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Email Marketing · head to head

Sailthru vs Zoho Campaigns

Sailthru logo

Sailthru

Email Marketing

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

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Zoho Campaigns logo

Zoho Campaigns

Email Marketing

Email marketing tool with a genuine free tier, priced by contact count once paid

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Zoho Campaigns has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: 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.; Zoho Campaigns template design quality and out-of-the-box deliverability reputation tools are less polished than specialist platforms such as Klaviyo or Campaign Monitor.
  • They diverge on capability: Sailthru covers Interest profiles, Zoho Campaigns covers Drag-and-drop email builder.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Sailthru and Zoho Campaigns actually diverge.

Attributes where Sailthru and Zoho Campaigns differ
AttributeSailthruZoho Campaigns
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquotePer month by contact tier once on a paid plan
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWeb, REST APIWeb

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 Sailthru

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

Only in Zoho Campaigns

  • Drag-and-drop email builder
  • Zoho CRM integration
  • A/B testing
  • Advanced segmentation
  • Send time optimisation
  • WhatsApp and SMS add-ons

What people use each for

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

Sailthru

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

Zoho Campaigns

  • A small business with under 2,000 contacts wanting a genuinely usable free email marketing tool rather than a crippled trialnot Sailthru
  • An existing Zoho CRM or Desk customer wanting email marketing that syncs natively without a third-party connectornot Sailthru
  • A growing list needing to scale from 500 up to 500,000 contacts within one vendor's pricing laddernot Sailthru
  • A team wanting WhatsApp or SMS as an add-on channel alongside email from the same vendornot Sailthru

Where each one falls short

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

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.

Zoho Campaigns

  • Template design quality and out-of-the-box deliverability reputation tools are less polished than specialist platforms such as Klaviyo or Campaign Monitor.
  • Advanced segmentation and dynamic content are reserved for the Professional tier, so mid-sized lists needing that capability face a real price step up from Standard.
  • WhatsApp and SMS are separate paid add-ons rather than included channels, so a genuinely multi-channel campaign costs more than the base email price suggests.
  • Its main structural advantage, native Zoho ecosystem integration, does not benefit a buyer using a non-Zoho CRM or helpdesk, who gets no more from Zoho Campaigns than from a specialist alternative.
  • Support responsiveness reflects Zoho's broad, lower-touch model across its whole portfolio rather than dedicated email marketing expertise.

Pricing, plan by plan

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

Zoho Campaigns

Free
  • Forever FreeFree
    • Up to 2,000 contacts
    • 6,000 emails per month
    • 5 users, basic templates and reporting
  • Standard$undefined/month
    • Starts at 500 contacts, scales to 100,000
    • Unlimited email sends
    • A/B testing and priority support
  • Professional$undefined/month
    • Starts at 500 contacts, scales to 500,000
    • Unlimited email sends
    • Advanced segmentation, dynamic content, custom roles and webhooks

Which should you pick?

Choose Sailthru if

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

Choose Zoho Campaigns if

  • You need drag-and-drop email builder.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want zoho crm integration.
Zoho Campaigns review

Questions people ask

Is Sailthru or Zoho Campaigns better?
Neither clearly leads. Sailthru starts at On request and Zoho Campaigns at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Sailthru or Zoho Campaigns?
Zoho Campaigns has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Sailthru and Free for Zoho Campaigns.
Does Sailthru or Zoho Campaigns run on more platforms?
Sailthru runs on Web, REST API. Zoho Campaigns runs on Web.
Can I use Zoho Campaigns for free?
Yes. Zoho Campaigns has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Sailthru starts at On request.
What is Sailthru best used for?
Sailthru is most often used for a publisher sending a personalised daily newsletter assembled per reader from a content catalogue, a retailer that wants email and on-site recommendations driven by the same affinity model, high-cadence sending where per-recipient content assembly matters more than journey branching, teams that want churn and lifetime value scores available as native campaign conditions rather than imported fields. Of those, a publisher sending a personalised daily newsletter assembled per reader from a content catalogue and a retailer that wants email and on-site recommendations driven by the same affinity model are not what Zoho Campaigns is typically brought in for.
What can Sailthru do that Zoho Campaigns cannot?
Sailthru covers Interest profiles, Personalisation engine, Prediction Manager, Site personalisation. Zoho Campaigns covers Drag-and-drop email builder, Zoho CRM integration, A/B testing, Advanced segmentation.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Sailthru: Who owns Sailthru now?

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

Zoho Campaigns: Is the free tier good enough for real use, or just a trial?

It is a real, ongoing free tier for up to 2,000 contacts and 6,000 emails a month, not a time-limited trial.

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.

Zoho Campaigns: Does it integrate with non-Zoho CRMs?

Yes via Zapier and other connectors, but the native, no-extra-fee integration advantage is specific to other Zoho products.

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.

Zoho Campaigns: Are WhatsApp and SMS included?

No, they are separately purchased add-ons alongside the email plan.

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