Customer.io vs EmailOctopus
Pricing
Customer.io: From $100/mo
EmailOctopus: Free up to 2,500 subs, from $9/mo
Description
Customer.io: Behavior-based email and push for SaaS
EmailOctopus: Simple, affordable email marketing
Pros
- Powerful segmentation
- Multi-channel (email, SMS, push)
- Great for product-led growth
- 1/3 the price of Mailchimp for comparable features
- Free tier covers 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails a month
- Simple interface that does not try to be a CRM
Cons
- Expensive for small lists
- Steep learning curve
- Automation is basic: no complex branching or conditional workflows
- Email template library is small compared to Mailchimp or MailerLite
- Free tier holds fewer subscribers than Kit (formerly ConvertKit), which allows 10,000
Details
Customer.io sends messages based on what users actually do in your product. Founded by Colin Nederkoorn, “fundstrapped” (took some money but runs like bootstrapped). Took 18 months to hit $10k MRR, now at $100M ARR. Great for SaaS doing product-led growth.
EmailOctopus offers email marketing at roughly a third of Mailchimp’s price. Built on Amazon SES for reliable delivery at low cost.
Bootstrapped to $3M ARR by Jonathan Bull and Tom Evans. Remote team of 9, serving 92,000+ organizations across 119 countries.
Verified
