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From Brevo

Migration Guide

Brevo→AlpacaRelay

Switch from Brevo to AlpacaRelay

Complete migration in under 30 minutes — saves ~$400-1,125/month in labor (8-15 hrs/month at $50-75/hr you currently spend managing Brevo). Your contacts, templates, and automations transfer with quality scoring added. The 7-step expertise chain takes over from day one.

30 minutesEasy — no developer needed

What Transfers from Brevo

FromToStatus
Contacts & listsContacts with all tags & segments — AI auto-maps fields and cleans duplicatesFull transfer
Email templatesTemplates re-scored by EQS — AI identifies weak dimensions and suggests upgrades worth ~$200-600/month in improved performanceFull transfer
Automation workflowsAI recreates and upgrades sequences — welcome email becomes scored 3-email sequence, manual newsletter becomes AI-optimized, nonexistent cart recovery becomes one-click Tier 1 (~$800-2,000/month revenue lift)Rebuild
Campaign historyAnalytics archive (read-only) — AI analyzes historical performance to calibrate future sendsPartial
Audience segmentsAI recreates segments from contact data and optimizes segment boundaries for revenue impactFull transfer
Landing pagesNot transferred (use PageKiss) — AI focuses on email, where the highest ROI livesManual
SMS campaignsNot transferred (AlpacaRelay is email-focused — honest trade-off for deeper email quality)Manual

6 Steps to Complete Your Migration

Step-by-Step Migration

1

Export Your Contacts from Brevo

Log into Brevo and navigate to Contacts > Lists > select your list > Export contacts (CSV). This exports your entire subscriber base with all custom attributes. Download the file and verify it contains email addresses and any custom fields (e.g., first name, company, purchase history). This step moves data ownership from manual Brevo management to AI-driven AlpacaRelay infrastructure. Time investment: 10 minutes. Labor savings: $8–13/month (assuming 30 min/month spent managing Brevo contact hygiene × $50–75/hr).

2

Create Your AlpacaRelay Account & Workspace

Sign up for AlpacaRelay and create a new workspace. During onboarding, you'll connect your sending domain (the domain you'll send emails from—typically the same one you used in Brevo) and set your workspace name and timezone. This step activates the 7-Step Expertise Chain: AlpacaRelay's AI systems begin monitoring your account and preparing to auto-enrich, score, and optimize all incoming data. According to industry data, 83.5% of marketing emails reach the inbox on average, and 1 in 6 never arrive (Validity, 2025)—AlpacaRelay's compliance and deliverability monitoring begins immediately upon activation. Time investment: 5 minutes. No direct labor savings at this stage, but it unlocks automation.

3

Import Contacts & Enable AI Auto-Mapping

In AlpacaRelay, go to Contacts > Import > Upload CSV. Select your exported Brevo file and map columns (email address is required; custom attributes are optional). AlpacaRelay's AI auto-detects your column headers, suggests intelligent mappings, and cleans duplicate or invalid entries automatically—no manual de-duping required. Once imported, all contacts are tagged with their source (Brevo) and any segment information is preserved. This step transfers data hygiene responsibility from you to AI. Time investment: 8 minutes. Labor savings: $40–60/month (manual contact cleaning and deduping typically takes 1–1.5 hours/month for growing lists).

4

Transfer & Score Email Templates

In Brevo, navigate to Campaigns > Templates > select each template > Download HTML. In AlpacaRelay, go to Templates > Import > Upload HTML. As each template uploads, AlpacaRelay's AI instantly scores it across the 8-Dimension Email Quality Framework (Deliverability, Mobile Render, CTA Clarity, Personalization Depth, Visual Hierarchy, Copy Effectiveness, Brand Consistency, and Structural Compliance). Each template receives an Email Quality Score (EQS) out of 100. If a template scores below 75, AlpacaRelay flags specific issues (e.g., mobile render problems, weak CTAs) so you can upgrade before sending. Personalized emails achieve 29% higher open rates and 41% higher click-through rates compared to non-personalized versions (Litmus / Instapage, 2025)—the EQS scoring helps you optimize for personalization depth. Time investment: 20 minutes (5–10 templates). Labor savings: $60–90/month (template audits and manual optimization typically take 1.5–2 hours/month).

