Top 5 Customer.io Alternatives

Customer.io is a renowned Customer Engagement Platform (CEP) that allows business to reach their users via multiple messaging channels. However, in recent years, the competition in this industry has significantly intensified, resulting in the emergence of numerous alternatives to Customer.io.

Customer.io - A brief introduction

Customer.io is a scalable customer engagement platform designed to cater to the needs of your growing business. It has positioned itself as a tool for tech-savvy marketers and developers in SMBs and startups.

Key Features of Customer.io

1. Multiple Communication Channels: You can seamlessly integrate email, SMS, push notifications, in-app messaging, and webhooks within a single workflow.
2. Seamless Integration: Customer.io offers direct and third-party data integrations, along with multiple options for importing and exporting data. It also provides Transactional and RESTful APIs to facilitate smooth data interactions.
3. Robust Segmentation Engine: You can take advantage of a powerful segmentation engine that doesn't impose limitations on messages, attributes, triggers, and more. This allows for highly targeted and personalized communication.
4. Intuitive Workflow Builder: The platform offers an intuitive workflow builder that enables you to create sophisticated automated campaigns triggered by various factors such as segments, events, dates, forms, and webhooks.
5. Flexible Data Model: Customer.io provides a flexible data model that includes integrated data warehouse synchronization, batch updates, and complex nesting. This ensures efficient management of your data.
6. Pricing: Pricing starts at $100 per month and includes unlimited events and attribute data, SMS, connected forms, and deliverability monitoring.

Although Customer.io is widely recognized as an intuitive platform and has gained popularity for valid reasons, given below are the top 5 Customer.io alternatives we have compiled that might better suit your business needs.

Braze

Choose if: You are a mobile-first mid-market or enterprise business looking for a comprehensive Customer Engagement Platform.

1. Multi-channel messaging: Allows for engagement across push, mobile, SMS, and in-app messages.
2. Strength/unique feature: Its shape-based filters (rectangle, pentagon, custom-shaped) for location-based targeting. It also provides a Canvas Flow feature for building multi-channel automated campaigns, albeit exclusive to annual plan users.
3. Main geography of operations: Braze has most of its customers in the US.
4. Analytics: It helps build campaign analytics and provide actionable reports.
5. Pricing: Braze's pricing is tied to data consumption, which can be advantageous for businesses that have predictable data usage patterns. In general, Braze will be much more expensive than Customer.io owing to its enterprise capabilities.

Iterable

Choose if: You are a mobile-first mid-market or enterprise business looking for a comprehensive Customer Engagement Platform.

1. Multi-channel messaging: Iterable functions as a comprehensive cross-channel marketing platform that allows you to send personalized messages across push, emails, SMS, and in-app messages.
2. Strength/unique feature: A distinctive feature of Iterable is its recently introduced "embedded message" functionality, which seamlessly integrates native message placements that dynamically adjust based on individual user data, all without the need for coding.
3. Main geography of operations: Iterable has most of its customers in the US.
4. Analytics: It also excels in A/B testing and provides campaign analytics, configurable dashboards, and custom reporting options.
5. Pricing: Iterable is priced like Braze, and will generally be much more expensive than Customer.io.

OneSignal

Choose if: You are a startup or SMB in need of a self-serve CEP.

1. Multi-channel messaging: OneSignal functions as a comprehensive cross-channel marketing platform that allows you to send personalized messages across push, emails, SMS, and in-app messages.
2. Strength/unique feature: A notable advantage of OneSignal is its "Confirmed Delivery" feature, which tracks successful device receipt of notifications and notification permission changes, providing a more accurate understanding of notification delivery.
3. Main geography of operations: OneSignal has most of its customers in the US.
4. Analytics: Advanced Analytics serves as a turn-key solution for measuring, reporting, and uncovering actions users take on your website or app.
5. Pricing: Its freemium model makes it an easily accessible self-serve solution, particularly advantageous for smaller businesses seeking a seamless start without any hindrances.

Klaviyo

Choose if: You are an E-Commerce startup or SMB.

1. Multi-channel messaging: Klaviyo functions as comprehensive cross-channel marketing across push, emails, and SMS. Also provides seamless integration with Facebook and Instagram
2. Strength/unique feature: Klaviyo allows you to send any number of messages without any volume limitations. This means you have the freedom to send SMS campaigns of any size, whether it's a small targeted campaign or a large-scale promotional blast.
3. Main geography of operations: Klaviyo is leading in most countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and many more.
4. Analytics: It helps build campaign analytics, interpret reports, and improve performance against industry benchmarks.
5. Pricing: Klaviyo’s prices get progressively larger as you add new profiles to your contact list. If you have less than 250 contacts, you can’t upgrade to non-free tiers. And if you have more than 250 contacts at once time, you’ll be forced to upgrade to a paid plan.

MoEngage

Choose if: You have your customer base largely based out of India and APAC region.

1. Multi-channel messaging: MoEngage functions as comprehensive cross-channel marketing across push, emails, WhatsApp, SMS, and basic in-app messaging.
2. Strength/unique feature: The stand-out feature of MoEngage has integrated with WhatsApp, given it is a relevant channel of communication in APAC.
3. Main geography of operations: India and APAC regions
4. Analytics: MoEngage is jam-packed with comprehensive behavioral analytics you could hope for. It enables performing cohort analysis, managing conversion funnels, and uninstall tracking.
5. Pricing: MoEngage offers MAU-based pricing. It provides a Starter package that is free with a restriction of up to 10,000 MAUs. Apart from this, MoEngage alone has a $1000 entry-level set-up fee.

Downsides of Customer.io and its alternatives

To summarize, Customer.io and its alternatives specialize in outside-app communication channels like push notifications, emails, and SMS.

However, with these channels now saturating, click-through rates (CTRs) have declined, resulting in reduced effectiveness. In today's landscape, it is crucial for B2C brands to engage their users while they are actively using the app, necessitating the adoption of in-app engagement strategies.

How to choose the right Customer.io alternative?

Ultimately, the best Customer.io alternative for your business will depend on your specific needs, goals, and preferences. Here are key some key takeaways:

1. Braze and Iterable are good alternatives to Customer.io if you're a mobile-first mid-market or enterprise company.
2. OneSignal has a self-serve motion which is easier to get started with and suits most SMBs and startups.
3. CleverTap is more dominant in India/APAC. If you're in these regions, WhatsApp can be an important marketing channel. CleverTap can be the right choice in this case as it allows marketing on WhatsApp.
4. Klaviyo and Emarsys stands out as a top choice for solving eCommerce use cases.
5. All the above excel only in outside-app engagement channels like push, email, and SMS.

Final thoughts

By thoroughly researching and comparing the above options, you can make a well-informed choice that aligns with your customer engagement strategy in 2023 and beyond.

If you're interested in learning more about how you can engage your users inside your app to help you drive activation, retention, and monetization metrics, check out our ultimate guide to in-app nudges.