Braze vs. MessageGears

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Braze
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Braze is a customer engagement platform that enables relevant and memorable experiences between consumers and the brands they love. With Braze, global brands can ingest and process customer data in real time, orchestrate and optimize contextually relevant, cross-channel marketing campaigns and continuously evolve their customer engagement strategies.N/A
MessageGears
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
MessageGears is a hybrid email marketing service built around deliverability, actionable customer data, and audience segmentation and targeting.N/A
Pricing
BrazeMessageGears
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BrazeMessageGears
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BrazeMessageGears
Considered Both Products
Braze
Chose Braze
Easier than the big ones and more robust and than the small ones. Braze seems to be a great fit for teams that need to move fast, cannot spend a lot of time in certifications and training and are able to adapt to innovation. As for pricing, Braze has different pricing depending …
Chose Braze
I think Braze is the strongest currently. I found Emarsys to be very difficult to navigate and clunky. Ometria I found to be a good platform, however, more difficult to scale. My role using Ometria was more integration focused so had more exposure to the challenges with …
Chose Braze
Braze is easy to use and offers excellent modern functionalities, making it ideal for contemporary marketing. The training support and implementation support provided by Braze are also good. In terms of mobile-friendly email creation and personalisation, Braze has stood out. …
Chose Braze
Userback does not have mobile SDKs and Instabug cannot do property level filtering for events. So both of these are limited in getting the right message to our users at the right time. In addition to this, Braze allows us to filter by audience properties, so we can reach out to …
Chose Braze
Braze was built with mobile at its core, offering strong support for push, in-app messaging, and mobile SDKs ideal for app-driven businesses. Iterable, while solid in email and web, is generally less mobile-native by comparison
Chose Braze
Unlike MailChimp, Braze goes beyond just email and SMS as communication channels. With communication channels like push notification, in-app message, and content card, Braze is clearly a superior platform for customer engagement. Also, Braze offers more options for dynamic …
Chose Braze
I think Braze is best for app-first companies. We selected Braze for its ease of use and robust feature suite.
Chose Braze
Mailchimp is fine for bulk email and some light automation, but it still centers on email; push or in-app support feels tacked on, and new segments update only after hours. Braze gives us email, push, SMS, in-app, and web all native, with data streaming in real time, so …
Chose Braze
pricing structure is better for a growing company - features are similar (to cio at least)
Chose Braze
I don't remember the names, but we used at least two others before we switched to Braze, and they were all inferior.
Chose Braze
Braze is superior top Iterable, full stop. Their partner integrations gives us more freedom to choose the vendor that fits our company the best, not forcing us to choose the one vendor that's compatible or resigning to having siloed data. Also, the Braze team goes the extra …
Chose Braze
Active Campaign is not in the list, but in general, it is significantly less powerful and requires a subscription and add-on pricing structure, which is not good for a start-up in a scale-up phase. Braze is well-suited for long-term growth and scaling from a small to a large …
Chose Braze
I wasn't part of the decision-making process for selecting Braze, since I joined the company after Braze was already "integrated" with our company. I'd still say that Braze would me my 1st choice compared to other tools that I used in the past.
Chose Braze
Braze is by far the most user friendly tool. The frequency and usability of the super regular product releases they roll out really sets them apart in a stale marketplace historically dominated by Salesforce, Adobe and other big players. They think App first - critical in the …
Chose Braze
It was more complicated on Salesforce to create personalized and customized campaigns. Braze is a platform that has it all.
Chose Braze
Feels less clunky, easier to navigate, equally stacked on features that matter. May have some ways of working that are different from peer solutions, but trades speed and reliance over inefficiently designed or risky solutions.
Chose Braze
Acoustic was becoming too expensive and we had email and SMS with separate providers so we were looking for a way to cut costs and merge into one provider.
Both Acoustic and Attentive were becoming very expensive as well and Braze provided all the functionalities that we were …
Chose Braze
Braze has many features that these tools don't, like a heatmap, a catalogue, the ability to create tons of attributes, and easy-to-use template features.
Chose Braze
salesforce is better suited for the sales funnnel or for B2B rather than B2C so in this case Braze already stacks up great as a wonderful B2C all-rounder product. Mailchimp, firebase and others ive used are gragmented as they all offer different features and are not a ONE …
Chose Braze
I don't have a lot of other experience using software other than Braze. However the product has not given me much need to look elsewhere for another vendor and I am generally very happy with it for my use.
Chose Braze
Braze is much more real-time, has an updated interface, and offers in-app communication, unlike SFMC. The only downside is that Liquid isn't quite as powerful as AMPscript.
Chose Braze
Braze feature for ecommerce retail brands is better and the readyto use usecases are a big support
Chose Braze
Braze seems to work better at scale. And is more reliable. Has some more functionality. But as always, is not perfect.
MessageGears
Chose MessageGears
MessageGears doesn't come close to Salesforce Marketing Cloud. We chose MessageGears based on how data was accessed. We never really got a good preview of how the system works or what was available, so we didn't know everything that it was lacking until we started using it.
Chose MessageGears
MessageGears is a completely different approach to email marketing than its competitors, and while it has a learning curve, it is superior after you've figured it out . The ability to find your audience through SQL on top of quick control of your templates allows for lightning …
Chose MessageGears
Bronto is a much better email service provider, though our choice to use MessageGears is based on our unique database situation, our partnership with them, and our deal structure. The automation and functionality within Bronto is superior, but it also comes with a hefty price …
Features
BrazeMessageGears
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Braze
-
Ratings
MessageGears
3.3
Ratings
82% below category average
WYSIWYG email editor00 Ratings1.50 Ratings
Dynamic content00 Ratings3.80 Ratings
Ability to test dynamic content00 Ratings2.20 Ratings
A/B testing00 Ratings2.70 Ratings
Mobile optimization00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting00 Ratings3.80 Ratings
List management00 Ratings2.10 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences00 Ratings2.20 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Braze
-
Ratings
MessageGears
1.1
Ratings
150% below category average
Dashboards00 Ratings1.10 Ratings
Standard reports00 Ratings1.10 Ratings
Custom reports00 Ratings1.00 Ratings
Pre-Send Testing
Comparison of Pre-Send Testing features of Product A and Product B
Braze
-
Ratings
MessageGears
3.7
Ratings
73% below category average
URL Validation00 Ratings1.00 Ratings
Link Tracking00 Ratings2.80 Ratings
Image Validation00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Inbox Display00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Spelling and Grammar Check00 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Spam Testing00 Ratings1.00 Ratings
Email Previews00 Ratings1.00 Ratings
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BrazeMessageGears
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Dialpad Support
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VerticalResponse
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Enterprises
Verint Community
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All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BrazeMessageGears
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.7
(0 ratings)
6.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
4.5
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BrazeMessageGears
Likelihood to Recommend
Its really well suited to brands with a mobile app. And from what I can glean from the features my org isn't able to take advantage of, its best suited for: - B2C brands that use social media - ecommerce (i.e. CPG) Otherwise, I am not convinced it is the tool I would recommend for users that do not have a mobile app. You're not getting most of the value from it.
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Unless you have someone on your team who is an expert in writing SQL queries and APIs, this platform is not for you.
Read full review
Pros
  • Well looked after - Braze itself are always on hand to answer any questions and help us make our work better.
  • Great tool - We use a fair bit of Braze but there
  • are so many exciting features we're slowly incorporating, Braze is always building on what they have and this keeps us top of our game.
  • Fantastic learning - I have advanced quickly in my work in Braze due to their support and learning programs. This has been key for me.
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  • Solid customer service
  • Inexpensive solution
  • Flexibility in setup
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Cons
  • Enabling GIF/videos to be directly uploaded on to Braze's platform
  • Easier way of creating canvases; right now it is too complex for someone new who is starting off in the company to understand what things do and where things are
  • Ability to track duplicate user profiles within the entire audience segment
  • Automated deduplicating email addresses/phone numbers in each targeting segment; right now it's done manually after extracting csv files
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  • The platform is extremely literal. Every possible scenario (included unsubscribes) must be written into every audience query.
  • Messy user interface
  • Email development is overly complicated.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
We are on a mission for an omnichannel experience for our customers and are already making good progress with Braze able to fully support and optimise this
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Usability
It is an easy-to-understand platform, thanks to its design and accessibility. You can, for example, easily find any users and their data, check exact volumes of segments, follow the history of messages sent, and create reports. We can connect Braze with other platforms for analysis or email design (Snowflake, Hightouch, Stripo...).
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Our situation is unique so I believe we are working on a semi-outdated UI which needs a tune up / version upgrade. Similarly, our custom connection means that we do not have access to the full feature set so I've never experienced MessageGears' best functionality
Read full review
Support Rating
Very responsive and helpful on simple questions, but not great other than that. They do not have a way for the customer/user to escalate a ticket. You have to contact your rep and in some cases, they don't respond within 24 hours so you have no idea if they have escalated it. There is no phone number for an urgent issue - you have to rely on email
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MessageGears support is always quick to respond when we have an issue, which is rare. Gail has been our main rep and she has been great. We don't have many issues so luckily, we don't need to lean on their customer support team much. That said, it would be beneficial to hear from upper management more.
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Alternatives Considered
Braze has its own strengths and weaknesses compared to Bloomreach and Hubspot. Personally I prefer Bloomreach for lifecycle journey and orchestration however I've felt integration and scaling to be more straightforward with Braze. Other platforms have been reviewed but for value for money at scale and quality of platform, Braze came out as the chosen one.
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Bronto is a much better email service provider, though our choice to use MessageGears is based on our unique database situation, our partnership with them, and our deal structure. The automation and functionality within Bronto is superior, but it also comes with a hefty price tag; MessageGears provides the scale we need
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • We saved a couple of million by switching from Salesforce to Braze.
  • We increased our engagement for a limited-time promo by 33% by simply running a 4-variant subject line test.
  • We managed to reduce our unsubscribe volume by 18% by excluding dormant users.
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  • Sending more email!
  • Onboarding handoff was a little rough
  • Great control on who we are sending to
  • Dynamic content is very easy!
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ScreenShots