PushEngage vs Airship:
which fits a marketing-owned retention team?
Airship is an enterprise, mobile-first customer experience platform for app push, in-app screens, and journeys, sold on a quote. PushEngage is web push and app push together, with in-app, WhatsApp, and chat, that your marketing team runs itself at prices on the page. Here is where each one wins.
75,000+ businesses Prices published for every tier 14-day money-back guarantee
Reliability and trust
What a retention team needs before it signs anything.
A new vendor still has to pass the security review and the budget meeting. Here is what you can check today, without a sales call.
Prices you can put in the budget today
Every public tier is on the pricing page, billed on active subscribers, web and app combined. The number in the proposal is the number on the invoice.
- Published tiers from 1,000 to 250,000 subscribers
- No per-message fees; each plan includes a monthly sending volume
- Inactive Subscriber Cleanup on every plan
- Enterprise quoted above 250,000
Send controls that protect the channel
Browsers now throttle senders who over-message. Cap how often each subscriber hears from a triggered campaign and send in their timezone.
- Daily and weekly frequency caps on triggered campaigns, Growth and above
- Quiet hours inside Workflows
- Subscriber-timezone sending on Premium and above
GDPR and CCPA in the defaults
Every subscription is a browser or device permission grant. Add a pre-permission consent overlay where your audience needs one.
- Configurable pre-permission overlay per site
- One-click unsubscribe at the device level
A dashboard for marketers, an API for engineers
Your team runs campaigns from the dashboard. When you would rather hand it off, an MCP server lets Claude or Cursor work the account.
- AI Copywriter through AI-powered campaigns (add-on on paid plans)
- First-party MCP server for Claude, Claude Code, and Cursor
- REST API and five SDKs on every plan, webhooks on Growth
- Open-source Agent Skills for SDK integration
Support that scales with the plan
Standard email support on Business, priority email and chat on Premium, VIP onboarding with your first campaign set up on Growth, and a dedicated success manager on Enterprise.
A 14-day money-back guarantee
Over the next 14 days, if PushEngage isn’t the best fit, simply reach out. We’ll refund 100% of your money. No questions asked.
Built by Awesome Motive, the team behind WPForms, AIOSEO, OptinMonster, and MonsterInsights.
Trusted by 75,000+ businesses
The 30-second version
Two different tools, two different buyers.
Airship is built for brands whose customers live in the app, with the contract and onboarding to match. PushEngage is built for teams that need web and app push working together this week, at a published price. Pick on the job, not on the logo.
Web push matters as much as the app
Browser and app subscribers share one profile, one composer, and one report, and web push installs from a plugin without a developer.
You need a number before a sales call
Every tier from Free to Growth is on the pricing page, billed on active subscribers. Airship quotes its platform per contract.
The app is the product
Scenes, Message Center, Live Activities, and a long list of SDKs are built for teams whose customers live in the app.
Email, SMS, and wallet in one contract
Airship offers email, SMS, RCS, and mobile wallet passes as add-ons on its Enterprise plan. PushEngage does not send email or SMS.
Side by side
Airship and PushEngage, row by row.
Every Airship cell comes from Airship’s own pricing page and documentation, checked on September 30, 2026. Where Airship is stronger, the table says so.
