An Easy to Use Email Marketing Software

The detailed stats from each email campaign is amazing, and the Unsubscribe groups option really helped with GDPR compliance

Pros

1. On the bottom left side of the dashboard is a small reputation percentage bar, that measures your reputation. The bar is updated daily based on your email sends, your reputation goes down if your email bounces or is marked as spam.
2. Stats: SendGrid provides A LOT of data on the performance of your email campaigns, these stats are: Requests, Delivered, Opens, Unique Opens, Clicks, Unique Clicks, Unsubscribes, Spam Reports, Bounces, Blocks, Bounce Drops, Spam Report Drops, Unsubscribe Drops and Invalid Emails. SendGrid also provides stats such as: Global Stats, Category Stats, Category Comparison, Subuser Stats, Subuser Comparison, Geographical, Email Clients & Devices, Mailbox Provider Stats, Mailbox Provider Comparison, Browser Stats, and Browser Comparison
3. A/B Testing
4. Unsubscribe Groups: This is without doubt my favorite feature from SendGrid. When you click on "Marketing" on the left side of your dashboard, and select tour from the drop down, it sort of lists steps to set up for sending marketing emails. Step 3 on the list of things to do is to create unsubscribe groups. Here you can Create groups that represent types of email that you regularly send to your recipients. If a recipient chooses to unsubscribe, they will have the option of selecting which of these groups they want to unsubscribe from.

Cons

1. The Email templates in SendGrids gallery are a bit basic which initially wasn't a problem as I liked creating my own template, but I did not like how I couldn't modify the "columns" module to my taste.

I wanted to create a template with three columns with the center column bigger than the two on the side. The idea was to have my client's images linking to their projects (On their websites) on the side columns, with the write up in the center column.
However, that couldn't be done (At least so far it seems so as I can't find any option to tweak the size/width of each column) as each column has an equal width.

2. No automation function: I'd like to create a sort of If/Then sequence where I can resend an email to a group of people after x days, for example, I'd like to resend an email (With a different heading of course) to people who have not opened the first email after four days.

Get into the SendGrid Accelerate Program

Our company currently uses SendGrid for all promotional and transactional marketing emails. Our marketing team designs via the HTML editor all our promotional emails, A/B tests, category stats, and segments contact lists inside SendGrid. Our backend RoR setup up the majority of the implementation - he claimed it to be exceptionally easy. For us SendGrid allows us to keep track of all our emails in one place. Rather than having one email service provider for promotional emails (ActiveCampaign, MailChimp, etc) and one email service provider for transactional emails (Mailgun, Mandrill, etc.), we are able to have them all in one place.

Pros

Compared to other email service providers, SendGrid has an exceptional deliverability rate. Being a global company and have thousands of users all over the world, we have never had an issue with delivering emails. Over 99% on all promotional campaigns and a near perfect rate on all our transactional emails.

SendGrid has an extremely simple UI/UX. From creating emails in the editor via HTML or drag & drop, to being able to manage our unsubscribe lists and even viewing KPIs on emails and specific categories; SendGrid is extremely intuitive.

Being a startup and going through an accelerator program in the GAN network, we were able to take advantage of SendGrid Accelerate program and leverage SendGrid training, resources, and early beta access to new products. Not to mention their dedicated IP address.

Cons

I've had trouble setting up their tracking with our website via Google Tag Manager. Followed their instructions and ended up contacting SendGrid support and they said that we needed to implement the code on the actual website. Wish we could have it done with Google Tag Manager.

SendGrid recently launched automation/sequences. While this is still in beta, they have a weird setup where you must configure your entire contact list twice to be able to put contacts through the automation. It will be interesting to see their roadmap for this product as they continue to develop the marketing side of their product.

SendGrid offers a great transactional email API, but deliverability & support issues hold it back

Easy integration into our platform and deliverability metrics. Dedicated IP, if you pay for it.

Pros

We use SendGrid for transactional emails, such as welcome messages & notifications. Generally, SendGrid offers great tools to integrate emails into a variety of different application platforms and programming languages. We really like its level of detail when checking on the status of emails. Sendgrid is also free for basic transactional emails, which makes it easy to try and ensure it will work with your application. We use a third-party library called Nodemailer with Sendgrid, so switching from a different service to Sendgrid was trivial.

