Danny's Lab

Engineering the World

Mandrill vs Mailjet - A Very Cursory Comparison

Published on: Jan 26, 2015
Reading time: 0 minutes

There's plenty of reviews out there for these two transactional mail services. But here's a few "at a glance" items that's not obvious from most reviews I've come across.

Link Tracking

Mailjet tracked links look like this:

http://1rji.mjt.lu/link/1rji/g6jwlg8/1/FpTOCmZP9zWWYocz-BlZMQ/aHR0cDovL3d3dy50aWxseXMuY29tL3RpbGx5cy9wcm9kdWN0L1Njcm9sbC1TdGl0Y2gtQmVsdC8yMzg2MDY0MDA

Whereas Mandrill tracked links look like this by default:

http://mandrillapp.com/track/click/30490225/www.tillys.com?p=eyJzIjoiUmdsT2I5TWU3MldoTkpTaWNtTllXenB4bEVFIiwidiI6MSwicCI6IntcInVcIjozMDQ5MDIyNSxcInZcIjoxLFwidXJsXCI6XCJodHRwOlxcXC9cXFwvd3d3LnRpbGx5cy5jb21cXFwvdGlsbHlzXFxcL3Byb2R1Y3RcXFwvU2Nyb2xsLVN0aXRjaC1CZWx0XFxcLzIzODYwNjQwMFwiLFwiaWRcIjpcImYzYjljY2ExNjkyNDQzMGI4ZWIzNmQ2ZmVmZTMwNWI2XCIsXCJ1cmxfaWRzXCI6W1wiNTA3OGEyN2VmZmZiODE4MjFiZThmMTMyOGMxZGMxMzgyMzg2MTZiOVwiXX0ifQ

Or when customized to your own domain:

http://track.mydomain.com/track/click/30490225/www.tillys.com?p=eyJzIjoiTDdabHZLdWhTTU4tR2dqampiZnhseFNneDZZIiwidiI6MSwicCI6IntcInVcIjozMDQ5MDIyNSxcInZcIjoxLFwidXJsXCI6XCJodHRwOlxcXC9cXFwvd3d3LnRpbGx5cy5jb21cXFwvdGlsbHlzXFxcL3Byb2R1Y3RcXFwvU2Nyb2xsLVN0aXRjaC1CZWx0XFxcLzIzODYwNjQwMFwiLFwiaWRcIjpcIjk1ZTlkOTI0MmFlZjQzZjRhYTZkNGZlYWM3NTkzMGU5XCIsXCJ1cmxfaWRzXCI6W1wiNTA3OGEyN2VmZmZiODE4MjFiZThmMTMyOGMxZGMxMzgyMzg2MTZiOVwiXX0ifQ

Weekly Email Reports

Both services offer the ability receive weekly summaries on your usage. Here's what they look like:

Mandrill:

Mandrill Weekly Summary

Mailjet:

Mailjet Weekly Summary

Newsletters

Mailjet also offers some convenient ways to send newsletters. While Mandrill is certainly far more configurable, so far it's been unclear to me whether Mandrill offers this feature.

Conclusion

For my own uses, I rather like Mailjet's clean look and ease of understanding. However, Mandrill beats out on what's actually delivered to your recipients. So I'm reluctantly going to stick with Mandrill.