OneSignal

Overview

OneSignal is a comprehensive customer engagement platform designed to help developers and marketers communicate with their user base across multiple channels. Established in 2014, the platform initially focused on push notifications but has since expanded its offerings to include in-app messaging, email, and SMS. OneSignal provides a unified API and dashboard for managing these communication channels, aiming to simplify the process of user re-engagement and retention for mobile applications and websites.

The platform is engineered to support a wide array of development environments, offering dedicated SDKs for native iOS and Android applications, web platforms, and cross-platform frameworks such as React Native, Flutter, Unity, Cordova, Xamarin, and MAUI. This broad SDK support allows developers to integrate OneSignal's messaging capabilities into diverse projects with minimal setup, as detailed in the OneSignal documentation. The developer experience is characterized by well-structured documentation and clear examples, supporting common use cases like targeted notifications and user segmentation. Developers can manage messaging campaigns and user data either through the web dashboard or programmatically via the OneSignal REST API.

OneSignal is often utilized by businesses and developers looking to enhance user engagement. Its capabilities are particularly beneficial for scenarios requiring real-time updates, promotional campaigns, or transactional messages. For instance, an e-commerce app might use OneSignal to send push notifications about flash sales, while a content platform could use in-app messages to announce new features. The platform's emphasis on multi-channel delivery allows for coordinated messaging strategies, ensuring that users receive relevant communications through their preferred channels.

The service offers a free tier supporting up to 10,000 subscribers, making it accessible for smaller projects and startups. Paid plans scale with subscriber count and message volume, providing options for growing businesses. OneSignal also maintains compliance certifications, including GDPR, CCPA, and SOC 2 Type II, addressing data privacy and security requirements for its users.

Key features

• Push Notifications: Enables sending targeted, real-time notifications to mobile app users and web browsers. Supports rich media, action buttons, and scheduled delivery.
• In-App Messaging: Facilitates direct communication within the application interface, useful for onboarding, feature announcements, and personalized offers.
• Email Messaging: Provides tools for sending transactional and promotional emails, integrating into broader multi-channel campaigns.
• SMS Messaging: Supports sending short message service communications for time-sensitive alerts or critical updates, complementing other messaging channels.
• Audience Segmentation: Allows for creating specific user segments based on behaviors, demographics, and custom tags to deliver highly relevant messages.
• A/B Testing: Offers functionality to test different message variations (e.g., copy, images) to optimize engagement rates and campaign performance.
• Analytics and Reporting: Provides dashboards and reports to track message delivery, open rates, and user engagement metrics across all channels.
• Cross-Platform SDKs: Supports a wide range of platforms including iOS, Android, Web, React Native, Flutter, Unity, Cordova, Xamarin, and MAUI for broad compatibility.
• Automation and Journeys: Enables setting up automated message sequences based on user actions or lifecycle events to streamline engagement strategies.

Pricing

OneSignal offers a free tier and various paid plans, primarily scaling based on the number of subscribers and message volume. The pricing structure is designed to accommodate different organizational needs, from individual developers to large enterprises. As of May 2026, the following summarizes their pricing tiers:

For detailed and up-to-date pricing information, including specific subscriber and message volume breakdowns, refer to the official OneSignal pricing page.

Common integrations

• Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM): OneSignal integrates with Firebase Cloud Messaging for delivering push notifications to Android devices, abstracting much of the direct FCM interaction.
• Apple Push Notification service (APNs): For iOS devices, OneSignal leverages Apple Push Notification service to ensure secure and reliable delivery of notifications.
• React Native: Developers can integrate OneSignal into React Native applications using the OneSignal React Native SDK, enabling cross-platform push notifications.
• Flutter: The OneSignal Flutter SDK allows for push notification and in-app messaging capabilities within Flutter applications, targeting both iOS and Android.
• Unity: Game developers can use the OneSignal Unity SDK to send push notifications to players, enhancing engagement in mobile games.
• Segment: OneSignal can integrate with customer data platforms like Segment to synchronize user data and segments, enabling more granular targeting.
• Shopify: For e-commerce stores, OneSignal offers integrations to send automated web push notifications for abandoned carts, order updates, and promotions.

Alternatives

• Braze: A comprehensive customer engagement platform offering advanced segmentation, journey orchestration, and multi-channel messaging (push, email, in-app, SMS).
• Iterable: A growth marketing platform that provides cross-channel campaign orchestration, AI-powered optimization, and robust segmentation for personalized user experiences.
• Firebase Cloud Messaging: Google's free service for sending messages to client apps on Android, iOS, and web. While it provides the core push notification infrastructure, it requires additional development for advanced features like segmentation and analytics found in dedicated platforms.
• Airship: A customer engagement platform specializing in mobile app experience, offering push notifications, in-app messaging, and a focus on enterprise-level customer journey management.
• Leanplum: A mobile marketing platform that combines analytics, A/B testing, and multi-channel messaging (push, in-app, email) to optimize the mobile user experience.

Getting started

To integrate OneSignal for push notifications in a Swift iOS application, you would typically begin by adding the OneSignal SDK to your project and configuring it. This example demonstrates a basic setup for initializing OneSignal and requesting push notification permissions.

import UIKit
import OneSignalFramework

@main
class AppDelegate: UIResponder, UIApplicationDelegate {

    func application(_ application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey: Any]?) -> Bool {
        // Override point for customization after application launch.
        
        // OneSignal initialization
        // Replace "YOUR_ONESIGNAL_APP_ID" with your actual OneSignal App ID
        OneSignal.setAppId("YOUR_ONESIGNAL_APP_ID")
        
        // Prompt for push notification permissions (optional: can be done later)
        OneSignal.promptForPushNotifications(userResponse: { accepted in
            print("User accepted notifications: \(accepted)")
        })
        
        return true
    }

    // SceneDelegate methods (for iOS 13+ projects)
    func application(_ application: UIApplication, configurationForConnecting connectingSceneSession: UISceneSession, options: UIScene.ConnectionOptions) -> UISceneConfiguration {
        return UISceneConfiguration(name: "Default Configuration", sessionRole: connectingSceneSession.role)
    }

    func application(_ application: UIApplication, didDiscardSceneSessions sceneSessions: Set<UISceneSession>) {
        // Called when the user discards a scene session.
    }

}

This code snippet initializes the OneSignal SDK with your application ID and then prompts the user for push notification permissions. Further configuration, such as handling notification opens or sending custom tags, can be implemented using additional OneSignal iOS SDK methods.