limitations on controlling your data, and unacceptable operational risks.

The Leadership Decision: To Seek Alternative Solutions or Create Their Own

Our CEO made a very decisive statement: “We cannot run our business using tools that don’t understand how our business operates.” With this direction, we began to evaluate other alternatives and test out different systems that claimed to be just as good, if not better than Brevo. We also compared several systems that advertised themselves as being more comprehensive email marketing tools than what Brevo offered as well as several systems that advertised themselves as being more efficient than Brevo’s various proprietary email marketing and CRM functions.

Unfortunately, there were tradeoffs among all the systems available, including overly complicated applications, applications that utilized generic CRM workflows that were not designed for use with daily campaigns, and applications with poor customer service and support.

We Wanted an Alternative: Developing Our Own System

Rather than adhere to an off-the-shelf email marketing platform, we set out to create our own solution.

We were clear on our objectives:

• Speed over complexity

• Reliable and transparent tracking.

• Complete transparency in both data and logic.

• Campaigns that exist in real SaaS operation workflows and align with those workflows.

Our development effort also yielded better results than we could have anticipated.

• Campaigns executed better approaching the end of the project were pleased.

• Reliable data accuracy.

• Fewer employee hours are needed to execute campaigns resulting in quicker execution.

The Evolution of Nutaan CRM: From Internal Tool to SaaS Product

Once our CEO recognized what was being achieved with this internal tool, it was an easy decision:

“Let’s not keep this in-house.”

What began as our internal system was transformed into Nutaan CRM—a CRM-first, AI-supported solution built to fulfill actual operational needs, rather than hypothetical usage scenarios.

Nutaan CRM has been developed by the team that experienced:

• Platform failure

• Blocked accounts and unresponsive support

• Daily scaling of multiple email campaigns

• Reliability rather than speculation

How Nutaan CRM Solves the Problems We Faced with Brevo

Nutaan CRM is an entirely new product with a unique design philosophy that is inspired by the problems we encountered with Brevo. Rather than being ‘Email-First’, it is built around ‘CRM First’. The design of Nutaan CRM provides a complete understanding of customer needs based on Customer Data rather than just treating email as a separate tool.

Nutaan CRM aggregates and harnesses customer data to provide common customer profiles, uses crm driven logic for campaigns, and supports lifecycle-based communications. This integrated approach means that email is part of a larger framework of customer engagement and communication instead of being treated as an isolated entity. It is built to provide users with ‘Clear’, ‘Predictable’, and ‘Fully Controlled’. Access to their Operations and Data. Users of Nutaan CRM will have greater visibility, no hidden fees or restrictions, and want for nothing more than to create and send out their emails.

Nutaan CRM was built with the fast-moving, high-volume needs of A Saas Business Model, the rapid growth of new Startups, and Businesses that run recurring Campaigns in mind. With Nutaan CRM, executing your Campaigns can be made quicker and easier with less overhead by providing daily access to your Campaign Activity.

How This Case Study Could Have Impact on Other Businesses

If you are: 

“Worried about being limited to only using tools that send email”

“Concern about whether or not I Am Control of My Account”

“Wised to transform Campaign forms to Go Beyond Starter”

“Searching for a Legitimate Brevo Alternative”

This case study may not just happen to us but it could happen to you.  Our organization’s decision to go with Nutaan CRM was not a spontaneous one and Nutaan CRM was not built just to compete with Brevo.

Nutaan CRM was created out of necessity.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ):

1. Why did Tecosys switch from Brevo to Nutaan CRM?

Tecosys’s decision to use Nutaan CRM rather than Brevo was influenced by a variety of operational difficulties it faced concerning its use of Brevo. These challenges included having vague information regarding pricing, inadequate transparency regarding campaign tracking, increased complexity when completing tasks associated with campaigns, and the incident in which Tecosys’s official email account was blocked without an adequate explanation or timely remedy.

2. What problems with Brevo led to the decision to move away?

The largest obstacle Tecosys encountered with Brevo was a combination of erratic pricing and lack of visibility into usage. Other significant problems with Brevo included limited options for automating workflows and slow response times from tech support during the account-blocking event. Due to these limitations, Tecosys was unable to use Brevo effectively for its need to deliver significant numbers of email per day as a rapidly growing SaaS company.

As a result of these issues, Tecosys expressed doubts regarding its confidence in Brevo’s ability to expand or adapt to changing needs. Tecosys had to choose whether to continue to use Brevo or find another solution. Tecosys ultimately decided to use Nutaan as the more reliable solution.

3. How is Nutaan CRM different from Brevo?

Nutaan CRM provides an all-in-one solution for managing customer information, customer lifecycle and marketing campaign execution. By integrating these functions into one platform, Nutaan provides faster time to results, more detailed data analysis, and more control and flexibility when communicating with customers and tracking data.

4. Will Nutaan Customer Relationship Management (CRM) suffice for Email Campaigns?

Nutaan CRM does allow for high-volume email campaigns on a daily basis and supports SaaS companies, start-up, and scaling organizations. The platform emphasizes speed, reliability, accurate tracking of emails as well as simplicity of use for any organization that frequently uses email as their primary method for Customer Interactions.

5. Are there businesses that may benefit from a Migration from Brevo to Nutaan CRM?

Businesses that are limited by operating on email-only platforms, face scalability or Trust issues, have an abundance of Campaigns to launch regularly, or want a customer engagement methodology driven by a CRM-System, should certainly consider moving to Nutaan CRM. SaaS and scaling teams are especially Well-positioned to take advantage of a viable near-consistent Platform.

Nutaan CRM was born out of the pain and frustration we went through and has been built using the needs of businesses. This is why we use Nutaan CRM for everything each day. If you are considering switching away from Brevo, or if you are just looking to find a new tool that can support your growth potential, 

Experience Nutaan CRM by taking a demo and see what necessary automation of email drivers for your business!

We built Nutaan CRM because we needed to have an automotive tool that will adapt to your business’s needs and not the other way around.