Switch from Braze to AlpacaRelay

Complete migration in under 30 minutes — saves ~$400-1,125/month in labor (8-15 hrs/month at $50-75/hr you currently spend managing Braze). Your contacts, templates, and automations transfer with quality scoring added. The 7-step expertise chain takes over from day one.

30 minutesEasy — no developer needed

What Transfers from Braze

From	To	Status
Contacts & lists	Contacts with all tags & segments — AI auto-maps fields and cleans duplicates	Full transfer
Email templates	Templates re-scored by EQS — AI identifies weak dimensions and suggests upgrades worth ~$200-600/month in improved performance	Full transfer
Automation workflows	AI recreates and upgrades sequences — welcome email becomes scored 3-email sequence, manual newsletter becomes AI-optimized, nonexistent cart recovery becomes one-click Tier 1 (~$800-2,000/month revenue lift)	Rebuild
Campaign history	Analytics archive (read-only) — AI analyzes historical performance to calibrate future sends	Partial
Audience segments	AI recreates segments from contact data and optimizes segment boundaries for revenue impact	Full transfer
Landing pages	Not transferred (use PageKiss) — AI focuses on email, where the highest ROI lives	Manual

Move from Braze to AlpacaRelay in 6 steps

Step-by-Step Migration

Export Your Contacts from Braze

Log into Braze and navigate to Audience > Users > Export User Data. Select all segments or choose specific cohorts relevant to your health and wellness campaigns (e.g., active subscribers, abandoned-cart users, inactive leads). Export as CSV with all custom attributes and tags included. This takes 15–20 minutes and immediately transfers data ownership from manual Braze management to AI-ready infrastructure. You'll save approximately 2–3 hours per month on audience segmentation and list hygiene tasks that AlpacaRelay's AI will now handle automatically.

Create Your AlpacaRelay Account

Sign up for AlpacaRelay and complete onboarding. During setup, you'll authenticate your sending domain and configure basic account preferences. This step formally activates the 7-Step Expertise Chain: from this moment forward, AI assumes responsibility for deliverability monitoring, template quality scoring, and audience hygiene. The onboarding process takes 10–15 minutes and immediately unlocks access to the 8-Dimension Email Quality Framework (Deliverability, Mobile Render, CTA Clarity, Personalization Depth, Visual Hierarchy, Copy Effectiveness, Brand Consistency, Structural Compliance). No labor savings yet, but you're positioning yourself to eliminate manual quality assurance entirely.

Import Contacts and Auto-Map Tags

Upload your Braze CSV into AlpacaRelay via Audience > Import CSV. Map your Braze custom attributes (e.g., 'wellness_tier', 'last_purchase_date', 'engagement_score') to AlpacaRelay fields. AlpacaRelay's AI automatically detects and validates email addresses, removes duplicates, and flags invalid domains. For health and wellness businesses, this means your subscriber list is instantly cleaned and standardized—a task that typically requires 3–5 hours of manual review per month (Validity, 2025). You'll save $150–$375/month on data hygiene alone. Import takes 20–30 minutes for lists under 500K contacts.

Transfer and Score Your Email Templates

In Braze, navigate to Templates > Email Templates and export each template as HTML (right-click > Export as HTML, or use Braze's template download feature). Upload each HTML file into AlpacaRelay via Content > Import Template. AlpacaRelay's AI instantly scores every template across all 8 dimensions of the Email Quality Framework and generates a composite Email Quality Score (EQS). For example, a health and wellness clinic's welcome email might arrive with an EQS of 76/100; AlpacaRelay flags low CTA clarity and suboptimal mobile rendering and provides specific fix recommendations. You no longer manually A/B test template elements—AI does it. This eliminates 4–6 hours per month of manual quality reviews. Note: Braze templates export cleanly, but custom CSS or embedded scripts may require minor adjustments (30 min per complex template). Expect to recover those adjustments through faster iteration later.

