Postmark vs. SparkPost

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Postmark
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Postmark from Wildbit in Philadelphia sends and tracks transactional emails.
$10
per month
SparkPost
Score 4.8 out of 10
N/A
The SparkPost Email Delivery Platform is built to help businesses deliver more value. Its features include real-time analysis of email delivery and customer engagement as well as personalized email templates. Users can also pick from any of the numerous APIs to integrate into communication. SparkPost is designed to provide all users need to power businesses for greater growth.
$30
per month
Pricing
PostmarkSparkPost
Editions & Modules
10,000 Emails per Month
$10.00
per month
300,000 Emails per Month
$200.00
per month
5,000,000 Emails per Month
$1200.00
per month
Starter
$30
per month
Premier
$75
per month
Enterprise
Contact sales team
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
PostmarkSparkPost
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
PostmarkSparkPost
Considered Both Products
Postmark
Chose Postmark
In terms of UI and deliverability, Postmark really blows other ESPs out of the water. We've seen a huge improvement in delivery rates, especially for Outlook/Live/Hotmail email addresses.
SparkPost

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
PostmarkSparkPost
Small Businesses
Mailchimp Transactional Email (Mandrill)
Mailchimp Transactional Email (Mandrill)
Score 7.4 out of 10
Twilio SendGrid
Twilio SendGrid
Score 7.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Mailjet
Mailjet
Score 8.7 out of 10
Everest (Return Path + 250ok)
Everest (Return Path + 250ok)
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises

No answers on this topic

Everest (Return Path + 250ok)
Everest (Return Path + 250ok)
Score 9.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
PostmarkSparkPost
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(10 ratings)
1.0
(6 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.4
(3 ratings)
1.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
PostmarkSparkPost
Likelihood to Recommend
Wildbit
If email deliverability is important, then Postmark is king. I've used all sorts of providers, with dedicated IPs and without. Postmark has always had the best deliverability and has resulted in the least amount of customer service time wasted dealing with users who simply did not receive an important email from us. It is pricier than other options, but it's well worth it if deliverability is at all important to you.
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Bird (formerly MessageBird)
Our early experiences with SparkPost were great; we were looking for a low-cost (or no-cost) solution to our email messaging needs, and SparkPost had the best low-cost option: 100,000 messages per month for free, guaranteed for life. Even though our team has experience with other APIs, we chose SparkPost because it felt like the best value. Our experience with it was great. Two years ago, they discontinued their free option but sent the existing users the following message: "When you signed up, we promised that if we ever changed the terms of our 100K free plan, we would continue to honor the original plan for the life of the account. I would like to reaffirm this promise: while this plan is no longer available to new customers, you are grandfathered into this level of free sending volume." The following year, apparently following a change in leadership, they decided to "deprecate" existing free plans, dropping us down from 100,000 messages per month to 500, the lowest of any email API service I'm aware of. No recognition of the broken promise, the reneged guarantee, just a 20% off coupon. This atrocious behavior that reeks of a new culture of squeezing as much money as possible out of its users and has coincided with a steady deterioration of functionality and customer service. At this point, I have no idea why anyone would pay more for a worse service that treats its users so poorly when you could use SendGrid or a similar competitor for a lower price and way more features.
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Pros
Wildbit
  • Great, helpful customer support (rarely needed)
  • Reliable product
  • Well thought out interface, easy setup
  • Great ongoing visibility into status of emails sent through Postmark
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Bird (formerly MessageBird)
  • When you don't want to spent time writing your own code to send emails from your apps
  • When you're looking for a product which provides all that you need regarding email features to make it part of your software
  • When you want to use a product which includes templates that can be re-used instead of writing your own and all the required effort to do that
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Cons
Wildbit
  • Not many cons since it's pretty straightforward, and if email delivery service was often impacted, we'd most likely find a new provider.
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Bird (formerly MessageBird)
  • When I first implemented SparkPost, I did not take advantage of the sub-account feature, and my account was suspended on New Year's Eve. It took two days until I could speak with a support representative to get my account re-activated. I am now using sub-accounts to alleviate the underlying problem, but I was disappointed that my account was suspended by an automated system with no notice.
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Usability
Wildbit
The only thing that confused me initially was that if you don't put a specific sender email into the Wordpress plugin settings (I use Postmark exclusively with Wordpress site), it won't send emails. I thought that having selected the option to send via any @domain.com email, I wouldn't need to fill out a specific email to send from, but that isn't the case. I sorted that out quickly with support.
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Bird (formerly MessageBird)
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Wildbit
Postmark has been an excellent solution for our business needs. We have been with them for years and have no intention of changing providers anytime soon. Support was excellent as we were getting started and their API documentation made implementation quick and easy
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Bird (formerly MessageBird)
Would give it a zero if I could. Their customer service used to be incredible; fast response times, really hands-on with their users, and a pretty regular feedback process. They sent me an awesome t-shirt that became part of my go-to climbing gear. But for the past year, their response times went way down, their customer service was less helpful and generally a lot more rude, and they haven't asked for customer input once since their leadership change
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Alternatives Considered
Wildbit
We felt Postmark's focus on transactional emails and their use of shared domain reputation made them stand out. We also like their user interface and ability to have many virtual email servers. Pricing was competitive and after a trial we saw a big increase in deliverability rates. Therefore it was an easy decision to use Postmark over other providers.
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Bird (formerly MessageBird)
Mailchimp and sendgrid are giving good services and good customer support 24/7 and ROI is increased with this as transition is very smooth. SparkPost is very expensive and not good as much as we think and they will least worried about your mails, tickets, call and messages. Highly not recommended this SparkPost to any one
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Return on Investment
Wildbit
  • It is really "set and forget." I have not had any issues that I've needed to deal with. It just works.
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Bird (formerly MessageBird)
  • It has helped us with our IP health and making sure that we avoid spam traps
  • Very high deliverability and automatic retrying once they have the event
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ScreenShots