12 Best Knock Alternatives

Our Pick for SaaS Companies

Sequenzy

Email marketing for SaaS with AI content generation and native Stripe integration. Not multi-channel like Knock, but purpose-built for SaaS email marketing.

While Knock handles notification infrastructure across channels, Sequenzy focuses exclusively on making email work for SaaS — AI generates complete onboarding, conversion, and retention sequences from a product description, and Stripe integration automatically syncs subscription events to trigger the right emails. If you're using Knock mainly for email notifications and marketing, Sequenzy does that specific job better and at a fraction of the cost. No in-app bells or push, but the email experience is significantly richer.

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Best for

SaaS teams needing email marketing with Stripe sync

Pricing

$49/month for 10k subscribers

Pros

Purpose-built for SaaS email marketing
AI generates entire email sequences
Native Stripe integration
5x cheaper than Knock at 10k contacts
Unified transactional + marketing

Cons

No in-app notifications
No push or SMS
Email only - not multi-channel
Different purpose than Knock

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Novu

Open-source notification infrastructure. Self-hostable if you want control, or use their cloud.

Best Knock alternative for teams wanting open-source. Novu mirrors Knock's multi-channel approach — email, push, SMS, in-app, and chat — but lets you run the entire stack on your own infrastructure if you want. The in-app notification center component is the closest open-source equivalent to Knock's notification bell. Cloud pricing starts at $30/month after a free tier, which is dramatically cheaper than Knock's $250 jump. The project has strong community momentum with regular updates. The trade-off is that it's less polished than Knock's commercial offering, and self-hosting requires real DevOps effort to run reliably in production.

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Best for

Teams wanting open-source notification infrastructure

Pricing

Free (open-source) or $30/mo cloud

Pros

Open-source and self-hostable
Multi-channel (email, push, SMS, in-app)
More affordable cloud pricing than Knock
Growing community
Full control if self-hosted

Cons

Self-hosting requires DevOps resources
Less polished than Knock
Smaller ecosystem
Documentation still improving

Customer.io

Enterprise behavioral messaging platform. Multi-channel like Knock but with stronger marketing automation.

More expensive but more powerful. Where Knock is notification infrastructure (send this message through these channels), Customer.io is behavioral marketing automation (when this user does X, trigger Y across channels with personalization). It tracks granular product usage and lets you build complex multi-step workflows with conditional branches based on user behavior. Email, push, SMS, and in-app messages are all supported from the same workflow builder. At $100/month for 5k profiles, it's cheaper than Knock's paid tier while offering significantly more marketing capability. The learning curve is steeper, but for PLG companies the behavioral targeting is worth it.

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Best for

PLG companies with complex behavioral automation

Pricing

$100/month for 5,000 profiles (Essentials)

Pros

Multi-channel (email, push, SMS, in-app)
Powerful behavioral automation
Marketing + notifications in one
Excellent API
More marketing features than Knock

Cons

More expensive than Knock free tier
Steep learning curve
No in-app notification UI components
Requires engineering resources

OneSignal

Push notification pioneer that added email. Strong for mobile apps. Good Knock alternative if push is your primary channel.

OneSignal has been doing push notifications since 2014, and their mobile SDKs are among the most battle-tested in the industry — used by over a million apps. The free tier includes unlimited push for up to 10k subscribers, making it the cheapest way to add push to your app. They've expanded into email and SMS, but push remains the core strength with features like intelligent delivery timing and A/B testing. Unlike Knock, there's no in-app notification feed component, so if your product needs a notification bell, look elsewhere. But for push-first mobile apps, OneSignal is more mature and more affordable.

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Best for

Mobile apps prioritizing push notifications

Pricing

Free up to 10k subscribers, then $9+/mo

Pros

Strong push notification platform
Generous free tier
Good mobile SDKs
Email added as channel
Easy integration

Cons

Email is secondary focus
No in-app notification feeds like Knock
Less sophisticated workflows
Marketing features are basic

MagicBell

Closest Knock competitor for in-app notification UI. Pre-built notification bell components.

Great alternative if in-app is your focus. MagicBell provides drop-in React, Vue, and vanilla JS notification bell components that you can embed in your app with minimal code — similar to what makes Knock appealing, but with a more flexible pricing model. The notification inbox supports read/unread states, categories, and user preferences out of the box. Multi-channel support covers email and push alongside in-app, letting you route notifications to the right channel. The company is smaller than Knock, which means more agile updates but less enterprise credibility. Usage-based pricing starts free for 100 MAU, which is great for testing but can become unpredictable at scale.

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Best for

Teams needing in-app notification components

Pricing

Free up to 100 MAU, usage-based after

Pros

Pre-built in-app notification UI (like Knock)
React, Vue, and vanilla JS components
Multi-channel support
Good developer experience
Generous free tier

Cons

Smaller company than Knock
Less mature platform
Usage-based pricing can be unpredictable
Fewer enterprise features

Courier

Multi-channel notification orchestration with a design-first approach. Visual builder for notification templates.

