TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Customer.io

    Score9.1 out of 10
    Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
    Customer.io is a customer engagement platform that enables marketers to build sophisticated automated messaging campaigns. With access to real-time behavioral data, users can create personalized and relevant messages to engage and retain customers. This includes sending emails, push notifications, SMS, in-app messages, and more through a visual building experience. Built for scale, Customer.io boasts users among over 5,300 companies, sending over 17 billion messages per year.

    $100

    per month

    Pendo.io

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/APendo.io is a product engagement platform with features for in-app analytics, surveys and feedback, and guidance.N/A
    Pricing
    Customer.ioPendo.io
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    *Free
    Free
    Base
    Contact sales team
    Core
    Contact sales team
    Pulse
    Contact sales team
    Ultimate
    Contact sales team
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Customer.ioPendo.io
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsEssentials: For startups and small teams engaging customers on their mobile and web apps. - Up to 5,000 profiles*, Send Emails, Push, In-App, and SMS, Visual Workflow Builder, Segmentation, Two Workspaces, Email Support, Customer Community Premium: For high-growth companies looking for greater control over their messaging outcomes. - Everything in Essentials, Custom Data + Message Volume, Premium Product Features, Additional Workspaces, 90-day Onboarding Program, Premium Email & Chat Support, Managed Deliverability, Dedicated IPs, Parcel Pro Licenses, HIPAA Compliance Enterprise: For at-scale companies looking to create world-class customer experiences. - Everything in Premium, Managed Infrastructure*, Customer Success Manager, Quarterly Success Reviews, Technical Account Manager*, Audit Logging & Data Governance*, Parcel Business Licenses, Migration Support*, *Available by consultation.—
    More Pricing Information
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    Customer.ioPendo.io
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    Simplify360
    Score7.8 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    Braze
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Whatfix
    Score10 out of 10
    Enterprises
    SAP Service Cloud
    Score8.5 out of 10
    Whatfix
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    User Ratings
    Customer.ioPendo.io
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.1
    (20 ratings)
    8.5
    (130 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (6 ratings)
    Usability
    9.2
    (12 ratings)
    7.5
    (43 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.2
    (5 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Customer.ioPendo.io
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Customer.io
    Talking from the perspective of a marketer at a SaaS with average. 50K email subscribers, Customer IO has been an excellent tool for us. Our requirements include sending users newsletters, marketing emails, and transactional emails, running lead-nurturing campaigns, and more. For a comprehensive use case like ours, CustomerIO is great. While it also has a learning curve, when you have such requirements, it’s worth it. I don’t think CustomerIO is the best fit if you have basic requirements like only weekly newsletter emails.
    Incentivized
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    Pendo.io
    Pendo.io is useful in generating great dashboards that present user analytics in the best possible view that could be used for analysis & derive key insights on what could be done if there's a feature that's not being recognized by end users or if there are any pain points where users are struggling more around a workflow which is technically not that difficult. Pendo.io also can be used to create impactful guides where intercatoin of a user with the Guide can be created in less steps & have relevant information about that workflow that the user is completing. Pendo.io's resource center can act as a one stop hub to present any sidewide updates which could be information of Prod releases, New KB Articles, Register to any event, & much more. Segments can be created in as many variation as one can. In fact, Segments are the ruling property or feature that works so handy, which reduces a lot of iterative work.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Customer.io
    • Managing users, attributes and events. You are easily able to modify any user, based on their ID, and add or remove attributes, assign events to them. That makes it very easy to segment later and to assign them to several campaigns based on behavior. Just a warning: this integration isn't so easy (at least it wasn't for us).
    • Creating workflows of campaigns is very easy. You can quickly create behavioral campaigns based on attributes, segments and add elements to the workflow. You can send an email, then wait, then send another, then exit the campaign if they converted, etc. The workflow is easy to configure and very powerful for automation.
    • We don't use many email templates (we make them in MJML) but it's very easy to add senders, to change templates and in general to test designs.
    • Deliverability works very well, at least for us. It sends emails pretty fast and without issues.
    • Exporting is very quick and easy. Importing wasn't a feature until recently, but it works well too.
    • Seeing activity it's also useful. In general, logs are awesome (be it of a customer, of activity on the site, email sends, etc.).
    • We don't use environments, but it might be very useful for a bigger company.
    Incentivized
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    Pendo.io
    • NPS Surveys
    • Feature usage insights
    • Identifying user behaviors using Replay feature
    • Clearly segmenting users in a way we want it to be
    • Identifying time spent on a feature/product to better understand what customers actually use
    • Documentation, in-app guides and help section
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    Customer.io
    • Price is quite expensive for Premium or once you get into high volumes of contacts.
    • Depending on how you'll use it, it may require some help from developers to set up.
    • Despite the support being great, you have to email them, there's not chat feature.
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    Pendo.io
    • Dashboard is sometimes very slow to load
    • Preview is problematic if the Pendo.io user doesn't have access to the target environment or application where the guide is going to display
