If you’re reading this, you’re likely considering replacing your current notification solution with a third-party notification service. Only a few years ago, no options existed. Now there are several to choose from.

Whether your primary focus is on cost, features, or reliability, there’s plenty to consider when picking the right service for your company and respectable alternatives to weigh against one another.

Summary

The table below highlights the high level comparison of these alternatives.

Courier

Founded in 2019, the U.S.-based company Courier has established a reputation in notifications. 

Courier successfully covers a lot of demands and is one of the earliest solutions in this space. 

• Channels: Email, Text, Voice, In-App, Push, Slack, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp, Discord, Facebook Messenger, and On-call alerts

• Multi-channel template editor: Visually design the templates for each of your notifications by using their in-house editor

• Workflow editor for detailing your approach to your notifications, for example, you can decide to send an in-app first, wait 12 hours, then send the email if the in-app is not seen

• Automation options such as batching and digest

However, you might not find everything you’re looking for - especially after accounting for price.

• You have to purchase, configure, and integrate your own channel services, e.g. SendGrid, for it to work

• The starting price per notification is $0.005 - before accounting for your 3rd-party channel costs 

• Customer support for their free and Pro plans only consists of a community forum, which seems especially lacking

• Pro plans don’t offer customers much other than the cost of the notification itself

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Novu

Novu, founded in 2021, is Israel-based and has a unique selling point - being open-source and having a large community of contributors.

• Channels: Email, Text, Voice, In-App, Push, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord

• Open-core - Offers an open-source version of their cloud version

• Starting at $0.001 per notification, this is a competitively low cost

• Custom workflow editor for managing when and how to notify users

• An active community of contributors for their open-core service

Novu offers valuable features, with some being unmatched. Unfortunately, they might not fully deliver on your ideal service if you have no interest in their open-source bargaining chip.

• Purchase and configure your 3rd party integrations

• Limited template editor - Aside from buttons and text blocks, you’ll have to make do with their raw HTML editor

• Limited customer support - At an estimated 2 days for paid customer support, you might be stuck without help longer than you’re willing to wait

• Their open-core version doesn’t contain the same features as their cloud version. We couldn’t find any source for supported features, so you’ll need to do your research on what’s missing

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Knock

U.S.-based service Knock was founded in 2021 and offers a great focus on customization, channel support, and management.

• Channels: Email, Text, Voice, In-App, Push, Slack, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp, Discord

• Multi-tenant support, letting you handle different user groups individually

• A custom workflow editor for in-depth notification planning, equipped with conditional sending & intelligent cross-channel routing

• Automation features such as batching, scheduling, and throttling

Knock, like other competitors, come with their downsides as well:

• Purchase and configure your own channel integrations, e.g. SendGrid

• Their plans start at $0.005 per notification and do not include costs for 3rd-party channels & integration

• You’ll also need to manually integrate your 3rd-party channels

• Customer support isn’t well outlined and may leave you in a bind

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NotificationAPI

We founded NotificationAPI in 2020 and we are based out of Canada. Our philosophy behind notifications-as-a-service is offering the best developer experience with the least amount of work and the best customer support you have experienced.

• Fast setup - You don’t need any 3rd-party channels, so setup is quick

• Our notifications start at $0.001 each - You still don’t need 3rd-parties

• Responsive customer support, with a ~1 business hour wait time (EST), available via Email, Chat, Slack, Discord, or Call

• Channels: Email, Text, Voice, In-App, Push, Web-Push

• A multi-channel template editor for each kind of notification

• Logs query API and dashboard

• Various notification logic like batching, digest, throttling, and more

While we deliver some great points of contention, we don’t yet offer everything under the sun.

• No workflow editor means your notifications are pretty straightforward, with no conditional sending or delays - you won’t be able to set up if/else conditions for user notifications

• We don’t track and report on opens and clicks

• We do not currently have notifications for alternative chat channels such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Discord

 *We’re looking forward to delivering on many of these in Q2 2024!