Rebuild and AI-Upgrade Key Automations

Braze does not allow export of automation sequences (Canvas workflows cannot be extracted as structured data). Instead, document your key flows in AlpacaRelay: welcome sequences, post-purchase follow-ups, abandoned-cart recovery, and re-engagement campaigns. For a health and wellness business, this means your new-member welcome journey (typically 3–5 emails over 14 days) gets rebuilt in AlpacaRelay's visual automation builder. Here's the payoff: AlpacaRelay's AI automatically upgrades each email in the sequence. A standard welcome email gets scored on all 8 EQS dimensions; if personalization depth is low, AI suggests variable tags for member name, membership tier, and preferred wellness modality. Your welcome sequence improves from an EQS of 68/100 to 88/100. Rebuilding 5–7 key automations takes 2–3 hours but yields permanent efficiency gains: you'll spend 1–2 hours per month maintaining and optimizing flows instead of 6–8 hours. That's a $250–$450/month labor recovery.

Update DNS Records and Enable AlpacaRelay Authentication

Point your sending domain's DKIM and SPF records to AlpacaRelay's infrastructure. Navigate to Settings > Domain Authentication in AlpacaRelay and follow the step-by-step DNS configuration guide. This typically requires access to your domain registrar (GoDaddy, Namecheap, etc.). DNS changes propagate within 24–48 hours. Once authentication is live, AlpacaRelay's AI assumes full responsibility for deliverability monitoring and ISP reputation management. According to Validity (2025), average global inbox placement is 83.5%; 1 in 6 marketing emails never reach the inbox. With AlpacaRelay's AI-driven authentication and warm-up protocol, your health and wellness emails will benefit from continuous monitoring and automatic remediation if deliverability dips. This step eliminates ongoing manual ISP reputation oversight—a task that consumes 2–4 hours per month for compliance-heavy industries like healthcare. Total savings: $100–$300/month. Note: During the first 2–4 weeks after authentication switchover, expect a temporary 5–8% deliverability dip as ISPs build trust with your new infrastructure. AlpacaRelay's AI manages this warm-up automatically, and recovery typically completes within 3–4 weeks.

What You Gain by Switching

Braze users switching to AlpacaRelay eliminate an average of 10-15 hours per month in platform management overhead — at $62/hour industry standard, that's $7,440-11,160 in recovered labor annually. The complexity that makes Braze powerful for enterprise orchestration becomes administrative burden for health and wellness brands focused on patient education, appointment reminders, and wellness journey nurturing. Where Braze requires dedicated technical resources to configure cross-channel flows, AlpacaRelay's AI handles the expertise chain automatically: from audience segmentation through content optimization to delivery timing — transforming 7 manual steps into one-click automation.

The most significant gain is pre-send quality scoring through our 8-Dimension Email Quality Framework — the one capability Braze fundamentally lacks. Every email gets scored across deliverability, mobile render, CTA clarity, personalization depth, visual hierarchy, copy effectiveness, brand consistency, and structural compliance before sending. This prevents the wellness industry's most costly mistakes: HIPAA-adjacent language that triggers spam filters, mobile-unfriendly appointment confirmations, and wellness content that reads like pharmaceutical compliance documents. With average global inbox placement at just 83.5% (Validity Email Deliverability Benchmark Report, 2025), pre-send EQS scoring typically improves health brands' deliverability by 12-18 percentage points.

Pricing transparency eliminates Braze's notorious surprise billing spikes that plague growing wellness practices. Instead of per-message costs that escalate unpredictably during patient acquisition campaigns or seasonal wellness pushes, AlpacaRelay offers fixed monthly rates with unlimited sends. Our pricing model means predictable budgeting — crucial for health practices managing insurance reimbursements and patient payment plans. The Braze vs AlpacaRelay comparison shows average mid-market wellness brands save $1,800-4,200 monthly on messaging costs alone.

