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Email Marketing · head to head

Campaign Monitor vs Sailthru

Campaign Monitor logo

Campaign Monitor

Email Marketing

Email marketing platform priced by contact tier, with unlimited sends only from the mid tier up

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Sailthru logo

Sailthru

Email Marketing

Retail and publisher email personalisation, now one product inside the Marigold portfolio

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Campaign Monitor the Lite tier caps monthly sends at 2,500 regardless of contact list size, so a list of any meaningful size cannot be emailed even once a month without exceeding it.; Sailthru the product sits in a portfolio with several overlapping platforms under one owner, so roadmap investment is a portfolio decision rather than a product decision and is worth asking about in writing.
  • They diverge on capability: Campaign Monitor covers Drag-and-drop email builder, Sailthru covers Interest profiles.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Campaign Monitor and Sailthru actually diverge.

Attributes where Campaign Monitor and Sailthru differ
AttributeCampaign MonitorSailthru
Pricing modelPer month by contact tier and plan levelquote
PlatformsWebWeb, REST API

Identical on both: starting price (On request), free tier (No), 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 Campaign Monitor

  • Drag-and-drop email builder
  • Automation workflows
  • List segmentation
  • Send-time optimisation
  • Landing pages and forms
  • Multi-brand management

Only in Sailthru

  • Interest profiles
  • Personalisation engine
  • Prediction Manager
  • Site personalisation
  • Zephyr templating
  • Lifecycle optimiser

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Campaign Monitor

  • A small marketing team wanting straightforward campaign design and automation without a full martech stacknot Sailthru
  • A business with a list under a few thousand contacts and infrequent sends, where the Lite tier's cap is not a real constraintnot Sailthru
  • An agency managing multiple brands wanting Enterprise-tier multi-brand account managementnot Sailthru
  • A team wanting a bundled website builder alongside email on the Premier tiernot Sailthru

Sailthru

  • A publisher sending a personalised daily newsletter assembled per reader from a content cataloguenot Campaign Monitor
  • A retailer that wants email and on-site recommendations driven by the same affinity modelnot Campaign Monitor
  • High-cadence sending where per-recipient content assembly matters more than journey branchingnot Campaign Monitor
  • Teams that want churn and lifetime value scores available as native campaign conditions rather than imported fieldsnot Campaign Monitor

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Campaign Monitor

  • The Lite tier caps monthly sends at 2,500 regardless of contact list size, so a list of any meaningful size cannot be emailed even once a month without exceeding it.
  • Unlimited sending only starts at the Essentials tier, so the cheap headline Lite price is not comparable to competitors that offer unlimited sends at their entry tier.
  • Its e-commerce-specific automation (abandoned cart flows, predictive segments) is less developed than Klaviyo's, making it a weaker fit for retail-heavy senders.
  • As part of the Marigold group alongside Sailthru and other acquired brands, product roadmap priority is shared across a portfolio rather than dedicated solely to Campaign Monitor.
  • Pricing multiplies on two axes, contact tier and plan level, so estimating total cost requires checking both dimensions rather than a single number.

Sailthru

  • The product sits in a portfolio with several overlapping platforms under one owner, so roadmap investment is a portfolio decision rather than a product decision and is worth asking about in writing.
  • Pricing counts stored profiles, so retained inactive readers keep costing money long after they stopped opening anything.
  • On-site personalisation requires a developer to implement the JavaScript and maintain the content feed, which puts the highest-value feature behind engineering time.
  • Zephyr is a proprietary templating language, so template maintenance skills are scarce compared with the Liquid syntax used by most competitors.
  • It is built for high-cadence content and retail sending, and B2B lifecycle programmes with long sales cycles sit poorly on the model.

Pricing, plan by plan

Campaign Monitor

On request
  • Lite$undefined/month
    • Monthly send cap of 2,500 emails regardless of list size
    • Basic campaign and template tools
    • Priced by contact tier from under 500 to 50,000+
  • Essentials$undefined/month
    • Unlimited monthly email sends
    • Priority support
    • Priced by contact tier from under 500 to 50,000+
  • Premier$undefined/month
    • Unlimited monthly email sends
    • Premier-level phone support
    • Drag-and-drop website builder included
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Custom quote
    • Multi-brand account management
    • Dedicated account manager, SOC2 and GDPR-aligned security

Sailthru

On request
  • Sailthru$undefined/year
    • Priced on stored profiles and send volume
    • Site personalisation and prediction features licensed by module
    • Annual contract through Marigold

Which should you pick?

Choose Campaign Monitor if

  • You need drag-and-drop email builder.
  • You also want automation workflows.
Campaign Monitor review

Choose Sailthru if

  • You need interest profiles.
  • You work on Web, REST API.
  • You also want personalisation engine.
Sailthru review

Questions people ask

Is Campaign Monitor or Sailthru better?
Neither clearly leads. Campaign Monitor starts at On request and Sailthru at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Campaign Monitor or Sailthru?
Campaign Monitor starts at On request and Sailthru at On request.
Does Campaign Monitor or Sailthru run on more platforms?
Campaign Monitor runs on Web. Sailthru runs on Web, REST API.
What is Campaign Monitor best used for?
Campaign Monitor is most often used for a small marketing team wanting straightforward campaign design and automation without a full martech stack, a business with a list under a few thousand contacts and infrequent sends, where the lite tier's cap is not a real constraint, an agency managing multiple brands wanting enterprise-tier multi-brand account management, a team wanting a bundled website builder alongside email on the premier tier. Of those, a small marketing team wanting straightforward campaign design and automation without a full martech stack and a business with a list under a few thousand contacts and infrequent sends, where the lite tier's cap is not a real constraint are not what Sailthru is typically brought in for.
What can Campaign Monitor do that Sailthru cannot?
Campaign Monitor covers Drag-and-drop email builder, Automation workflows, List segmentation, Send-time optimisation. Sailthru covers Interest profiles, Personalisation engine, Prediction Manager, Site personalisation.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Campaign Monitor: Does the cheapest plan include unlimited sends?

No. Lite caps monthly sends at 2,500 emails regardless of list size; unlimited sending starts at the Essentials tier.

Sailthru: Who owns Sailthru now?

Marigold, formerly CM Group, which also owns Campaign Monitor, Emma, Selligent, Liveclicker and Cheetah Digital.

Campaign Monitor: Who owns Campaign Monitor?

Marigold, a marketing technology group that also owns Sailthru and other acquired email and loyalty platforms.

Sailthru: Does that affect the roadmap?

It can. Overlapping products in one portfolio compete for investment, so ask which platform is the strategic one for your segment before signing multi-year.

Campaign Monitor: Is there a free plan?

A 30-day free trial with a 500-contact limit is available, but there is no permanent free tier.

Sailthru: Is it worth it just for newsletters?

For personalised daily newsletters at publisher scale it remains one of the strongest options. For simple broadcast sending it is heavily over-specified.

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