| Airship | PushEngage | |
|---|---|---|
| Who it is built for | Brands running a mobile app as a main customer channel. Airship describes itself as a cross-channel customer experience platform with mobile expertise, for retail, media, finance, travel, sports, and telecom. | Marketing teams at eCommerce stores, publishers, and SaaS products that want web push and app push they can run without an engineering queue. |
| Published prices | No. The Airship Experience Platform is sold on a quote. Airship Essentials is a self-service sign-up, with no price shown on the pricing page. | Yes, every tier. Free, Business, Premium, and Growth are priced on /pricing/. Enterprise is quoted. Budget before the first call |
| What the bill is based on | Audience counts defined in your contract: monthly active app users, monthly unique web visitors, contacts, or a mix, plus impressions for some add-ons. Committed volumes are minimum purchases and unused volume does not roll over. | Active subscribers on a fixed tier, web and app combined. No per-message fees on push, and each plan includes a monthly sending volume listed on the pricing page. |
| Plans | AXP Enterprise, Essentials, and Essentials Starter. Email, SMS, RCS, and mobile wallet are add-ons on Enterprise. | Free, Business, Premium, Growth, and Enterprise. Free forever for 1 site, 200 subscribers, and 30 campaigns. |
| Channels | Push, in-app, Message Center, web notifications, Live Activities, and Live Updates, with email, SMS, RCS, and mobile wallet as add-ons. Broader | Web push, app push, in-app messaging (Business plan and up, Android SDK first), WhatsApp automation (Growth plan and up), and a chat widget with 21 channels plus custom links. No email or SMS sending. |
| In-app experiences | In-App Automation, a Message Center inbox, and Scenes: native full-screen, modal, or embedded screens with surveys, built without code. Deeper for apps | In-app messages as top banner, bottom banner, center modal, or full screen, triggered on real events, with frequency and priority rules. From the Business plan, Android SDK first. |
| Journeys and testing | Journeys, Sequences, and automations, A/B tests and holdout experiments, with feature flags as an add-on. | Workflows on every plan (Free: 1 active workflow, up to 5 steps; Business: 5 active workflows, 10 steps, wait and decision nodes). Split Path, Workflow Chaining, A/B tests, and goal tracking on Premium and above. |
| Web push setup | A developer guide: add Airship’s loading snippet and a service worker to your site. Safari 16 and later, and home-screen web apps on iOS 16.4+. | Plugins for WordPress, WooCommerce, and Shopify, or one snippet on any site. Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari, and home-screen web apps on iOS 16.4+. No developer needed |
| Shopify | A Shopify integration for web notifications and cart, checkout, and order events. The merchant install link is requested through an Airship support ticket. | A Shopify and Shopify Plus app from the App Store, a WooCommerce plugin, and ready cart, browse, price drop, and back-in-stock campaigns on Growth. |
| Mobile SDKs | iOS, Android, Fire OS, React Native, Flutter, Cordova, Capacitor, Unity, .NET MAUI, and a Web SDK. Broader | Web, iOS, Android, Flutter, and React Native, all five on every plan, with the REST API. Webhooks on Growth. |
| AI and agents | AI agents for Scenes, recommendations, and the dashboard, plus an MCP server and Skills for developers. | AI Copywriter through AI-powered campaigns (add-on on paid plans), AI opt-in timing, a first-party MCP server for Claude and Cursor, and open-source Agent Skills. |
| Reporting history | Three months of data is included; more months are available on AXP Enterprise. | Campaign, workflow, and goal reports in the dashboard, with UTM parameters on every click URL. |
| Onboarding | A Client Solutions team works with customers during onboarding and after, with strategic services in the platform package. | Email support on Business, priority email and chat on Premium, VIP onboarding on Growth, and a dedicated success manager on Enterprise. |
Airship details checked on airship.com/pricing and the Airship documentation on September 30, 2026. Features and packaging change, so confirm with Airship before you buy. PushEngage details are from the live pricing page and developer hub.
Pricing
What you can budget before a sales call.
Airship does not publish prices, so there is no honest dollar-for-dollar comparison. What we can show is what PushEngage costs at three common sizes, at the standard annual renewal rate you pay from year two. First-year pricing is lower, from $8/month, billed yearly.
The growing store
20,000 active subscribers, web and app combined
quote on request, audience-based contractQuote
lowest plan that fits, standard annual renewal, billed yearly$1,020/yr
adds cart, browse, price drop, back in stock$1,828/yr
Airship prices this profile in a sales conversation. PushEngage prices it on the page.
The established brand
50,000 active subscribers, web and app combined
quote on request, audience-based contractQuote
lowest plan that fits, standard annual renewal, billed yearly$1,920/yr
adds cart, browse, price drop, back in stock$3,489/yr
Past 50,000 subscribers Business stops and Premium or Growth takes over.
