There are many push notifications platforms that exist in the market today. These push platforms help brands meet their engagement and retention goals. 

Before we analyze if paid push notifications are worth paying for, it’s important to know how customer engagement and increased adoption of tools is correlated?

Customer engagement and increased adoption of tools

According to a CEI survey, 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for better customer engagement. With this keeping in mind, 73% of marketers have now turned their attention to the engagement and retention aspect for growing business by using analytical resources.

All these considerations lead to increased use of engagement and retention tools. For example, in-app communications, push notifications, email marketing tools, feedback, and survey tools, and more are being used by marketers on a daily basis.  

According to a report, on average an organization needs 91 martech tools to meet its marketing goals. 

As more tools are being used, businesses resort to tools that offer value and conversion. If we talk about only push notifications, the overall cost of re-engagement comes on an average of up to $1200 per month for an enterprise plan. 

Today, if marketers are paying this huge amount only for push notifications, it can turn out to be an expensive engagement strategy. As with every tool used, its expense needs to be compensated with the value and conversions it drives. 

The majority of the push providers today provide paid plans for sending push notifications based on the subscriber count. However, there are free options available that we’ll cover later in the article. 

Here, I am not trying to state that using paid push notifications is a bad idea, but to understand- if free push notifications can deliver the same value as paid ones do, then businesses should opt for free push providers and save on their marketing expenses. Below are two major downsides that can be considered before choosing a paid push notifications platform for your websites. 

Subscribers' growth vs increased expenditure. 

The majority of push notifications platforms provide a plan based on subscriber counts. If your subscribers are increasing rapidly, it will cost you more to re-engage them. For example, some push service’s plan starts at a minimum of $85 per month for up to 30k subscribers or some provide a free version till 2500 subscribers and charges as your subscriber keeps on increasing. 

What if your website has subscribers of more than 100k or even millions?
Using free push services like Truepush is the best option to re-engage users and increase your marketing ROI.
Truepush provides free notifications with no limits on subscribers or notifications. In fact, Truepush is the only completely free push service in the top 10 best push notification software awards by G2 2021.   

Growth in subscriber base using paid push platforms

Another downside of using paid push notifications you can encounter when the growth of your subscribers is very minimal. If you use a paid notifications service and your website is sending push that does not convert. Then the whole idea behind investing in paid push tools remains void.

More than anything, push notifications convert well if it is strategically implemented using the best practices.  

Summing up: Are paid push notifications worth it?

If understanding paid vs. free push notifications matters. Then, a brand needs to focus on how much a push platform charges based on the increasing subscriber base for the longer run. Migrating from one push service to another can cause you to lose subscribers.  One needs to research what features the push platforms provide. When it comes to using a free service, marketers have the freedom to experiment with this channel of re-engagement and drive conversions by implementing the right strategies. The same conversion rates can be achieved using the free push platforms. The value of using push tools regardless of whether it’s paid or free lies in the hands of the person using them and how effective the strategies are implemented while sending push notifications. 

Sign-up to Truepush to turn your visitors into repeat customers