Overview

Mandrill and Customer.io are fundamentally different products. Mandrill sends transactional emails. Customer.io is a multi-channel messaging platform for product-led companies. For our take on each, see our Mandrill comparison and Customer.io comparison.

Customer.io's Platform Advantage

Customer.io lets you trigger messages based on user behavior — email, push, SMS, and in-app — all from one visual workflow builder. Real-time segmentation, multi-variate testing, and a rich data model. Mandrill sends emails when you tell it to. The capability gap is enormous.

When Mandrill's Simplicity Wins

Not every team needs Customer.io's sophistication. If you just need reliable transactional email — password resets, receipts, notifications — Mandrill (or any transactional service) does the job at a third of the cost. Don't buy a messaging platform when you need a mail truck.

The Sequenzy Alternative

For SaaS founders wanting more than Mandrill but less complexity than Customer.io, Sequenzy combines transactional email and marketing campaigns with Stripe integration at $49/month — half the price of Customer.io.