    • It would be ideal to have a gallery of thumbnail images of previously used guides to select from, either to pull a screen capture or to use as a template. It's cumbersome to go to the guides, find the one you want, click on Preview, etc.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    Customer.io
    No answers on this topic
    Pendo.io
    We have had an excellent experience with Pendo. When we've had questions or concerns, Pendo is very quick to respond and communicate with us. We have experienced top-notch customer support and customer engagement. We have actually modeled some of our implementation and product processes after Pendo's examples.
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    Usability
    Customer.io
    Super intuitive and easy interface to start off with. There are not a lot of guides and the documentation is helpful but not super extensive, but even if you're a little technical, you can easily figure most of the things out by yourself. Everything is super easy to start with and the platform does not overwhelm you with a lot of options, or data.
    Incentivized
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    Pendo.io
    It is intuitive for core tasks like tracking feature usage, building Guides, and viewing dashboards. The interface is clean and well structured, making it easy for product managers and operational teams to get value quickly without heavy technical support. However, there is a noticeable learning curve when setting up advanced custom events, reports, or integrations, which can take some time and internal knowledge-sharing to master.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    Customer.io
    No answers on this topic
    Pendo.io
    Every time I have logged into Pendo, the service has been available for me to use. The page has never been down when I am trying to get info from there.
    Incentivized
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    Performance
    Customer.io
    No answers on this topic
    Pendo.io
    Everything loads fairly quickly and it's not slow. I don't use an integration, I log in straight in the webpage.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    Customer.io
    My experience with their support team has always been great. Very quick to respond, have an online chat, and are very helpful. They helped me resolve any issues I've had every time in a professional and knowledgeable manner. We've now switched to another tool, and I can't even compare the service level we get there to customer.io
    Incentivized
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    Pendo.io
    They've been great anytime that we have needed help with something. They also have some really great help articles. We're able to figure most things out through their articles, but when we've had to call in they've been very helpful and we haven't had any problems. I'd highly recommend working with them.
    Incentivized
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    Online Training
    Customer.io
    No answers on this topic
    Pendo.io
    The training schedule was well thought out and tailored to meet our needs. Chantelle stayed with us through the whole implementation and made sure that we were good to go.
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    Implementation Rating
    Customer.io
    No answers on this topic
    Pendo.io
    Use Segment to install and cut developers out of the work cycle!
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Customer.io
    Customer.io was really the first pure, full-featured drip email program on the market and as far as I know, it's still the simplest and best overall for that specific function. SendGrid has also added drip campaign features, but I would seriously evaluate Customer.io against any other drip email provider because they really have all the key elements you need to make it work.
    Incentivized
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    Pendo.io
    I have just very superficial experience with Google Analytics but I do believe that Pendo.io is a much much better tool in pretty much all aspects of it. It has a ton more features and capabilities and even for the capabilities where there is overlap, Pendo seems to come out ahead easily. There are aspects that Pendo could improve for sure such as what metadata it captures from the users; an example of this is screen resolution which Google Analytics captures but Pendo does not.
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    Customer.io
    No answers on this topic
    Pendo.io
    The system is pretty flexible and scalable, I have used it in different browsers and devices without issues.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Customer.io
    • Positive impact on the sales side. I'm not sure about the specific ROI (you have to include the designer and the time it takes to set up) but you certainly get back the investment in a few months, once you are able to scale your email marketing.
    • Customer experience is way better by having more segmented, contextual and accurate messages sent to them.
    • Integration is costly and it will take several days or weeks to be fully achieved. Expect to invest some money on this.
    Incentivized
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    Pendo.io
    • Reducing development time with in-app guides and resource center, with product management being able to agilely create guides in real time, this could be as much as 1 full time developer in savings.
    • Reducing business time scoping "rock fetches" than are proven to be invaluable based on analytics, each time 1 single piece of analtical data saves around ~20 hours across multiple resources.
    • Increasing user satisfaction with in-app guides and resource center
    • Increasing usage of key features through targetted messaging, those key features either drive costs ou of our business or add value to customers business.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots

    Customer.io Screenshots

    Screenshot of data-driven or manual segments that can be created in the no-code builder for recipient lists, campaign triggers, filters, and conversion goals.Screenshot of the code editor for email, that helps navigate code and iterate.Screenshot of account performance, visible at a glance from the Dashboard view.Screenshot of drag and drop messages, time delays, and branches where desired, to build cross-channel campaigns.Screenshot of triggered campaigns based on forms submissions, customer attributes, customer actions, and dates.Screenshot of localization for global audiences. One message can be delivered in multiple languages.