Good Knock alternative. Courier differentiates itself with a visual template designer that lets non-technical team members design notification content across channels — email, push, SMS, Slack, and more — without touching code. The routing engine handles channel fallbacks (try push, fall back to email) and user preferences automatically. Integration options are broad, connecting to dozens of delivery providers like SendGrid, Twilio, and Firebase. The free tier covers 10k notifications, but the jump to paid is steep at $500+/month, making it even more expensive than Knock. Best suited for teams where design control over notifications matters more than raw cost.

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Best for

Teams wanting visual notification design

Pricing

Free up to 10k notifications, then $500+/mo

Pros

Multi-channel notifications
Visual template designer
Good integration options
Preference management
Notification history

Cons

Expensive after free tier ($500/mo+)
Less in-app focus than Knock
Smaller ecosystem
Less mature than established players

Engagespot

In-app notification bell and multi-channel notifications. More affordable than Knock with similar in-app focus.

Engagespot targets the same in-app notification use case as Knock but at a more accessible price point — the starter plan is $49/month compared to Knock's $250 jump. The notification center component supports real-time updates, categorization, and mark-as-read functionality. Multi-channel routing handles email and push alongside in-app, with a preference center that lets users control how they receive notifications. Developer documentation is solid with SDKs for popular frameworks. The platform is less mature than Knock with a smaller community, but for budget-conscious teams who need in-app notification UI without Knock's premium pricing, it's the most direct affordable alternative.

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Best for

Budget-conscious teams needing in-app notifications

Pricing

Free up to 1k MAU, $49/mo starter

Pros

In-app notification components
Multi-channel support
More affordable than Knock
Good developer documentation
Preference center included

Cons

Less mature than Knock
Smaller community
Fewer integrations
Less enterprise-ready

Resend

Modern transactional email API. Not multi-channel like Knock, but best developer experience for email.

Good if you only need email notifications. Resend was built by developers who were frustrated with the complexity of existing email APIs, and it shows — the SDK design is clean, the documentation is excellent, and React Email integration lets you build email templates with the same component model you use for your app UI. If you're using Knock primarily for email notifications (password resets, receipts, alerts), Resend does that specific job with a much better developer experience. At $20/month for 50k emails, it's dramatically cheaper than Knock's $250 tier. The limitation is clear: email only, no push, no in-app, no SMS.

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Best for

Developers wanting best-in-class email API

Pricing

$20/month for 50,000 emails

Pros

Best developer experience in email
React Email integration
Modern SDKs
Clean API design
Great documentation

Cons

Email only - no push/SMS/in-app
No in-app notification components
No marketing features
Different purpose than Knock

Postmark

Transactional email with exceptional deliverability. Strict customer vetting means better inbox rates.

For email-only notifications. Postmark deliberately rejects bulk marketing senders and spammers, which keeps their IP reputation pristine and means your transactional emails actually land in inboxes — they publish their delivery stats publicly, showing 99%+ inbox rates. If your product depends on time-sensitive email notifications (password resets, two-factor codes, payment confirmations), Postmark's deliverability focus makes it the most reliable option. The API is clean, delivery times are measured in seconds not minutes, and human support responds quickly. At $15/month for 10k emails, it's far cheaper than Knock for email-only use cases. The strict limitation is transactional email only — no marketing campaigns, no push, no in-app.

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Best for

Apps where email deliverability is critical

Pricing

$15/month for 10,000 emails

Pros

Exceptional deliverability
Strict customer vetting protects reputation
Clean developer API
Fast delivery times
Human support

Cons

Email only - no other channels
Transactional only - no marketing
More expensive at high volume
They reject questionable use cases

#10

Loops

SaaS-focused email platform. Transactional + marketing in one. Not multi-channel but good for SaaS email specifically.

Loops was built from scratch for SaaS companies, combining transactional emails (password resets, receipts) and marketing emails (campaigns, sequences) in one platform with a clean, modern interface. The event-based automation system lets you trigger emails based on user actions in your product, similar to how Knock routes notifications but email-only. All features are available on every plan with no tier-gating. The design is opinionated and focused — no e-commerce features, no multi-channel complexity, just email done well for software companies. Gets expensive past 10k contacts and there's no AI content generation, but the simplicity is refreshing.

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Best for

SaaS teams wanting simple email marketing

Pricing

$49/mo for 5k, ~$99/mo for 10k

Pros

Built for SaaS from day one
Transactional + marketing together
Clean, modern interface
Good deliverability
All features on all plans

Cons

Email only
No multi-channel capabilities
No in-app notifications
Gets expensive past 10k subscribers

#11

Firebase Cloud Messaging

Google's free push notification service. Free at any scale but requires building your own infrastructure around it.