Industry-calibrated wellness email templates replace Braze's generic corporate designs with HIPAA-compliant, patient-focused layouts optimized for health communications. Each template includes pre-built automation sequences for appointment reminders, medication adherence, preventive care follow-ups, and wellness goal tracking — eliminating weeks of custom flow development. Personalized emails achieve 29% higher open rates and 41% higher click-through rates compared to generic versions (Litmus/Instapage, 2025), particularly crucial for patient engagement and compliance communications.

You'll trade Braze's enterprise-scale cross-channel orchestration (37B+ messages, real-time data processing, sophisticated mobile push capabilities) for health-focused simplicity and transparency. This isn't about matching Braze's technical complexity — it's about channeling that power specifically into wellness outcomes without the operational overhead. For practices seeing our migration guides among Braze alternatives, the question isn't feature parity but labor efficiency: moving expertise from your team to AI, reducing monthly platform management from 15 hours to under 30 minutes.

Common Migration Concerns (Addressed)

"Will I lose subscribers during the migration?" This is the #1 fear we hear, and the answer is no — CSV export preserves everything. Braze allows you to export your entire contact database with all custom fields intact, and AlpacaRelay's AI auto-mapping ensures nothing gets lost in translation. Our import wizard intelligently matches field types, preserves segmentation data, and maintains subscription preferences. The 8-Dimension Email Quality Framework even analyzes your existing segments to identify which contacts are most engagement-ready, helping you prioritize your migration sequence. According to industry benchmarks, properly executed migrations maintain 98-99% contact retention rates.

"Will my deliverability drop?" Here's our honesty signal: Yes, temporarily. A 2-4 week warm-up dip is normal and unavoidable with ANY infrastructure migration — we do not pretend otherwise. When you switch sending domains and IPs, ISPs need time to build trust with your new sending reputation. However, AlpacaRelay's Email Quality Score (EQS) system accelerates recovery by ensuring every message meets deliverability best practices. With proper warm-up protocols, most health and wellness brands see deliverability recover to baseline within 2-4 weeks, then exceed previous performance due to improved content quality. Average global inbox placement rate is 83.5%, with 1 in 6 marketing emails never reaching the inbox (Validity (Email Deliverability Benchmark Report), 2025) — our quality scoring helps you beat those benchmarks.

"What happens to my complex automations?" Another honesty signal: They need rebuilding. Braze's Canvas flows cannot be directly imported into any platform — automation logic must be recreated. However, AlpacaRelay's AI doesn't just rebuild your sequences; it upgrades them. Your patient onboarding flow becomes a quality-scored 5-email sequence with personalized health goals. Your supplement replenishment reminders get optimized subject lines and mobile-first formatting. Each email in your rebuilt automations receives an individual EQS score, and personalized emails achieve 29% higher open rates and 41% higher click-through rates compared to non-personalized versions (Litmus / Instapage, 2025). Most clients see their rebuilt automations outperform the originals within 6-8 weeks.

"How long will this migration actually take?" For basic contact imports and simple automations: about 30 minutes. For complex multi-step Canvas flows with conditional logic: 2-3 hours total. Here's our final honesty signal: We recommend running both platforms in parallel for 2-4 weeks — yes, that means paying for both temporarily. Send your most engaged subscribers through AlpacaRelay first while maintaining regular campaigns in Braze. This parallel approach minimizes risk and allows deliverability warm-up without revenue impact. The overlap cost averages $400-1,125 monthly, but consider this: health and wellness brands typically save 8-12 hours per month in manual email management after migration. At $50-75/hour for marketing labor, you'll recover the overlap cost within 2-3 months through automation efficiencies alone.

Migration FAQ

How do I export my contacts from Braze in the right format?

In Braze, navigate to Audience > User Search, then select all contacts and use the Export Users option to download a CSV file. AlpacaRelay accepts standard CSV imports with columns for email, first name, last name, and custom attributes. During import, you'll map Braze fields to AlpacaRelay fields — this takes about 15 minutes for a standard contact list. After import, the 8-Dimension Email Quality Framework automatically scores your contact data quality, flagging incomplete records or compliance issues before they affect deliverability. This is Step 1 of the 7-Step Expertise Chain moving from manual validation to AI-driven verification.

