• by Jess Nelson , November 16, 2016

SparkPost’s cloud-based email delivery service is now available in the Microsoft Azure marketplace, thanks to an integration announced on Tuesday.

The integration offers Microsoft Azure developers a collection of email tools that can be incorporated into their web and mobile applications, including deliverability support, notification capabilities and real-time email marketing analytics.

Microsoft Azure is Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, and SparkPost’s integration is primarily targeting a developer audience. 

“Microsoft has built a great product that's very competitive,” says Josh Aberant, CMO of SparkPost. “It's great technology and very reliable. Developers get what they need at a competitive price.”

“Developers are finding a home there,” says Joal Barbehenn, senior vice president of business development at SparkPost. “It’s very clearly one of the fastest growing platforms.”

Although Amazon Web Services (AWS) has a clear lead in the cloud services market, Azure is a rapidly growing second according to a recent study by the Synergy Research Group. Amazon had a larger market share according to the report, but was only experiencing a 53% year-over-year growth compared to Microsoft’s 100% year-over-year growth.

Now available in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, the SparkPost add-on is free for brands sending up to 100,000 emails per month. Paid plans tier from there, up to 5 million email sends per month.

Additional product features include detailed analytics that can be customized. Barbehenn describes how the user interface is “flexible” and can be “configured to your liking with graphs and data in real-time.” 

Barbehenn says the set-up is only a matter of minutes, so developers and marketers still have time to take advantage of the integration in time for the upcoming holiday season. 

SparkPost is an email infrastructure provider that works with major technology companies such as Pinterest, Twitter, Marketo and Groupon. The company has also worked with LinkedIn, a company soon-to-be acquired by Microsoft.