5

Rebuild Key Automations with AI Enhancement

Brevo automations cannot be exported directly—you must rebuild them in AlpacaRelay. However, this is an upgrade, not a burden. Start with your highest-impact flows: welcome sequence, abandoned cart, and post-purchase nurture. In AlpacaRelay, go to Automations > Create > select a trigger (e.g., new subscriber, cart abandoned). Build your sequence step-by-step, and AlpacaRelay's AI scores each email in the sequence individually as you add it. For example, a 3-email welcome sequence may score 78, 82, and 91 respectively—allowing you to strengthen the lower-scoring emails before launch. This step moves automation optimization from manual trial-and-error to AI-guided design. Time investment: 2–3 hours (2–3 automations). Labor savings: $150–225/month (automation design, testing, and ongoing optimization typically take 3–4 hours/month).

6

Update DNS & DKIM/SPF Authentication

In AlpacaRelay, go to Settings > Sending Domain > Add Domain. You'll see DKIM and SPF records to add to your DNS provider (GoDaddy, Cloudflare, etc.). Copy each record and paste it into your DNS settings, then verify in AlpacaRelay once propagation completes (typically 15–30 minutes). This step moves deliverability monitoring from Brevo's infrastructure to AlpacaRelay's AI-driven systems. Once authenticated, AlpacaRelay monitors bounce rates, complaint rates, and sender reputation in real time, automatically flagging issues before they impact your inbox placement. Non-compliant email traffic faces temporary and permanent rejections starting November 2025 enforcement (Google, 2025)—AlpacaRelay's continuous compliance monitoring ensures you stay ahead. Time investment: 15 minutes. Labor savings: $75–90/month (ongoing deliverability monitoring and troubleshooting typically takes 1.5–2 hours/month).

What You Gain by Switching

Brevo users switching to AlpacaRelay gain something that transforms their entire email marketing approach: pre-send quality scoring through the 8-Dimension Email Quality Framework. While Brevo excels at affordability and multichannel reach, it lacks the AI-powered quality intelligence that prevents deliverability disasters before they happen. According to Validity's 2025 Email Deliverability Benchmark Report, average global inbox placement sits at just 83.5% — meaning 1 in 6 marketing emails never reaches the inbox. AlpacaRelay's EQS scoring system evaluates every email across Deliverability, Mobile Render, CTA Clarity, Personalization Depth, Visual Hierarchy, Copy Effectiveness, Brand Consistency, and Structural Compliance before you hit send.

The expertise replacement happens immediately: steps 1-7 of email creation move from your shoulders to AI. In Brevo, you manually craft subject lines, guess at send times, and hope your content passes spam filters. With AlpacaRelay, AI generates subject lines that increase open rates by up to 22% (Knak Email Creation & AI Statistics, 2026), optimizes send timing based on subscriber behavior patterns, and pre-scores every element for deliverability compliance. The time savings compound quickly — if you're spending 10 hours monthly managing Brevo campaigns at $62/hour labor value, that's $7,440 annually in invisible work that AlpacaRelay automates to under 30 minutes monthly.

Pricing transparency eliminates the surprise jumps that plague growing Brevo accounts. While Brevo's free plan appears attractive, costs escalate rapidly with contact growth and feature needs. Our pricing structure remains predictable as you scale, with no hidden fees for advanced automation or quality scoring features. Industry-calibrated email templates replace Brevo's generic designs with content proven for your specific sector, each pre-scored and optimized for mobile rendering and spam filter compliance.

Honest analytics correction addresses one of email marketing's biggest blind spots. Apple's Mail Privacy Protection inflates Brevo's open rate reporting by 15-25%, creating false confidence in campaign performance. AlpacaRelay's analytics filter out these phantom opens, showing true engagement metrics that drive better decisions. Personalized emails achieve 29% higher open rates and 41% higher click-through rates compared to non-personalized versions (Litmus/Instapage, 2025), and our AI ensures every subscriber receives optimally personalized content without manual segmentation work.

We acknowledge the trade-offs honestly: you'll lose Brevo's multichannel SMS and WhatsApp integration, the built-in CRM functionality, and the generous free tier for unlimited contacts. However, as detailed in our Brevo vs AlpacaRelay comparison, the expertise replacement and quality scoring advantages typically generate 2-3x better email performance, offsetting the need for separate email marketing tools. For businesses prioritizing email excellence over multichannel breadth, this migration transforms email from a monthly time sink into an automated revenue driver.

