Contently vs. Ion, by Rock Content

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Contently
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Contently is a SaaS content marketing platform from the company of the same name headquartered in New York, containing features a collaboration space, calendar, and workflow controls, engagement metrics, and rapid access to a high volume of original content from freelance creative talent, researchers, and journalists. Contently has received approximately $12.3 million in funding since its founding in 2010.N/A
Ion, by Rock Content
Score 8.0 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
Ion is an enterprise-grade content experience platform that empowers modern marketers and designers to create no-code interactive content experiences integrated with their CRM or marketing automation tools. Ion helps enterprises to build brand awareness and increase conversions and lead generation enriching their contact database with declared, high intent data. Ion helps brands launch quizzes, ROI calculators, assessments, interactive infographics, and other interactive formats in…N/A
Pricing
ContentlyIon, by Rock Content
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Managed Services + SaaS
Custom
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ContentlyIon, by Rock Content
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup fee$5,500 per customer
Additional Detailsion’s Build Anything SaaS platform provides organizations with an entirely new and agile interactive content marketing capability. It enables non-technical marketers and designers to create, test and measure an unlimited number of all types of interactive content marketing experiences. It includes unlimited seats, experiences, tests, customization, phone and email support, analytics and more.
More Pricing Information
Features
ContentlyIon, by Rock Content
Content Creation
Comparison of Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Contently
9.3
10 Ratings
15% above category average
Ion, by Rock Content
7.5
105 Ratings
7% below category average
Ideation10.010 Ratings10.099 Ratings
Approval workflows9.010 Ratings00 Ratings
Content collaboration9.79 Ratings5.094 Ratings
Content calendar9.09 Ratings00 Ratings
Network for content licensing/production9.08 Ratings00 Ratings
Content Publishing
Comparison of Content Publishing features of Product A and Product B
Contently
9.2
10 Ratings
13% above category average
Ion, by Rock Content
8.7
120 Ratings
7% above category average
Content hub9.710 Ratings10.0104 Ratings
Forms / Gated content8.57 Ratings10.0107 Ratings
Embedded CTAs9.56 Ratings10.0108 Ratings
Content distribution9.38 Ratings8.093 Ratings
Content promotion9.08 Ratings8.086 Ratings
Content automation9.07 Ratings6.090 Ratings
Content Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Content Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Contently
8.7
5 Ratings
11% above category average
Ion, by Rock Content
8.5
118 Ratings
9% above category average
Audience profiling and targeting9.05 Ratings6.091 Ratings
Closed-loop tracking and reporting9.05 Ratings8.095 Ratings
Content performance analytics9.05 Ratings10.0116 Ratings
Campaign optimization dashboard8.05 Ratings10.0107 Ratings
Competitive analytics8.55 Ratings00 Ratings
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User Ratings
ContentlyIon, by Rock Content
Likelihood to Recommend
9.3
(12 ratings)
10.0
(135 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(22 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
7.4
(17 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(18 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(6 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
ContentlyIon, by Rock Content
Likelihood to Recommend
Contently
It's helpful for top of marketing funnel writing that we can sometimes lose sight of because we are so ingrained in the product day to day. Contently is also helpful for long written pieces and ebooks that will take a significant amount of employee time to put together. I avoid using Contently for mid to bottom funnel marketing writing because my team will often have greater insight into the product function or use-case or product release, making them more adroit to the tone of the written piece and able to produce the content quickly.
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Rock Content
If you want to choose a quick start template and fill in the fields with your content, Ion will be fantastic for you. We've done this with whitepapers and quizzes and it's been great and extremely easy to use. If you have an exact idea of what you want, and a background in web development, you may get frustrated. Ion has some quirks that make it tricky to fully customize - everyone once in a while I really just want to go into the HTML and make some changes, but can't. If you are looking to reuse a piece of content for specific targeting (industry or account-specific), Ion is great. The dynamic substitutions are great and very helpful.
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Pros
Contently
  • Consolidating my work in one place to make my work life easier
  • Contently is unique from other content marketing organizational tools in one key way. It hands you a network of freelance professionals eager for delegated work.
  • You can search through a database of professionals to find the perfect person for your given project. Find individuals in your budget offering the exact skills and experience you need.
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Rock Content
  • Quick Starts make it so easy to get started.
  • Real-time updates are awesome and save a ton of wasteful process.
  • The combination of user friendliness for simple things and the flexibility to do more complex things is great.
  • Chat support is excellent and deeper-dive support has been super helpful.
  • The ability to use these tools in the cloud or embedded has given us tactic flexibility.
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Cons
Contently
  • I have been using it for 3.5 years, and have had no response from potential clients.
  • The portfolio section is pretty easy to use, but I don't love the format.
  • Since I'm not a client, I don't know just how easy it is for them to find new freelancers or how often it is actually used.
  • Probably more suited for some types/concentrations of freelance writers, like finance, tech, or healthcare.
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Rock Content
  • Ion University, while stacked with a wealth of information, is difficult to navigate from a troubleshooting perspective. The tutorial videos are all very helpful, but they are also very long. Sometimes I would want to search for how to address a particular issue I was struggling with and it would be a two-minute segment buried in a 45-minute video.
  • Again, getting back the self-guidance side of things. I think a lot of the tutorials are set up in a way that makes sense to Ion, but not as much to the end user.
  • I think the controls admins use when creating new users could be a bit more straightforward.
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Likelihood to Renew
Contently
No answers on this topic
Rock Content
We use it for every landing page and we plan on only doing more dynamic content creation. We dont see that option coming in-house any time ever in the future. ION has a very robust platform for us to work with that really allows us to do more for our customers in regards to having the one-to-one conversation.
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Usability
Contently
No answers on this topic
Rock Content
Usability is straightforward, with extensive documentation and tutorials provided to ensure landing pages are built to specifications and can be optimized for performance. Built-in platform funnels give insight into customer dropoff, success/failures, and conversions (at a glance). Setting up a landing page can be done quickly and easily, with numerous integrations (CRMs like SalesForce, for instance) supported
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Performance
Contently
No answers on this topic
Rock Content
Sometimes the editor can be a little slow.
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Support Rating
Contently
I'm giving them a 10, but honestly, I've never reached out to them. I do see them putting out regular content on social media, so they might be responsive to questions there as well as regular customer support. In their posts and communication, they do seem to value their community, so hopefully, they have good customer support. And I've seen them asking for pitches from their community to publish well-paid articles during this stressful coronavirus time, and I really appreciate that.
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Rock Content
The ION support team is amazing. There has not been a single issue they they could not solve for me. If there is a feature or request that they do not have, they have even, on occasion, created custom scripts for our team. *Update 6/5/17 - ION has continued to delight on multiple occasions. I appreciate their attention to detail and ability to solve whatever issue I have. After 3+ years of use and support, ION still has my full endorsement.
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Online Training
Contently
No answers on this topic
Rock Content
They offer a great amount of online training, videos, articles, etc. There is usually an answer available if you run into an issue. I would recommend taking advantage of the online training they offer. I wish I would have done it sooner.
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Implementation Rating
Contently
No answers on this topic
Rock Content
There were a lot of things we learned about the tool once we really got in and got our hands dirty. Being hands-on was essential for our team to be able to utilize ION in the most effective manner.
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Alternatives Considered
Contently
I also opened an account with Skyword in 2019, which is a similar service. The person that recommended it was a travel writer, and since I've done that as well, I thought it might be a better fit. To this point, I've received no work from it either, and don't hold out a lot of hope. As previously mentioned, where I think Contently does well is by giving you an online portfolio, additional resources like a blog for learning, and a rates database for publications.
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Rock Content
I was not the decision maker to choose this over Uberflip, but the UI is much more appealing to me. It's incredibly easy to use, clean, and from a backend standpoint, it requires little to no tech savvy'ness. Our team has really enjoyed using it and has required no training what-so-ever.
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Scalability
Contently
No answers on this topic
Rock Content
Separate client portfolios enable scalability, however, some elements are still grouped for all accounts so it's difficult to scale for an ad agency with multiple clients. Would prefer totally separate sections of the platform for all clients with each element housed separately.
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Return on Investment
Contently
  • Contently contributors have produced some great inbound marking posts and creative materials saving our marketing team significant time allowing them to focus on more strategic plans for the business.
  • The amount of time Contently has saved our internal creative writing staff has more than paid for itself!
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Rock Content
  • Though we have not had the service long enough to see any measurable outcomes, we've been able to create interactive web content faster than ever before
  • The speed with which we can build interactive pages and re-use assets has been critical as projects we've done with Ion have made their way around and more and more internal clients have said "me too" for their own projects
  • It is very pricey at $28K for the base annual subscription (dropping to $24k after the first year), so depending on your budgetary situation, that may make no sense for your team--but we had contract money set aside for a company to build us a microsite for around the amount, so we just used it for Ion instead and will now be building the microsite ourselves using it
Read full review
ScreenShots

