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The landscape for SaaS email tools is complex and ever-changing. Should you ever need to compare the alternatives, we prepared all the information for you.
Intercom is a great all-in-one tool that does many things at once: live chat, the entire support helpdesk, knowledge base, etc. While Userlist is focused on customer messaging for SaaS companies, which makes it much easier to use.
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Customer.io is one of the most popular tools for customer messaging. This multi-channel automation software can deliver emails, SMS and push notifications. Given their price range and users limit available, it's ideal for bigger data-driven companies with a high user base. Userlist, on the other hand, is better suited for small and medium-sized SaaS businesses.
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Drip is a popular email marketing & SMS tool that focuses exclusively in ecommerce. It gives you numerous ways to segment your audience and build complex automations at an affordable price. In that sense it is not comparable to Userlist, since their markets are quite different, and Userlist deeply focuses on SaaS customer communication.
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ConvertKit is a popular email marketing tool for bloggers. Its free plan and nice automation features make it ideal for beginners in the email marketing world, and creators that want to keep in touch with their audience. It was not built for SaaS, so Userlist is a much better choice for founders and product owners.
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Autopilot is another great all-around marketing tool with diverse features, like building advanced automations and email flows. It is mostly focused on lead generation and lead nurturing for any kind of industry. If you want to bring in new customers to your company, then Autopilot is for you. If you want to build relationships and nurture your curent SaaS customers, then Userlist is the ideal option.
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Vero is a customer communication tool that is ideal for sending email and mobile push notifications. Its architecture makes it slightly more complicated with quite a bit of a learning curve. Userlist is equally effective, but a lot easier to set up and use.
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Gist's "all-in-one" bundle includes support and marketing features, making it a good "all-in-one" tool for any industry. It's cost-effective, but the email automation features are only available in the higher plans. If you want versatility in your communication, then Gist might be for you. But if you're in SaaS and concerned about effective and timely customer communication, then you might prefer Userlist.
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Drift is a popular tool that really sells you on it's "conversational marketing" philosophy. At heart, it's an advanced chatbot that allows you to build flows for lead generation as well as customer support. At that price range, it is ideal only if you're particularly keen on using chat in your business. Userlist follows a completely different approach — no chat, purely informational in-app messages, so that you can focusing on running your SaaS.
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Everybody know Mailchimp for its famous free plan (and the monkey mascot). That's enough to make it the industry leader, since most businesses do not need the sophistication of other email marketing tools. If you only need regular broadcast emails to your list, Mailchimp is for you. If you are in SaaS and want targeted behavior-based communication with your users, stay away from it. Userlist is a better choice, hands-down.
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Pendo is great for web apps as it gives you all the features you could need for product-led growth. It does it well, and has no shortage of features or tracking abilities. The downsides are that communication is entirely in-app, and the tool totally lacks email marketing features. Great tool for what id does, but if you want something a bit more flexible, Userlist could be your choice. Otherwise you may need to pay for a second email marketing automation tool.
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Bento is a tool for anyone who wants to track their website visitors (as well as users) and communicate with them in multiple ways. You can send broadcast emails, create surveys, talk via live chat, have marketing automation and attribution analytics. All at an affordable price. Userlist is deeply focused on SaaS customers after they sign up, which makes it much easier to use.
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Mixpanel's value proposition is clear: It is one of the most powerful product analytics tools out there. You can discover almost anything about the behaviour of your website or app users, and even send some behavior-based messages (even though not many people are aware of that). The biggest downside is the steep pricing after the free plan runs out. Userlist doesn't offer product analytics, but can offer insights on individual user behavior, and focuses on behavior-based messages.
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Encharge keeps it simple. It is a pure marketing automation tool, specializeicd on SaaS. While it does not offer many product-related features, it does traditional email communications, integrating well with your app, using its events-based system. If you are mostly interested in email marketing, then Encharge is for you. If you also need in-app notifications as a channel, then Userlist is definitely the better choice.
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Beamer is a unique product that focuses basically on a single thing: notifications inside your web app. It is the perfect product for companies that want to communicate regular updates and announcements for their users. Userlist provides email in addition to in-app messaging, and offers a whole behavior-based automation system for SaaS founders.
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HelpCrunch is a reliable and flexible tool for customer support. Its chat, knowledge base and help desk features help customers find answers without much friction. Also, the ability to send out email broadcasts adds to its value. However, it doesn't offer any behavior-based automation. While serving the same market, Userlist and HelpCrunch are not direct alternatives as their feature set is rather different.
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Chameleon is one of the priciest customer messaging tools out there, but there is a reason for that. It provides you with the most complete set of tools for customer onboarding and in-app notifications. However, it doesn't offer any email automation. If you need behavior-based emails in addition to in-app notifications, then Userlist is your choice.
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Userpilot helps you create engaging onboarding experiences and increase product adoption, integrating flawlessly with any web application. If you have the budget for these very specific needs, then Userpilot is for you. However, it doesn't offer any email automation. Userlist, at a fraction of that price gives you in-app notifications, as well as behavior-based email. Clearly a better deal for startups who want to use multiple channels for user onboarding.
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Salesforce Pardot is one of the most robust marketing automation tools for enterprise level companies, focusing on B2B sales. That is made clear by the advanced features, as well as its steep pricing. Userlist plays in a completely different field, is reasonably priced, and offers in-app notifications as another communication channel. Userlist is clearly a much better choice for startups.
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In terms of marketing features, ActiveCampaign offers nearly everything a human mind can imagine — for any type of business. But does it mean a good experience for you as the user? If you run a SaaS company, we recommend to take a look at tools built specifically for your niche. Userlist doesn't try to be a "one-size-fits-all" tool, but instead provides exceptional service for their audience of SaaS founders and product people.
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Appcues is a fairly expensive tool for in-app onboarding, but you can't send any email with them. Userlist can partially replace Appcues when it comes to in-app messaging, while it also provides event-based email for SaaS. Userlist is clearly a better choice for SaaS companies who're looking for powerful multi-channel messaging automation.
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Mixpanel is sunsetting their Messages feature in 2021, and Userlist is a perfect alternative if you're looking to switch. Userlist can send automated emails to your users based on specific actions and events they take. As a bonus, you can use in-app messages as another channel in your campaigns.
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"Userlist has quickly become one of my must-have SaaS tools. It's so well designed and focused on customer messaging, unlike other bloated products I've used before."
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