Contentful and Sanity solve different problems even though both are freemium headless CMSs. Contentful bundles a CMS with personalization, AI Actions…
Best for Contentful: Teams that want a broader composable digital experience platform — personalization, AI-driven workflow automation (AI Actions), and Palmata's AI-search visibility tooling — bundled with the CMS, and who are prepared to contact sales for paid-tier pricing.
Best for Sanity: Teams that want a developer-first, structured-content backend with GROQ querying, real-time multiplayer editing, and a Content Agent for automating transformations, with published per-seat pricing on the Growth tier.
At a Glance
Contentful
Sanity
Primary category
CMS
CMS
Rating
Not documented
Not documented
Pricing model
Freemium
Freemium, per-seat subscription with usage-based overages
Starting price
Free (paid plans from €300/month)
Free plan available; Growth plan starts at $15 per seat per month
Free plan
Yes
Yes
Free trial
Yes
Not documented
Platforms
Web
Web
Team collaboration
Not documented
Not documented
AI features
Yes
Yes
Public API
Yes
Yes
Key Differences
Paid-tier pricing transparency
Contentful: Only the Free plan has published, self-serve limits (100K API calls/month, 50GB bandwidth/month, no overages); Lite and Enterprise pricing requires contacting sales.
Sanity: Publishes Growth at $15/seat/month for up to 50 seats, with only Enterprise left as a custom quote.
Teams that need to budget or compare costs before a sales conversation can do so with Sanity but not with Contentful's paid tiers.
Platform breadth beyond content management
Contentful: Bundles Personalization, AI Actions (workflow automation), Studio (visual experience assembly), Palmata (AI discovery/search visibility), and a Marketplace of apps/integrations.
Sanity: Focuses on structured content: Sanity Studio, GROQ query language, real-time/listening APIs, Content Releases (scheduling), and the Content Agent for transforming/auditing content.
Contentful adds marketing and AI-discovery tooling on top of the CMS layer; Sanity concentrates on the content backend and developer querying experience.
Free plan limits and dataset privacy
Contentful: Free plan quota is 100K API calls/month and 50GB asset bandwidth/month, with no overages allowed.
Sanity: Free plan includes 20 seats and 10k documents, but datasets are public only — private datasets require the paid Growth plan.
Each free tier caps a different resource first: Contentful limits API/bandwidth usage, while Sanity limits dataset privacy rather than seats or documents.
Documented compliance certifications
Contentful: No compliance certifications (SOC 2, GDPR, CCPA) are documented in the available facts.
Sanity: States SOC 2, GDPR, and CCPA compliance explicitly.
Buyers with compliance checklists may need to request documentation separately from Contentful, while Sanity states this upfront.
Feature-by-Feature
Core Content Features
Feature
Contentful
Sanity
Structured/composable content modeling
Available
Available
Visual editing/assembly interface
Available
Available
Real-time / multiplayer editing
Not documented
Available
Custom query language (e.g. GROQ)
Not documented
Available
Pricing & Plans
Feature
Contentful
Sanity
Free plan
Available
Available
Published self-serve pricing above Free
Unavailable
Available
Private datasets on free plan
Not documented
Unavailable
AI & Compliance
Feature
Contentful
Sanity
AI-driven workflow automation
Available
Available
AI-search / GEO visibility tooling
Available
Not documented
SOC 2 / GDPR / CCPA compliance stated
Not documented
Available
Pricing Compared
Starting price reflects the lowest paid tier, not the full cost for every team size or usage level.
Contentful
Free — $0 Monthly
Lite — €300/month Monthly
Enterprise — Custom Annual
Sanity
Free — $0 monthly
Growth — $15 per seat monthly
Enterprise — Custom custom
Pros & Cons
Contentful
Pros
Highly flexible for multi-channel and composable architectures
Strong developer experience with REST/GraphQL APIs and SDKs
Scales to enterprise governance needs like custom roles and SLAs
Active ecosystem of integrations and apps
Cons
Pricing can escalate quickly with API call and space overages
Requires front-end development resources; not a drag-and-drop site builder
Personalization and advanced AI features are sold as separate paid add-ons
Steeper learning curve than traditional CMS platforms for non-technical users
Sanity
Pros
Free plan is usable in production indefinitely, not just a trial
Highly customizable editing environment for developers
Real-time collaborative editing is a differentiator versus many headless CMS competitors
Structured content model makes omnichannel delivery easier
Backed by well-known venture investors, suggesting product longevity
Cons
Per-seat pricing can become expensive for larger content teams
Requires developer involvement to set up and customize the Studio, less turnkey than page-builder CMS tools
SSO is expensive as a Growth add-on, pushing compliance-focused teams toward custom Enterprise pricing
No annual billing discount on self-serve plans, only monthly billing is offered
Usage-based overages for API requests and bandwidth can add unpredictable costs
Use Cases
Choose Contentful: Teams that want a broader composable digital experience platform — personalization, AI-driven workflow automation (AI Actions), and Palmata's AI-search visibility tooling — bundled with the CMS, and who are prepared to contact sales for paid-tier pricing.
Choose Sanity: Teams that want a developer-first, structured-content backend with GROQ querying, real-time multiplayer editing, and a Content Agent for automating transformations, with published per-seat pricing on the Growth tier.
Need both: Agencies or platform teams supporting multiple clients may end up running both: a client already standardized on Contentful's personalization and AI Actions workflows keeps that stack, while a separate project needing Sanity's GROQ-based structured content model and real-time editing runs on Sanity — rather than forcing one CMS across every engagement.
Contentful
Omnichannel Content Delivery — Enterprises manage content once and publish it across web, mobile, and other channels via APIs.
Composable Website & App Builds — Development teams pair Contentful with frameworks like React or Next.js for custom front ends.
Personalized Web Experiences — Marketing teams run A/B tests and audience segmentation using Contentful's Personalization add-on.
Sanity
Editorial and publishing sites — Content teams that need a flexible, collaborative editing workspace decoupled from a specific frontend template, with real-time editing for distributed teams.
E-commerce content management — Structuring product, campaign, and merchandising content that needs to be delivered consistently across web, mobile, and marketing channels.
Custom developer-led CMS builds — Development teams that want to build a fully bespoke content schema and editing UI rather than adapting to a rigid, pre-built CMS interface.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Contentful have a free plan?
Yes, a Free plan is available with a Starter Space and published usage limits, including 100K API calls/month and 50GB asset bandwidth/month with no overages.
Is Contentful's paid-tier pricing public?
No, only the Free plan has published self-serve limits; Lite and Enterprise plans require contacting sales.
Does Sanity have a free plan?
Yes, the Free plan includes 20 seats, 2 public datasets, 10k documents, and 100GB of assets and bandwidth.
How is Sanity's paid pricing structured?
Free, then Growth at $15/seat/month for up to 50 seats, or custom Enterprise pricing.
What is Palmata?
Contentful's newer product focused on understanding and improving how an organization is represented in AI discovery and search.
What is GROQ?
Sanity's custom query language for retrieving structured content from the platform.