It looks like you have tried OneSignal and it doesn't meet your needs. You are not alone. Marketers are often looking for tools that are easier to use, offer automation, and all of this at an affordable price. This is why we decided to extensively test out 8 push notification service providers and share our findings, to help you make an informed decision.

OneSignal, which started off as a push notification platform for both mobile web and mobile apps has now turned into an omnichannel platform. OneSignal has been built as a horizontal product. It does something for everyone. The flip side of building a horizontal platform is that when you are building for everyone and anyone - it becomes difficult to solve specific use cases of customers of a specific segment. Like E-commerce or publishers. OneSignal has been built keeping developers in mind and that's why many marketers face problems while setting up segments in OneSignal, while others are just not able to get the ROI. 

How Many Alternatives For OneSignal Exist?

While there are over 70+ push notification providers globally, less than 10 operate at scale. Most of the products “also” offer web push notifications. What that means is - web push notifications are a part of the larger offering. Only select providers like iZooto, Aimtell, PushEngage solely focus on only web push notifications. When a team continues to focus on only one product - it essentially paves the way for excellence. In this article, we will only focus on presenting alternatives to OneSignal’s web push notification offering. 

There are 8 alternatives to OneSignal that operate at a meaningful scale and offer competitive features which we will cover in this post. iZooto, PushEngage, VWOEngage, Pushnami, Aimtellm, Pushowl, FoxPush, and Webpushr. The idea, as always remains to present a 360º perspective on the capabilities of these 6 providers along with their strengths and weaknesses and pricing to help marketers make an informed decision.

Here are our top picks as alternatives to OneSignal

  1. iZooto
  2. Pushnami
  3. PushEngage
  4. Aimtell
  5. Pushcrew (VWO Engage)
  6. Pushowl
  7. FoxPush
  8. Webpushr

We tested these OneSignal alternatives exhaustively on things that matter the most to buyers - 

  • Capabilities - Features parity for marketers and developers 
  • Ease of Use - How easy is it to get started and set it up
  • Customer Support - Response time, reviews, and everything else
  • Affordability - How cost-effective is it for marketers
  • What stands out

1. iZooto as an alternative to OneSignal

Media businesses and publishers across the globe use our platform to send over 150 B notifications every month. Apart from iZooto, only OneSignal operates at a similar scale. Unlike OneSignal, iZooto is a vertical product, designed and built for publishers. Editors and audience managers use iZooto to get readers back to their website.

Channels

OneSignal offers web push, Native App Push, Email, and SMS as communication channels. iZooto on the other hand offers web push, native app push, and Facebook messenger notifications as communication channels. 

Capabilities: How does iZooto compare with OneSignal on features

While OneSignal is developer-heavy, iZooto can be easily implemented and used by anyone. Integration is fairly straightforward but iZooto's ease of use outscores OneSignal. OneSignal being a horizontal product iZooto's AI platform handpicks a story for each reader and delivers it to them at the time when they are most likely to read. The best part - is it's No Code. Off-the-shelf integration. Customers who came from OneSignal tell us that with iZooto, they got to ROI way faster.

API Capability

iZooto

OneSignal 

Send notification to all subscribers Yes Yes
Send notification to all subscribers Yes Yes
Send notification to an individual subscriber Yes Yes

 

Both iZooto and OneSignal offer extensive segmentation features. You can segment audiences based on their device, location, and user behavior. iZooto additionally also allows you to use filters like - Last Website Visit, and Last Click on Notification to separate active subscribers from the dormant ones. 


Automated Workflows

Personalized contextual campaigns generate the maximum ROI. Marketers are well aware of this. iZooto with its playbooks features offers marketers a no-code setup that allows them to retarget their audience without going to their developers. Recovering abandoned tabs and improving video watch-time are 1-click workflows that drive a lot of value.

Along the lines of iZooto Playbooks, OneSignal has recently added a new feature - Journeys. Unlike Playbooks that are ready to go live, one would have to set up a Journey in OneSignal. But because OneSignal also offers extra channels such as SMS, Journey might be a good fit for e-commerce websites.

iZooto's Magic Notifications ensures that the notification is automatically created for every new post. According to the G2 report, publishers using iZooto achieve their ROI 2X faster than those using OneSignal.

