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Mailjet vs SendGrid: What are the differences?
Introduction:
In this article, we will compare the key differences between Mailjet and SendGrid, two popular email service providers. Both Mailjet and SendGrid offer email delivery services and have various features and functionalities. However, there are several distinct differences between these two platforms that we will explore.
Pricing Structure: Mailjet and SendGrid have different pricing models. Mailjet offers both a free plan and paid plans that are based on the number of emails sent per month and additional features. SendGrid, on the other hand, offers a tiered pricing structure based on the number of emails sent per month, with different features available in each plan. This difference in pricing models may influence the cost-effectiveness for different users based on their specific needs.
User Interface: The user interfaces of Mailjet and SendGrid differ in terms of design and navigation. Mailjet provides a simple and intuitive interface that emphasizes ease of use. SendGrid, on the other hand, offers a more comprehensive and advanced interface with a range of features, which may be advantageous for users with more complex email marketing needs.
Email Templates: Mailjet and SendGrid have different approaches to email templates. Mailjet offers a drag-and-drop email builder, allowing users to create visually appealing templates without coding knowledge. SendGrid, on the other hand, offers a template language with a more technical approach, enabling users to customize email templates using HTML and CSS. The choice between these two approaches depends on the user's preference and level of technical expertise.
Email Deliverability: While both Mailjet and SendGrid prioritize email deliverability, they have different mechanisms in place. Mailjet uses a proprietary algorithm that monitors and optimizes email deliverability, taking into account factors such as sender reputation, content, and recipient engagement. SendGrid, on the other hand, utilizes email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to enhance email deliverability. The effectiveness of these mechanisms may vary depending on the specific requirements of the user.
Integration and APIs: Mailjet and SendGrid provide integration options and APIs to seamlessly connect with other platforms and services. However, the availability of integrations and APIs differs between the two platforms. Mailjet offers a range of native integrations and APIs for popular platforms like WordPress, Magento, and Microsoft Azure. SendGrid also offers various integrations and APIs but may have a wider range of options and compatibility with different platforms.
Customer Support: The level of customer support provided by Mailjet and SendGrid varies. Mailjet offers email support to all users, while paid plans receive priority support with faster response times. SendGrid provides 24/7 email and chat support to all users, with different levels of assistance available based on the plan selected. Depending on the user's requirements and preferences for customer support, this difference may be a deciding factor.
In summary, Mailjet and SendGrid differ in their pricing structure, user interface, email template options, email deliverability mechanisms, integration possibilities, and customer support offerings. Users should consider these key differences to choose the platform that aligns best with their specific requirements.
For transactional emails, notifications, reminders, etc, I want to make it so writers/designers can set up the emails and maintain them, and then dynamically insert fields, that I then replace when actually sending the mail from code.
I think the ability to use a basic layout template across individual email templates would make things a lot easier (think header, footer, standard typography, etc).
What is best for this? Why would you prefer Mailgun, SendGrid, Mandrill or something else?
If you need your emails to be sent in a time-sensitive manner, I'd recommend SendGrid. We were using Mailgun and the lag because they aren't "transactional" in nature caused issues for us. SendGrid also has the ability to do dynamic templates and bulk send from their API. I don't know that they have the shared layout ability you mentioned, though.
The only transactional email service that I've been able to stomach is Postmark! It is by far the easiest (and quickest to get feedback from) service that I have come across. While drowning in attempts to debug Mandril, Mailgun and others I get quick feedback from Postmark in what I need to do.
Postmark for the win!
We are using more extensively Mandrill.
It is a ok tool, which gives you the power for emailing with nice set of features.
The templates editing and management is a bit tricky, but this is mostly related to email templates in general, which are hard to create and maintain.
I do not think you can share the parts of the templates. You can have your predefined templates with possibility to insert dynamic content.
They provide a limited possibility to preview and test your templates.
The template editor is text only. For the better editors checkout http://topol.io or https://mosaico.io
Unfortunately, I do not have experience with the other tools and possibilities to manage templates.
At this stage, all of the tools you mentioned do email delivery pretty well. They all support email templates as well. Here are some considerations:
- Twilio owns SendGrid. If you're an existing Twilio customer, in my opinion that's a good reason to use SendGrid over the other solutions. The APIs are solid, and Twilio has excellent developer tools that allow you to create interesting automations (which is important for scaling).
- Mandrill was created by MailChimp, who have massive experience with email delivery and specifically with emailing beautiful email templates.
- Mailgun is a tool on its own. Like the other two, it supports mail templates and is built to be controlled almost exclusively via APIs.
SendGrid and Mandrill have pretty nice WYSIWIG template editors as part of their platform. Not so sure about Mailgun.
So for me the considerations would be: 1. How easy is it for you to integrate with their API? How complete is their API in terms of your own specific needs? 2. Prices: Which one works best for my budget? 3. Am I OK with editing the templates elsewhere (or even by hand), and then pasting the code into Mailgun? Or do I want the comfort of Mandrill or Sendgrid with their WYSIWYG editors?
Personally I'd go with Twilio, simply because it's such a massive ecosystem they are less likely to go bankrupt, and their APIs are rock solid.
We chose Postmark as our transactional email service for several reasons:
Laser-focus (at the time) on transactional email - their success/speed/reliability with delivering transactional email is amazing. Note, they have now branched out and offer marketing/broadcast email services too.
Developer-friendly - Awesome docs and resources. Their Rail gem integrates directly with ActionMailer so nearly all of our code worked without changes.
Servers - You can set up "Servers" for different mail streams/workflows to keep things separate and easy to review.
Bootstrapped - Wildbit (who makes Postmark) is bootstrapped just like the Friendliest.app and they offer a service credit to other bootstrapped startups.
Of course we chose Coresender to send our own transactional emails :) So I thought I'll let you know how we use it.
We set up separate sending accounts for all company needs, eg. transactional emails, monitoring alerts, time to inbox. We even configured our office printers to send emails through Coresender.
We have a real-time and extremely usable view into what emails go through each account, so each time anybody reports an email not arriving we're able to assist them in a few seconds
We utilize our message timeline feature, so we can learn eg. if people are clicking on password reset links
We always know how many of our onboarding emails are being opened which helps us improve them
Finally, we have full controll over our suppressions lists, so we can add (and remove!) from them whenever necessary.
To sum up, at Coresender we're eating our own dogfood and it helps us stay connected to the product and understand our customers better.