A note on our own position

We have applied to this programme. Reechly’s application to Brevo’s affiliate programme on PartnerStack is pending, and the outbound Brevo links on this site use our tracked /go/ path so that they carry a commission if and when the application is approved. That is stated on every page and set out at length in our own affiliate disclosure.

Writing about a programme you have applied to is awkward, and the usual response is to avoid the subject. We would rather explain it in the same register we use for everything else, so you can see the commercial relationship behind this site and judge our coverage accordingly.

What follows is a description of the programme’s mechanics: how commissions are structured, who is eligible, what gets you rejected. One thing shapes all of it. This is not a programme designed for people seeking a side income. Brevo’s terms rule out whole categories of promotion, and the eligibility criteria filter for publishers who already have an audience.

How the programme works

Brevo runs its affiliate programme through PartnerStack, a third-party partner platform used by many B2B SaaS vendors. PartnerStack handles the application, tracking links, dashboard, attribution reporting and payouts. Brevo sets the terms; PartnerStack administers them.

That splits the relationship. Rules, approval decisions and rates come from Brevo. Link generation, reporting and cash-out live in PartnerStack. A late payment is usually a PartnerStack question; a declined application is a Brevo one.

The two triggers

• CPL — cost per lead. A reward fires when someone you referred creates a Brevo account, including a free one. No payment from them is required.
• CPA — cost per acquisition. A larger, fixed reward fires when a referred account becomes a paying subscriber.

A condition is attached to the first. Per Brevo’s help documentation, the CPL reward is enabled only after you have referred at least one paying customer — free-account rewards are unlocked by a paid conversion, not the reverse. That single rule does most of the work in making volume sign-up farming pointless here.

Rewards are not confirmed the moment a conversion is recorded. Referrals are reviewed monthly, and the referred account must clear Brevo’s account creation and validation checks first. Sign-ups that fail validation do not become commissions.

Commission structure

The table sets out the terms as published at the time of writing. Two caveats. Brevo publishes the CPL figure and cookie window openly, but describes the CPA only as a “fixed reward” without naming a number — the figure below is third-party reported, not Brevo-published. And affiliate terms change without notice. Confirm current numbers in PartnerStack before relying on them.

The 90-day cookie is generous by category standards, and the re-trigger rule matters more than it looks. A reader who clicks in January, does nothing, then clicks again in June restarts the window from June. For evergreen comparison content, that differs meaningfully from a one-shot window.

The structural weakness is the absence of recurring commission. Brevo pays once when an account converts and nothing thereafter, however long that customer stays. Which model suits you depends on the price point of the accounts you refer and how long they persist.

Who can join

Brevo’s stated audience is bloggers, publishers, influencers and content creators. The criteria are narrower than most SaaS programmes, and they are applied at the application stage rather than after the fact.

• An existing website with existing traffic. You need a primary URL, and it needs an audience. Applications without a primary site, or from new domains with no traffic, are routinely declined.
• A business email on your own domain. Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and other public providers are rejected. The address must be on the domain you are applying with.
• Ownership or employment. You must own the business applying, or work for it.
• Compliance with Brevo’s terms of service for your own account and your referrals.

Take the traffic requirement literally. It is the most common reason applications are declined, and good application copy does not compensate for an empty site. The sequence that works: publish real content, get indexed, accumulate traffic, then apply.

What the programme prohibits

These are not soft guidelines. They are stated disqualifiers, and violating them can cost you the account and any unpaid balance in it.

No pay-per-click promotion

Brevo states plainly that you may not promote it through PPC campaigns. This catches out affiliates arriving from programmes where brand bidding is merely restricted. Here the prohibition covers the promotion method itself.

No MLM, pyramid schemes or get-rich-quick programmes

Brevo excludes multi-level marketing, pyramid schemes and self-help or get-rich-quick offers. This applies to your own business as well as your audience. If your site’s central proposition is teaching people to make money online, the fit is poor — and it is judged by a human at application time.

No misleading or reputation-damaging conduct

The terms give Brevo latitude to act against behaviour that misleads customers or damages the brand: fabricated product claims, invented pricing, impersonating Brevo in email or ads, coupon pages advertising discounts that do not exist. Broad clauses get enforced in the vendor’s favour.

How approval works

The application runs through PartnerStack. You submit your primary URL, business email, a description of your site and audience, and how you intend to promote Brevo. Brevo states a pending application may take up to 72 business hours — allow the better part of a working week, not three days.

Reviewers check a few things. Does the primary URL resolve to a real, populated site? Does it have an audience, and is the topic plausibly adjacent to email marketing, CRM or small-business software? Is the email on that domain? Is the applicant connected to the site? Is the niche excluded?

