Email Marketing · head to head
Attentive vs Keila
Attentive
Email Marketing
Enterprise SMS and email marketing for retail brands, sold on quarterly minimum spend commitments
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
Keila
Email Marketing
AGPL newsletter tool from Germany, self-hostable or hosted in the EU with no free plan
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Only Keila has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
- Each has a real cost: Attentive minimum spend commitments are use it or lose it: if quarterly usage falls short, the shortfall is invoiced anyway, which makes Attentive expensive for any brand whose sending is seasonal rather than even.; Keila there is no free hosted plan at all, stated as deliberate policy, so unlike almost every competitor there is no way to run a small list at zero cost without self-hosting it yourself.
- They diverge on capability: Attentive covers SMS-first journeys, Keila covers Priced by emails sent.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Attentive and Keila actually diverge.
Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Email Marketing).
What each one covers
Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.
Only in Attentive
- SMS-first journeys
- Two-tap sign-up units
- TCPA compliance tooling
- Email channel
- Revenue attribution
- Concierge
- Identity resolution
- Negotiated order form rates
Only in Keila
- Priced by emails sent
- Bring your own sender
- Self-hosting
- EU hosting
- Sign-up forms
- Segmentation
- Markdown and block editor
- Multiple projects
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Attentive
- A direct-to-consumer brand where SMS is the primary revenue channel and needs cart abandonment triggered within minutes of a sessionnot Keila
- A retailer capturing in-store phone numbers at the till and needing TCPA-compliant consent records to go with themnot Keila
- A consumer brand running SMS and email from one audience so subscribers are not messaged twice for the same promotionnot Keila
- A high-volume merchant with predictable year-round send patterns that can commit to a quarterly minimum and negotiate rates down against itnot Keila
Keila
- A membership organisation holding forty thousand contacts but sending only one newsletter a month, where contact-metered pricing would cost many times morenot Attentive
- A European publisher or public body that needs subscriber data held in the EU under a GDPR-friendly arrangementnot Attentive
- A technical team that wants to self-host its newsletter tool and route sending through its existing AWS SES accountnot Attentive
- An agency running several separate client lists that does not want to pay per project or per additional listnot Attentive
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Attentive
- Minimum spend commitments are use it or lose it: if quarterly usage falls short, the shortfall is invoiced anyway, which makes Attentive expensive for any brand whose sending is seasonal rather than even.
- No rates are published anywhere, so a buyer cannot benchmark a quote before entering a sales process, and the effective per message cost is only visible once an order form is drafted.
- Contracts commonly run six to twelve months, so a brand that finds performance disappointing after two months still owes the balance of the term.
- Total cost combines a platform fee, per message SMS and MMS charges and carrier pass-through fees, and MMS at two to five cents per message means image-heavy campaigns cost several times what the SMS rate suggests.
- It is priced and built for established consumer brands, and the entry commitment puts it out of reach of small merchants that Postscript and similar tools serve on usage-based plans with no floor.
Keila
- There is no free hosted plan at all, stated as deliberate policy, so unlike almost every competitor there is no way to run a small list at zero cost without self-hosting it yourself.
- Marketing automation is minimal, with none of the behavioural triggers, journey builders or e-commerce revenue attribution that Klaviyo, Brevo and Mailchimp treat as table stakes.
- The self-hosted route puts deliverability entirely on you: reputation, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, warm-up and bounce handling are your problem, and a badly configured instance will land in spam folders.
- It is a small project from a small company, so the integration ecosystem is thin and there is no partner network, template marketplace or large body of community expertise to draw on.
- Email volume tiers step in fixed blocks, so an organisation whose sending is uneven across the year either overbuys at the annual peak or has to change plan repeatedly.
Pricing, plan by plan
Attentive
On request- Attentive$undefined/year
- No public rate card; rates are set in an individual order form
- Platform fee plus per message SMS and MMS charges
- Contracts commonly six to twelve months
Keila
Free- Self-hostedFree
- AGPL-3.0-or-later licence with no fee
- Official Docker image and sample compose file
- You supply hosting and a sending backend
- Keila XS$8/month
- Two thousand emails per month
- Unlimited contacts and projects
- Send with Keila or bring your own email server
- Keila M$32/month
- Fifteen thousand emails per month
- Unlimited contacts and projects
- Sign-up forms and segmentation
- Keila XXL$256/month
- Two hundred and fifty thousand emails per month
- Unlimited contacts and projects
- Intermediate tiers at 16, 64 and 128 EUR for 5,000, 50,000 and 100,000 emails
Which should you pick?
Choose Attentive if
- You need sms-first journeys.
- You work on Web, iOS, Android.
- You also want two-tap sign-up units.
Choose Keila if
- You need priced by emails sent.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, Linux, Self-hosted.
- You also want bring your own sender.
Questions people ask
- Is Attentive or Keila better?
- Neither clearly leads. Attentive starts at On request and Keila at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Attentive or Keila?
- Keila has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Attentive and Free for Keila.
- Does Attentive or Keila run on more platforms?
- Attentive runs on Web, iOS, Android. Keila runs on Web, Linux, Self-hosted.
- Can I use Keila for free?
- Yes. Keila has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Attentive starts at On request.
- What is Attentive best used for?
- Attentive is most often used for a direct-to-consumer brand where sms is the primary revenue channel and needs cart abandonment triggered within minutes of a session, a retailer capturing in-store phone numbers at the till and needing tcpa-compliant consent records to go with them, a consumer brand running sms and email from one audience so subscribers are not messaged twice for the same promotion, a high-volume merchant with predictable year-round send patterns that can commit to a quarterly minimum and negotiate rates down against it. Of those, a direct-to-consumer brand where sms is the primary revenue channel and needs cart abandonment triggered within minutes of a session and a retailer capturing in-store phone numbers at the till and needing tcpa-compliant consent records to go with them are not what Keila is typically brought in for.
- What can Attentive do that Keila cannot?
- Attentive covers SMS-first journeys, Two-tap sign-up units, TCPA compliance tooling, Email channel. Keila covers Priced by emails sent, Bring your own sender, Self-hosting, EU hosting.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Attentive: How much does Attentive cost?
It does not publish rates. Costs are a platform fee plus per message charges set in your order form, with minimum spend commitments commonly around 2,000 to 3,000 USD per quarter.
Keila: Is Keila free?
The software is, under AGPL-3.0-or-later, if you self-host. The hosted service has no free plan by deliberate policy and starts at 8 EUR a month.
Attentive: What happens if I do not use my minimum?
You are invoiced for the shortfall at the end of the quarter. Unused commitment is not carried forward.
Keila: How is the hosted service priced?
By emails sent, from 8 EUR for two thousand up to 256 EUR for two hundred and fifty thousand a month. Contacts and projects are unlimited on every tier.
Attentive: How long is the contract?
Typically six to twelve months, billed monthly or quarterly.
Keila: Can I use my own email provider?
Yes. AWS SES, Sendgrid, Mailgun, Postmark, generic SMTP or a personal inbox are all supported as sending backends.
Attentive: Does it do email as well as SMS?
Yes, with shared audiences and journeys, though the product was designed SMS-first and that remains its strength.
Keila: Are there discounts?
Pentacent offers reduced rates to nonprofits and open source projects on request.
Related pages
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