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Ease of Use - How easy is it to get started and set it up

Both iZooto and OneSignal are open for everyone and easy to get started with. One can book a demo or straight away go and sign up and start using the tool. 

Platform

iZooto

OneSignal

WordPress Over 1,600 installations and last updated 2 weeks ago. Over 100,000 Installations and last updated 2 months ago
Native Integration within WordPress CMS Yes Yes
Shopify Yes Yes
Affiliate Partners Yes No
Analytics Yes Yes
Adnetwork Partners Yes Yes

 

Audience Monetization

Again, a publisher-centric problem that OneSignal doesn't address. iZooto helps publishers get incremental revenue through web push notification ads and has ready integrations with native ad networks like Taboola, and Outbrain to name a few. This is where iZooto wins over OneSignal. iZooto also has a revenue dashboard where publishers can track their revenue making the entire process transparent.

Identified as a solution delivering incomparable revenue lifts to publishers (up to 15%), iZooto has recently been ranked first in the G2Crowd listing of “best web push notification software".

A publisher with 100K unique traffic per month can additionally earn up to $4,613 every year with iZooto. Click here to see how much you can make.

*Please request access to the document.

Revenue

Customer Support

When it comes to customer support, iZooto wins over every other alternative. 24*7 support with an average response time of fewer than 5 minutes, makes iZooto the preferred choice. On the other hand, OneSignal is based out of the US and offers customer support in the US time zone only.

At iZooto, you get a dedicated account manager who not only reviews your campaign performance but also helps your team build your push notification strategy. Training editors, SEOs, audience analytics- this all is part of the White Glove Experience you get at iZooto.Support

Pricing

Just like OneSignal, iZooto has a free plan but it is coupled with audience monetization. iZooto allows you to not only use the platform for free but also helps you earn additional revenue with push notification ads. However, this offering is best suited for news and media websites, bloggers, and affiliates.

OneSignal’s free plan is most suited for websites that have just started but if you already have a high-traffic website you should consider iZooto because OneSignal’s pricing goes up drastically as and when you cross 20K subscribers. 

Here’s a quick summary of how much you would end up paying in 6 months if you start with 100K monthly unique visitors -

 

Month 1

Month 2

Month 3

Month 4

Month 5

Month 6

OneSignal Grow $21 $33 $45 $57 $69 $81
OneSignal Professional $111 $123 $135 $147 $159 $171
iZooto Rise $85 $85 $85 $85 $85 $85
iZooto Grow $250* $250* $250* $250* $250* $250*
iZooto Monetization Free** Free** Free** Free** Free** Free**

 

*You can opt for ads and reduce your overall spending.

** You can pay a minimal platform fee and customize features.

The calculation includes subscription rate @ 4% (Desktop), 9% (Mobile - Android)

##A detailed pricing comparison of all the tools is added towards the end

Our verdict on iZooto as an alternative to OneSignal

  1. Pick iZooto if you want built-in features that help you scale your engagement and revenue. iZooto is best suited for News and Media publishers followed by mid-level e-commerce stores. 
  2. Pick OneSignal if you want to explore push notifications as a channel. Best suited for developers who want to customize each and everything.
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Only Push Notification Platform Built For Publishers 

 

Get 2X faster ROI & Award-Winning Support with iZooto Web Push Notifications

2. Pushnami as an alternative to OneSignal

Pushnami came up on the radar only in 2018 and has grown rather quickly in the last few years. Pushnami’s core focus revolves around its ability to help monetize publishers’ push notification subscribers. This has been the biggest focus for Pushnami and is also the reason for Pushnami's popularity within the affiliate industry. While Pushnami does have an app on the Shopify app store, the last review for the app was in Jan 2021. Not sure whether this is still a big focus for them. Either way, let’s dive in - 

Capabilities: How does Pushnami compare with OneSignal on features

With respect to push notifications, what’s evident straight up is that OneSignal is far more friendly and easier to use for developers as compared to Pushnami. OneSignal’s API documentation and capabilities are exhaustive and easy to set up for developers. The most important capability that needs to be extended to developers is the ability to send notifications to subscribers via an API. 

