Overview
Customer.io is a messaging automation platform for product-led companies. Your app sends it people, objects (such as accounts) and events; you then build campaigns and journeys that react to that data, sending email, push notifications, in-app messages, SMS or webhooks.
Billing is by profiles, which include both people and objects, measured at the highest count reached in each billing period, including profiles you deleted during it. Essentials includes 5,000 profiles and a million emails a month, with published overage rates of $0.009 per profile and $0.12 per 1,000 emails.
Premium and Enterprise use custom volume pricing and add more object types, premium integrations, onboarding help and HIPAA compliance. Premium and Enterprise plans are typically billed on longer terms; overages are charged monthly.
Customer.io expects engineering time to send clean event data. It is more than most side projects need but fits teams that want lifecycle messaging driven by product behaviour.
Pricing and plans
checked 28 Sept 2026| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Essentials | $100/mo | 5,000 profiles (people + objects), 1 million emails/mo, 2 object types, basic data integrations; overage $0.009/profile |
| Premium | Custom | Custom profile and email volume, 10 object types, premium support, 90-day onboarding, HIPAA; overage $0.004/profile |
| Enterprise | Custom | Dedicated infrastructure and support, best volume pricing |
What it does
- Event-triggered journeys
- Visual workflow builder driven by events and attributes from your product.
- Multichannel
- Email, push, in-app, SMS and webhooks; push, in-app and webhooks are unlimited under fair use.
- Objects
- Model accounts or other entities as objects (2 types on Essentials, 10 on Premium).
- Data pipelines
- Collect and route customer data to and from other tools.
- AI agent, CLI and MCP
- An AI agent in the product plus a CLI and MCP server for external agents.
Strengths and limitations
Strengths
- Rich event and object data model for B2B and B2C products
- One million emails included on the entry plan
- Published overage rates
- Unlimited push, in-app and webhook messages under fair use
Limitations
- No free plan; entry price around $100 a month
- Deleted profiles still count in the billing period they existed
- Profiles in test or dev workspaces count toward billing
- New accounts start with a daily sending limit
Who it suits
Good for
- SaaS and mobile apps with instrumented product events
- Teams running cross-channel onboarding and retention
- Healthcare products needing HIPAA (Premium)
Look elsewhere if
- Simple newsletters or hobby projects
- Teams without engineering time to send event data
Alternatives to Customer.io
| Tool | From | Free option | Stages |
|---|---|---|---|
| ActiveCampaign Marketing automation platform | $15/mo | ||
| Brevo Email marketing and transactional platform | $9/mo | Free tier | |
| GetResponse Email marketing and automation | $19/mo | Free tier | |
| Klaviyo Ecommerce marketing platform | $20/mo | Free tier | |
| Mautic Open-source marketing automation | — | Free tier | |
| Twilio SendGrid Email API Email API and SMTP relay | $19.95/mo |
Questions
How does Customer.io billing work?
By profiles (people plus objects) on a high-water mark, with a set number of emails per plan and overages at $0.009 per profile and $0.12 per 1,000 emails on Essentials.
Does Customer.io have a free plan?
No. It offers a trial; Essentials is the entry plan.
Do test workspaces count toward Customer.io profiles?
Yes. Profiles in all workspaces, including ones named test or sandbox, count toward billing.
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