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Marketing · head to head

Roxhill vs WebEngage

Roxhill logo

Roxhill

Marketing

UK-focused journalist database and media monitoring, founder-owned and annual only

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
WebEngage logo

WebEngage

Marketing

Customer engagement and retention automation for consumer businesses in India and Southeast Asia

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Roxhill the database is UK-centric by reviewers’ own account, with weak US, Australian and broader Asian journalist coverage, so any multi-market programme needs a second vendor and the single-vendor cost case disappears.; WebEngage nothing about pricing is published, and since the entire commercial argument for WebEngage is that it undercuts Braze and CleverTap, you cannot evaluate the one thing that makes it interesting without entering a sales process.
  • They diverge on capability: Roxhill covers Journalist database, WebEngage covers Journey designer.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Roxhill and WebEngage actually diverge.

Attributes where Roxhill and WebEngage differ
AttributeRoxhillWebEngage
PlatformsWeb, iOS, AndroidWeb, iOS SDK, Android SDK, React Native, Flutter, API

Identical on both: starting price (On request), pricing model (quote), free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (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 Roxhill

  • Journalist database
  • Journalist profiles
  • Media lists and distribution
  • Media requests and alerts
  • Media monitoring
  • Bespoke newsletters
  • Historical search
  • Journalist Assistant

Only in WebEngage

  • Journey designer
  • Behavioural segmentation
  • Push and in-app
  • WhatsApp
  • Analytics
  • Personalisation
  • On-site surveys
  • Customer data platform

What people use each for

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

Roxhill

  • A UK in-house press office that needs journalist contacts with current pitching preferences rather than a scraped byline list.not WebEngage
  • An agency tracking forward features across UK trade and consumer titles to place clients into planned coverage months ahead.not WebEngage
  • A communications team monitoring named spokespeople and measuring their share of voice against competitors in UK media.not WebEngage
  • A UK public sector body procuring through G-Cloud that needs EEA-hosted media monitoring with a published framework price band.not WebEngage

WebEngage

  • A consumer app in India or Southeast Asia with several million monthly users needs Braze-class journey automation at a price its marketing budget can absorb.not Roxhill
  • A fintech or edtech business needs WhatsApp as a primary retention channel rather than a secondary one, in a market where email open rates are low and WhatsApp is universal.not Roxhill
  • A media or ecommerce company wants behavioural segmentation and lifecycle journeys without building a customer data platform separately first.not Roxhill
  • A team wants funnels, cohorts and retention analysis in the same tool that sends the messages, so the analyst and the campaign manager are not reconciling two systems.not Roxhill

Where each one falls short

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

Roxhill

  • The database is UK-centric by reviewers’ own account, with weak US, Australian and broader Asian journalist coverage, so any multi-market programme needs a second vendor and the single-vendor cost case disappears.
  • Contact records go stale: reviewers report old email addresses and phone numbers, distribution bounces, and there is no self-serve verification step before you send.
  • At roughly 200,000 to 300,000 journalists it is far smaller than the million-plus figures Cision and Prowly claim, with repeated complaints about thin trade, academic and journal coverage.
  • Selling is annual only with no monthly plan and a trial functionally restricted to around two weeks, so you cannot genuinely pilot before a twelve-month commitment, which is a poor fit for project or retainer agency work.
  • Licence bands are 1, 3 and 5 seats, and extra logins, workspaces, smart folders, historical search, share of voice and the spokespeople platform are all chargeable add-ons, so a team of eight to fifteen pays well above any headline band.
  • Search behaviour is described as counter-intuitive and sometimes returns implausibly few results, which means a null result cannot be trusted and lists need manual cross-checking.
  • Monitoring accuracy takes time to settle after switching, so coverage is missed in the first weeks after a cutover, which is a real gap risk if you time the migration badly.