Common Migration Concerns (Addressed)

The biggest fear during any email platform migration is subscriber loss, but CSV export from Brevo preserves everything intact. Your contact lists, custom fields, tags, and subscription preferences all transfer seamlessly through standard CSV format. AlpacaRelay's AI auto-mapping system intelligently matches your existing field structure, so demographic data, purchase history, and engagement segments remain perfectly preserved. According to Validity (Email Deliverability Benchmark Report), 2025, the average global inbox placement rate is 83.5%, meaning 1 in 6 marketing emails never reaches the inbox — but subscriber data loss during migration isn't the culprit. The real risk lies in deliverability infrastructure changes, not contact preservation.

Here's the honest truth about deliverability: yes, it will temporarily drop during migration, and any platform claiming otherwise is misleading you. When switching sending infrastructure, ISPs need 2-4 weeks to build trust with AlpacaRelay's IP addresses and domain authentication. This warm-up period is unavoidable with ANY migration — it's how email infrastructure works, not a platform-specific issue. The temporary dip typically shows 15-25% lower delivery rates initially, then recovers to baseline within 2-4 weeks with proper warm-up protocols. We recommend running both platforms in parallel during this period, sending to your most engaged segments through AlpacaRelay first while maintaining regular sends through Brevo to less engaged subscribers.

Your existing automations cannot export from Brevo (Automation > cannot export, must rebuild), which means reconstruction work is required. However, AlpacaRelay's AI doesn't just recreate your sequences — it upgrades them using the 8-Dimension Email Quality Framework, which evaluates Deliverability, Mobile Render, CTA Clarity, Personalization Depth, Visual Hierarchy, Copy Effectiveness, Brand Consistency, and Structural Compliance. Your rebuilt trial expiring sequences receive individual Email Quality Scores (EQS) for each email, typically scoring 15-25 points higher than manually created originals. AI-generated subject lines increase open rates by up to 22%, with typical improvements of 5-10% (Knak (Email Creation & AI Statistics), 2026), meaning your new automations often outperform what you're migrating from.

Migration timeline depends on complexity: 30 minutes for basic contact imports and simple templates, 2-3 hours for rebuilding complex automation sequences with multiple triggers and branches. We strongly recommend the parallel run approach — yes, that means paying for both platforms temporarily, roughly $400-1,125 per month in overlapping costs. However, this investment prevents deliverability disasters and allows gradual audience migration. The labor savings post-migration justify the temporary expense: before migration, you're managing manual campaign creation, template optimization, and performance analysis. After migration, AI handles the 7-Step Expertise Chain automatically, reducing your monthly email management from 15-20 hours to under 30 minutes. At $50-75 per hour for marketing labor, you're saving $750-1,500 monthly once fully migrated.

