Emarsys vs MailEngine

by Gralio Feb 12, 2025

Emarsys and MailEngine offer distinct approaches to email marketing. Emarsys provides a comprehensive, cloud-based solution with advanced features, while MailEngine focuses on deliverability and control through self-hosting. Choose Emarsys for robust, multi-channel marketing automation and MailEngine for a more hands-on, deliverability-focused approach.

At Gralio.ai we help to simplify your decision-making process by offering detailed, side-by-side software comparisons like this one, to help you confidently choose the tool that aligns with your business goals.

This comparison was created by analysing 455 reviews and 40 websites, saving 2 hours, 51 minutes of reading.

Emarsys

Website LinkedIn

MailEngine

Website LinkedIn Twitter

About

Emarsys, an SAP company, is a marketing platform designed for medium to large businesses. It helps you personalize marketing messages across multiple channels such as email, text, app notifications, and your website. Emarsys aims to improve customer engagement and loyalty through automated, data-driven campaigns. It is heavily focused on data analytics and uses AI to improve marketing outcomes.

MailEngine is a self-hosted email marketing software that focuses on improving email deliverability, especially for small and medium businesses. It allows you to send marketing emails using your Gmail or GSuite account for a more personal touch. It offers features like content spinning, unique URL generation for each email, and spam word detection to help your emails reach the inbox. MailEngine is hosted on your own WordPress site, giving you control over your data and ensuring your service won't be interrupted by issues affecting other users on a shared platform.

Summary

Main difference

Emarsys is a cloud-based, AI-powered marketing automation platform ideal for medium to large businesses seeking advanced analytics and multi-channel campaign management. MailEngine is a self-hosted email marketing software best suited for small to medium businesses prioritizing email deliverability and control over their data.

Relative strengths of Emarsys (compared to MailEngine)

Stronger multi-channel marketing capabilities (email, SMS, in-app, web).
Advanced analytics and AI-powered optimization.
Integrations with other marketing tools.

Relative weaknesses of Emarsys (compared to MailEngine)

Higher cost, potentially unsuitable for smaller businesses.
More complex setup and management.
Limited control over data and infrastructure.

Who should use Emarsys VS. MailEngine

Emarsys is a robust marketing platform ideal for medium to large businesses in the e-commerce, retail, and consumer goods industries. It offers strong segmentation, helpful pre-built automation, and AI-powered analytics. Users praise its ease of use and implementation. However, some find the cost prohibitive and building complex processes challenging.

MailEngine is a self-hosted email marketing solution for small businesses wanting greater control over their email deliverability. Its focus on personalized emails sent through your own Gmail or GSuite account, combined with features like content spinning, helps improve inbox placement. If you're a small business prioritizing direct email outreach, MailEngine offers a hands-on approach to managing your campaigns.

Best fit for medium to large businesses.
Ideal for e-commerce, retail, and consumer goods companies.

Best for small businesses seeking improved email deliverability.
Suitable for various industries focused on targeted email campaigns.

Emarsys and MailEngine features

Supported

Partially supported

Not supported

Type in the name of the feature or in your own words tell us what you need

Performance analytics

Supported

Emarsys offers robust email campaign performance analytics, including AI-powered insights.

Unknown

MailEngine's support for performance analytics is not confirmed.
Drip Campaigns

Unknown

Drip campaigns are not explicitly mentioned in the documentation.

Not supported

Drip campaigns are not mentioned on MailEngine website.
Campaign tracking

Supported

Emarsys supports campaign tracking with features like external analytics integration and AI-powered analytics.

Unknown

MailEngine's campaign tracking capabilities are not documented in the provided sources.
Segmentation Integration

Supported

Emarsys supports creating segments and integrating them with email marketing.

Supported

MailEngine supports creating and using segments within its platform.

Qualities

Value and Pricing Transparency

-0.2

Neutral sentiment

No data
Customer Service

+0

Neutral sentiment

No data
Ease of Use

+0.6

Rather positive sentiment

No data
Reliability and Performance

+0.6

Rather positive sentiment

No data
Ease of Implementation

+0

Neutral sentiment

No data
Scalability

-1

Strongly negative sentiment

No data

Emarsys and MailEngine Pricing

No data

User sentiment

Neutral

-0.2

We couldn't find a pricing page for Emarsys.

No data

See full Pricing page

Emarsys and MailEngine review insights

455 reviews analysed from and

Users love

Easy to use interface and implementation
Strong segmentation capabilities
The "tactics" function is useful.
Helpful pre-built automation programs

No data

Users dislike

The cost can be a downside, especially for smaller organizations.
They mention that it is inconvenient to build intricate processes inside of Emarsys.
The platform also lacks the ability to precisely pinpoint a customer's position within their journey at any given time.
Emarsys only supports a single brand.

