Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Customer.io
Score 8.0 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
Twilio
Score 7.1 out of 10
N/A
Twilio offers a CPaaS and CCaaS solution, with the combination of its programmable Voice, Video, and Messaging APIs, as well as the Twilio Flex cloud contact center. Additional capabilities include Twilio's Elastic SIP Trunking, as well as API for WhatsApp.
$0
per min per participant
Pricing
Customer.ioTwilio
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Programmable Video
$0.0015
per min per participant
WhatsApp Business API
$0.0042
Per WhatsApp Template message sent
WhatsApp Business API
$0.005
Per WhatsApp session message
Elastic SIP Trunking
$0.007
Per min for termination
Programmable Messaging
$0.0075
per message sent or received
Programmable Voice
$0.0085
per minute to receive a call
Programmable Voice
$0.013
per min to make a call
Elastic SIP Trunking
$0.045
Per min for origination
Twilio Conversations
$0.05
per active user per month
Twilio Authy
$0.09
per authentication
Programmable Wireless
$0.1
per MB
Twilio Flex (Contact Center)
$1
per active user hour (5000 hours free)
Programmable Wireless
$2.00
per SIM card
Twilio SendGrid Email API
$14.95
per month up to 100k emails. (Up to 40k emails free for 30 days)
Twilio SendGrid Marketing Campaigns
$15
per month for 5,000 contacts and 15,000 emails. Your first 2,000 contacts are free
Twilio Flex (Contact Center)
$150
per named user per month (5000 hours free)
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Customer.ioTwilio
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalOptional
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.1. Pay-as-you-go pricing: Simple usage-based pricing means you don’t get locked into big contracts. 2. Volume discounts: Discounts trigger as your usage grows, so you always get a fair price. 3. Start building today with free trial credit and full API access.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Customer.ioTwilio
Considered Both Products
Customer.io
Chose Customer.io
Customer.io is much more comprehensive and powerful. It takes some getting used to but once you understand how it works, you have a ton of control when it comes to email marketing.
Twilio

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Customer.ioTwilio
Small Businesses
Simplify360
Simplify360
Score 7.8 out of 10
Simplify360
Simplify360
Score 7.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Bright Pattern Contact Center
Bright Pattern Contact Center
Score 9.7 out of 10
Bright Pattern Contact Center
Bright Pattern Contact Center
Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises
Conversica
Conversica
Score 9.8 out of 10
Conversica
Conversica
Score 9.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Customer.ioTwilio
Likelihood to Recommend
9.8
(8 ratings)
6.6
(77 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
7.9
(5 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.5
(10 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
6.8
(21 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
5.5
(16 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.5
(2 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Customer.ioTwilio
Likelihood to Recommend
Customer.io
This tool is well-suited for companies looking to run email marketing campaigns or send out newsletters regularly to their users/customers. The workflow setup is especially useful for companies who want to send specific emails based on user behavior - i.e. they've not logged in recently, have bought a specific product, haven't opened any emails, etc. This could also be useful for freelancers like me since you can create different workspaces within Customer.io. I have configured it this way to handle email marketing for a few of my clients, and the software keeps everything organized and separate. This might not be the best tool for small businesses, considering the price. It may be better to start out with a cheaper email marketing tool, and then if/when necessary, scale-up with a tool like Customer.io.
Read full review
Twilio
Twilio is well suited to sending SMS reminders to prospects on the lead-up to sales appointments. This has helped us improve attendance rates for these meetings. We also use Twilio to communicate with these prospects post-meeting to make offers on products and services and for feedback on their meeting.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Twilio
  • Easy to see my team in one place, when they log in and out and what call status they are in.
  • Twilio is a simple, user friendly way to log in and out of work activities.
  • Excellent services and support.
  • The omnichannel feature which allows agents to get request from all channels.
Read full review
Cons
Customer.io
  • Push notifications are very rudimentary. Everything has to be done by hand unless you're sending an extremely simple message.
  • A bit too email centric.
  • Lacks an ability to schedule messages on a daily, weekly, etc. basis.
Read full review
Twilio
  • Segment’s email identifier is case-sensitive, which is ridiculous because emails themselves are not case-sensitive. This means that if I send a capitalized email address in an identify call, it will create a duplicate user rather than matching it with the lowercase email. I think this is a technical oversight that should be corrected.
  • I’d like to see more information about the eventual transition of existing Frontline customers to Twilio Flex
  • I’d like to see some integrations between Twilio Studio and OpenAI or another open source LLM to provide automated responses, if this hasn’t been done already
  • I would like to be able to drag and move the actual lines connecting the steps in Twilio Studio, sometimes mine can get pretty messy
  • I think a Bug Report form would be beneficial for developers
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Customer.io
No answers on this topic
Twilio
Unless we can get this handled quickly -- less than 1 week -- we will likely switch to another provider who, in my opinion, we'll have to spend close to $3,000 in development time to build a new integration for texting. Our clients need texting and I feel Twilio has failed us miserably.
Read full review
Usability
Customer.io
No answers on this topic
Twilio
Twilio has well documented APIs and examples. There are several tutorials, videos and Q&As regarding their services. So, usability is very good. I must say that advanced knowledge of telephony, API/Programming and error-handling is essential to make good use of Twilio. It's not just plug-and-play unless you are integrated with a system that has all of the programming built for it.
Read full review
Performance
Customer.io
No answers on this topic
Twilio
The problem tends to be us, the user, rather than Twilio. We don't reach out to support fast enough (spend time struggling), but when we have, they've solved our issue immediately. We are rural, so there are signal issues to accommodate, however, we find that a few staff on a few cellular networks can triangulate where we all have signal to put up a sign.
Read full review
Support Rating
Customer.io
No answers on this topic
Twilio
I have not had to communicate with Twilio support in the last 3 years but my past experience with them has been very positive. They replied to my previous requests promptly and kept me well informed to resolve my inquiries. With their documentation that's available, I hardly imagine why anyone would need to contact support since it's all there in a concise and easy to understand format. It would probably take you longer to type out a support ticket than to just open their doc websites.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Customer.io
No answers on this topic
Twilio
The developer APIs and SDKs are super easy to follow.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Twilio
Twilio was referred to me by a business colleague, and I can't be more thankful! Twilio has helped my Facebook page by leaps and bounds, and I haven't even considered trying another chat option for my page. It is easy to set up, and customer service is quick to answer any and all questions you may have. I highly recommend it!
Read full review
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Customer.io
No answers on this topic
Twilio
Being in South Africa, direct local currency support would be nice
Read full review
Return on Investment
Customer.io
  • Fast testing for new products to specific groups. It saves a lot of time and money.
  • Removed workload from marketing = more time to make it better.
  • Better contact with specific groups, seeing a increase in sales because of this.
Read full review
Twilio
  • It helps drive the adoption of multi-factor authentication by making second-factor authentication quick and easy.
  • Decreases the number of times a user spends migrating to a new device from an old one.
  • Enables easy access to second-factors of authentication by offering multi-device support, making multi-factor authentication painless.
Read full review
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.

Twilio Screenshots

Screenshot of To access any of the products in Console, head over to the “Explore Products” section and start building.Screenshot of Whether you prefer to build with a drag-and-drop visual editor or with code, Twilio SendGrid Marketing Campaigns helps you engage your customers through email.Screenshot of Flex is a programmable Contact Center that puts you in control.