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Sanity vs Contentful: which one fits your team?
Short answer
Sanity, a headless content management system (CMS), fits teams that model content in code: Growth costs $15 per seat a month (Sanity pricing, October 2026). Contentful, also a headless CMS, fits teams that want a flat plan: Lite costs $300 a month (Contentful pricing, October 2026). Both cost $300 at 20 seats, so pick on who changes the model.
- Sanity Growth price
- $15 per seat a monthUp to 50 seats and 5 roles; self-serve plans bill monthly by card, and annual payment is an Enterprise optionSources: Sanity (Plans that scale with you, Sanity for Startups)
- Contentful Lite price
- $300 a month, flatIncludes 20 users, 3 roles, 3 locales and one Starter Space; a Lite Space adds $850 a monthSource: Contentful (Pricing)
- Content types included
- Contentful 25 or 50; Sanity no feeStarter Space holds 25 and Lite Space 50; Sanity charges nothing for content types, inside a 10,000 attribute limit on GrowthSources: Contentful (Pricing); Sanity (Plans that scale with you); Sanity Docs (Attribute limit)
- Publishing by language
- Per locale on Contentful Enterprise; per document on SanityContentful lists locale-based publishing among Enterprise-level Space features; Sanity field-level localization publishes all languages together, and document-level lets each language publish alone.Sources: Contentful (Pricing); Contentful Docs (Locales); Sanity Docs (Localization)
Deploi’s call
Pick on who changes the content model after launch. If developers will own it and it keeps changing, pick Sanity. If marketing owns a stable model and wants a flat plan, price Contentful Lite first. The two plans cost the same at 20 seats, so below that Sanity is cheaper and price alone rarely decides.
SanityChoose Sanity when
- Developers will own the content model and want it in version control.
- The model keeps changing, with nested or reusable structures that you would otherwise turn into separate content types.
- Fewer than 20 people edit, so Growth's $15 per seat a month stays under Lite's $300 flat fee as of October 2026; Growth runs to 50 seats.
- You want Visual Editing and GROQ (Graph-Relational Object Queries) included on every plan.
OtherChoose Contentful when
- Non-developers must change the content model in a web app.
- Each locale must publish on its own and you will buy Contentful Enterprise, whose Spaces list locale-based publishing as of October 2026.
- You want comments, tasks, scheduled publishing and live collaboration in one flat plan.
- Nobody can build and maintain a Sanity Studio, and your model is stable.
How do Sanity and Contentful compare side by side?
Sanity defines the content model as code, while Contentful defines it as content types inside each space. A Sanity schema is JavaScript or TypeScript objects, so every model change ships as a code change (Sanity schemas docs, October 2026). Contentful's command line runs scripted migrations, tested first in a sandbox copy of the space (Contentful migrations, October 2026). Sanity runs GROQ (Graph-Relational Object Queries) and GraphQL on every plan (Sanity pricing, October 2026).
| Dimension | Sanity | Contentful |
|---|---|---|
| Content model | Schema as code in Sanity Studio | Content types per space, up to 50 fields each |
| Query layer | GROQ and GraphQL | GraphQL, plus delivery, preview and management interfaces |
| Localization | Field-level or document-level, with plugins | Field-level, built in; locale-based publishing on specific plans |
| Roles | 5 on Growth; custom roles on Enterprise | 3 on Lite; custom roles above Lite |
| Entry price (dollars per month) | $15 per seat on Growth | $300 flat on Lite |
| Verdict | Fits developer-led teams whose model keeps changing | Fits editor-led teams with a stable model and a flat fee |
How do Sanity and Contentful prices compare in October 2026?