The multi-site retailer
100,000 active subscribers, web and app combined
quote on request, audience-based contractQuote
lowest plan that fits, standard annual renewal, billed yearly$4,412/yr
adds cart, browse, price drop, back in stock$6,258/yr
Premium covers 2 sites; Growth covers 3 and the eCommerce automations.
PushEngage prices are the standard annual renewal rate for each plan at that subscriber cap, from the live plans API on September 30, 2026. Taxes excluded. Each plan includes a monthly sending volume listed on the pricing page, which also has the calculator and the current first-year offer.
Where we will not pretend
Three things a fair Airship comparison says out loud.
- Airship goes deeper inside the app. Native Scenes with surveys, a Message Center inbox, Live Activities, feature flags, and SDKs for Cordova, Capacitor, Unity, and .NET MAUI are real capabilities PushEngage does not have.
- A quote is not a verdict. Airship prices by contract, so we cannot tell you it costs more for your profile. Get the quote, then compare it against the numbers above.
- Two tools can be the right answer. Keeping Airship for app experiences and adding a push tool marketing runs for the web is a valid setup. If you do that, cap frequency in both.
What the published price includes
Everything a push program needs, run from one dashboard.
Every paid tier includes web and app push on one subscriber profile, Workflows, behavior-based segmentation, and Inactive Subscriber Cleanup. Premium adds goal tracking and timezone sending. Growth adds triggered campaigns with frequency caps and the eCommerce automations.
One composer for the browser and the lock screen
Write it once and send it to Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari, and to iOS and Android, from the same screen. One audience, one report.
- Native SDKs for iOS, Android, React Native, and Flutter on every plan
- Live preview per platform, plus AI-powered campaigns (add-on on paid plans)
- Scheduling and recurring sends, with timezone delivery on Premium and above
eCommerce automations you switch on
Order received, on hold, cancelled, shipped, plus cart abandonment. Each is a ready campaign behind a toggle, and each reports the revenue it brought back.
- Cart and browse abandonment, price drop, and back in stock on Growth
- Order and shipping updates that answer where-is-my-order before the ticket
- Goal tracking on Premium and above ties revenue to the campaign that earned it
Workflows: wait, decide, act
A drag-and-drop canvas for welcome series, cart recovery, and win-backs. Wait, branch on behavior, then send or move the subscriber to a segment. Higher plans add split paths, starting another workflow, and HTTP requests.
- The builder is on every plan: Free runs 1 active workflow of up to 5 steps
- Business: 5 active workflows, 10 steps each, with wait and decision nodes
- Split Path and Workflow Chaining on Premium and above; HTTP request actions on Growth
Trigger rules your team sets without a ticket
On Growth and above, start a campaign on any event your site or app fires, stop it on another, and cap how often one subscriber hears from you.
- Custom start and stop events from the SDK or REST API
- Daily and weekly frequency capping on triggered campaigns
- UTM parameters added to every click URL
Segments built on active subscribers
Send to everyone, to a saved audience group such as active subscribers, or to a segment by URL, geography, device, or purchase behavior. Groups update themselves.
- Dynamic segments and audience groups without a developer
- Attributes set from the SDK or API for one-to-one copy
- Inactive Subscriber Cleanup keeps the count and the bill honest
A/B tests that pick their own winner
Test two headlines, images, or calls to action on a sample. After the delay you set, the better click rate goes to everyone else.
- Sample size and delay under your control
- Winner chosen on click-through rate
- On Premium and above
Opt-in prompts that earn the Allow click
When the prompt fires matters more than what it says. Trigger it by time on page, scroll depth, or a click, match it to your site, and segment subscribers as they join.
- Popup templates with desktop and mobile previews
- Triggers by time on page, scroll depth, or button click
- Segment on subscribe so the first campaign is already targeted
Start from a template, not a blank field
Broadcast templates by category, each tagged with its own UTM so you can see which style earns the click. Pick one, swap the copy, send.
- Templates for sales, launches, content, and win-backs
- UTM tracking per template for clean attribution
- Blank template when you want full control
Also in the product
The tools you would otherwise brief an engineer to build.
