What is the difference between a CEP and a CDP?

A customer data platform (CDP) collects and unifies customer data and sends it to other tools, but usually does not send messages itself. A customer engagement platform also stores profiles, but its main job is to orchestrate and send messages across channels.

Is Braze a customer engagement platform?

Yes. Braze is one of the best-known customer engagement platforms, alongside CleverTap, MoEngage, Airship and Iterable. They mainly serve mobile-first consumer brands with large audiences.

How much does a customer engagement platform cost?

Enterprise platforms usually require annual contracts priced on monthly active users or message volume, and published purchase data puts typical contracts in the tens of thousands of dollars a year. Some newer tools publish lower self-serve prices. Our list of the best customer engagement platforms compares current pricing.

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Tools & Platforms

Customer Engagement Platform

Software that unifies customer data and sends personalized messages across channels such as email, push notifications, in-app messages and SMS, usually triggered by behavior.

Definition

A customer engagement platform (CEP) is a marketing tool that combines a customer profile store, segmentation, journey automation and several messaging channels in one system. Where a traditional email service provider focuses on campaigns to a list, a CEP reacts to real-time behavior in your app or website and chooses the right channel for each message: email, mobile push, web push, in-app messages, SMS and sometimes WhatsApp. Well-known CEPs include Braze, CleverTap, MoEngage, Airship, Iterable and Insider One.

Why It Matters

Customers move between your app, website, inbox and phone, and messages sent from disconnected tools repeat themselves, contradict each other or arrive at the wrong time. A CEP keeps one profile and one journey per person, so the welcome email knows the user already completed onboarding in the app, and a push is skipped if the in-app message already did the job. The trade-off is cost and complexity: enterprise CEPs are priced on monthly active users or message volume, often with annual contracts well into five or six figures.

How It Works

You send user profiles and events to the platform through SDKs in your apps, server APIs, or integrations with your data warehouse, billing or analytics tools. The platform builds segments from attributes and behavior, and journeys start when people enter a segment or perform an event. Each journey step sends a message on a channel, waits, branches on behavior or exits when a goal is met. Delivery, engagement and conversion data flow back into the profile and into reports, and frequency caps or quiet hours apply across channels.

Example

A subscription app's trial journey in a customer engagement platform:

Trial starts (event from the billing system): welcome email plus an in-app checklist.
No core action within 24 hours: push notification with a deep link to the first task.
Two days before trial end: email with the price and renewal date; in-app banner for users who open the app.
Payment fails: SMS for users who opted in, plus an email with a link to update billing.

Best Practices

1Define your events and user identity model before choosing a platform
2Check SDK support for every app framework you use and every channel you need
3Compare pricing models, MAU, contacts or messages, at your expected scale in two years
4Start with a few high-value journeys, such as onboarding, trial conversion and billing recovery
5Set cross-channel frequency caps so users are not hit on every channel at once

Email, push, in-app and SMS in one sequence

Sequenzy combines email, iOS, Android and web push, in-app messages and SMS in the same sequences, with self-serve pricing and no MAU charges for push or in-app.

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