Reviews and expert opinion Sendible

Putting You in Control of Your Social Media Networks

Sendible are one of the longer established social media monitoring and management tools that we have reviewed here at Website Planet, and despite only being a smaller company, they do offer a service that bigger companies would be proud of. They are based in the UK but also provide extended support to the US.

With Sendible, you can control all of your social media accounts from one place, but also bring in your E-Mail account into the dashboard, so you can literally do everything from one location.

It’s not the cheapest tool on the market, but it certainly isn’t the most expensive either, it fits quite snugly in the middle.

Why Choose Sendible?

• Schedule automated messages across multiple platforms
• Manage all your social media accounts under one roof
• Measure the effectiveness of your social media and email campaigns

Wondering if Sendible is the best option for your social media strategy?
Let us tell you about it!

Thinking Ahead About Presentation

Usability isn’t one of Sendible’s stronger areas. Looking through their interface, it’s hard to determine whether it was designed for basic or advanced users, and that results in a fusion that doesn’t quite nail it for either of them. Beginner level users may find it easier to work with the mobile app (available for Android and iOS), which includes all the basic options and not much else.

Going back to desktop, from a central database, you can track mentions, look at click data, and interact with potential customers all from the same screen.

If you’re a marketing agency and you need to send out reports to clients, Sendible’s comprehensive reports can definitely do the job. By turning data and stats into eye-pleasing graphs and pie charts, these reports can help users easily see which path their social media is taking, with in-depth reporting on clicks, top posts and engagement.

Sadly, there is no in-built URL shortener that you can use to track links.

Great Features for Savvy Users, But Are They Included?

Sendible is packed full of tools and features, but many of them will require an upgrade.

It’s fair to say that the selling point is the E-Mail and SMS integration; you can create email marketing campaigns as well as place a newsletter sign-up widget on your blog to capture subscriptions. Sendible also has a range of newsletter templates available for you to choose from.

One unique feature that is the ability to send SMS messages to specific customers. However, you will need to purchase SMS tokens once you have sent more than 100 messages in a given month.

Moving on to team members, and how many you can add, this depends on the price you are willing to pay. Each plan comes with it’s own user limits, but you can add more team members for an additional monthly fee.

The Lite package allows you to generate 2 branded reports, which means that you can apply your company logo or slogan to the report before sending it out to your clients. These reports will detail the statistics of any given social media account, from click growth right through to eye-pleasing graphs of how many likes your Facebook pages are getting in a certain time period.

Their developer hub allows professional users to perform more complex tasks, like setting up a Sendible API, or white-labelling the sendible app, so they can offer it to clients as if it was their own software.

The major disappointment is that Sendible will only schedule posts up to 30 hours in advance, so if you are looking to get a full weeks scheduling in, you may want to look at other tools.

Looking More Like an Email Client

Sendible comes across like an email client rather than a social media management platform, but despite the email look and feel, there are plenty of features and tools available for you to use. From a usability standpoint though, the Sendible interface is a letdown and can be misleading for the user.

When you pay for a social media package, you expect it to list all the functions and features that come with a management tool, clearly. I was looking for reports, mentions, analytics, and publishing tools, but found it very hard to locate all of those at first glance.

The average user will need a learning curve of at least 30 minutes before being able to use all of Sendible’s features.

Great Knowledge Base Makes up for a Rigid Support Policy 

Sendible have gone out of their way to provide you with plenty of information, so that you don’t have to contact them every time you get stuck. These include an extensive knowledge base, loads of video tutorials, and 2 dedicated video courses that will help you master the platform to the max.

They also offer email support for all customers, with response times ranging from 12 hours to 48 hours, depending on your plan.

Live chat is only available with the Advanced and Pro plans, and phone support is limited to the Pro plan only.

Also, phone support is based in the UK and USA, but if you are based outside these two countries, you will need to pay for a long distance call.

They also give Twitter and Facebook information on the site so you can go down that avenue to contact them if you want to.

• Email Support
• Community Forum
• Phone Support for Pro users
• Extensive Knowledge Base
• Loads of Video Tutorials
• Live Chat for Advanced and Pro users

Highly Priced Service, But with Many Discount Options

Each package carries a 30-day trial, which is a huge plus, because you can take the time to see which plan is best suited to you. Beware though, they will take your credit card details in advance, and charge you automatically as soon as the free trial is over. That being said, you can downgrade, upgrade or cancel your package whenever you want.

The negative point with Sendible is the pricing. The cheapest plan offers pretty much the same features as most competitors, but for a price more suited to an advanced plan. When compared to other tools such as HootSuite basic plan, that’s an extra $20 each month, and you don’t get the full range of features.

If you are running a small business then the Business plan is the ideal solution, and offers all the features you need.

Discounted Rates

• Paying for an annual subscription in advance will save you 15% of any plan price.
• Additionally, non-profit organizations get 15% on monthly plans, or 25% on annual plans.