Declines cluster around a few causes: no primary URL, a domain with no content or traffic, a public email address, or an excluded niche. None are appealable by rewriting the form.

Once approved, you get a PartnerStack dashboard, a tracking link and Brevo’s creative assets. The full terms and the application form are on Brevo’s affiliate programme page.

Promoting it well — and legally

Affiliate disclosure is a legal obligation, not a courtesy. In the US, the FTC’s endorsement guides require a clear and conspicuous disclosure of a material connection, placed where a reader meets it before the link — not in a footer, not below the fold. In the UK, the ASA and CAP Code impose an equivalent duty.

The technical side is simple. Affiliate links should carry rel="sponsored", Google’s documented attribute for paid or affiliate links, and many publishers add nofollow too. Cloaking links behind a tidy redirect path is standard and legitimate; using cloaking to hide that a link is commercial is not. The difference is disclosure.

The editorial side matters more. Thin pages built to rank for a product name and funnel clicks are worth less every year: search engines discount them, readers recognise them, vendors reject the publishers who make them. The alternative is straightforward. Use the product. Write down what it does badly as well as what it does well. Say who should not buy it. Be specific about limits, because specificity is what a reader cannot get from the vendor’s own site.

Negative coverage is not a cost to conversion; it is usually a precondition for it. A page that names the real reasons to avoid a product is the only kind a wary reader trusts when it eventually says the product fits. That is why our independent Brevo review spends as long on weaknesses as strengths, why we publish our testing methodology, and why we break down what Brevo actually costs.

How it compares to other email affiliate programmes

These programmes split into two structural camps, and the split matters more than any individual rate.

One-off bounty programmes pay a fixed amount when a referred account converts, and nothing afterwards. Brevo sits here, as does Constant Contact and — as one of two options — GetResponse. The reward is known and front-loaded. The trade-off: a customer who stays five years is worth the same as one who churns in month two.

Revenue-share programmes pay a percentage of what the referred account spends, either indefinitely or for a capped number of months. MailerLite, Kit, ActiveCampaign and Omnisend all run a version of this. The reward accrues slowly and depends on retention you do not control, but it compounds where a bounty does not.

Neither is superior in the abstract. A bounty suits publishers referring price-sensitive small accounts. Revenue share suits publishers whose audience buys higher tiers and stays. Brevo’s position — bounty, long cookie, no recurring element — fits evergreen comparison content aimed at small businesses, and fits poorly where the audience is enterprise and long-tenured. Note too that several revenue-share programmes accept applicants with no established traffic. Brevo does not, which makes it a later-stage programme: one you apply to once the site exists.

Frequently asked questions

Does Brevo pay recurring commission?

No. Brevo pays a one-off reward per conversion — a fixed amount when a referred account becomes paying, plus a smaller reward per referred free account. There is no ongoing share of subscription revenue. Several competing platforms do pay recurring commission.

How long is the Brevo affiliate cookie?

90 days, per Brevo’s documentation. Unusually, a repeat click restarts the window rather than leaving the original running. That favours content people return to over a long research cycle.

Why can I not earn the free-account reward yet?

The per-free-account reward is enabled only after you have referred at least one paying customer. Until that first paid conversion lands, free sign-ups will not generate a reward. This is a stated rule, not a tracking fault.

Can I use Google Ads to promote Brevo?

No. Brevo’s terms prohibit promoting the product through pay-per-click campaigns. This is broader than the brand-bidding limits common elsewhere: the method itself is banned. Doing it anyway risks removal from the programme.

Why was my application rejected?

The common causes are a missing primary URL, a domain with little or no traffic, and an application from a Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo address rather than your own domain. Sites in excluded categories are also declined. Each requires fixing the underlying issue, not rewording the form.

How long does approval take?

Brevo states that a pending application may take up to 72 business hours. Because these are business hours, budget for most of a working week. You are notified through PartnerStack either way.

When and how do affiliates get paid?

Rewards are calculated at the end of each month and cashed out through PartnerStack via PayPal or Stripe, with alternatives in regions where PayPal is unsupported. A minimum balance applies, commonly reported at €100 — confirm it in your dashboard, as Brevo does not publish the figure.

Do I have to disclose that my links are affiliate links?

Yes. The FTC in the US and the ASA in the UK both require a clear, prominent disclosure of any material connection, placed before the reader meets the link. Add rel="sponsored" to the links too. Treating disclosure as optional risks both your site and your programme membership.

The Brevo affiliate programme is narrower than most and better documented than many. It rewards publishers who already have an audience, pays a one-off bounty rather than a share of revenue, and closes the door on paid search and the make-money-online niche. Whether it suits you depends less on the rates than on whether your site is the kind the programme was built for.

Some figures here are third-party reported rather than published by Brevo. Verify anything you plan to rely on inside PartnerStack. If something is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.