LoopFuse (discontinued) vs. RapidPro

My advice in choosing software in general is to know what you want to get out of the software. Then start researching the software on your own to see what features and benefits each has that will help you accomplish what you need. Once you have a good idea of what sorts of features you're looking for, reach out to the vendors that have them to see demos. Get really in-depth with your demos and ask for practical use-cases for each feature. Free trials are pretty useless with this sort of technology because the initial set-up is so time-consuming that you would either not set it up properly, or you would not stop using the provider you chose after the set up because you don't want to do it again!

• It is easy to use without too much set-up.
• The e-mail engine is simple to use and straightforward, and e-mails seemed to get delivered for the most part.
• The reporting information is very in-depth and detailed.

• I think creating the HTML email campaigns could be made easier.
• I would like to have more HTML templates available.

Loopfuse was great for a startup with a limited budget and limited technical resources, but it's not something I'd use for a larger company because the functionality can be fairly limited compared to other similar products. If I were in a startup again, I wouldn't hesitate to use them for a second. I would also note that, when I first started using them, they were great about answering questions via phone, email, web form, forum, etc - which is one of the reasons I went with them. When I used them at a later company, I found they were a little less receptive to 1x1 support with the cheaper plan I was using. I can't blame them for that, but it wasn't always intuitive to use their product (even after having used it for a year).

It's pretty easy to use without any technical abilities, but the email editor will require html skills (no drag and drop).

At the time we had to choose between several versions of marketing products. We decided to choose LoopFuse since a few of our employees were quite amused with the ease of use of LoopFuse. Also when looking at cost-effectiveness LoopFuse is a great product for the smaller companies. Making the decision was not too hard.

• I can't really quantify ROI from Loopfuse