Templates, timing, alerts, compliance, and agent access come with the product.
Goal tracking and revenue analytics
Tie orders and signups to the notification that drove them, per campaign and per workflow. Premium and above.
See goal trackingTimezone delivery
Every subscriber gets the campaign at their own 9 AM, not yours. Premium and above.
See timezone deliveryBrowse abandonment
Catch the shopper who looked but never added to cart, while the intent is warm.
See browse abandonmentPrice drop alerts
Shoppers subscribe to a product and the alert fires itself when the price falls.
See price drop alertsBack in stock alerts
Turn a sold-out page into a waitlist that converts the moment stock returns.
See back in stockPersonalization and attributes
Merge tags for name, product, price, and any attribute you store on a subscriber.
See personalizationGDPR and CCPA tooling
Consent controls and data handling designed into the product, not bolted on.
See complianceChrome and Firefox extension
Draft, schedule, and send a push from any browser tab, with UTM fields filled in.
See the extensionMCP server and Agent Skills
Let Claude or Cursor build segments, run campaigns, and pull analytics, on top of the REST API.
See the developer hubChannels
Web push, app push, in-app, WhatsApp, and chat. One subscriber profile.
Airship covers more app surfaces, plus email and SMS as add-ons. PushEngage covers the channels a retention team uses to bring a customer back in seconds, on the web and in the app, in the same dashboard and reports.
Web push notifications
Browser notifications on Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari, including home-screen web apps on iOS 16.4+, with plugins for WordPress, WooCommerce, and Shopify.
See web push notificationsMobile app push notifications
Native SDKs for iOS, Android, Flutter, and React Native, on the same subscriber profile and reports as web push.
See mobile app push notificationsIn-app messaging
Top banner, bottom banner, center modal, or full screen, triggered on real events. From the Business plan, shipping first in the Android SDK.
See in-app messagingWhatsApp automation
Abandoned-cart, order-update, and post-purchase campaigns on the Meta Cloud API. Connect your WhatsApp Business account inside PushEngage, with no BSP contract. Growth plan and above.
See WhatsApp automationChat widget
Routes visitors to WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram, email, or SMS: 21 channels plus custom links, with no hosted inbox to staff.
See the chat widgetPWA push notifications
Push for progressive web apps installed to the home screen, including home-screen web apps on iOS 16.4+.
See PWA push notificationsSwitching or adding
Run it next to Airship first, then decide.
You do not have to rip anything out to find out. Install PushEngage alongside your current setup, move one program, and compare on real traffic.
One installer for every platform you run
Pick your platform, paste one snippet or install the plugin, and you are live. Mobile follows the same path with the native SDKs.
- WordPress, Shopify, HubSpot, AMP, PrestaShop, Wix, or any site
- iOS, Android, Flutter, and React Native SDKs for app push
- Service worker and install code generated in the dashboard
Pick the program to move
Start where setup time hurts most. For many teams that is web push, which PushEngage installs from a plugin, or app push campaigns stuck in a dev queue.
- Keep app experiences where they are
- Map the segments you need to recreate
- Book a demo to scope it with our team
Install alongside, not instead
PushEngage runs next to your existing setup. Ship the PushEngage SDK in an app update and run both while subscribers register. For iOS apps moving from FCM, our migration guide has the steps.
- WordPress, WooCommerce, Shopify, and Shopify Plus plugins
- iOS, Android, Flutter, and React Native SDKs
- REST API for your engineers, webhooks on Growth
Compare on real traffic, then cut over
Run both for a few weeks, compare clicks and attributed revenue, then decide what moves. Paid plans carry a 14-day money-back guarantee.
- Goal tracking on Premium and above
- Frequency caps on triggered campaigns (Growth)
- Our team walks through Android and web subscriber moves with you
The short version
Published prices. Web and app push in one place.
Airship prices every account in a sales conversation. PushEngage puts the price on the page and the web push setup in a plugin, for the team that wants retention running this week.
Keep comparing
Other comparisons, same honest format.