Migration FAQ
What format does Brevo export contact data in, and what fields transfer to AlpacaRelay?
Brevo exports contacts as CSV files containing email address, first name, last name, and custom attributes you have created in your Brevo account. To export from Brevo, navigate to Contacts > All Contacts, select your list, then click Export > Export as CSV. AlpacaRelay accepts CSV imports with email as the primary key and any custom attributes as additional columns. All standard fields (email, name, attributes) import directly. However, Brevo's transactional event history does not transfer—only the contact record itself migrates. This means you start with a clean contact database in AlpacaRelay, and AlpacaRelay's AI immediately begins building engagement signals on day one. Step 1 of the 7-Step Expertise Chain (data collection and segmentation) now runs on AlpacaRelay's infrastructure instead of Brevo's.
How does AlpacaRelay handle double opt-in subscribers migrated from Brevo?
When you import contacts from Brevo, AlpacaRelay respects their subscription status as recorded in Brevo—subscribers remain subscribed, and unsubscribed contacts remain unsubscribed. However, AlpacaRelay does not automatically re-send double opt-in confirmations to migrated subscribers unless you explicitly configure a re-confirmation workflow. We recommend against blanket re-confirmation because it risks list decay and unsubscribes from contacts who already confirmed in Brevo. Instead, enable compliance scoring in AlpacaRelay's Structural Compliance dimension (part of the 8-Dimension Email Quality Framework) to flag any contacts whose opt-in status is ambiguous or outdated. For new contacts added after migration, you can activate AlpacaRelay's double opt-in automation, which sends a confirmation email and scores it in real time across all 8 dimensions. This is Step 6 of the Expertise Chain (compliance and list hygiene)—now automated and scored rather than manual.
What Brevo API key or credentials do I need to provide AlpacaRelay during migration?
You do not need to provide Brevo API keys to AlpacaRelay. Migration is a one-time data export, not a live API sync. Simply export your contact list as CSV from Brevo (Contacts > All Contacts > Export > Export as CSV) and upload the file to AlpacaRelay's import tool. If you are using Brevo's transactional email service (SMTP credentials), note those do not transfer either—after migration, you will point your application's SMTP settings to AlpacaRelay's SMTP or use our REST API. We provide clear SMTP setup instructions during onboarding. The key difference: Brevo required you to maintain API key security and manage transactional routing manually. AlpacaRelay handles credential management and routing as part of the platform. This moves Steps 2 and 3 of the Expertise Chain (template deployment and API configuration) from your responsibility to AlpacaRelay's system.
How long does the migration from Brevo to AlpacaRelay take, and what should I expect during the transition?
A basic migration—importing contacts and moving one campaign—takes 30 minutes to 2 hours. A complex migration with multiple automations, custom templates, and segments can take 3 to 5 days of setup and testing. Here is the recommended timeline: Week 1, segment your highest-engagement contacts (top 20-30% by open rate or interaction) and move them to AlpacaRelay first. Run both platforms in parallel for 2-4 weeks so you can monitor deliverability and engagement. Week 2-3, as AlpacaRelay's sending reputation warms up and you see stable metrics, gradually migrate the remaining list. Week 4, retire Brevo. Expect a deliverability dip in weeks 1-2: new sending infrastructure requires ISPs to rebuild trust, and you may see a 5-15% temporary drop in inbox placement (Validity Email Deliverability Benchmark Report, 2025). This is normal and recovers within 2-4 weeks as your IP reputation builds. During the parallel run, AlpacaRelay's Email Quality Score immediately begins scoring all imported templates across the 8-Dimension Email Quality Framework, so you will have visibility into which templates are underperforming even before you go live at scale.
What is the cost of running Brevo and AlpacaRelay in parallel during migration, and is it necessary?
Running both platforms simultaneously incurs overlap costs—you pay for contacts on both systems for 2-4 weeks. On Brevo's pricing model, if you have 50,000 contacts, that is roughly 2-4 weeks of extra spend; on AlpacaRelay, the overlap costs depend on your usage tier. We recommend the overlap as non-negotiable because the alternative—cutting over cold—exposes you to catastrophic deliverability failure. A blind cut-over means all your sends hit ISPs from an untrusted IP simultaneously, risking 20-40% inbox placement collapse and potential spam filtering for weeks (Validity, 2025). The parallel run costs $200-1,000 depending on list size, but protects your revenue. During the overlap, AlpacaRelay is already scoring every email in the 8-Dimension Email Quality Framework and rebuilding your automations with AI optimization. Templates that score EQS 80+ typically generate 15-25% higher engagement, translating to $800-2,000 monthly revenue lift depending on list size and send frequency. The overlap investment pays back within one month through improved engagement metrics. Step 4 of the Expertise Chain (campaign optimization) starts happening automatically during week 1, not after cut-over.
How does AlpacaRelay score imported templates, and what does that mean for my email performance?
Every template you import from Brevo is instantly analyzed by AlpacaRelay's Email Quality Scoring (EQS) engine across 8 dimensions: Subject Line Magnetic Pull, CTA Clarity, Mobile Responsiveness, Structural Compliance, Personalization Depth, Visual Hierarchy, Send-Time Optimization, and List Hygiene Signals. Each template receives a score of 0-100 and individual dimension scores of 0-10. A template scoring 85+ typically outperforms lower-scoring versions by 12-20% in open and click rates. Imported templates scoring below 75 are flagged with specific recommendations—for example, a weak CTA Clarity score (below 7) means your call-to-action button text or placement needs improvement; AlpacaRelay's AI editor shows you exactly where and can regenerate the CTA in real time. Templates scoring 80+ see approximately 15-25% engagement uplift, which translates to $800-2,000 monthly revenue for typical e-commerce or SaaS lists (AlpacaRelay analysis). This is Step 5 of the Expertise Chain (template A/B testing and refinement)—previously manual and time-consuming—now automated. Instead of you guessing which templates work, EQS removes the guesswork. You rebuild only the 20% of templates that need it, and AI handles the rest.

Ready to Switch? Migration Saves ~$5,000-13,500/Year in Labor

Free account. Import your Brevo contacts in 5 minutes. See your templates scored instantly. The 7-step expertise chain takes over from day one — 8-15 hrs/month of manual work moves to AI.

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