SparkPost (discontinued) vs. Twilio SendGrid

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
SparkPost (discontinued)
Score 2.8 out of 10
N/A
SparkPost offered real-time analysis of email delivery and customer engagement as well as personalized email templates. The service has been discontinued.
$30
per month
Twilio SendGrid
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Twilio SendGrid Marketing Campaigns provides users with segmentation, campaign editing, and deliverability. According to the vendor, Twilio SendGrid Marketing Campaigns is trusted by over 80,000 customers globally, including Airbnb, Spotify and Uber. Twilio SendGrid Marketing Campaigns aims to help users by providing: MORE EFFICIENT EMAIL BUILDING The campaign building process is free from frustrating, rigid step-by-step wizards that slow users down. The vendor says…
$15
per month
Pricing
SparkPost (discontinued)Twilio SendGrid
Editions & Modules
Starter
$30
per month
Premier
$75
per month
Enterprise
Contact sales team
Basic
$15
per month
Advanced
$60
per month
Free
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
SparkPost (discontinued)Twilio SendGrid
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
SparkPost (discontinued)Twilio SendGrid
Features
SparkPost (discontinued)Twilio SendGrid
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
SparkPost (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Twilio SendGrid
7.1
Ratings
11% below category average
WYSIWYG email editor00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Dynamic content00 Ratings6.80 Ratings
Ability to test dynamic content00 Ratings5.60 Ratings
Landing pages00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
A/B testing00 Ratings7.20 Ratings
Mobile optimization00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting00 Ratings7.40 Ratings
List management00 Ratings7.60 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences00 Ratings7.20 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
SparkPost (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Twilio SendGrid
7.6
Ratings
1% below category average
Dashboards00 Ratings7.40 Ratings
Standard reports00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Custom reports00 Ratings7.20 Ratings
Pre-Send Testing
Comparison of Pre-Send Testing features of Product A and Product B
SparkPost (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Twilio SendGrid
8.2
Ratings
3% above category average
URL Validation00 Ratings7.40 Ratings
Link Tracking00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Image Validation00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Inbox Display00 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Email Accessibility Tools00 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Spelling and Grammar Check00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Spam Testing00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Email Previews00 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Best Alternatives
SparkPost (discontinued)Twilio SendGrid
Small Businesses
Twilio SendGrid
Twilio SendGrid
Score 8.4 out of 10
VerticalResponse
VerticalResponse
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Twilio SendGrid
Twilio SendGrid
Score 8.4 out of 10
VerticalResponse
VerticalResponse
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Everest (Return Path + 250ok)
Everest (Return Path + 250ok)
Score 10.0 out of 10
Emma by Marigold
Emma by Marigold
Score 9.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
SparkPost (discontinued)Twilio SendGrid
Likelihood to Recommend
1.0
(0 ratings)
7.9
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
1.0
(0 ratings)
3.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
SparkPost (discontinued)Twilio SendGrid
Likelihood to Recommend
SparkPost is great for automated sending of transactional emails. It appears to be designed for developers—it does not allow the creation and sending of emails from within the SparkPost user interface. If you're building a software system that needs to send emails, SparkPost is a great choice, but it is not a CRM.
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I think Sendgrid is a great tool for sending out emails of all types. I've primarily used it for transactional emails as we've had other solutions for marketing emails, but I'm sure it would do just a good job - there is a "Marketing" section within the app you can use. Sendgrid integrates really easily with the development frameworks I've used, such as Laravel and Lumen; I've also integrated it with Moodle with ease.
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Pros
  • Email Deliverability
  • Last 10 day insights for reporting on email system health
  • Individually viewing users on the suppression list and quickly take off or put back on.
  • API
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  • Drag and drop email designer for transactional emails - super nice even though I do code, it's much quicker and easier to implement without code.
  • Very simple implementation. Only a few lines of code need to be added in our backend and boom we were up and running in less than a day.
  • Listening to customer feedback. They regularly send emails about new features and ask for feedback to improve their software.
  • Some of the cheapest and best dedicated IPs.
  • Easy integration and setup between marketing and transactional emails. Super helpful to have everything in one place.
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Cons
  • A horrifying about-face on pricing after guaranteeing a lifetime rate.
  • A steep drop in customer care and customer service quality.
  • Increased prices compared to competitors.
  • Clumsy email templating system.
  • Lack of integration with other messaging systems.
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  • Actually viewing previous emails dispatched. SendGrid does not have this feature - although it provides numbers on emails dispatched within 3 days for the cheapest plan.
  • The service asks you to pay more (although a minimal amount) to have visibility on email activity upto 30 days in the past.
  • The API doesn't allow an export of a report of email activity over a period of time. It can be quite frustrating at times to be limited in this way.
  • Their customer support isn't the best. Certainly some room for improvement there.
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Usability
No answers on this topic
It has the potential to be really cool. However, it feels as if it was created by developers for developers (and I work with developers, yet even for me the instrument was somewhat not easy to use - just read SendGrid's help manuals...) However, if you are into data and your way of thinking is more mathematical rather than lyrical, you'll enjoy this instrument
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Support Rating
Would give it a zero if I could. Their customer service used to be incredible; fast response times, really hands-on with their users, and a pretty regular feedback process. They sent me an awesome t-shirt that became part of my go-to climbing gear. But for the past year, their response times went way down, their customer service was less helpful and generally a lot more rude, and they haven't asked for customer input once since their leadership change
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Twilio SendGrid Email API is everything we want it to be, and we have no reason to look for any other solution. Features and pricing match exactly what we need. As developers for SaaS products, Twilio SendGrid Email API provides a great service. I hope that they stay this way and don't inflate the service with too many marketing oriented features, because there are other tools for that and Twilio SendGrid Email API is a API for sending email first and foremost.
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Alternatives Considered
I'd say SparkPost is probably the worst option of the three email API products I've used. It has the worst customer service, the fewest features, and costs significantly more than SendGrid, even though SendGrid lets you integrate all of Twilio's other features into a broader set of communications media. In addition, the API and documentation were easy enough to use and integrate, but the templating system has also caused a lot of headaches for us.
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Twilio SendGrid is generally economical and thus can give better ROI compared to competitors and in a short period of time. Twilio SendGrid can be used for mass email campaigns and thus any marketer would prefer that for mass email marketing compared to say Outreach because Outreach is more of a sales tool and suitable for sending lesser emails.
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Return on Investment
  • We used at the first time the free version which worked awesome.
  • We didn't have to spend our time writing all the features that SparkPost has included.
  • The dashboard give us all the information that we need to know regarding the status of the emails that have been sent from the app
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  • Switching to Sendgrid has saved us over $3000/year compared to using other platforms.
  • Sendgrid has saved us time as the process for creating email campaigns is so easy.
  • Because of the time and financial savings, we have been able to spend more time/money on creating more appropriate marketing strategies which, in turn, has generated more revenue.
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ScreenShots