Loops vs Trigger.dev
Email marketing for SaaS — loops, transactional, campaigns in one
vs. Open-source background jobs with no timeouts and full observability
Pricing tiers
Loops
Free
1,000 subscribed contacts. 4,000 sends/month. All features. Loops footer on emails.
Free
Paid — 1.5k
1,500 contacts. Unlimited sends. No footer.
$15/mo
Paid — 5k
5,000 contacts. Unlimited sends.
$49/mo
Paid — 10k
10,000 contacts.
$99/mo
Paid — 25k
25,000 contacts.
$199/mo
Paid — 50k
50,000 contacts.
$349/mo
Custom
>100k contacts — contact sales.
Custom
Trigger.dev
Free
$0. 5K runs/mo. 1 concurrent run. 1 team member. 7-day log retention.
Free
Self-Host (OSS)
Free. Apache-2.0 license. Docker Compose + Postgres + Redis.
$0 base (usage-based)
Hobby
$10/mo. 50K runs/mo. 25 concurrent. Unlimited queue time.
$10/mo
Pro
$50/mo (starts at — usage scales). 250K runs/mo baseline. 100 concurrent. Priority.
$50/mo
Enterprise
Custom. HIPAA, SSO, dedicated clusters, on-prem.
Custom
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing free on Loops vs free on Trigger.dev.
| Metric | Loops | Trigger.dev |
|---|---|---|
| No overlapping quota metrics for these tiers. | ||
Features
Loops · 12 features
- API Keys — Scoped keys for testing vs production.
- Audiences (Segments) — Filter contacts by properties + event behavior.
- Campaign Analytics — Open/click/unsubscribe rates, heatmaps, A/B significance.
- Campaigns — One-off broadcasts to audience segments. Schedule + A/B test subject.
- Contacts — Contact records with custom properties (strings, numbers, booleans, dates).
- Email Editor — Visual block-based + Markdown + HTML modes.
- Events — Send events to trigger loops/journeys or filter audiences.
- Loops (Automations) — Event-triggered automation flows with delays + conditions.
- Mailing Lists — Opt-in lists with subscribe/unsubscribe preferences per list.
- Template Library — Pre-built templates for SaaS use cases (onboarding, digest, launch).
- Transactional API — Send transactional emails (receipts, password resets) via /transactional endpoin…
- Webhooks — Subscribe to contact/event changes.
Trigger.dev · 13 features
- Batch Trigger — Trigger many runs at once with limits.
- Environment Variables — Manage secrets in dashboard.
- Idempotency Keys — Prevent duplicate runs.
- Machine Sizing — Pick CPU/RAM per task.
- Queues + Concurrency — Named queues for controlled throughput.
- Realtime + React Hooks — Subscribe to run progress from client.
- Retries — Exponential + custom strategies.
- Schedules — Cron-triggered runs.
- Self-Hosting — Run locally or on your infra.
- Subtasks + triggerAndWait — Compose tasks by triggering children.
- Task Metadata — Attach arbitrary metadata to runs.
- Tasks — Define long-running TS tasks.
- wait.for / wait.until — Durable waits — minutes, hours, days.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Loops | Trigger.dev |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | — | trigger.dev CLI |
| SDK | @loops/loops, loops-py | @trigger.dev/react-hooks, @trigger.dev/sdk |
| REST | Loops REST API | Trigger.dev REST API |
| OTHER | Webhooks | Trigger.dev Dashboard, Trigger.dev Webhooks |
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Outbound links to Loops and Trigger.dev are plain references to their official websites. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.
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