Two official routes into Brevo
Brevo went all-in on the agent era earlier than most ESPs. Its MCP server shipped in late 2025, and in June 2026 a first-party Brevo connector appeared in Claude's connector directory. That gives a marketer a choice of two official doors, and the difference between them is the difference between five minutes and an afternoon.
The connector is the marketer route. It lives in
Claude's directory, authenticates with your normal Brevo login through
OAuth, and exposes a curated set of 21 tools: read your contacts,
lists, segments and campaign results, and create campaigns and
templates as drafts. The developer MCP server at
mcp.brevo.com is the full surface: 193 tools across 27
modules, including deals, companies, WhatsApp campaigns and webhooks.
It authenticates with a dedicated MCP API key and is aimed at Claude
Code and config-file setups.
Which one? If you work in Claude's chat interface, use the connector and stop reading about keys. The developer server matters when someone technical wants CRM objects, scheduling or WhatsApp in the loop. The community Brevo servers that used to fill this gap have retired; the most maintained one archived itself in August 2026.
What the connector can do
The 21 tools group into seven jobs. The pattern to notice: reads go deep, writes stop at the draft stage. That is not a beta gap, it is the design.
| Area | Access | What it means for a marketer |
|---|---|---|
| Contacts & lists read only | Read | List contacts with their attributes, engagement stats per contact, list membership and counts. The raw material for any segmentation question. |
| Segments read only | Read | See every segment you have defined. Claude can reason about which segment fits a campaign, but new segments still get built in Brevo. |
| Email campaigns read and draft | Read + create drafts | Pull past campaigns with their content and settings, and create new ones as drafts: subject, sender, content, target list. Nothing gets scheduled or sent. |
| SMS campaigns read and draft | Read + create drafts | The same pattern for SMS: read what ran, draft what is next. |
| Templates read, create, test | Read + create + test send | Read and create email templates, and fire a test send to yourself. The one send the connector allows is the one that only lands in your own inbox. |
| Analytics read only | Read | Campaign performance and A/B test results, queryable in a sentence. The fastest route to "what actually won last quarter". |
| Account & senders read only | Read | Account details and your verified sender list, which is what Claude checks before drafting anything sendable. |
Brevo's own framing of the write limit is worth quoting because it is the whole safety story: Claude will never send or schedule campaigns or delete anything on your behalf. Every campaign and template the agent creates arrives in Brevo as a draft, and the send button stays a human job in the Brevo interface.
Set it up in Claude, step by step
The connector route has no prerequisites beyond accounts on both sides. Budget five minutes.
Find Brevo in the connector directory
In Claude, open Settings, then Connectors, and search for Brevo. Because this is a first-party listing, there is no URL to paste and no key to create. On a Team or Enterprise plan the organisation owner may need to enable it first.
Connect with your Brevo login
Click Connect. Claude hands you to Brevo, where you sign in and approve the permissions. The token lives between you and Brevo; nothing is stored in a config file and there is no key to rotate or leak.
Turn it on inside the chat
A connector that exists in settings is dormant in a conversation. Start a new chat, click the plus button, open Connectors and toggle Brevo on. It is per conversation, so a research chat can stay walled off from your contact base entirely.
Verify with something read-only
Ask for your lists before you ask for a campaign. If real list names and contact counts come back, the connection works and nothing has changed in your account.
List my Brevo lists with their contact counts, and name my three biggest segments. Don't change anything.
The developer route. For Claude Code, create an MCP key in Brevo under Settings → SMTP & API → API Keys (tick the MCP option), then run claude mcp add --transport http brevo https://mcp.brevo.com/v1/brevo/mcp --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY". That surface can schedule campaigns and reach the CRM modules, which is exactly why it sits behind a key you have to create on purpose.
The first prompts worth running
The connector earns its place on questions that would otherwise mean an export and a pivot table, and on first drafts that would otherwise start from a blank editor.
Across my Brevo lists, how many contacts have not opened anything in 90 days? Which segments are growing and which are stale?
Compare my last 10 email campaigns: open rate, click rate, unsubscribes. What do the top three have in common that the bottom three lack?
Draft a re-engagement campaign for contacts inactive 90+ days: subject, preview text, body. Create it in Brevo as a draft for my "lapsed" segment, and send me a test.
What it will not do
- It will not send. No sending, no scheduling, no deleting, by design. Drafts and test sends are the ceiling; the real send is yours, in Brevo. The developer server can schedule, but that is a different, key-gated route.
- It will not touch automations. Neither route exposes Brevo's automation workflow builder, because Brevo's API has no automation endpoint at all. This is the biggest gap in both routes, and the one the automation builder skill below exists to close.
- It will not write contacts. The connector reads your contact base; creating, updating or deleting contacts is not in its 21 tools.
- It does not run on its own. No triggers, no background jobs. Nothing happens outside a conversation you are in.
- Sending prerequisites still apply. Drafts target a verified sender, and free-tier API rate limits (around 100 requests an hour on general endpoints) can slow a long session.
Automations: the gap, and the open-source skill that closes it
The one door neither official route opens is Brevo's automation builder. That is not a curated-tools decision like the drafts-only writes: Brevo's API simply has no automation endpoint, so no connector or MCP server can wire a welcome flow together, no matter how many tools it lists. For most Brevo accounts that is the part that hurts, because automations are where the platform earns its keep.
