SendGrid is a cloud-based email delivery platform that businesses use to interact with customers.
SendGrid (opens in new tab) was founded in 2009 by three entrepreneurs; Isaac Saldana, Jose Lopez, and Tim Jenkins. The company was incubated through the famous TechStars accelerator program. It provides a cloud-based service for businesses to send marketing and transactional emails to their subscribers. The platform handles the backend processes involved in sending emails, e.g., ISP monitoring and domain keys, while users interact with the easy parts.
SendGrid is a freemium tool, meaning it has both free and paid versions of its email marketing service (opens in new tab). By 2012, three years after its founding, SendGrid announced that it was working with 60,000 businesses and had sent over 45 billion emails. By 2017, the company was processing over 30 billion emails per month.
In 2019, Twilio, a well-known cloud communications firm, paid $2 billion to acquire SendGrid and the company was renamed Twilio SendGrid. Since the change of ownership, there has been a significant uptick in complaints about slow customer support.
SendGrid offers a free plan but with limited features. The free tier supports a maximum of 6,000 emails per month and 2,000 contacts. You’ll need to purchase a premium plan to use this platform best.
There are two premium plans; Basic and Advanced. Basic stats at $15 / £15 / AUD$25 per month for up to 7,000 contacts and 15,000 monthly emails, while Advanced starts at $60 / £60 / AUD$90 per month for 15,000 contacts and 45,000 monthly emails. The price scales according to the number of contacts and emails. For example, 30,000 contacts and 80,000 monthly emails will cost $50 / £45 / AUD$75 per month on the Basic plan and $100 / £90 / AUD$150 on the Advanced plan.
According to SendGrid’s website, it offers refunds to customers that meet specific criteria but we observed a pattern of customer complaints of refunds being hard to get.
Email Templates
It’s challenging for an average user to create email messages that are visually appealing and would entice customers. To make it easier, SendGrid provides a collection of email templates designed by professionals. You can pick any of these templates and customize them to fit your brand. This way, you’ll be building on the work of marketing and design professionals to send effective email messages to your subscribers.
This platform offers templates designed for a broad range of industries and use cases, so you’ll likely find a fitting one regardless of what type of business you’re engaged in. Afterward, you can customize the template with your logo, brand colors, and copy. You can also take advantage of the pre-built call-to-action buttons to drive engagement. You don’t have to recreate email layouts whenever it’s time to send an email because you can save a template and reuse it as many times as you want.
Email Designs
If you have good design skills, you may not need pre-built templates.