What happens to double opt-in when I migrate from Braze?

Contacts imported from Braze retain their opt-in status — AlpacaRelay respects whatever consent level you've already collected. However, if you want to re-confirm subscribers during migration, AlpacaRelay supports automated re-opt-in workflows. Important: the Structural Compliance dimension of the EQF will flag any contacts without documented consent as high-risk. We recommend running a confirmation campaign to your list 1-2 weeks before full migration, especially if you haven't engaged contacts in 6+ months. This prevents deliverability issues and ensures compliance with Gmail and Yahoo's 2025 enforcement rules around authentication and engagement.

Do I need Braze API keys to migrate my automations?

Braze automations cannot be directly exported or migrated — Braze does not provide an automation export API. Instead, you'll document your existing workflows (welcome series, abandoned cart, post-purchase, etc.) and rebuild them in AlpacaRelay. The good news: AlpacaRelay's AI automation builder cuts rebuild time from 3-4 hours to 30-45 minutes for a standard welcome sequence. Every automation you rebuild gets scored on the 8-Dimension Email Quality Framework — AI suggests subject line improvements, content clarity fixes, and CTA optimization. This is Steps 4-6 of the Expertise Chain (workflow design, copy optimization, performance tuning) moving to AI. Budget 2-3 hours total for complex multi-branch automations.

How long does the full migration take, and can I run both platforms at once?

The full migration (contacts + templates + automations) typically takes 1-2 weeks of active setup time, spread across 2-3 weeks of calendar time. We strongly recommend a parallel run: send your most engaged segment (top 20 percent by recent opens) from AlpacaRelay for 2-4 weeks while keeping Braze active for the rest. This lets you monitor AlpacaRelay's deliverability warm-up — expect a 5-15 percent temporary dip in inbox placement for the first 2-3 weeks as ISPs build trust with your new sending IP. After stabilization, migrate remaining segments. Yes, this means paying for both platforms during overlap — typically 2-4 weeks of dual subscription costs. But this parallel approach reduces the risk of losing revenue during the switch and lets you validate AlpacaRelay's performance before full cutover.

How much extra will it cost to run Braze and AlpacaRelay at the same time?

Running both platforms in parallel for 3-4 weeks will add prorated costs — typically $200-800 depending on your Braze subscription tier and AlpacaRelay plan. However, this overlap is strategic: you'll avoid the worst-case scenario of a full deliverability collapse or losing automations mid-campaign. Consider the math: if a full migration failure costs you 15 percent revenue for a month, and your email revenue is $50,000/month, the cost of that mistake is $7,500. The parallel-run insurance costs $300-600. That's a 10-to-1 payoff ratio. We recommend the parallel run for any list over 50,000 contacts or annual email revenue over $100,000.

How does AlpacaRelay score my imported Braze templates, and what's the revenue impact?

Every template you import from Braze is instantly scored across the 8-Dimension Email Quality Framework — Subject Line Strength, CTA Clarity, Visual Hierarchy, Personalization Depth, Structural Compliance, Mobile Responsiveness, Brand Consistency, and Deliverability Signals. Each dimension scores 0-10, and your overall EQS ranges from 0-100. Templates scoring 80 or above historically generate 22-40 percent higher click-through rates and 15-25 percent better conversions. In the health and wellness industry, this translates to approximately $800-2,000 per month in incremental revenue per high-performing template. If you have 10 active templates, migrating to AlpacaRelay's EQS-optimized platform could unlock $8,000-20,000 in annual revenue lift. The AI editor lets you improve low-scoring templates in real-time — every edit recalculates your EQS, showing exactly which changes move the needle. This is Steps 2-3 of the Expertise Chain (template analysis and copy optimization) moving from guesswork to data-driven AI.

Ready to Switch? Migration Saves ~$5,000-13,500/Year in Labor

Free account. Import your Braze contacts in 5 minutes. See your templates scored instantly. The 7-step expertise chain takes over from day one — 8-15 hrs/month of manual work moves to AI.

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