API Capability

Pushnami

OneSignal

Send notification to all subscribers Yes Yes
Send notification to a segment of Subscribers Yes Yes
Send notification to an individual subscriber Not Clear Yes

 

Segmentation and Personalization are next in line. Both OneSignal and Pushnami allow marketers to - 

  • Segment audience basis their device, location, and user behaviour
  • Personalizing push notification content using custom variables like name, product name et al. 

Both of these are powerful features and drive the performance of push notification campaigns. Pushnami packages all of this under their “Pushonomics” along with their machine learning model. Words like AI and ML are used frequently as marketing gimmicks and this one feels like that because there is little evidence to support it. Pushnami also offers fully managed services - something that OneSignal doesn’t do.

Ease of Use - How easy is it to get started and set it up

While OneSignal is a self-serve platform, Pushnami is not open to everyone and anyone. Pushnami website allows you to only request a demo and only those who qualify are allowed to use the product. From the reviews on G2Crowd and other platforms, it is evident that getting started - onboarding UX is not easy as it is on OneSignal. 

Integrations offered by Pushnami vs OneSignal 

Platform

Pushnami

OneSignal

WordPress The plugin has ~ 100 Active installations and was last updated 12 months ago. Over 100,000 Installations and last updated 2 months ago
Native Integration within WordPress CMS No Yes
Shopify Yes - No review since Jan 2021 No new reviews since Dec 2020
Affiliate Partners Yes No
Analytics Yes Yes
Adnetwork Partners Yes Yes

 

Audience Monetization

Integration with Ad Networks like Taboola, Outbrain is where Pushnami outscores OneSignal. Because of their focus on helping publishers monetize their audience using push notification ads, Pushnami has ready integrations with native ad networks like Taboola, Outbrain to name a few. Pushnami also offers a ready-to-use reporting API for publishers and other partners so that they can track their revenue performance.

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Customer Support

Both OneSignal and Pushnami are based out of the US and offer customer support in the US time zone. However, if you are based out of Europe, Asia, Africa, and you believe that Customer Support will be critical for your team, iZooto is an alternative that stands out. iZooto provides customer support across all time zones and the team scores highly on customer support reviews. 

Pushnami Pricing

This is where the real difference shows up. Pushnami offers just one plan for customers - which is priced at $0.01 up to 20,000 Subscribers. At 20,000 subscribers they extend their enterprise pricing - where the pricing is discounted.

Here’s a quick summary of how much you would end paying in 6 months if you start with 100K monthly unique visitors -

 

Month 1

Month 2

Month 3

Month 4

Month 5

Month 6

OneSignal Grow $21 $33 $45 $57 $69 $81
OneSignal Professional $111 $123 $135 $147 $159 $171
Pushnami $38 $76 $115 $154 $193 $85

##A detailed pricing comparison of all the tools is added towards the end6-Dec-09-2021-12-03-08-93-PM

Our verdict on Pushnami as an alternative to OneSignal

Two things that stand out - 

  • Pushnami offers all its features in its standard plan as compared to OneSignal that offers different features across 5 plans. 
  • The only real addition in the Enterprise plan with Pushnami is their ad network offering which allows publishers to monetize their audience. 

So go with Pushnami if you are looking for - 

  • Fully managed solution with their team managing communication with your readers 
  • And your only focus is to monetize your audience by sending them push notification ads. Given the volume of push notification ads Pushnami sends, this might be detrimental to your audience’s growth.

3. PushEngage as an alternative to OneSignal

PushEngage is one of the few push notifications tools that is only confined to browser push notifications. On the other hand, OneSignal has an array of products -  web push notifications, app push notifications, SMS, and Email. So, if you’re looking for anything more than web push, you can keep PushEngage out of your list. Recently acquired by Awesome Motive, PushEngage is now a part of the team that gave great WordPress plugins like WPBeginner, OptinMonster, and WPForms. 

Before we dive deep into our review, here are the most recent best and worst customer reviews of PushEngage -

Screenshot 2021-09-16 at 4.18.14 PM

Screenshot 2021-09-16 at 4.19.31 PM

Capabilities: OneSignal vs PushEngage Feature Comparison

Both OneSignal and PushEngage cater to a very different audience altogether. While OneSignal is a developer-friendly tool, PushEngage on the other hand has been built for marketers. This reflects clearly in the dashboard of both the tools. However, PushEngage also provides APIs for developers to send notifications without the need to log in to the platform.

API Capability

PushEngage

OneSignal

Send notification to all subscribers Yes Yes
Send notification to a segment of Subscribers Yes Yes
Send notification to an individual subscriber Yes Yes

 

When it comes to segmentation, both the tools offer pre-built segments -  device, location, and user properties such as date subscribed. Because OneSignal offers app push notifications as well, it also offers segments based on subscriber activity - engaged or inactive. Other than this there’s nothing that you cannot achieve with PushEngage.

Because PushEngage caters to e-commerce marketers, it has out-of-the-box solutions such as recovering abandoned carts, engaging users who have browsed your website, and sending price drops alerts. So, if you have an e-commerce business and don’t have developer bandwidth, you can consider PushEngage over OneSignal. Apart from this, both tools are capable of helping you automate your web push notifications.

Ease of Use - How easy is it to get started and set it up

Getting started with both the tools is fairly simple. However, because PushEngage only offers web push notifications, the dashboard is fairly simple to use when compared to OneSignal. Both the tools can be integrated with almost all the popular website platforms and offer native integration with WordPress. If you are a WordPress publisher, this is a great benefit as you don’t need to log in to these platforms to send a notification.

Platform

PushEngage

OneSignal

WordPress The plugin has ~ 3,000+ Active installations and was last updated 2 months ago. Over 100,000 Installations and last updated 2 months ago
Native Integration within WordPress CMS Yes Yes
Shopify Yes - No review since Nov 2020 No new reviews since Dec 2020
Affiliate Partners Yes No
Analytics Yes Yes
Adnetwork Partners No Yes


Pricing: OneSignal vs PushEngage

While OneSignal has a fixed charge of $3 per 1000 active subscribers, PushEngage has slab-based pricing. OneSignal's free plan lets you acquire unlimited subscribers but you can only send a notification to 10K subscribers at once. PushEngage on the other hand only offers 500 subscribers and there’s a maximum limit of 30 notifications in a month. 

Paid plan of OneSignal starts at $12 ($9 fixed + $3 for 1K subs) and has basic personalization features. There’s no cap on the notifications unlike PushEngage that only removes this in the Enterprise plan. Moreover, apart from Drip campaigns, access to other Automation features (Cart Abandonment, Browse Abandonment, Trigger Notifications, Price Drop alerts) are only available in Enterprise plans.  

6-Dec-09-2021-12-03-08-93-PM

Here’s a quick summary of how much you would end paying in 6 months if you start with 100K monthly unique visitors -

 

Month 1

Month 2

Month 3

Month 4

Month 5

Month 6

OneSignal Grow $21 $33 $45 $57 $69 $81
OneSignal Professional $111 $123 $135 $147 $159 $171
PushEngage Business $59 $79 $99 $99 $99 $99
PushEngage Premium $79 $109 $139 $139 $139 $139


Customer Support

No doubt PushEngage is an easy-to-use tool but no support for users on the free plan just doesn’t make sense. It can be because their free plan is so limiting that one needs to go for a paid one. Both OneSignal’s and PushEngage’s support is directly proportional to how much you pay them. 

If you’re looking for stellar customer support, then you can try iZooto, which has been awarded the highest customer satisfaction rating by G2, 3 times in a row1-Dec-09-2021-12-04-00-48-PM

Our Verdict on OneSignal vs PushEngage

Here’s what you should go ahead with - 

  1. Pick PushEngage if you have an online store, but limited developer bandwidth and can afford to pay for their Enterprise plan.
  2. Pick OneSignal if you want more than just web push notifications and have a dedicated development team who can take another project.

Still not sure about which tool to go ahead with? Read our detailed comparison of OneSignal vs PushEngage.

4. Aimtell as an alternative to OneSignal

Just like PushEngage, Aimtell also focuses on one channel - web push notifications but is one of the few tools out there that don’t have a free plan. Though there’s a 14-day free trial that one can avail and their lowest plan starts at $49 for 10K subscribers.

Aimtell was once a preferred choice of Shopify merchants before Pushowl jumped in. There aren’t many reviews for Aimtell on G2 and on Shopify, the last review was in Jan 2021. Once again if you need more than web push notifications, you can skip Aimtell.

Capabilities: How does Aimtell compare with OneSignal on features

Once again, the fact that OneSignal is a developer tool, allows you to have much deeper integrations when compared to Aimtell. Both the tools allow you to segment your subscribers based on their actions (page visits, button clicks, etc.) but these capabilities come only when you are on the $99 plan of Aimtell. 

Both the tools are capable of customizing your content with user values such as name and user actions which then help you get better CTRs on your notifications. 

API Capability

Aimtell

OneSignal

Send notification to all subscribers Yes Yes
Send notification to a segment of Subscribers Yes Yes
Send notification to an individual subscriber Yes Yes

 

Ease of Use - How easy is it to get started and set it up

Setting up web push notifications with both Aimtell and OneSignal is fairly simple. Just like Pushnami, Aimtell also has a fully managed service in collaboration with PushPRO. This will give them access to optimize, manage and send push campaigns on your behalf. 

Aimtell also has a bunch of Zapier integrations that allow you to connect your Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube accounts with Aimtell. 

Platform

Aimtell

OneSignal

WordPress The plugin has ~ 300+ Active installations and was last updated 7 months ago. Over 100,000 Installations and last updated 2 months ago
Native Integration within WordPress CMS No Yes
Shopify Yes - No review since Jan 2021 No new reviews since Dec 2020
Affiliate Partners Yes No
Analytics Yes Yes
Adnetwork Partners Yes Yes


Audience Monetization 

This is something where Aimtell takes the lead over OneSignal. With the integration of PushPROS, Aimtell helps you monetize your push subscribers. You can either opt for Fully Managed Services or run promotional campaigns manually. For sending notifications manually you need to enable their Offer Network and then select the category of ads that you want to run on your audience. 

If you’re looking to monetize your audience, you can also consider iZooto’s monetization plan. Ads are sourced from ad networks such as Taboola and Outbrain. The best thing, you neither have to send ads manually nor there is a fee for managing just ads. Book a time with our representative to get started.

Pricing

Just like PushEngage, Aimtell also follows price slabs. Their Basic plan starts from $49 and covers up to 10K subscribers. The next plan starts at $99 for 50K subs, $199 for 100K subs, and Enterprise for more than 100K. 

Unlike OneSignal, which has flexible pricing and a free plan, Aimtell’s pricing can be a bit too much for some of you. 

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Here’s a quick summary of how much you would end paying in 6 months if you start with 100K monthly unique visitors - 

 

Month 1

Month 2

Month 3

Month 4

Month 5

Month 6

OneSignal Grow $21 $33 $45 $57 $69 $81
OneSignal Professional $111 $123 $135 $147 $159 $171
Aimtell Basic $49 $49 Upgrade Upgrade Upgrade Upgrade
Aimtell Plus $99 $99 $99 $99 $99 $99

##A detailed pricing comparison of all the tools is added towards the end

Customer Support

Just like OneSignal, Aimtell is also based out of the US and thus both of them offer support in US timezones only. If support is super critical to your business, you can opt for iZooto which offers support across time zones.

Our Verdict on Aimtell as an alternative to OneSignal 

  1. Go ahead with Aimtell if you’re looking for managed services, are comfortable with their pricing, or want to try out ads on your own. Aimtell also makes sense for you if you're an e-commerce store, preferably using Shopify.
  2. Go ahead with OneSignal if you want to test out push notifications and are comfortable with a little bit of coding.

Still not sure about which tool to go ahead with? Read our detailed comparison of OneSignal vs Aimtell.

5. Pushcrew (VWO Engage) as an alternative to OneSignal

Pushcrew, now renamed as VWOEngage along with iZooto, is one of the oldest web push notification products out there. A few years back, Pushcrew as a product was merged under VWOs brand and platform and is now offered as VWOEngage. VWO as a brand now increasingly focuses on mid-market and enterprise customers - which is one of the key reasons why they now have a demo first model and not a self-serve process. 

So, consider VWOEngage only if you are willing to go through a full-blown sales process of discovery calls, demo calls, and sales reps following up with you. There is nothing wrong with that - that process does work really well if you are an enterprise customer. 

VWOEngage is part of the larger suite of products from VWO. This includes their flagship product - VWO A/B Testing. VWO’s target customers are mid-large size eCommerce businesses. For bloggers, our publishers, iZooto is a better choice. 

Having said that, let's dive in and see what’s under the hood and how VWOEngage compares with OneSignal.

Capabilities- OneSignal vs VWOEngage

Just like OneSignal, Pushcrew also offers APIs to push notifications to individual subscribers, segments, or the entire audience. The only difference is that they offer this in their enterprise plan vs OneSignal which offers is all their plans. But there is more than that - 

  • Segmentation - Both the platforms support segmentation using user properties, and events
  • Personalization - Supported exhaustively by both the players. 
  • Workflows and Triggers -VWOEngage’s execution here is better than OneSignal’s. But again, you need this only once you get into crafting sophisticated marketing campaigns.

A unique feature that’s very helpful to small and mid-size businesses is the throttling of push notifications. When your audience size is massive (over 500K), delivery of your push notifications to your audience can impact your website because service workers are used to fetching notifications. If your infrastructure is not set up the right way, this can impact your website and can even lead to downtime. OneSignal’s throttled delivery is helpful in such cases.

Ease of Use - How easy is it to get started and set it up

Like OneSignal, VWOEngage also offers a free trial and you can simply set up your own account and take the product for a ride. The onboarding experience is very straightforward for both VWOEngage and iZooto.

The difference and this is where OneSignal outscores VWOEngage is the integrations it offers. With over 30+ integrations, and especially with analytics platforms like Mixpanel and Segment, it becomes a compelling choice. So if you have an exhaustive marketing stack and these integrations are critical for your team - it only makes sense that you choose OneSignal over VWOEngage.

Customer Support

VWO’s customer support is industry standard. They offer a range of support options depending upon the plan you choose. Very difficult to differentiate from OneSignal.

1-Dec-09-2021-12-04-00-48-PM

Pricing

This is where VWOEngage is a bit of a black box. Their pricing is not available on their website. Historically, VWOEngage has been priced as a premium product and has been the most expensive of the lot. Given their approach of “talk to sales first”, it can be safely assumed that they are expensive over OneSignal’s $3 per 1000 subscriber pricing.

Our Verdict  on Pushcrew as an alternative to OneSignal

  1. Because VWOEngage's pricing isn't available on the website, it's safe to assume that they don't offer it as an individual offering. Go for it if you're also looking for a CRO.
  2. Go for OneSignal if you want to explore push notifications as a channel and aren't looking for anything else.

You can go through a detailed review of OneSignal vs VWOEngage here.

6. PushOwl as an alternative to OneSignal

We have added Pushowl here only because it is one of the best tools out there for retailers who have their stores on Shopify (now also extending services to BigCommerce). Because Pushowl’s focus has always been online retailers, they have been able to develop deep integrations with the website platform. Heads up, if you aren’t on Shopify, you can skip this review. We have also done a detailed comparison of OneSignal vs PushOwl.

Before we dive deep into features, here is the most recent review of Pushowl on the Shopify App Store -

Screenshot 2021-09-20 at 6.11.23 PM

Capabilities

Pushowl is built for Shopify merchants and they have made it really simple for retailers to boost their sales with push notifications. Features such as recovering abandoned carts and back in stock are inbuilt and pretty simple to use. One can also create customized segments and set up automated campaigns. 

OneSignal on the other hand gets a bit tricky for Shopify merchants. Here’s one review that says it all - 

Ease of Use - How easy is it to get started and set it up

It’s fairly simple to set up Pushowl on your Shopify store. Even though OneSignal has a native plugin, many have reported integration issues. Pushowl is a clear winner here.

It’s a breeze to set up campaigns on Pushowl because of two reasons - copy on the dashboard and deep integration with Shopify. OneSignal does allow you to create unlimited segments and make the most of its powerful API, the only drawback being it’s built for developers.

Customer Support 

Almost real-time support via chat and easy-to-understand documentation is what gives Pushowl an edge over OneSignal as well. Also, given the fact that OneSignal operates in the US timezone is a drawback. 

Pricing 

Now, this is really interesting. Pushowl charges you for the total number of notifications delivered (impressions). In their free plan, they offer 500 impressions and paid plans start from $19 that covers up to 10K impressions. 

Let’s understand this by an example. Imagine you have 500 subscribers and Pushowl provides 100% delivery, this means you send 1 notification and you have exhausted your limit for a month. On the other hand, OneSignal has a free plan that covers you for 10K subscribers for every notification. The only difference is that you get limited features.

Our Verdict  on PushOwl as an alternative to OneSignal

By far the easiest choice to make for us in this review.

  1. Go for Pushowl if you have a Shopify or BigCommerce store. No need to think twice.
  2. Go for OneSignal if you aren’t an online store or want more than just web push notifications.

7. FoxPush as an alternative to OneSignal

There's hardly any review website that has covered FoxPush. One reason for that can be is because they are focused only on the GCC region. Because we have seen a bunch of customers migrating from FoxPush, we have covered it here as an alternative to OneSignal.

Capabilities: OneSignal vs FoxPush Feature Comparison

FoxPush isn't as feature-rich as OneSignal is. The free plan of FoxPush is quite limiting when compared to OneSignal which provides up to six custom segmentation capabilities including the pre-defined geo, subscriber device, and date attributes. In the free plan, you can only segment your subscribers based on the IP Country with FoxPush. Only once you get on a paid plan, you will be able to access custom segments. However, you would need to get a quote as the pricing is not available online.

Because you can't build your own segments in the free plan, it is difficult to personalize your notifications with FoxPush. Once again, the paid plan does allow you to personalize the notification content based on subscriber behavior. OneSignal on the other hand also offers templates that make it easier for you to automate your notification campaign.

Ease of Use - How easy is it to get started and set it up

Integration is fairly simple, be it OneSignal or FoxPush. Unlike OneSignal and other top providers like iZooto and PushEngage, FoxPush doesn't offer native plugins for WordPress or Shopify. This means the only way to get started with FoxPush is to manually add its script to your website. 

 

FoxPush

OneSignal

WordPress No Over 100,000 Installations and last updated 2 months ago
Native Integration within WordPress CMS No Yes
Shopify No No new reviews since Dec 2020
Affiliate Partners Yes No
Analytics No Yes
Adnetwork Partners Yes No


Pricing: OneSignal vs FoxPush

While OneSignal follows a $3/1000 subscribers pricing, FoxPush has either a free plan which is quite limiting, or a custom-built plan. Because FoxPush works on direct ads, affiliates can consider it as OneSignal has no option for monetization. But once again, FoxPush might not be a fit for anyone else than someone who operates in the GCC region. 

If you want a free tool, OneSignal is a better choice than FoxPush as you get to experiment a lot more.

Customer Support

Support has been one of the top reasons why customers have migrated to us from FoxPush. While OneSignal has pretty detailed help docs and is quite responsive on email support, FoxPush's customer support is a bit of a black box.

One more thing to note is that while OneSignal operates in the US timezone and FoxPush in Gulf Standard Time, getting a response apart from their timezone might be difficult. If support is critical to your business, you can also consider iZooto that offers 24*7 support that has won the highest rating thrice in a row by G2.

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Our Verdict on OneSignal vs FoxPush

Here’s what you should go ahead with - 

  1. Pick FoxPush if you operate in the GCC region, preferably suited for affiliates more than publishers.
  2. Pick OneSignal if you want a free tool to experiment with web push notifications and do not want to monetize.

Still not sure about which tool to go ahead with? Read our detailed comparison of OneSignal vs Fox.

8. Webpushr as an alternative to OneSignal

Webpushr is one of the cheapest alternatives to OneSignal. Unlike OneSignal that offers different channels for engagement, Webpushr only offers web push notifications. If you have a quick look, it seems Webpushr offers all the features that OneSignal at a really low cost but there's a lot missing. Here's our review - 

Capabilities: Webpushr vs OneSignal

Both OneSignal and Webpushr are developer-centric. Both the tools offer APIs to send notifications to all the subscribers, a particular segment, or to an individual subscriber.

When it comes to segmentation, both the tools offer pre-built segments -  device, location, and user properties such as date subscribed. Apart from this OneSignal also lets you create custom segments based on user actions and events but we couldn't find this in Webpushr. This is an important feature which almost all the tools mentioned provide in some way or the other. 

Screenshot 2021-12-07 at 12.45.17 PM
Creating segments in Webpushr

Next comes personalization. Because Webpushr only makes use of user properties, it is difficult for anyone to truly personalize the notifications. On the other hand with OneSignal you can personalize the notification content basis what page or what button a subscriber clicked. For Shopify specifically, OneSignal also has pre-built segments to recover users who have abandoned carts. 

If you just want to broadcast notifications, you can consider Webpushr but other than that it has nothing exciting to offer. You can also consider iZooto if you want pre-built segments that can help solve publisher-centric use cases such as driving more pageviews.

Ease of Use - How easy is it to get started and set it up

Getting started with both the tools is fairly simple and offers integrations with all the popular content management platforms. Native plugin for WordPress is also available for both OneSignal and WebPushr.

 

Webpushr

OneSignal

WordPress The plugin has ~ 9,000+ Active installations and was last updated 3 months ago. Over 100,000 Installations and last updated 2 months ago
Native Integration within WordPress CMS Yes Yes
Shopify No No new reviews since Dec 2020
Affiliate Partners Yes No
Analytics No Yes
Adnetwork Partners No No


Pricing: OneSignal vs Webpushr

Webpushr has positioned itself as a cheaper alternative to OneSignal and its pricing reflects the same. Both the tools have a free plan that offers up to 10K subscribers. While Webpushr offers everything in its free plan itself which means you only pay for more subscribers as you grow. However, OneSigal also offers more features in its paid plans and this is what gives OneSignal an edge over Webpushr.

6-Dec-09-2021-12-03-08-93-PM

Here’s a quick summary of how much you would end paying in 6 months if you start with 100K monthly unique visitors -

 

Month 1

Month 2

Month 3

Month 4

Month 5

Month 6

OneSignal (Free) Free Free Upgrade Upgrade Upgrade Upgrade
OneSignal Grow $21 $33 $45 $57 $69 $81
OneSignal Professional $111 $123 $135 $147 $159 $171
Webpushr (Free) Free Free Upgrade Upgrade Upgrade Upgrade
Webpushr Individual $29 $29 $29 $29 $29 $29


Customer Support

OneSignal offers industry standard support and you can even opt for premium support. On the other hand, Webpushr only offers support via email on any plan.

If you’re looking for stellar customer support, then you can try iZooto, which has been awarded the highest customer satisfaction rating by G2, 3 times in a row4-Dec-09-2021-12-08-15-55-PM

Our Verdict on OneSignal vs Webpushr

Here’s what you should go ahead with - 

  1. Pick WebPushr if you have a decent traffic website and want to use web push notifications (with limited segmentation) but are low on budget.
  2. Pick OneSignal if you want to try out better segmentation and personalization features, and have a dedicated marketing budget.

How each player compares when it comes to OneSignal pricing

 

Month 1

Month 2

Month 3

Month 4

Month 5

Month 6

Monthly Traffic 100,000 101,000 102,010 103,030 104,060 105,101
Total Active Subscribers 3,792 7,622 11,490 15,397 19,343 23,328
OneSignal Grow $21 $33 $45 $57 $69 $81
OneSignal Professional $111 $123 $135 $147 $159 $171
iZooto Rise $85 $85 $85 $85 $85 $85
iZooto Grow $250* $250* $250* $250* $250* $250*
iZooto Monetization Free** Free** Free** Free** Free** Free**
Pushnami $38 $76 $115 $154 $193 $85
PushEngage Business $59 $79 $99 $99 $99 $99
PushEngage Premium $79 $109 $139 $139 $139 $139
Aimtell Basic $49 $49 Upgrade Upgrade Upgrade Upgrade
Aimtell Plus $99 $99 $99 $99 $99 $99

 

Assumptions

  • Monthly unique traffic is 100K
  • Split between desktop and mobile - 30:70
  • Mobile traffic (Android) - 35% (iOS does not support web push notifications)
  • Active subscribers per month (considering churn): Mobile - 12% and Desktop - 15%

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