Ion, by Rock Content Screenshots

Screenshot of ion empowers your other marketing technologies to deliver higher fidelity, data-driven scoring, targeting, segmentation and personalization.Screenshot of The types of interactive experiences the ion platform can create is near-endless. These are the most common types used by our customers: Assessments, Calculators, eBooks, Interactive Infographics, Interactive White Papers, Landing Pages, Lookbooks, Quizzes, Resource Library, Solution Finder.Screenshot of See what our customers are saying about our platform and services!Screenshot of Starting at $2,000 per month, you get an unlimited, scalable interactive content platform with our full feature set. Including: Unlimited experiences, unlimited use of Quick Starts, Unlimited Seats/Users, Unlimited A/B/n Testing, Unlimited Sell-Side Experiences, Unlimited Phone, email & chat support, unlimited analytics... PLUS a FREE custom-branded theme that can be applied to all of your experiences.Screenshot of You have the option to start from a template or entirely from scratch. Our Quick Start template library includes more than 100 fully tested, responsive and flexible interactive experiences you can brand, customize and launch.Screenshot of ion is the only interactive content platform that provides the scalable foundation to grow from one interactive experience to one thousand interactive experiences. With ion, interactive content development complexity, long timelines, high costs and maintenance problems are replaced with freedom and agility.