Cons

While the service is easy to use and offers comprehensive email activity metrics, there are a few things about it we didn't like. First, because the free tier uses shared IPs, we consistently had emails that wouldn't get delivered because of IP blocks. There were a handful of IPs that we had that experience with, and it persisted for weeks -- without any support intervention. Sendgrid must have deliverability metrics on their side as well, so I am surprised they didn't drop these IPs from their IP pool proactively. We had to upgrade to the PRO plan, which was the least expensive plan that had a dedicated IP. We also had to pay extra for 30 days of email history, you get 3 days by default. I'd love to see all these options be a-la-carte, but I get that you need to make revenue somehow, and few companies send enough emails to justify jumping to the next paid plan -- unless you NEED that deliverability guarantee that you get w/ dedicated IPs, which we did.

Sendgrid shines on mass mailing, but lacks some required features

Transactional email

Pros

Sendgrid is ready for your scale. From the smallest Saas apps to the largest enterprises, Sendgrid was built with scale in mind. It handles transactional emails very well, and is relatively simple to integrate into your codebase or product workflow. Templates come out of the box, but some coding knowledge is needed to style transactional emails. All templates can be easily versioned.

Concerns on security and blacklisting are limited. As long as you follow their recommendations, Sendgrid will deliver your email.

Pricing is very fair and generous. In years of use, I've never gone over a plan limit.

Cons

Functionality can be limited in interesting ways depending on your plan. On the most basic paid plans, several code features are just missing. Reporting is the most glaring issue, with basic reporting showing only a rolling group of recently sent emails. Without a deeper dive into your logs, you may miss issues.

Transactional emails also lack some features that seem required, like weblinks for email and easy native unsubscribe. There are workarounds for both, but not without challenges. Version tracking for templates is also completely missing, unless you use new versions for each edit you make.

Long time customer with 15+ active accounts

SendGrid was the first to market and has grown more and more powerful over the years, while keeping pricing low and even free pending your needs. Excited to continue plugging it into my side projects and companies.

Pros

I've used SendGrid for years. They have a 1-click "provision" feature inside the Heroku app store that starts at $0 /month until you hit profit-worthy volume (10k+ emails /month).

The API for sending transactional emails is great, however I have not tried their email marketing feature.

I'm such a big SendGrid fan, in fact, that I built a free SendGrid analytics tool that generates reports for other customers (+ myself) to send better transactional emails: https://lesstransactional.com.

Cons

While building our free SendGrid analytics tool, it became apparent that the "Email Activity" API has a much lower rate limit (ie 10 requests per 5 minutes) than the regular sending APIs.

This required us to make restrictive changes to the app at the last minute, and their support team was unwilling to increase the rate limit for our use case.

Awesome software!

We send approximately 300K emails per month and Sendgrid made this job very easy for us. I strongly recommend this software.

Pros

We needed an email server provider for our web application and my friend recommended me Sendgrid 3 years ago. We are still using it without any problem. Our Pro 300K plan gives us a clean, dedicated IP address so our automatic emails don't end up in Spam folders.

You can observe the email's journey and get various analytics on how many emails are delivered, how many people have opened, how many clicks etc.

Our marketing team also started to use Sendgrid to send newsletters. It is very easy to manage contact lists and subscriptions.

Customer support is great. They helped a lot whenever we have a question or problem.

API documentation is clean and thorough.

Cons

Website menu structure is a bit complicated and left menu fonts are faded. It is hard to read the menu elements. It's color should be darker.

We use SendGrid to send emails from our database. It does a fabulous job!

They consistently send out my emails and help us comply with the CAN-SPAM act. They help us make sure people are getting the emails they want but not the ones they don't. I can't imagine trying to manage our emails without them.

Pros

It sends emails from our database. The set up for that was extremely easy, and as a non-profit, the pricing is extremely affordable. It allows us to see general statistics for our emails as well as monitor whether a specific recipient actually opened a specific email or clicked on it. It also notifies us if someone clicks spam or unsubscribes so we can remove them from our database. It's easy to monitor what is happening to our emails. When we were somehow blacklisted by AT&T, we were able to catch that quickly and get it resolved.

Cons

SendGrid campaigns is a little difficult to work with. Also, their unsubscribe groups doesn't seem to work as well as I would like. It is difficult to know exactly what categories of email people are wanting to receive.