WebEngage

  • Nothing about pricing is published, and since the entire commercial argument for WebEngage is that it undercuts Braze and CleverTap, you cannot evaluate the one thing that makes it interesting without entering a sales process.
  • Message volumes across email, SMS and WhatsApp are metered separately from the platform fee, so a campaign that succeeds increases the bill in ways the monthly tracked user figure does not capture.
  • It requires genuine engineering investment to instrument events and user attributes correctly, and a poorly instrumented deployment produces segments that are wrong rather than merely incomplete, which is expensive to discover after launch.
  • Enterprise assurance is lighter than the American incumbents: procurement teams expecting extensive compliance documentation, regional data residency guarantees and 24 hour follow-the-sun support may find gaps.
  • Its centre of gravity is India, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, so partner availability, agency expertise and support hours all favour those regions and a European or North American buyer is a peripheral customer.

Pricing, plan by plan

Roxhill

On request
  • Core$undefined/year
    • 1 licence
    • Standard database access
    • Journalist Assistant
  • Boutique$undefined/year
    • 3 licences
    • Adds press release distribution
    • 3 workspaces, 6 smart folders, 10 spokespeople, 3 newsletters
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • 5 licences
    • 5 workspaces, 10 smart folders, 5 newsletters
    • Spokespeople platform
  • Premium$undefined/year
    • Everything in Enterprise
    • Insights analysis and bespoke reporting
    • Competitor share of voice

WebEngage

On request
  • WebEngage$undefined/year
    • Priced by monthly tracked users and channels enabled
    • Journeys, segmentation and analytics included
    • Email, SMS and WhatsApp volumes charged separately

Which should you pick?

Choose Roxhill if

  • You need journalist database.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want journalist profiles.
Roxhill review

Choose WebEngage if

  • You need journey designer.
  • You work on Web, iOS SDK, Android SDK, React Native, Flutter, API.
  • You also want behavioural segmentation.
WebEngage review

Questions people ask

Is Roxhill or WebEngage better?
Neither clearly leads. Roxhill starts at On request and WebEngage at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Roxhill or WebEngage?
Roxhill starts at On request and WebEngage at On request.
Does Roxhill or WebEngage run on more platforms?
Roxhill runs on Web, iOS, Android. WebEngage runs on Web, iOS SDK, Android SDK, React Native, Flutter, API.
What is Roxhill best used for?
Roxhill is most often used for a uk in-house press office that needs journalist contacts with current pitching preferences rather than a scraped byline list., an agency tracking forward features across uk trade and consumer titles to place clients into planned coverage months ahead., a communications team monitoring named spokespeople and measuring their share of voice against competitors in uk media., a uk public sector body procuring through g-cloud that needs eea-hosted media monitoring with a published framework price band.. Of those, a uk in-house press office that needs journalist contacts with current pitching preferences rather than a scraped byline list. and an agency tracking forward features across uk trade and consumer titles to place clients into planned coverage months ahead. are not what WebEngage is typically brought in for.
What can Roxhill do that WebEngage cannot?
Roxhill covers Journalist database, Journalist profiles, Media lists and distribution, Media requests and alerts. WebEngage covers Journey designer, Behavioural segmentation, Push and in-app, WhatsApp.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Roxhill: How much does Roxhill cost?

Not published on the vendor site, but the UK G-Cloud 14 listing discloses £6,450 to £25,000 per instance per year. Use that as your anchor.

WebEngage: How much does WebEngage cost?

It does not publish pricing. It is quoted by monthly tracked users with message volumes charged separately, and it typically comes in below Braze and CleverTap for equivalent volumes.

Roxhill: Is Roxhill owned by Cision or Access Intelligence?

No. Companies House shows a single individual holding over 75% of shares and no corporate PSC. It is founder-controlled and unfunded. Note the founder previously sold Gorkana to Cision, so ask for a change-of-control clause.

WebEngage: Is it a CDP or a marketing automation tool?

Both, in practice. It assembles unified user profiles from event streams and then acts on them, though it is lighter than a dedicated CDP on data warehousing and identity resolution.

Roxhill: Is it usable for US or APAC media relations?

Not well. Reviewers describe US, Australian and Asian coverage as materially weaker than UK. Budget for a second database.

WebEngage: Is WebEngage owned by anyone else?

No. It remains an independent Mumbai-based company.

Roxhill: Can I buy monthly?

No. Contracts are annual, sales-gated, with a trial of around two weeks.

WebEngage: Which channels does it support?

Mobile push, in-app, web push, email, SMS and WhatsApp, with WhatsApp treated as a first-class channel rather than an add-on.

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