Image source: Freepik
Customer loyalty programs have evolved beyond simple paper or plastic cards. Modern consumers expect a seamless shopping experience that integrates with their digital lives.
Businesses must stand out and provide connected customer experiences to increase customer engagement and keep them returning.
Mobile wallet loyalty programs offer a solution to this challenge. They allow you to engage customers through their smartphones, using web push notifications and making rewards and offers easily accessible.
For example, PassKit enables you to create loyalty cards for Apple and Google Wallet and enjoy all the benefits of mobile wallet marketing, including mobile push notifications and location-based alerts.
Start a 45-day free trial to see how it works.
As you consider implementing an automated loyalty program, it’s important to evaluate the different customer loyalty software available to find the best fit for your business needs.
In today’s article, we will share an in-depth analysis of Airship competitors, help you learn more about their features and benefits, and mention the pros and cons of each solution to help you decide which loyalty program app best fits your needs.
But first, let’s share more details about the Airship customer engagement platform.
What does Airship offer?
Airship provides a platform for connecting with customers through mobile devices. You can use it to send personalized messages to your audience.
These messages can be:
- Push notifications
- Emails
- Text messages
- In-app messages
The platform helps you engage with customers throughout their journey with your brand. It tracks how people interact with your app and the messages you send. This gives you insights into what works best.
Airship also makes loyalty programs easier. You can forget about physical cards and coupons. Instead, customers can access:
- Loyalty points
- Special offers
- Rewards
All of these are available on their phones, making it simple for people to use your rewards program for small businesses.
How Airship boosts mobile messaging
Airship helps you connect with customers through personalized mobile messages. It can send push notifications and text messages to your users’ devices.
The platform lets you create projects for each of your apps and websites.
You’ll need to add Airship’s software to your app or site to get started. It allows it to communicate with phones and web browsers.
Next, you’ll set up your projects in Airship and add your customer list.
For loyalty programs, Airship offers tools to work with digital wallets. You can send rewards cards to Google Wallet or Apple Wallet.
Keep in mind that using Airship may require some technical know-how. You might need developers to set up more complex features for this push notification service. Once in place, Airship helps you reach customers through their mobile devices.
Key features include:
- Push notifications for mobile and web
- SMS marketing
- In-app messages
- Integration with digital wallets
- APIs for custom solutions
What makes Airship stand out?
Airship offers several advantages for businesses looking to improve customer engagement. You can reach your audience through multiple channels, including push notifications and emails, ensuring you connect with customers on their preferred platforms.
Time-saving automation features allow you to schedule messages and target customers based on their actions. For example, you can send a reminder if someone hasn’t visited your online store recently.
Personalization is a strong suit of Airship. You can tailor messages using customer data like names and locations. You can also create content based on purchase history or other behaviors.
The platform’s segmentation tools let you group customers using various tags, which helps you more effectively target specific audiences.
What are the drawbacks of using Airship?
Airship has some potential downsides to keep in mind:
- Price: It can be costly for small businesses with tight budgets or few customers. You may want to look at cheaper options.
- Technical complexity: Setting up and using Airship requires technical know-how. If you lack developer skills, you might struggle.
- Branding limits: You can only partially customize Airship’s look to match your brand. It makes it harder to stand out from competitors.
- Features: Airship offers many capabilities, but some may be overwhelming if you only need basic functions.
Consider these cons carefully. They could impact how well Airship fits your needs and resources. Think about your budget, tech skills, and branding goals before deciding.
If you’re interested in other options, continue reading to learn more about alternatives to Airship.
Top Airship competitors you should know about
Several strong alternatives to Airship exist in the mobile marketing space. Here are five leading competitors to consider.
- PassKit (Start a 45-day free trial)
- Vibes Media
- CleverTap
- Braze
- Iterable
Let’s discuss their key features, benefits and pricing to help you boost your loyalty program strategy.
1. PassKit
PassKit is the top mobile wallet service provider, enabling digital transformation for modern businesses. We integrate online and offline experiences using mobile wallets to help you boost customer retention.
Using PassKit, you can eliminate paper or plastic loyalty cards, design loyalty program quickly, and bring any of your customer loyalty program ideas to life without custom app building.
PassKit offers Pass Designer a visual editor that assists you in creating digital membership cards, coupons, and loyalty business cards. Our loyalty card design follows Google and Apple guidelines. You can choose colors, add your logo and other brand elements, and define custom fields to collect customer data.
Customers can earn points using their mobile devices and redeem rewards both in-store and online. Simultaneously, you can promote and distribute your loyalty cards across all brand touchpoints with a multichannel distribution system.
To attract customers, you can send push notifications, location-based alerts, text messages, emails, or in-app messages to unlimited subscribers. It helps increase customer loyalty, retention, and engagement.
Finally, PassKit provides detailed customer loyalty analytics and lets you quickly track campaign performance and redemption rates to understand how your loyalty program performs and make necessary improvements.
