Braze vs HubSpot

Made for this: How Braze is providing new ways to build, support, and extend your campaigns

New blog posts include product announcements from Forge 2026, Torchie Awards winners, and a spotlight on BrazeAI Decisioning Studio™ Go.

Braze Announces Strategic Collaboration with AWS and New AI Capabilities

Braze signs strategic collaboration agreement with AWS to advance AI-powered customer engagement, and accelerates AI innovation with new agentic AI capabilities.

10-Q Financial Filing Analysis for Braze (2026-09-09)

Braze, Inc. reported its financial results for the second quarter and six months ended July 31, 2026, demonstrating continued top-line momentum across its cloud-based customer engagement platform. Second-quarter revenue increased 26.2% year-over-year to $227.2 million, driven by balanced growth from existing customer expansion and new customer additions. Operating losses narrowed significantly to $18.1 million for the quarter compared to $38.8 million in the prior-year period, reflecting operational efficiencies and lower relative general and administrative expenses following the integration of prior acquisitions. Free cash flow for the six-month period improved to $48.5 million from $26.4 million a year earlier, supported by strong subscription collections and working capital management. Braze maintained robust net retention rates of 110% overall and 112% for customers with over $500,000 in ARR, while executing a $50.0 million accelerated share repurchase during the first half of the fiscal year.

• Q2 revenue expanded 26.2% year-over-year to $227.23 million, with six-month revenue reaching $438.23 million.
• Trailing 12-month dollar-based net retention rate reached 110% for all customers and 112% for large customers with ARR of $500,000 or more.
• Cash provided by operating activities reached $52.34 million and Non-GAAP free cash flow was $48.54 million for the six months ended July 31, 2026.

Data sovereignty in marketing: What if HubSpot fails?

This article is a first-person commentary by a sixclicks team member on data sovereignty in marketing. It argues that critical business data often lies outside visible tools like CRMs, and discusses the importance of protecting 'crown jewels' like process knowledge and concepts. The author details their setup: a local Obsidian vault with Markdown files, version-controlled and hosted on Hetzner, to avoid vendor lock-in. They emphasize that personal data should only be anonymized before entering language models, and domain knowledge should not be uploaded to public models. The piece advocates for a 'kill-switch plan' with data exports and tests like vacation handover. It also notes that European alternatives are not automatically more sovereign; portability matters more than location. The article includes three actionable checks and mentions piloting local open-source models via Ollama.

• sixclicks uses Obsidian Vault with Markdown files for knowledge storage.
• The knowledge base is hosted on a Hetzner server.
• The author anonymizes personal data before using it in language models.

Zendesk Names Rachita Sundar as CFO

Zendesk announced the appointment of Rachita Sundar as Chief Financial Officer, effective September 28, 2026. Sundar, who brings over 20 years of experience in finance and operations at technology companies including Microsoft Azure, HubSpot, and Qualtrics, succeeds Julie Swinney, who transitions to Chief Administrative Officer and executive sponsor of Zendesk's Employee Service business. At Qualtrics, Sundar helped finance and close the $6.75 billion acquisition of Press Ganey Forsta. CEO Tom Eggemeier highlighted her financial rigor and operational expertise as Zendesk scales toward a multi-billion-dollar AI business.

• Rachita Sundar appointed CFO of Zendesk, effective September 28, 2026.
• Sundar has over 20 years of experience at Microsoft Azure, HubSpot, and Qualtrics.
• At Qualtrics, Sundar helped finance and close the $6.75 billion acquisition of Press Ganey Forsta.

Convelly Launches AI Platform for SME Customer Communication

Viennese startup Convelly has launched a platform for small and medium-sized service businesses that integrates customer communication, sales, and appointment booking into a single application. The AI-powered platform consolidates messages from multiple digital channels into a shared inbox, with a customer-facing AI assistant that handles inquiries, suggests appointment times, and records bookings. The internal assistant 'Elly' can execute tasks described in natural language. Convelly runs on open language models hosted on servers in Germany, emphasizing data sovereignty for EU-based businesses. The platform is available as a web app and on iOS/Android, in German, English, and Arabic. The company faces strong competition from established players like HubSpot and Zendesk, as well as specialized messaging platforms like Superchat, but differentiates itself with open models and European hosting. No pricing or funding details were disclosed.

• Convelly launched its AI platform for SME customer communication on September 25, 2026.
• The platform uses open language models hosted on servers in Germany.
• Convelly is available as a web app and for iPhone and Android.