Bluecore vs. Twilio SendGrid

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Bluecore
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Following $6 million in series A funding from FirstMark Capital and others in 2013, the rapidly growing company along with its rapidly and broadly adopted product known as TriggerMail became Bluecore. But its function is as it was before the rebrand: an ecommerce focused trigger marketing product that uses email to retarget vacillating or distracted customers and grow online sales. Essential to Bluecore is customer behavior, assimilated in an automated fashion across disparate sources. Once…N/A
Twilio SendGrid
Score 7.4 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
BluecoreTwilio SendGrid
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Basic
$15
per month
Advanced
$60
per month
Free
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BluecoreTwilio 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
Features
BluecoreTwilio SendGrid
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Bluecore
-
Ratings
Twilio SendGrid
7.7
46 Ratings
5% below category average
WYSIWYG email editor00 Ratings7.733 Ratings
Dynamic content00 Ratings7.936 Ratings
Ability to test dynamic content00 Ratings8.034 Ratings
Landing pages00 Ratings7.522 Ratings
A/B testing00 Ratings8.526 Ratings
Mobile optimization00 Ratings9.034 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting00 Ratings7.546 Ratings
List management00 Ratings5.840 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences00 Ratings7.520 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Bluecore
-
Ratings
Twilio SendGrid
8.0
46 Ratings
3% above category average
Dashboards00 Ratings8.544 Ratings
Standard reports00 Ratings8.544 Ratings
Custom reports00 Ratings7.028 Ratings
Pre-Send Testing
Comparison of Pre-Send Testing features of Product A and Product B
Bluecore
-
Ratings
Twilio SendGrid
9.1
8 Ratings
7% above category average
URL Validation00 Ratings9.38 Ratings
Link Tracking00 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Image Validation00 Ratings9.07 Ratings
Inbox Display00 Ratings9.38 Ratings
Email Accessibility Tools00 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Spelling and Grammar Check00 Ratings8.66 Ratings
Spam Testing00 Ratings9.38 Ratings
Email Previews00 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BluecoreTwilio SendGrid
Small Businesses
Bloomreach Commerce Experience Cloud
Bloomreach Commerce Experience Cloud
Score 8.6 out of 10
Mad Mimi
Mad Mimi
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Dynamic Yield
Dynamic Yield
Score 9.1 out of 10
VerticalResponse
VerticalResponse
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Dynamic Yield
Dynamic Yield
Score 9.1 out of 10
Emma by Marigold
Emma by Marigold
Score 8.6 out of 10
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User Ratings
BluecoreTwilio SendGrid
Likelihood to Recommend
8.2
(2 ratings)
5.5
(57 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
1.0
(4 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
3.0
(9 ratings)
User Testimonials
BluecoreTwilio SendGrid
Likelihood to Recommend
Bluecore
Bluecore is fantastic for building and sending email campaigns. They're also spectacular at providing insight on where your subscribers actively are vs predictive behavior. This is particularly helpful in sending the right message at the right time to the right person, all with product recommendations. I don't think they would be particularly appropriate for building something in SMS (we've found a lot of success with Attentive) and I don't think Bluecore helps much with social media analytics
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Twilio
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
Bluecore
  • Triggered emails
  • Audience segmentation
  • Integration with Facebook and Adwords
Read full review
Twilio
  • Managing email lists / audiences is easy with features like groups and segments.
  • They provide pre-built email templates that are very easy to modify. It is also super easy to create new email templates with their drag-and-drop email builder.
  • Provides clear / easy-to-read analytics of email campaigns.
  • I can easily import large email contact lists all at once or add a user manually one-at-a-time, when needed.
Read full review
Cons
Bluecore
  • Embedded functionality for social media live preview
  • Heat maps don't always show up
  • More flexibility in navigation bar, can get uneven in proportion
Read full review
Twilio
  • Not necessarily their Email API but their email in general - they are currently in beta for automated email sequences but are still bare bones. Much more work is needed before it can be used mainstream and be able to convert everything to SendGrid.
  • Helping with warming up our dedicated IP for the best-sending score.
  • We seem to hit the promotions folder a decent amount (maybe the IP problem above) and even a lot of their emails hit my spam or promotions folder (whether they be transactional or marketing) which isn't a great sign when trusting an ESP.
  • Transactional email sequences would be a huge plus.
  • Now that Twilio owns SenGrid, having an integrated platform where you could see all our transactional emails together.
  • Better reporting and split reporting between transactional and marketing emails.
Read full review
Usability
Bluecore
No answers on this topic
Twilio
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
Read full review
Support Rating
Bluecore
No answers on this topic
Twilio
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.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Bluecore
Bluecore impressed us from the start because of their focus on the email. I got the sense from SmarterHQ that they viewed themselves more as a segmentation tool. While also very useful, Bluecore made it easier to close the circle and take that segmented list all the way through creative process to the actual send, with a consciousness of how we secure the conversion. Since becoming a customer, Bluecore has continued to blow me away with their innovation and professionalism, leaving no doubt that we made the right choice.
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Twilio
If given a choice between the two, I would pick Mandrill over SendGrid. Mandrill is slightly more expensive but the data & reports that you receive from it make the service worth it. Mandrill lets you export reports over a period of time, view the actual content of emails that you've dispatched and the customer support is way better. If you can bear the slightly higher cost, Mandrill would be a better choice.
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Return on Investment
Bluecore
  • We've seen increased ROI through product personalization purchasing
  • We've been able to individualize our campaigns based on highest category affinity
  • We've seen engagement with our automated campaigns to help figure out exactly what blocks to include in these messages.
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Twilio
  • Our clients experience significant ROI from their web forms - without receipt of forms, many of them would not still be in business.
  • As a solution for clients' sites, we find SendGrid is a fast installation and a 1 stop problem solver, saving us man-hours.
Read full review
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