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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Amazon SNS

    Score8.7 out of 10
    N/AAmazon Web Services offers the Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) which provides pub/sub messaging and push notifications to iOS and Android devices. It is meant to operate in a microservices architecture and which can support event-driven contingencies and support the decoupling of applications.

    $0.01

    per 1 million

    iContact

    Score6.8 out of 10
    N/AiContact is an email marketing solution that was acquired by Vocus in 2012. The product is integrated with Facebook and Twitter and is aimed at SMBs with unlimited sending as a key feature.

    $14

    per month

    Pricing
    Amazon SNSiContact
    Editions & Modules
    API Requests & Payload Data
    $0.01
    per 1 million
    API Requests
    $0.50
    per 1 million requests
    Notification Deliveries
    $0.50
    per million notifications
    1500 Users
    $15.00
    per month
    2500 Users
    $25.00
    per month
    5000 Users
    $45.00
    per month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Amazon SNSiContact
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Amazon SNSiContact
    Considered Both Products
    Amazon AWS
    No answer on this topic
    iContact
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    20 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    20 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    20 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    13 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    19 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    Amazon SNSiContact
    Email & Online Marketing
    Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) and iContact
    Feature
    Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)
    -
    Ratings
    iContact
    6.6
    26 Ratings
    19% below category average
    WYSIWYG email editor00 Ratings7.024 Ratings
    Dynamic content00 Ratings7.021 Ratings
    Ability to test dynamic content00 Ratings5.021 Ratings
    Landing pages00 Ratings7.014 Ratings
    A/B testing00 Ratings5.017 Ratings
    Mobile optimization00 Ratings7.021 Ratings
    Email deliverability reporting00 Ratings7.025 Ratings
    List management00 Ratings8.025 Ratings
    Triggered drip sequences00 Ratings6.015 Ratings
    Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) and iContact
    Feature
    Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)
    -
    Ratings
    iContact
    8.0
    26 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Dashboards00 Ratings8.026 Ratings
    Standard reports00 Ratings8.025 Ratings
    Custom reports00 Ratings8.015 Ratings
    Pre-Send Testing
    Comparison of Pre-Send Testing features of Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) and iContact
    Feature
    Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)
    -
    Ratings
    iContact
    7.0
    1 Ratings
    15% below category average
    URL Validation00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
    Link Tracking00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
    Image Validation00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
    Inbox Display00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
    Email Accessibility Tools00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
    Spelling and Grammar Check00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
    Spam Testing00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
    Email Previews00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Amazon SNSiContact
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    Mad Mimi
    Score10 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    IBM Confluent
    Score8.4 out of 10
    Campaign Monitor by Marigold
    Score9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Google Cloud Pub/Sub
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Emma by Marigold
    Score8.5 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Amazon SNSiContact
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (25 ratings)
    8.0
    (45 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    3.4
    (19 ratings)
    Usability
    9.0
    (12 ratings)
    8.0
    (6 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.4
    (14 ratings)
    9.9
    (9 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    1.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.5
    (2 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Amazon SNSiContact
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Amazon AWS
    The Amazon SNS service is well suited to support event notifications, monitoring applications, workflow systems, time-sensitive information updates, and mobile applications that generates or consumes notifications. It can be used to relay time-critical events to mobile applications and devices. It provides significant advantages to developers who build mobile applications that rely on real-time events. It is not well suited for hybrid cross platform mobile application frameworks at this juncture. An optimal version to meet the needs of a cross platform mobile developer is needed as generally the frameworks are not meant to manage real-time events. It is also not suited for cases where the queue management needs improvement or requires special workflows/tooling.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    iContact
    I would only recommend it if someone was a small business. I think they are the best suited for companies who will send out a coupon or offer here and there. The most recent updates made it more complicated to use for more complicated processes. It is easy to train someone on the program, and so quick to learn. But I would also only stick to the simpler things. I also think the colorful templates are great, and show great creativity. But again, it is hard to justify recommending the program when it isn't WYSIWYG.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Amazon AWS
    • Built in for quicker setup within AWS ecosystem.
    • Trusted as you control the users and configuration via IAM and easy access controls.
    • Can be sent to S3 simple storage or for long term storage if required.
    • Can be used in many regions, same configs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    iContact
    • Contact management. iContact is really great for entering all your contact. You are able to put them onto different lists, and let them choose which lists they would like to be a part of as well. There are many data fields provided to fill in information.
    • Emailing. We use the email feature at least once a month. They are always improving and adding new features, which is very helpful in presenting content in a new and exciting way to our readers. There are many options with remade templates and themes, or you can add your own.
    • Insights. It is really helpful being able to have the data to see what is working and what isn't. It is nice to be able to go back and see how things went in the past compared to now. Opens, clicks, shares, etc.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Amazon AWS
    • At times you receive access denied errors which are annoying.
    • Rarely do you receive internal failure errors where you can't access the information. It is rare but it does happen.
    • You are required to add an MWS Authentication Token every so often. I wish it would pull that information automatically for you so you don't have to go searching for it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    iContact
    • We also would like to send transactional messages which don't require an opt-out, this is a challenge with iContact. (May be a feature with pro?)
    • The regular version of iContact doesn't support event management or logic flows for automated messaging.
    • Custom form fields have limited field type options (can't build a drop-down).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    iContact
    iContact has been a quick and easy way to send any announcements and news directly to email and social media subscribers. Its tracking and reporting capabilities turn a simple email into a marketing campaign that can be used as a tool to efficiently gauge reader response and customer satisfaction, and ultimately to reach potential customers. The consistency and excellent customer service is what makes this program a pleasant experience.
    Read full review
    Usability
    Amazon AWS
    It is useful for applications developed using event driven architecture. It helps in tracking and logging the events in a very timely and efficient manner. The dashboards are a little difficult to implement. But overall it is very easy to integrate with other AWS services like Lambda, API GW, S3 and DynamoDB. The permissions to access should be resolved before using it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    iContact
    I rate iContact as an easy to use program due to its user friendly dashboard and user interface. Most companies of small to medium size do not have a dedicated marketer, therefore it is someone multitasking who may or may not have this kind of experience. iContact makes it relatively simple and can actually expand one's knowledge in the area of business promotion.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    iContact
    iContact is regularly up and running. Only once has it been unavailable for maintenance, which is to be expected and even desired for optimal performance when needed.
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Amazon AWS
    Amazon Simple Notification Sevices (SNS) support depends on your usage pattern and definitely on your support plan as an enterprise with AWS. Before reaching out to support you should read their documentation, as they have mentioned almost all the common issues and their solutions there. However, for specific issues, they generally respond in 1-2 business days.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    iContact
    They have always been responsive to any issues or concerns that have arisen with our account. Our customer account manager participates in our monthly county-wide communicators meetings via telephone to ensure that we are getting the most from the service. He also analyzes our lists to help us weed out inactive contacts.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    iContact
    The templates are difficult to customize, and they don't render well in email platforms
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    iContact
    i wouldn't be using it if i wasn't satisfied. time is money
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Amazon AWS
    Amazon’s SNS is incredibly easy to set up compared to the
    more powerful, but complex, Kafka flavours.