SendGrid is a reliable email platform.

I have been using SendGrid for the last two years. It is very easy to use. You can design your mail or edit the SendGrid templates. Also there is a code editor. So you can make changes in the code. So you can change the style or make it responsive by writing media query. So you don't have to be bothered about the design issues in sending a mail. Also marketing mails can be send to list of users just by a button click. There are many features which helps you in email marketing and automated email delivery. Thank you team for this wonderful product.

Pros

SendGrid is the best email delivery platform I have ever used. I am a developer and to send automated mails from website was a major concern for me. But using SendGrid I can easily send mail. APIs is easily available and you can design your mail just by some drag and drop. Also there are many templates available in SendGrid. You can just edit the templates and add your images just by uploading to SendGrid photo gallery. Transactional mail templates can be created by desin or code. This is the main attractive part in SendGrid. Also you can upload your users base and send mail to multiple users just by a button click. So SendGrid can be easily used for marketing purpose. So I will say, this is a best option for email delivery service.

Cons

Even if SendGrid is easy, for a beginner it is a little confusing. Because you will not know where to design your template in transactional or legacy . But once you are familiar with it, SendGrid is the best.

SendGrid Review

Our business Server is located with GoDaddy and their email delivery service is basically Black Listed which was a real problem for our mass mailer. We found SendGrid and decided to Port our Server's emails delivery via them. We ordered a dedicated IP address and our mailing have been flawless in delivery providing all the data one would need to manage email deliveries and an manage delivery to keep from being accused of spamming or popping up on Black Listings. If we have any issues or questions customer service is always there for us. Thanks for your business, RG Grant & Associates Web Service Your Window to the World Wide Web webmaster@grantweb.com

Pros

For a mail delivery service SendGrid provides all all the data and options a customer could ask for.

Customer Service is one of the best. Courtesy and knowledgeable they are one of the few companies I actually enjoy speaking with.

Cons

None to speak of. Customer Service is always on the top of their game providing Superior service whenever it's needed.

The best mail service provider for marketing and transactional emails.

I have been working with Sendgrid for more than 2 years and it really has been very helpful. It's perfect when you need to send transactional mails, for example password recovery or notifications to users from your website. or custom marketing campaigns. You can implement on your App easily with his Full Documented API or via SMTP. The free forever plan is perfect when you're starting a website or application and still do not have enough users. You can also easily upgrade your plan in order to get more emails monthly . Recommended with closed eyes.

Pros

1. Have AB Testing enable.
2. Manage unsubscribe emails.
3. Easy to Integrate via API or SMTP.
4. Email Reputation indicator.
5.Full detailed report. You can see if the email it's blocked, bounced or delivered.
6. Have a Forever Free plan . (40.000 Emails in the trial period, then 100 Emails Daily forever)

Cons

Send grid interface it's a little bit confuse.

No more cons to highlight, for me it's a perfect tool.

Send Effective Email Marketing Campaigns

SendGrid allows us to effectively and efficiently email market to a large database of B2B and B2C subscribers. It can be incredibly beneficial in reaching your target markets at the right time and the right place.

Pros

SendGrid gives you the power to email market more effectively, regardless of your skill level. Whether you are looking to custom build your HTML templates, or would like to build out their standard templates, SendGrid offers an intuitive software to help you improve your marketing efficiency. The platform also makes it easier to build more comprehensive distribution lists, and allows you to target your messaging to the right people at the right time.

Cons

The only limiting factor of SendGrid is the fact that the tiered pricing may not make sense for all business models. It would be nice to have more notifications with regard to deliverability/reputation issues that occur.

Using sendgrid for the last 5 years

Pros

We have integrated sendgrid API. They provide us with good email deliverability which is a key factor for us. The stats about the email campaigns they send are near accurate and we can trust them. We also use an alternate service provider just to make sure that emails blocked by sendgrid are delivered through that provider.

Sendgrid also provides us with interesting articles via their insiders program. I found that insightful and engaging. We can get opinions from experts in the area there.

Cons

If you are planning to reach out to recipients who have opted in to receive emails, then sendgrid works best. If you are planning to send marketing emails to anyone who didn't subscribe with you chose another email service provider.