FCM is the foundation that most push notification services (including Knock) are built on — it handles the actual delivery of push messages to iOS and Android devices. Using it directly is completely free with no volume limits, which makes it the cheapest possible push solution. Cross-platform support covers iOS, Android, and web push. The trade-off is that you get raw delivery infrastructure without any of the developer-friendly abstractions that Knock provides — no notification center UI, no preference management, no analytics dashboard, no multi-channel routing. You'll need to build all of that yourself, which is why most teams use a service on top of FCM rather than using it directly.

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Best for

Mobile apps on Google ecosystem wanting free push

Pricing

Free

Pros

Completely free
Scales infinitely
Google reliability
Good mobile SDKs
Cross-platform (iOS, Android, Web)

Cons

Push only - no email/SMS
Requires building own infrastructure
No in-app notification UI
No preference management
No analytics dashboard

#12

Pusher Beams

Push notifications from Pusher. Simple to integrate, good for basic push needs. Less feature-rich than Knock.

Pusher Beams is part of the broader Pusher ecosystem that handles real-time communication (Channels for WebSockets, Beams for push). If you're already using Pusher Channels for real-time features in your app, adding Beams for push notifications is a natural extension with a familiar SDK and dashboard. The integration is straightforward with good documentation. At $29/month after a 1k device free tier, it's affordable for basic push. However, it's push-only — no email, SMS, in-app notifications, or the kind of multi-channel orchestration that Knock provides. Best thought of as a simple push add-on rather than a full notification platform replacement.

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Best for

Teams already using Pusher wanting push

Pricing

Free up to 1k devices, then $29/mo

Pros

Simple integration
Good documentation
Reliable infrastructure
Part of Pusher ecosystem
Easy to get started

Cons

Push only
Less sophisticated than Knock
No in-app components
No email/SMS
Basic feature set

Why Consider Alternatives to Knock

The price jump from free to paid is steep

Knock's free tier (10k messages) is generous, but the next step is $250/mo Starter. There's no middle ground for growing startups who've outgrown free but aren't ready for $250/mo.

You only need email, not multi-channel

If you don't need in-app notifications, push, or SMS, you're paying for capabilities you won't use. Purpose-built email platforms like Sequenzy, Resend, or Postmark are more affordable.

You want open-source control

Knock is proprietary. If you want to self-host or have full control over your notification infrastructure, Novu offers an open-source alternative.

In-app notifications aren't your focus

Knock's killer feature is in-app notification UI components. If you don't need those, alternatives like Customer.io or OneSignal may fit better.

Feature

Knock

Sequenzy

Novu

Customer.io

MagicBell

OneSignal

In-app UI

Push

SMS

Free tier

10k messages

100 subs

10k runs

Trial only

100 MAU

10k subs

Open-source

Price after free

$250/mo

$49/mo

$30/mo

$100/mo

Usage-based

$9/mo

When to Use Each Platform

Choose Sequenzy if...

You primarily need SaaS email marketing
Native Stripe integration is valuable
AI-generated email sequences sounds appealing
$49/mo is more appealing than $250/mo

Choose Stay with Knock if...

In-app notification UI is critical for you
You need multi-channel orchestration
The $250/mo price point works for you
You want the most polished experience

Choose Novu if...

You want open-source notification infrastructure
Self-hosting is important to you
You need multi-channel but want more control
Budget is a concern

Choose Customer.io if...

You need behavioral marketing automation
Multi-channel with marketing features
You have PLG product-led growth
Complex user journeys

Choose MagicBell if...

In-app notifications are your focus
You want something similar to Knock but smaller
Usage-based pricing works for you
Modern developer experience matters

Why people look for Knock alternatives

Knock is excellent notification infrastructure, but it's not right for everyone. The in-app notification bell components and multi-channel orchestration are genuinely impressive, but the pricing jump from free (10k messages) to $250/month with no middle tier catches growing startups off guard. And if you're primarily using Knock for email notifications, you're paying a premium for push, SMS, and in-app capabilities you may not need. Here's why teams look elsewhere.

The pricing cliff

Knock's free tier is generous - 10,000 messages per month. But the next step is $250/month. There's no $50 or $100 plan for growing startups. If you've outgrown free but $250/mo feels steep, you're stuck. Read our Knock comparison page for a detailed breakdown.

You only need email

Knock shines with in-app notifications, push, and multi-channel orchestration. If you only need email, you're paying for capabilities you won't use. Email-focused platforms like Sequenzy, Resend, or Postmark are more affordable and purpose-built.

You want open-source

Knock is proprietary. If self-hosting or open-source matters to your team, Novu is the best alternative. Full control, no vendor lock-in, growing community. See our Novu comparison for details.