We integrate with your CRM, POS, and multiple apps through Zapier and Make. Additionally, we offer business-centric APIs for specific mobile wallet use cases.
You can create a powerful omnichannel reward system without coding or design skills.
Industries
Businesses in diverse industries can use PassKit to drive foot traffic, improve engagement, and increase customer loyalty. Some of them include:
- Gyms
- Hotels
- Coffee shops
- Catering businesses
- Restaurants
- Bookstores
Whether an online or brick-and-mortar brand, we help you transform your loyalty program.
Features
Here’s what sets PassKit apart:
- Complete mobile wallet service platform
- Apple and Google Wallet compatibility
- Digital coupon management
- Event ticket digitization
- Flight and boarding pass management via API
- PassReader for Android and iOS (no special hardware needed)
- Mobile wallet APIs and SDKs for quick app integration
- Easy connection with popular marketing automation tools
You don’t need design or coding skills to use PassKit. The platform is intuitive, allowing you to launch your program quickly. A 45-day free trial gives you full access to explore all features.
Integrations
Through Zapier and Make, you can link PassKit with diverse third-party apps:
- Developer tools
- E-commerce platforms
- Marketing automation tools
- CRM solutions
- Productivity apps
What makes PassKit unique
- Leverages trusted mobile wallets
- Automates workflows through integrations
- Offers permission-based marketing
- Provides cost-effective solutions for various budgets
Customer support
If you have questions, you can reach out via email or live chat. There’s also a comprehensive support center available.
Pricing
PassKit offers pay-as-you-grow pricing without long-term contracts. Discounts are available as your distribution increases. For a personalized cost estimate, check the pricing page.
Pros and cons
The pros are:
- It’s contactless, allowing users to earn points after a quick barcode scan
- It’s paperless to ensure you’re saving the environment
- It’s scalable and cost-effective
- It offers a 45-day free trial
- Detailed guides and documentation teach you to leverage PassKit the right way
As for the cons, we’ve found only one:
- PassKit doesn’t include a free plan
PassKit offers a 45-day free trial to test all features and see if it’s the right fit for your loyalty program needs.
2. Vibes
Vibes Media is a mobile marketing platform that enables businesses to engage with customers on their smartphones. The platform allows companies to run mobile marketing campaigns across various channels, including SMS, push notifications, MMS, and mobile wallets.
Vibes Media provides a loyalty solution that allows personalized content delivery, activation of loyalty programs on mobile wallets, and collection of customer insights. It helps build customer relationships through lock screen notifications, relevant messages, and two-way interactions.
Industries
Vibes Media is suitable for businesses in the following industries:
- Retail
- Finance
- Hospitality
- Automotive
Key features
The platform offers the following key features:
- Audience management
- Analytics and insights
- Multichannel distribution system
- Mobile engagement
- A/B testing
- Marketing automation
Integrations
Vibes Media integrates with various platforms, including:
- CRM platforms such as Salesforce and Oracle
- E-commerce platforms like Shopify and Magento
- Marketing automation platforms such as Marketo
- Email marketing platforms like Mailchimp
What makes Vibes unique
Vibes Media stands out because it offers diverse mobile marketing solutions, enabling users to manage SMS and MMS messaging, loyalty programs, mobile coupons, and mobile wallet campaigns from a single dashboard.
Customer support
To contact customer support, you can fill out a form on the Vibes Media website and expect a response within 24 hours.
Pricing
The pricing is based on a subscription model and depends on business needs. Contact Vibes Media for a custom quote. Accessing all features may come at a higher rate.
Pros and cons
Vibes Media stands out from competitors because it:
- Has a comprehensive platform
- Sends push notifications based on data like customer location and purchase history
- Offers extensive analytics and tracking tools
Its drawbacks are:
- Complexity, meaning you would need some time to learn how to use it and set up campaigns
- High cost
- Limited support is available only through an online form
3. CleverTap
CleverTap is a mobile marketing solution for brands looking to engage and retain customers through mobile applications. It personalizes customer interactions to provide the best possible experience.
Industries
CleverTap serves clients in various industries, such as food tech, fintech, media, entertainment, travel, and eCommerce.
Features
The features you might want to explore include
- Push notifications
- Email campaigns
- In-app messaging
- Customer segmentation
Integrations
CleverTap integrates with CRM, eCommerce, and marketing automation platforms, including Mailchimp, Hubspot, and Eloqua.
What makes this tool unique
CleverTap has an AI-powered personalization engine. It allows companies to create and run personalized campaigns based on preferences, demographics, and user behavior.
Customer support
Customer support is available via email, phone, and an online submission form.
Pricing
Pricing is based on three plans: Essentials, Advanced, and Enterprise, with fixed monthly pricing starting at $75 for the basic plan.
