Item: SparkPost
Rating: 1
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with SparkPost

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We've connected SparkPost to our web products, so all online subscribers. Site admins, receive emails through SparkPost. It's been used for internal management messages (like database errors, user requests, etc.), but also as the primary way to communicate with the subscribers of our web products. It provided an easy integration experience within our existing web infrastructure (written in primarily Python). It was set up by our department, and we're largely the only ones who send messages through SparkPost, but the entire organization (and hundreds of subscribed users) receive the messages we send.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Easy integration
Good documentation
(Used to have) great customer service
(Used to have) great pricing options

Cons

A horrifying about-face on pricing after guaranteeing a lifetime rate.
A steep drop in customer care and customer service quality.
Increased prices compared to competitors.
Clumsy email templating system.
Lack of integration with other messaging systems.

Return on Investment

We chose SparkPost based on a pricing plan and price guarantee that they lied about.
It left us stuck with an inferior option that's too deeply integrated into our system to swap out without significant cost.
As a result, SparkPost has been a net cost, not a net benefit, to our organization.

Alternatives Considered

Twilio SendGrid Email API and Mailchimp Transactional Email (mandrill)

I'd say SparkPost is probably the worst option of the three email API products I've used. It has the worst customer service, the fewest features, and costs significantly more than SendGrid, even though SendGrid lets you integrate all of Twilio's other features into a broader set of communications media. In addition, the API and documentation were easy enough to use and integrate, but the templating system has also caused a lot of headaches for us.

Support Rating

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.

Key Insights

Do you think SparkPost delivers good value for the price?

Are you happy with SparkPost's feature set?

Did SparkPost live up to sales and marketing promises?

Did implementation of SparkPost go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy SparkPost again?

Other Software Used

Twilio Programmable SMS, Twilio SendGrid Email API, Heroku Platform

Likelihood to Recommend

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.

Comments

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Meh. SparkPost is okay, but there are better options for cheaper, and they've become kinda sleazy.