Mirror Image had need for a CRM. So I started Building a CRM on Monday + Brevo. This is a new space for me to build in, and I’m using AI to assist. We tested HubSpot first and then arrived on the Monday / Brevo integration because it seemed to suit our needs better. Maybe we will stay here and maybe not, but I will keep updating the progress through the Ink Kitchen.

Building a CRM on Monday + Brevo

Monday CRM Standard handles contact management and the sales pipeline. Brevo handles email marketing and blast segmentation. Two tools, each doing one job. Earlier in this project I did a round of HubSpot work, cleaning contact data, defining the Customer Type schema, producing an importable file. HubSpot offers a lot of tools. They propose a free CRM, but quickly it had to become paid because of the amount of contacts and the user interface was a lot less intuitive than on Monday we switched.

The Customer Type Field

Right now, the whole thing hinges on one field: Customer Type. It segments every contact so Brevo sends the right email to the right person. Contract customers, those who supply their own garments and pay only for printing, get contract-pricing communications. Non-Contract customers, breweries, schools, sports teams buying garments and printing as a bundle, get general promotions. Prospect and Unknown exist to protect data integrity during onboarding. You don’t blast someone you haven’t classified yet.

Seats and Email

Mirror Image Users each get a Monday seat with personal email integration. They send and track correspondence from their own accounts, directly in the CRM. The cost lands at roughly $42–$67 a month with an upgraded account but we are still using it on free, with no per-contact overages, the database is past 9,000 records. We plan to stay on free until the paid account is absolutely necessary, and decide then if we like it or if we want to migrate to a different tool. It’s also possible to build our own custom tool. But it’s not my specialty, so I think we’re going to try the pre-built tools with AI assist for a while. I don’t use the AI offerings inside of Monday and Brevo, because they force you to a paid account. I use my Claude alongside them instead.

Tools used:

• Monday CRM Standard (contact management, sales pipeline)
• Brevo (email marketing, segmentation, blast campaigns)
• Customer Type field (Contract / Non-Contract / Prospect / Unknown — drives all targeting)
• Personal email integration (per-user send and track for Users)