Loops vs Customer.io for SaaS (2026): Pricing, Features, and Where SendHeron Fits
Loops and Customer.io compared for SaaS lifecycle email in 2026: what each charges and on what unit, the math at 5,000 and 40,000 contacts, the feature lines that decide it, and where SendHeron fits and does not.
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Search "Loops vs Customer.io" and most of what comes back is a feature grid with a winner declared in the first paragraph. That is not how the choice works. Both tools are good at what they were built for, and the question that actually decides it is what kind of company is doing the choosing and how many people are on the list. We build a third option, SendHeron, so this article says where it fits and, just as plainly, where it does not.
Prices below are as of September 22, 2026, from each vendor's own pricing page. Prices change, so check before you decide.
What you will learn
- What each tool charges, and what the unit of pricing is, because the unit matters more than the number
- The arithmetic at two list sizes that most SaaS products pass through
- Which features exist on which tool, without the marketing gloss
- A plain recommendation per situation, including the situations where SendHeron is the wrong pick
Quick comparison
| Loops | Customer.io | SendHeron | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Built for | SaaS lifecycle and product email | Data-driven messaging across email, push, in-app, SMS | SaaS lifecycle and transactional email |
| Priced on | Subscribed contacts | Peak profiles, objects included | Subscribed contacts plus a monthly send pool |
| Entry price | $49 per month at 5,000 contacts | $100 per month at 5,000 profiles | €19 per month up to 10,000 contacts |
| Sends | Unlimited on paid plans | 1,000,000 emails per month on Essentials | 50,000 per month on Starter, pooled across marketing and transactional |
| Free plan | Yes, 1,000 contacts and 4,000 sends per rolling 30 days | No; a startup program gives up to twelve months free to eligible companies that raised under $10 million | No, 7-day trial with a card |
| Channels | Email, push, in-app, SMS, WhatsApp | ||
| Data location | US-based company, data processed in the United States, no EU option listed | US or EU data centre, your choice, on every plan | EU company, contact data stored in Germany, mail sent through Amazon SES in Frankfurt |
Loops pricing
Loops charges on subscribed contacts and nothing else. Their FAQ says it directly: no separate charge for email sends on paid plans, and transactional email is included. Unsubscribed contacts do not count.
The free plan covers up to 1,000 subscribed contacts and 4,000 emails in any rolling 30-day window, marketing and transactional counted together, with a small Loops footer on every email. Paid plans remove the cap on sends.
At 5,000 contacts the paid plan is $49 per month. The pricing page uses a slider rather than a table: $99 per month at 10,000 contacts and $249 at 50,000. Team seats are free.
Customer.io pricing
Customer.io's Essentials plan starts at $100 per month billed monthly for 5,000 profiles. A profile is a person or an object, and the plan counts peak profiles, so a list that spikes and shrinks is billed on the spike. Essentials includes 1,000,000 emails per month, two object types, the visual workflow builder, transactional email, email and community support, and an AI agent that is still in beta.
Premium starts at $1,000 per month billed yearly, with custom profile and email volumes, ten object types and premium support. Enterprise is priced by conversation. Their page lists additional people and object profiles at $0.009 each and additional emails at $0.12 per 1,000, and a startup program gives up to twelve months free to eligible companies that have raised under $10 million.
SendHeron pricing
SendHeron charges on subscribed contacts, with a monthly pool of sends that marketing and transactional share. The full details are on the pricing page.
| Plan | Price | Subscribed contacts | Sends per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | €19 per month | up to 10,000 | 50,000 |
| Growth | €49 per month | up to 40,000 | 150,000 |
| Scale | €99 per month | up to 100,000 | 250,000 |
| Max | €179 per month | up to 200,000 | 500,000 |
Only subscribed contacts count. Unsubscribed and bounced contacts are stored free. Sequences, tags and segments are unlimited on every plan. There is no free plan: every plan starts with a 7-day trial that takes a card at checkout, runs with reduced limits of 1,000 contacts and 5,000 sends, and converts to the plan you picked unless you cancel before it ends.
The pricing math
Two list sizes, the same job on each tool: lifecycle sequences plus the transactional mail a product sends anyway.
| Scenario | Loops | Customer.io | SendHeron |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5,000 contacts, 25,000 emails a month | $49 | $100 | €19 (Starter) |
| 40,000 contacts, 100,000 emails a month | $249 (up to 50,000 contacts) | about $415: $100 plus 35,000 extra profiles at $0.009, our arithmetic from their listed rate | €49 (Growth) |
Two things the table hides. First, Loops' sends are unlimited, so a product that emails every contact daily pays the same as one that emails monthly. SendHeron's pool is generous for a lifecycle product, but it is a pool. Second, below 1,000 contacts Loops is free and SendHeron is not. If you are pre-launch with a few hundred users, Loops' free plan is the honest recommendation and we would rather say so than have you find out.