The alternatives, honestly

For SaaS email marketing: Sequenzy

If you don't need in-app notifications or push, why pay for them? Sequenzy is purpose-built for SaaS email marketing with AI-generated sequences and native Stripe integration. At $49/mo vs Knock's $250/mo, it's 5x cheaper for email-focused use cases.

The catch: email only. No in-app notification bells, no push. If you need those, Sequenzy isn't the answer.

For open-source control: Novu

Novu is the leading open-source notification infrastructure. Self-host for free, or use their cloud starting at $30/mo. Multi-channel support with in-app components.

The trade-off: less polished than Knock. Self-hosting requires DevOps resources. Documentation is still improving. But for teams wanting control, it's the best option.

For behavioral automation: Customer.io

If you need marketing automation with multi-channel, Customer.io is more powerful than Knock for marketing use cases. Complex behavioral workflows, event-driven campaigns, sophisticated segmentation.

The catch: $100/mo starting price, steep learning curve, no in-app notification UI like Knock.

For in-app focus: MagicBell

MagicBell is closest to Knock's in-app notification experience. Pre-built notification bell components for React, Vue, and vanilla JS. Multi-channel support with a modern developer experience.

Trade-off: smaller company, usage-based pricing can be unpredictable, fewer enterprise features than Knock.

The pricing comparison

At moderate volume:

Knock Starter: $250/mo for 50k messages
Sequenzy: $49/mo for 10k subscribers (email only)
Novu Cloud Pro: $30/mo for 30k+ runs
Customer.io: $100/mo for 5k profiles
MagicBell: Usage-based, varies
OneSignal: $9/mo for push-focused

Note: Different platforms count differently (messages, subscribers, runs). Compare based on your actual usage patterns. Check our pricing page for Sequenzy's simple per-subscriber model.

When Knock is still the right choice

Knock wins if:

In-app notification UI is critical for your product
You need sophisticated multi-channel orchestration
The $250/mo price point works for your budget
You want the most polished notification infrastructure

Don't switch just to save money if Knock's in-app components are core to your product experience. The time to rebuild that UI elsewhere isn't worth it. But if you're primarily using Knock for email, the alternatives are significantly cheaper. Use our email validator tool to ensure list quality when evaluating any platform.

Frequently Asked Questions

All Pricing Tiers

0-100 subscribers: Free (Free annually) - 3k emails/month

101-1,000 subscribers: $19/month ($205/year annually) - 15k emails/month

1,001-5,000 subscribers: $29/month ($313/year annually) - 60k emails/month

5,001-10,000 subscribers: $49/month ($529/year annually) - 120k emails/month

10,001-25,000 subscribers: $99/month ($1069/year annually) - 300k emails/month

25,001-50,000 subscribers: $199/month ($2149/year annually) - 600k emails/month

50,001-100,000 subscribers: $349/month ($3769/year annually) - 1.2M emails/month

100,000+ subscribers: Custom pricing (Custom annually) - Unlimited emails/month

Yearly billing: All plans offer a 10% discount when billed annually.

Feature	Knock	Sequenzy	Novu	Customer.io	MagicBell	OneSignal
In-app UI
Push
Email
SMS
Free tier	10k messages	100 subs	10k runs	Trial only	100 MAU	10k subs
Open-source
Price after free	$250/mo	$49/mo	$30/mo	$100/mo	Usage-based	$9/mo

12 Knock Alternatives Worth Considering

TL;DR

12 Best Knock Alternatives

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Why Consider Alternatives to Knock

Feature Comparison

When to Use Each Platform

Why people look for Knock alternatives

The pricing cliff

You only need email

You want open-source

The alternatives, honestly

For SaaS email marketing: Sequenzy

For open-source control: Novu

For behavioral automation: Customer.io

For in-app focus: MagicBell

The pricing comparison

When Knock is still the right choice

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the best Knock alternative for SaaS?

Is Novu a good Knock alternative?

Why is Knock so expensive?

Does Sequenzy have in-app notifications like Knock?

Can I use Knock's free tier forever?

What's cheaper than Knock for notifications?

Knock vs Customer.io: Which is better?

Does Knock have email marketing?

How hard is it to migrate from Knock?

Is MagicBell cheaper than Knock?

How do I cancel my Knock account?

What is Knock's pricing structure?

How do I export my data from Knock?

Does Knock offer a free trial?

What is Knock's refund policy?

Ready to try Sequenzy?

Sequenzy vs Knock: Direct Comparison

More Alternatives

Novu Alternatives

OneSignal Alternatives

Customer.io Alternatives

Sequenzy - Complete Pricing Guide

Pricing Model

All Pricing Tiers

Free Plan Features (2,500 emails/month)

Paid Plan Features (1,000 - 100,000 subscribers)

Enterprise Plan Features (100,000+ subscribers)

Important Pricing Notes

Contact