Pros and cons
We chose CleverTap as one of the best Airship alternatives because of these benefits:
- AI-powered personalization engine
- Push notifications and other messaging types
- Advanced analytics and segmentation tools
- Automation
- User-friendly interface
However, this software tool comes with certain cons:
- It isn’t a cost-effective solution for smaller brands
- Some users report integration issues
4. Braze
Braze is a robust customer engagement platform that helps brands connect with their audience through personalized campaigns and messaging across mobile, web, email, and SMS channels.
Industries
Industries that benefit from Braze include retail, eCommerce, finance, travel, hospitality, gaming, and healthcare.
Features
- AI-driven personalization engine for smart notifications
- Multi-channel messaging to reach customers on their preferred devices
- Advanced customer segmentation tools
Integrations
Braze integrates with platforms like Google Cloud, PassKit, Shopify, and Twilio. It gives you plenty of options to automate your workflows and get better results.
What makes this tool unique
One unique aspect of this tool is the Braze Predictive Suite, which gives marketers access to machine learning tools for identifying at-risk consumers and those with a high purchasing propensity.
Customer support
Multiple customer support channels are available, including the Braze Help Desk, email support, phone support, and live chat. Some of these options are exclusive to users on a more advanced subscription plan.
Pricing
The pricing of Braze is based on the number of active users and specific business needs. To get custom pricing, you must contact the sales team and discuss their plans.
Pros and cons
The pros are:
- Advanced personalization
- Multichannel messaging
- Scalability
- Detailed analytics and segmentation
At the same time, the cons include:
- Cost as Braze can be more expensive than similar platforms
- The process of setting up Braze is complex for beginners
5. Iterable
Iterable is a cross-channel marketing platform that unifies a company’s marketing efforts to deliver campaigns that catch consumers’ attention.
Through Iterable, you can create and optimize every interaction in the customer journey.
With Iterable, you can send targeted messages, access real-time reporting to obtain relevant information and automate lifecycle messaging.
Like other Airship competitors, Iterable allows for personalized messaging through push notifications, SMS, email, and other channels.
Industries
- SaaS
- eCommerce
- Travel
- Entertainment
Features list
- Iterable AI
- Growth marketing platform
- User management
- Customizable templates
Deployment
The first step is to create an account. After that, you must connect Iterable with your eCommerce platform, CRM, and similar tools. It allows Iterable to view customer data and make its features available to your brand.
Integrations
Iterable has the most comprehensive list of integrations. It integrates with platforms like Mailchimp, Hubspot, and Recharge.
What makes this tool unique
Iterable leverages Catalog, a feature that allows you to create real-time content. It will then deliver content depending on the customer behavior.
Customer support
You have the following at your disposal:
- Online community
- Documentation
- Email and phone support
- A dedicated account manager
Pricing
There is no pricing information on the official website. You need to book a demo to learn more.
Pros and cons
The pros are:
- Seamless communication
- Cross-channel features
- Automated workflows
- A/B testing tools
On the other hand, the cons are
- High costs
- Limited flexibility
Key Airship competitors: A quick look
Choosing the right software is essential for business expansion. We will provide an overview of all Airship competitors to simplify the decision-making process.
PassKit | Vibes Media | CleverTap | Braze | Iterable | |
Notable features | CRM and POS integrationsMobile wallet APIs and SDKsZapier integration | Audience managementA/B testingAutomation | Push notificationsEmail campaignsIn-app messaging | Personalization engineSegmentation toolIn-app messaging | Iterable AIGrowth marketing platformUser management |
Best for | Small businesses | Medium and large businesses | Medium and large businesses | Medium and large businesses | Small and medium business |
Multichannel distribution | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Mobile wallet integration | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
Zapier integration | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Push updates | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Location-based alerts | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
Free trial | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
Pricing starts at | $39.50 | Custom quote | $200 | Custom quote | $500 |
Boost your customer connections with PassKit
PassKit is the best solution because it provides customizable digital loyalty programs for businesses at affordable prices. The mobile wallet integration makes it easy for customers to access and manage points, offers and rewards on their mobile devices.
With PassKit, businesses can create visually appealing loyalty passes that reflect their brand identity. The platform offers various digital pass types and integrates with Zapier and Make for automated workflows.
Additionally, PassKit allows businesses to distribute loyalty passes through multiple offline and online channels, delivering a connected customer experience.
Want to see how it works? Try PassKit free for 45 days!
Common questions about Airship competitors
How does Twilio differ from Airship?
Twilio and Airship offer different services in the customer engagement space.
Twilio focuses on communication APIs, allowing you to add voice, video, and messaging to your applications. On the other hand, Airship specializes in mobile marketing and customer engagement.
While both help you connect with customers, Twilio gives you tools to build communication features, and Airship provides a platform for creating and managing marketing campaigns.
What services does Airship provide?
Airship offers a range of tools for customer engagement and mobile marketing.
- Their platform helps you send push notifications.
- It also allows you to create in-app messages and manage email campaigns.
- With Airship, you can also analyze customer data and personalize content.
With Airship, you can improve customer loyalty and deliver connected experiences across different channels. The platform aims to help businesses interact with their customers more effectively through mobile and digital touchpoints.