Iterable and Braze are both enterprise customer engagement platforms that run email, push, SMS and in-app messaging from one customer profile. Braze is built around mobile app engagement and prices on monthly active users plus action credits. Iterable leans toward catalog-driven, cross-channel journeys. Neither publishes prices, and reported median contracts are close, near $90,000 a year.
The short version
Iterable
Braze
Published pricing
None; quoted
None; quoted
Pricing basis
Users contacted, channels, tier, term (per Vendr)
Monthly active users, profiles and a shared pool of action credits
Reported median contract
$91,984 a year (Vendr, Feb 2026)
$88,507 a year (Vendr, Feb 2026)
Editions
Quoted per deal
Go, Select, Pro, Enterprise
AI layer
Nova agents, decisioning and insights
Predictive AI on Pro; Agent Console in every edition
Strongest fit
Consumer brands with large catalogs and cross-channel journeys
Mobile-first apps and subscription products
Pricing models compared
Braze's pricing page lists four editions, Go, Select, Pro and Enterprise, and states that pricing scales with monthly active users; a contract also covers profiles and an allotment of action credits, one shared pool across channels; Braze's own example puts an SMS at 1 credit and a WhatsApp message at 5. Braze says it does not offer a free plan. Iterable publishes no tiers at all and routes buyers to a demo.
Vendr's purchasing data gives one public comparison. As of February 2026 it reports a median Braze contract of $88,507 a year, with a range of $20,214 to $476,478 against $91,984 a year for Iterable, with a range of $26,956 to $401,719. The medians are close enough that price should not decide this; fit should. Our Iterable pricing guide covers what moves an Iterable quote.
Channels and data
Both platforms run email, push, SMS and in-app messaging. Braze's strength is the mobile app: push, in-app messages and Content Cards are central to how its Canvas journeys work, and its action-credit model makes channel mix a budgeting decision. Iterable's strength is personalization from catalog and event data across channels, which suits brands that want product-level content in every message. Either way, the platform is only as good as the data your engineers send it, so ask each vendor to walk through your actual event schema, not a demo account.
The action-credit model changes how you plan a program on Braze. Because one pool covers every channel, and Braze's example puts a WhatsApp message at five credits against one for an SMS, a WhatsApp-heavy program can use its allotment far faster than the same volume of texts. Model your channel mix for a full year before you sign, including peak season, and ask how unused credits and overages are handled.
AI features
Both vendors now sell an AI layer. Iterable brands it Nova, covering agents, decisioning and insights. Braze puts predictive AI and AI-personalized recommendations on Pro, includes the BrazeAI Agent Console in every edition, and adds advanced experimentation with it on Enterprise. Ask which features sit in the edition you are quoted, and whether AI-generated variants can be tested against a holdout before they go live. A feature that cannot be measured is a cost, not a capability.
Ask for the AI features in writing too, by edition and by year. Both vendors are shipping quickly, and a feature included in this year's quote can move to a higher edition at renewal.
What switching costs
Both platforms sell multi-year contracts, so the real decision is often whether to move at renewal. Moving between them means rebuilding journeys, templates and segments, reconnecting the event feed from your app and data warehouse, and warming a new sending domain for email. Budget engineering time for the data work, which is the part a marketing team cannot do alone, and plan for a period of running both platforms while journeys are rebuilt and tested.
Ask each vendor three questions before you sign: what migration support is included, how long a typical move from the other platform takes, and whether they will price the overlap months when you run both. The answers tell you more about the next three years than any feature list.
Which fits which team
Choose Braze if your product is an app, push and in-app drive most of your engagement, and your team plans in terms of monthly active users.
Choose Iterable if you run a large catalog, want product-level personalization across email, SMS and push, and your audience is broad rather than app-centric.
Choose neither if you are a Shopify brand sending mostly email and SMS; Klaviyo or a dedicated SMS platform will usually return more per dollar.
What the program has to deliver
Whichever platform you choose, the return comes from the journeys you build on it. We build on Braze for Centr, a fitness app, where improved onboarding flows lifted trial-to-paid conversions 20% and the program drove more than $1.9M in CRM-attributed revenue during the BFCM season. Our omnichannel CRM guide covers how the channels fit together.
Our Braze agency runs Canvas journeys across push, in-app, Content Cards and email, each tested against a holdout. If Iterable is the better fit, our Iterable agency team builds the same program there.
Top comments (0)