PushEngage vs OneSignal
Two usage meters against one fixed tier, with a calculator and worked examples.
Compare with OneSignalPushEngage vs Braze
An enterprise customer engagement suite against push, in-app, and chat your marketing team runs itself.
Compare with BrazePushEngage vs Klaviyo
Email and SMS first for eCommerce, and where browser and app push fit next to it.
Compare with KlaviyoPushEngage vs PushOwl
A Shopify web push app against push for Shopify, WooCommerce, any site, and your app.
Compare with PushOwlPushEngage vs Firebase Cloud Messaging
Free delivery infrastructure against the marketing layer that runs on top of it.
Compare with FCMPushEngage vs iZooto
A publisher platform with push ad monetization against retention push for stores and content sites.
Compare with iZootoPushEngage vs MoEngage
An agentic customer engagement platform on a quoted contract against published push pricing.
Compare with MoEngagePushEngage vs CleverTap
Mobile engagement and analytics priced by MAU against push, in-app, and chat on a fixed tier.
Compare with CleverTapPush notification service
The push notification service built for eCommerce retention teams.
See the servicePush notification software
A buyer’s checklist for evaluating push notification software.
Read the checklistFAQ
Questions, answered.
Is PushEngage an Airship alternative?
For web push, app push, in-app messages, WhatsApp, and chat, PushEngage covers the job for many mid-market retention teams, and your marketing team can run it without an implementation project. It does not replace all of Airship: PushEngage has no email, SMS, mobile wallet, Live Activities, or native Scenes builder. If those are on your list, Airship is the better fit.
How much does Airship cost?
Airship does not publish prices. Its pricing page offers a quote for the Airship Experience Platform and a self-service sign-up for Airship Essentials. Its billing documentation counts audiences such as monthly active app users, monthly unique web visitors, or contacts, as defined in each contract. PushEngage publishes every tier from Free to Growth on its pricing page.
Does Airship support web push?
Yes. Airship’s developer guide covers web push on Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera, Safari 16 and later, and home-screen web apps on iOS 16.4+, set up by adding its snippet and a service worker to your site. On PushEngage, install the WordPress, WooCommerce, or Shopify plugin, or paste one snippet, then design the opt-in prompt in the dashboard.
Which is better for a mobile-first brand?
If the app is where most revenue happens and you want native in-app screens, an inbox, and Live Activities, Airship goes deeper. If you need app push and web push together, with in-app messages, WhatsApp, and chat, run by marketing at a published price, PushEngage fits better.
Can we run PushEngage alongside Airship?
Yes. Some teams keep Airship for app experiences and add PushEngage for web push, or the reverse. Cap frequency in both tools so one customer does not hear from you twice for the same cart. In PushEngage, caps apply to triggered campaigns on Growth and above.
How does PushEngage pricing scale?
By active subscribers, web and app combined. At standard annual renewal, 20,000 subscribers is $1,020 a year on Business, 50,000 is $1,920, and 100,000 is $4,412 on Premium. First-year pricing is lower, from $8/month, billed yearly. Each plan includes a monthly sending volume, and there are no per-message fees on push.
How do app push subscribers move from Airship to PushEngage?
Ship the PushEngage SDK in an app update and run it next to the Airship SDK while subscribers register, then remove the old one. For iOS apps moving from FCM, see our iOS migration guide. Our team walks through iOS, Android, and web with you before you switch.
What does Airship do that PushEngage does not?
Email, SMS, RCS, mobile wallet passes, Live Activities and Live Updates, a Message Center inbox, native Scenes with surveys, feature flags, and SDKs for Cordova, Capacitor, Unity, and .NET MAUI. If those matter, evaluate Airship. If your list is web push, app push, in-app, WhatsApp, and chat, PushEngage is built for that job.
Web and app push your marketing team can run this week.
See every tier on the pricing page, or book a demo and we will map your Airship push programs to PushEngage. If it is not the best fit within 14 days, we refund 100%. No questions asked.
Prices published for every tier 14-day money-back guarantee One subscriber profile for web and app