    SNS’s core advantages are –

    · no setup/no maintenance

    · either a queue (SQS) or a topic (SNS)

    · various limitations (on size, how long a message lives, etc)

    · limited throughput: you can do batch and concurrent requests, but still
    achieving high throughputs would be expensive

    · SNS has notifications for email, SMS, SQS, HTTP built-in.

    · no "message stream" concept Overall, it would be the best choice to get into the concepts of Pub/Sub concepts as although it has limitations it can provide significant capabilities and solutions
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    iContact
    I didn't have a say in the decision because I wasn't with the company at the time. I listed HubSpot here because I know we used it in conjunction with iContact for email automation, but HubSpot Email was only recently built-out to the point where it is today. Now, iContact and HubSpot are no longer integrated.
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    iContact
    iContact stays the same with the number of users added or taken away. It certainly remains reliable despite increased usage, and so, can be considered scaleable in that aspect.
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Amazon AWS
    • Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) saved us a lot of extra coding time by providing straightforward functionality we needed in our ad campaign automation tool.
    • Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) allows us to maintain a consistent, serverless model within our applications.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    iContact
    • We have a template for webinars that we send every month. We just edit it and send. This couldn't be easier (once you know where to find it).
    • We like the breakdown of statistics in the dashboard. They're easy to read.
    • iContact isn't a comprehensive solution, so it is only one of a few products we use for marketing.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots