SparkPost (discontinued) vs. Everest (Return Path + 250ok)

SparkPost is great for automated sending of transactional emails. It appears to be designed for developers—it does not allow the creation and sending of emails from within the SparkPost user interface. If you're building a software system that needs to send emails, SparkPost is a great choice, but it is not a CRM.

Incentivized

Every new or established brand should be using Everest. It doesn't matter what you're trying to say in your emails—if they're not reaching the inbox, no one is listening or reading. Everest gives you the insight you need to understand your inbox placement, reputation and so much more.

• Email Deliverability
• Last 10 day insights for reporting on email system health
• Individually viewing users on the suppression list and quickly take off or put back on.
• API

Incentivized

• Inbox placement data using seed list: It tells you about your inbox placements, spam, missing, and complaints. Very useful data that tells you that you are on the road!
• Sender score for all I.Ps: Tells you quickly about your I.P score, helps you work fast as you know everything is fine, saves a lot of time.
• Online support: Support from specialist, have an expert to guide in tough times to suggest options or to support your action strategy.

Incentivized

• A horrifying about-face on pricing after guaranteeing a lifetime rate.
• A steep drop in customer care and customer service quality.
• Increased prices compared to competitors.
• Clumsy email templating system.
• Lack of integration with other messaging systems.

Incentivized

• A good tutorial on how to leverage it would be helpful. Navigating is easy, but there's a lot of information and it takes a while to understand what everything means.
• The reporting feature is intimidating, creating anew one isn't as user-friendly as the rest of the interface.
• I understand what seeds are, but for new users, a very basic tutorial on what they are and why they are used would be helpful. Right now you have to have a baseline understanding of them before using it.

Incentivized

Return Path helps us stay ahead of the curve and are a partner in helping us optimize our email program. They also keep us up-to-date on email laws and the changing ecosystem so that we are prepared and ready for changes, whether they're behavioral, legal or technology-driven. I definitely consider Return Path a necessary ingredient to sustaining a healthy email program.

Incentivized

I find it fairly easy to use, though the interface is a bit clunky and I may be missing some revolutionary use because it's lost in the clutter.

Incentivized

Would give it a zero if I could. Their customer service used to be incredible; fast response times, really hands-on with their users, and a pretty regular feedback process. They sent me an awesome t-shirt that became part of my go-to climbing gear. But for the past year, their response times went way down, their customer service was less helpful and generally a lot more rude, and they haven't asked for customer input once since their leadership change

Incentivized

Absolutely fantastic support. It runs circles around the competition. They regularly reach out and chat, even if it's just to see if there's any issues we need to discuss. They clearly want the business and don't forget you once you sign the contract which is an issue with other similar services.

Incentivized

I joined my company after the implementation was nearly complete. We used the Return Path tool as we slowly increased our send volume in Marketing Cloud to monitor IP reputation and inbox placement.

Incentivized

I'd say SparkPost is probably the worst option of the three email API products I've used. It has the worst customer service, the fewest features, and costs significantly more than SendGrid, even though SendGrid lets you integrate all of Twilio's other features into a broader set of communications media. In addition, the API and documentation were easy enough to use and integrate, but the templating system has also caused a lot of headaches for us.

Incentivized

Like I said before, Return Path is really the budget bundle. You get a lot of service for how much you pay. Since I am currently at an early stage startup, we could not afford Litmus, so having Return Path is crucial. The partnership with Salesforce also allowed us to get it at pretty low cost.

Incentivized

• We used at the first time the free version which worked awesome.
• We didn't have to spend our time writing all the features that SparkPost has included.
• The dashboard give us all the information that we need to know regarding the status of the emails that have been sent from the app

Incentivized

• Return Path has helped me enable better email delivery for our global partners e.g. some of our applications that send email to consumers in Australia or Europe.
• Some of the functions that we utilized with Return Path were proving to be costly based on what the business needs were for us. That is why we cut back on some of the services we utilized.

Incentivized