Easy Tech TutsHow to Send a Test Email in Brevo Easily 2026
By Impran M N
Sending an unvetted campaign draft straight to your full list is how broken images, dead links, and mangled merge tags end up in front of real customers. Brevo builds a test-send option directly into the campaign creation screen, right next to the button that actually launches the campaign, so there's no excuse to skip it. This guide walks through where that option lives and what to check once the test lands in your inbox.
01Start from your Brevo dashboard
Log in and you'll land on the Home screen, which shows a quick snapshot of your account: contacts, anything planned for today, and your plan usage — how many emails, prepaid credits, and SMS credits you have left for the billing period. From here, open Campaigns in the left sidebar under Marketing to get to the email you want to test.
02Open the campaign you want to test
Inside Campaigns, open the draft you're working on. The campaign builder lays the setup out as a checklist: Sender, Recipients, Subject, and Design, each with a green checkmark once it's filled in. You don't need every section complete to run a test, but Design needs at least a working layout for the test to actually show you anything worth reviewing.
03Click Preview & Test
At the top of the campaign screen, next to the black Schedule button, sits a Preview & Test button. This is the one to use before Schedule, not after — it sends a real copy of the current draft to addresses you choose, without touching your actual recipient list or counting against a live send.
04Send the test to yourself or your team
From the Preview & Test menu, enter one or more email addresses to receive the test — your own inbox, a coworker's, or a small internal group. Because this bypasses your real contact list, it's the safest way to catch a broken layout before your subscribers see it.
05Check the test email on desktop and mobile
Open the delivered test in both a desktop mail client and your phone's mail app if you can. Spacing, image scaling, and button placement often look fine in the builder's preview pane but shift once rendered by an actual email client, which is exactly the gap a test send exists to catch.
06Verify links and personalization tags
Click through every link in the test to confirm it lands on the right page, and check any merge tags for names or custom fields. If you're not sending the test to an address that exists in your real contact list, personalization tags may show blank or use the fallback text you configured instead of a real name — that's expected for test sends, not a bug, so don't mistake it for broken merge tags once the real campaign goes out.
Frequently asked questions
Does sending a test email count against my sending limit?
Preview & Test sends are separate from your live campaign send and don't go to your real contact list, though it's still worth checking your specific plan's terms if you're near a sending cap.
Can I send a test to multiple people at once?
Yes. The Preview & Test option accepts more than one address, so you can loop in a coworker or two before the campaign goes live.
Why do my merge tags show up empty in the test email?
Test addresses usually aren't part of your real contact list, so they don't carry the custom attribute data merge tags pull from. This is expected in a test send and doesn't mean the tags are broken for real recipients.
Where is the test option in the Brevo campaign builder?
On the campaign creation screen, at the top of the page next to the Schedule button — labeled Preview & Test.
Should I test on mobile as well as desktop?
Yes. Spacing, image scaling, and button layout frequently render differently between desktop and mobile mail clients, and the builder's own preview pane won't always catch those differences.
Watch the full walkthrough
The same steps, demonstrated on screen from start to finish.