We built and published a free fix: the Brevo automation builder skill, open source on GitHub. It is an Agent Skill, the open standard read by Claude Code, the Claude desktop app, Codex, Cursor and most other agent clients, and it teaches your agent to build the automation the only way it can be built: by working the automation builder in your own, already-signed-in Chrome. You hand it a written briefing ("welcome flow: trigger on newsletter signup, wait two days, send the onboarding template, branch on opens") and it assembles the trigger, delays, branches and email steps on the canvas, configures each one, and hands back a direct link to the finished flow.
Same safety story as the connector. The skill never clicks Activate: every automation it builds arrives as an inactive draft for you to review and switch on. It never sends email, leaves automations you already have alone, and never touches your Brevo password. It drives a browser session you signed into yourself, and if you are not signed in it stops and asks.
In Claude Code, installing it is two commands:
/plugin marketplace add plainpaperio/skills /plugin install brevo@plainpaper
In the Claude desktop app, add the repository as a marketplace under Cowork → Customize → Plugins and install it from there. Any other Agent Skills client can copy the skill folder straight into its own skills directory. The skill is MIT licensed and needs no Plainpaper account. It works best alongside the connector from this guide: with both installed, the agent looks up your lists, templates and senders by name and ID through the connector instead of scrolling through dropdowns, then builds the flow in the browser.
Where Plainpaper fits
Brevo's draft-only design is half of a good workflow. The missing half is where the campaign gets decided: the brief, the segments, the subject-line variants, and the moment a human says this one ships. Connect Brevo and Plainpaper to the same Claude and the agent does the round trip: reads results from Brevo, drafts the next campaign as cards on a board, and only after you approve does it create the draft in Brevo for you to send. The Claude and Brevo workflow guide walks the full campaign loop.
Key takeaways
- Brevo has two official AI routes: the Claude connector (OAuth, 21 tools, no key) and the developer MCP server at mcp.brevo.com (193 tools, MCP API key).
- The connector reads contacts, lists, segments and analytics, and creates campaigns and templates as drafts. Test sends to yourself are the only send it can fire.
- Brevo's own guarantee: Claude will never send, schedule or delete on your behalf. The real send stays in the Brevo interface.
- Works on every Brevo plan including free (around 300 emails a day). No extra cost for either route.
- Automation workflows are out of reach for both routes because Brevo's API has no automation endpoint. Our free, open-source Brevo automation builder skill closes that gap by driving the builder in your own browser.
- Contact writes and background triggers stay out of scope, and the community servers that used to cover gaps have retired.
Frequently asked questions
Is there an official Brevo MCP server?
Yes, two official routes. The Brevo connector in Claude's connector directory is the marketer route: OAuth sign-in, no API key, 21 tools. The developer MCP server at mcp.brevo.com is the bigger surface: 193 tools generated from Brevo's API, added with an MCP API key in clients like Claude Code. Both are built and hosted by Brevo.
Do I need an API key to connect Brevo to Claude?
Not for the connector route. You add Brevo from Claude's connector directory and sign in with your Brevo login. A dedicated MCP key, created under SMTP & API in Brevo settings, is only needed for the developer server route in Claude Code or a config-file setup.
Can Claude send a Brevo campaign?
No, and that is deliberate. The connector creates campaigns and templates as drafts and can fire a test send to yourself; the real send happens in Brevo, by you. The developer MCP server can schedule campaigns, which is one reason it sits behind an API key.
Can Claude build a Brevo automation?
Not through the connector or the MCP server: Brevo's API has no automation endpoint, so no MCP tool can reach the workflow builder. It can be done with the free, open-source Brevo automation builder skill from Plainpaper's skills repository on GitHub. The skill drives the automation builder in your own signed-in Chrome, assembles the trigger, delays, branches and email steps from a written briefing, and leaves the result as an inactive draft with a direct link for you to review and activate.
Does the Brevo connector work on the free Brevo plan?
Yes. Both routes are available on every Brevo plan, including free, which allows around 300 emails a day. Sending still requires a verified sender, and free-tier API rate limits apply, but nothing about the AI routes costs extra.
What happened to the community Brevo MCP servers?
They have effectively retired. The most maintained one archived itself in August 2026, with the maintainer noting that a stale integration is worse than no integration. With both official routes live, there is no reason to reach for a community server.
What is the difference between the Brevo connector and the Brevo MCP server?
The connector is the packaged, OAuth-signed listing inside Claude with a curated 21-tool surface and drafts-only writes. The MCP server is the full developer surface: 193 tools across 27 modules including deals, companies, WhatsApp campaigns and webhooks, authenticated with a bearer MCP key. Marketers want the connector.
Keep reading
- Plainpaper skills on GitHub: the open-source Brevo automation builder skill, MIT licensed, with install instructions for every Agent Skills client.
- Claude and Brevo marketing workflow: the full campaign loop this connector powers, from brief to approved send.
- Best email template tools for Claude: how Brevo's connector compares with Klaviyo, MailerLite and the other ESPs that clear the marketer bar.
- Welcome series playbook: the board for the first flow most Brevo accounts should fix.
- Draft email campaigns in Plainpaper: email cards, A/B variants, and the ESP handoff.
- Install Plainpaper in Claude: the other connector in this workflow, added the same way.