I had my eyes on this the second it hit the store. I almost couldn't believe it - Sendinblue, offering not one, but two deals on AppSumo?
*checks calendar to see if I slipped into a coma until April 1st, 2022*

But it isn't a dream - it's reality!

Anyone who has done any level of email marketing or has worked with tools that largely lean on email marketing know the Sendinblue name. Honestly, it's almost a bit farcical that "Alternative to: Mailchimp" is even a thing on the sales page, because this company doesn't need an introduction, and I would argue does a lot of things better than Mailchimp!

The reason I'm really stoked to see this here? I use WP Fusion and Sendinblue has an "A" rating for their CRM integration list - on top of that, I get killer email marketing tools from an extremely mature company.

Automations, Transactional Emails and SMS, Shared Inbox, best-in-class integrations (immediate usability!!!), and so much more mean that whatever you "lose" in limits, you gain in "deployability". How many deals have we all purchased for their more than generous limits, yet haven't been able to use fully within our stacks because we're waiting on integrations or an API that may never come? Too many to count for my liking. That's not the case here.

My main gripe is with the annual deal offered simultaneously - I wish that was A) a locked-in price in perpetuity (not just the first year) and B) is honored/offered to LTD customers who can grow into their 5,000 limit, but upgrade later for the same locked-in rates that are currently being offered.

That promotes long-term growth within the Sendinblue ecosystem, while providing short-term benefits for the LTD. I can "invest" in the Sendinblue ecosystem for $79 while I grow my list, and later I can continue investing/upgrade my plan to the same $89+ offering for an annual price every subsequent year after that as I continue to grow within the limits offered on AppSumo (it would be fair to request an additional upgrade after those limits have been reached).

Through smart segmentation and careful marketing planning, it's important to remember that the limits imposed on emails per month, not contacts - you can have all the contacts you want. If you have 30k contacts, but only 5k fit within your current marketing campaign and out of that 5k, only 1.5k have really engaged or purchased a product in the past, then you can get a few sends out that month to your high-value customers and not waste your precious breath on the rest and still be within the limits of the LTD, let alone those of the annual deal.

Overall, I don't think we're ever going to get a product as mature as Sendinblue on this platform. We've seen some mature products, yes, but with the ubiquity of Sendinblue? Doubtful.

Would I sign the petition for slightly increased limits to the LTD all things considering? Yes. I would like to see a tweaking of the deal to some degree that works for both parties, but I have to give the product 5/5.