Likelihood to Recommend 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!
Read full review 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.
Read full review Pros 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. Read full review 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 I think creating the HTML email campaigns could be made easier. I would like to have more HTML templates available. Read full review 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 Likelihood to Renew 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).
Read full review Usability It's pretty easy to use without any technical abilities, but the email editor will require html skills (no drag and drop).
Read full review 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 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 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.
Read full review 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.
Read full review Return on Investment I can't really quantify ROI from Loopfuse Read full review 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 ScreenShots