Feature comparison
Sequences and automation
All three have a visual builder with triggers, delays and conditions. Loops calls them loops and triggers them from events and contact properties. Customer.io's builder is the most capable of the three, with branching on object data, send-time optimisation and cross-channel steps in one workflow. SendHeron's builder triggers on tags your backend sets, branches on tag conditions, and adds one thing the other two do not offer: point it at your website and it drafts a full lifecycle suite in your brand voice, welcome, trial, win-back and cancel-save, as drafts you approve one sequence at a time.
Transactional email
Loops includes transactional sending on paid plans at no extra charge. Customer.io includes it, and treats it as part of the same messaging model as everything else. SendHeron sends transactional and marketing through one API and one template system, with the two streams separated for suppression and unsubscribe handling, and both drawn from the same monthly pool.
Channels beyond email
Customer.io wins this outright. Push, in-app messages, SMS and WhatsApp are native. Loops and SendHeron are email tools. If your lifecycle needs a push notification on day three, neither of the email-only tools is the right choice.
Developer surface
Loops has a REST API and SDKs. Customer.io has an extensive API, an MCP server, reverse ETL on every plan and data warehouse destinations on the higher plans. SendHeron has a REST API with every object the dashboard can touch and a Node SDK.
Data residency
Customer.io lets you choose a US or EU data centre on every plan. Loops is a US company whose privacy policy says data is processed in the United States, and it lists no EU hosting option. SendHeron is operated by an EU company, stores contact data in Germany and sends through Amazon SES in Frankfurt. Not every part of SendHeron runs in the EU, and the data residency page lists exactly which parts do not, because a buyer who reads that page carefully deserves the whole picture.
Who should use what
Choose Loops if
- You have fewer than 1,000 contacts and want to pay nothing until you grow
- You send a lot of email per contact and want unlimited sends without thinking about a pool
- You want the largest community and template library of the three
Choose Customer.io if
- Your lifecycle runs across push, in-app or SMS as well as email
- You model accounts, orders or other objects, not only people, and want to branch on them
- You have raised under $10 million and qualify for up to twelve free months through their startup program
Choose SendHeron if
- You run a SaaS with 2,000 to 200,000 contacts and want the lowest price per contact of the three
- Your customers are in the EU and where the data lives is part of the buying decision
- You would rather have the first draft of your entire lifecycle suite written for you and edit it than build it from a blank canvas
- You want one API for transactional and marketing mail
We also compare SendHeron directly in SendHeron vs Loops and SendHeron vs Customer.io, and list other options in Loops alternatives and Customer.io alternatives. For other lifecycle pairings, see Customer.io vs Mailchimp and Customer.io vs Intercom; for email APIs, see Resend vs SendGrid, Postmark vs Resend and Mailgun vs Resend.
Frequently asked questions
Is Loops cheaper than Customer.io?
At every list size, yes. At 5,000 contacts Loops is $49 and Customer.io is $100, and Customer.io adds channels Loops does not have. You are paying for the channels and the data model, not for the same thing at a higher price.
Is SendHeron cheaper than Loops?
Above roughly 1,000 contacts, yes: €19 covers 10,000 contacts where Loops charges $49 for 5,000. Below 1,000 contacts Loops is free and SendHeron is not.
Does Customer.io have a free plan?
No. There is a startup program with up to twelve months free for eligible companies that have raised under $10 million, and paid plans start at $100 per month.
Can I move from Loops or Customer.io to SendHeron?
Contacts and tags come over through the API or a CSV import. Sequences are rebuilt rather than imported, and the AI setup can draft the first version of each one from your site so you edit instead of starting empty.
Which of the three stores data in the EU?
Customer.io if you choose its EU data centre. SendHeron by default, as an EU company with data in Germany. Loops processes data in the United States and lists no EU option.
Start with the one that fits
If you are small and want free, start with Loops. If you need push and SMS, start with Customer.io. If you are a SaaS with a real list, care where the data lives, and want the lowest price per contact, start a 7-day trial of SendHeron. It takes a card, cancel before it ends and you will not be charged.