Need advice on automated product and marketing mails

[RobMartin]

Anyone have an email automation tool they recommend that’s good for both automated product emails and marketing emails? I’ve been looking at a few out there (mailchimp, sendgrid, hubspot, etc.) but they can get pretty pricey, especially for an early stage startup. Wondering when folks started looking into email automation tools and if they have any in particular that they really like

[SamanthaYuan]

We use Autopilot for marketing emails. We like it but don’t LOVE it (have had some minor deliverability issues in the past). Pricing based on contact list size and its reasonable (no free option though). You can hook it up as a segment destination and pass analytics events to trigger emails or eject from drips

Autopilot Pricing: marketing automation, CRM and add-ons

[RisaButler]

Postmark for transactional emails (expensive but worth it IMO)

[vladpodpoly]

Pretty happy with Sendgrid, though I’ve ended up using Hubspot as well for their WYSIWYG editor

[DonovanOkang]

Have used Autopilot in the past and agree with Jack’s feedback. Definitely the most affordable I came across in my last seed stage startup, but customer.io is potentially another worth checking out. Sendgrid is great for transactional and would recommend over Mandrill and Mailgun which I’ve also used.

[JesusRojas]

+1 to the above. Customer.io has excellent options for what you are looking for. We are trying to use customer.io mainly for targeted segmentation based on usage and generic types of emails. We do marketing emails Hubspot, but you could get away with doing this with the Broadcast feature in customer.io. The real value is if you hook it up with Segment. Postmark is great for transactional emails - we use that for verifications, notifications, etc. I like working with both a lot!

[AngelaBlue]

We also used customer.io at my former startup and were happy with it - particularly with its features and pricing for the stage we were in. We are currently using SendGrid for transactional but will be bringing on a new platform this next month for the B2C side of the business, which may have us move our transactional and marketing emails to one platform (will report back my experience with this new platform as we are onboarding now).

[CarolynMiles]

@AngelaBlue, I am going through similar decisions as we have a lot of issues with Sendgrid (not sure if it’s how we are using it or the platform itself). Can you share which marketing automation tool did you pick for B2C? Hubspot? Braze?

[PaulineFrancis]

We use customer.io and find it really easy to use and adaptable!

[KaranTrivedi]

@RobMartin, have you looked at HubSpot for Startups ? I’ve done 3 Hubspot implementations in the last 12 months with relatively low pricing for the early stage ones - the start-ups being at: Series A, Seed, and mature/close to IPO. Questions to answer: How complex are the automations you want to do? Size of database? Will you be using Segment for data management (then I don’t recommend HS, their integration is subpar unless you pay up a level).Depending on a lot of those factors, for basics, easy to manage, then HS works, as does stuff like customer.io etc. For something more complex if you think it’ll scale fast and you need more flexibility, you may want to look into a Segment + orchestration focused CDP combo.

[YuriRoman]

@Karan, thank you for all the info! I’m looking into a Hubspot + Segment integration. Do you know if the integration will work to send usage-based emails (ex: send an email after user does x in the app) or is it only for more transactional emails? Any info is appreciated. Thank you!