No data

Emarsys and MailEngine Ratings

G2

4.3/5

(438)
Capterra

4.3/5

(12)
Glassdoor

4.1/5

(321)

G2

4.7/5

(10)

Company health

Employee growth

5% increase in the last year

No data

Web traffic

27% decrease in the last quarter

No data

Financing

July 2016 - $55M

No data

How important is self-hosting versus cloud-based for email marketing?

Self-hosting, as offered by MailEngine, prioritizes data control and avoids service interruptions from shared platforms. This is important for businesses valuing data privacy and needing direct control over their email infrastructure. However, cloud-based solutions like Emarsys remove the burden of server management and offer scalability, which is often more practical for businesses lacking technical expertise or rapidly growing. The best choice depends on the specific business needs and technical capabilities.

Which product better integrates with existing GSuite/Gmail accounts?

MailEngine better integrates with existing GSuite/Gmail accounts. It specifically allows sending marketing emails through your Gmail or GSuite account, leveraging existing infrastructure. While Emarsys is a more comprehensive marketing platform, its integration with GSuite is not highlighted as a core feature.

What are the advantages of Emarsys?

Emarsys offers robust data analytics and AI-powered optimization for marketing campaigns, enabling more personalized and effective customer engagement. It provides broader multi-channel marketing capabilities beyond email, such as SMS, app notifications, and website personalization. Emarsys also offers strong segmentation and pre-built automation programs, simplifying complex marketing workflows. It is generally better suited for medium to large businesses with more complex marketing needs.

What are the disadvantages of Emarsys?

Emarsys can be expensive, especially for smaller businesses. Some users find it difficult to build complex processes within the platform. It lacks granular tracking of a customer's journey. Finally, Emarsys only supports a single brand, which can be limiting for larger organizations.

Alternatives to Emarsys and MailEngine

Netcore Customer Engagement and Experience Platform

Netcore Cloud is an AI-powered marketing platform designed to improve how businesses connect with their customers. It allows you to gather and understand customer data, personalize messages, and reach customers across multiple channels like email, SMS, and push notifications. The platform's focus is on helping mid-size to large businesses, particularly in industries like e-commerce and retail, create more effective marketing campaigns that lead to increased customer engagement and, ultimately, higher sales. Netcore promises to deliver relevant content to the right customer at the right time through automation and data analysis.

Insider

Insider is a software platform designed for large companies that need sophisticated marketing tools. It helps you gather all your customer data in one place and then uses artificial intelligence to personalize the experience for each customer. This means that whether a customer is on your website, using your mobile app, reading your emails, or interacting through other channels like SMS, you can target them with consistent and relevant messages. Insider is highly regarded in the industry and used by many well-known brands.

EmailDelivery.com

EmailDelivery.com is a self-hosted email marketing platform that lets you manage email for yourself or resell it to your clients. It's like having your own version of Mailchimp, but you have complete control and privacy. You can connect it to popular email services, or use your own sending servers for maximum deliverability. EmailDelivery.com is best for businesses who want to manage their own email infrastructure and have technical expertise.

Contlo

Contlo is an AI-powered marketing platform designed for online stores. It helps you engage customers with personalized messages across email, text, WhatsApp, and social media. Think automated messages that adapt to each shopper's actions. Contlo also provides insights into customer behavior and campaign performance. Basically, it's like having an extra marketing team focused on using data to improve your results.

HubSpot Marketing Hub

HubSpot Marketing Hub is a comprehensive marketing platform designed for businesses of all sizes. It offers a suite of tools including email marketing, marketing automation, social media management, analytics, and SEO optimization, all within a single platform. This helps businesses streamline their marketing efforts, improve efficiency, and track results. Its focus on inbound marketing and lead generation makes it a popular choice for businesses looking to attract and convert leads into customers. HubSpot Marketing Hub integrates seamlessly with HubSpot's CRM platform for enhanced sales and marketing alignment.

eSputnik

eSputnik is a marketing automation platform focusing on omnichannel customer communication and personalized experiences. It allows you to combine email, SMS, push notifications, and more into cohesive marketing workflows. eSputnik emphasizes AI-powered product recommendations based on customer behavior and advanced segmentation for precise targeting. It's suitable for both small businesses seeking pre-built marketing solutions and larger companies needing robust personalization and data management. eSputnik promises streamlined communication across channels to increase customer engagement and drive sales.

Page co-authored by

Michal Kaczor

CEO at Gralio

Michal has worked at startups for many years and writes about topics relating to software selection and IT management. As a former consultant for Bain, a business advisory company, he also knows how to understand needs of any business and find solutions to its problems.

Tymon Terlikiewicz

CTO at Gralio

Tymon is a seasoned CTO who loves finding the perfect tools for any task. He recently headed up the tech department at Batmaid, a well-known Swiss company, where he managed about 60 software purchases, including CX, HR, Payroll, Marketing automation and various developer tools.

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