Sanity Growth costs $15 per seat a month, while Contentful Lite costs a flat $300 a month for up to 20 users (Deploi arithmetic from the table). At 20 seats the two cost the same, and below 20 seats Sanity is cheaper. Above 20 users Lite stops, so Contentful means an Enterprise quote, while Growth runs to 50 seats, which is $750 a month.
| Plan | Price | Users | Content types |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sanity Free | $0 | 20 | Unlimited |
| Sanity Growth | $15 per seat | Up to 50 | Unlimited |
| Contentful Free | $0 | 10 | 25 |
| Contentful Lite | $300 flat | 20 | 25 |
Both entry plans bill monthly. Sanity's self-serve plans bill monthly by card with no minimum term (Sanity pricing, October 2026). Contentful's billing help says "An invoice is automatically generated at the end of each billing cycle monthly" (Contentful billing help, October 2026). Contentful's Terms of Service run until your account is terminated, which you can do "at any time through the account management tools", and "fees paid are non-refundable" (Contentful Terms of Service, October 2026). How each bill grows with seats, locales and volume runs the numbers.
Which one is easier for editors and marketers?
Contentful is easier to preview on day one, and Sanity gives editors a more tailored interface at the cost of more developer work (Deploi's judgment). Contentful's side-by-side preview needs only a content preview setup, and "no code changes are required" (Contentful live preview, October 2026). Its click-to-edit inspector needs the live preview SDK (software development kit). Sanity's Visual Editing "lets content creators see their changes live and edit content directly from the webpage," and it takes a framework integration (Sanity Visual Editing docs, October 2026). Contentful Studio, Contentful's visual page editor, has no published price (Contentful Studio, October 2026).
Collaboration features match closely. Contentful lists "Live collaboration," "Comments & task management" and "Scheduled publishing" on Lite (Contentful pricing, October 2026). Sanity Growth lists Comments, Task management and Scheduled drafts, and real-time editing on every plan (Sanity pricing, October 2026). Whole-campaign scheduling is where Sanity gates harder: Content Releases is an Enterprise add-on as of October 2026 (Sanity pricing).
Which one handles localization better on each plan?
Contentful builds field-level localization in but gates it by plan; Sanity charges nothing per locale but leaves the workflow to your model. Contentful includes 2 locales on Free and 3 on Lite, and its pricing page lists locale-based publishing among the Enterprise-level features of its larger Spaces, the containers that each hold a content model (Contentful pricing, October 2026). Sanity charges nothing for locales, and storing each language as its own field object adds attributes (unique content paths) toward a 10,000 limit per dataset on Growth, while array-based fields and document-level translation add none per language (Sanity attribute limit docs, Sanity localization docs, October 2026). Sanity's field-level method "requires you to publish content in all languages simultaneously", so per-language publishing means document-level translation (Sanity localization docs, October 2026). Our localization review compares the two workflows in depth.
What do several brands cost on Sanity and Contentful?
Several brands cost nothing extra on Sanity Growth until you need more than 2 datasets, while Contentful Lite adds a second Space for $850 a month. A dataset is Sanity's separate content store inside a project; a Space is Contentful's container for one content model and its entries.
| Plan | Included | Extra allowed | Price of each extra |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sanity Growth | 2 datasets | Up to 2 more | $999 |
| Contentful Lite | 1 Starter Space | 1 Lite Space | $850 |
| Contentful Enterprise | Unlimited Spaces allowance | Not applicable | Custom |
Both rows come from each vendor's pricing page (Sanity pricing, Contentful pricing, October 2026). Salesforce says it completed its purchase of Contentful on 1 September 2026 and states no pricing terms (Salesforce press release, October 2026), so ask for Space pricing in writing. Whether each brand needs its own dataset is a modeling decision; see how one Sanity setup runs several brands.
Which one do developers prefer?
We can't say which one developers prefer, because the sources we checked hold no neutral survey. The documents do show how each queries content. Sanity's GROQ (Graph-Relational Object Queries) lets you "join information from multiple documents" (Sanity GROQ docs, October 2026). Contentful's GraphQL schema is "generated at request time and is always up-to-date with the current status of the space", with a default collection complexity of 100 and up to 11000 entities per request (Contentful GraphQL docs, October 2026). Contentful's technical limits page lists 78 delivery calls per second per space on paid plans and 55 on Free (Contentful technical limits, October 2026). Sanity's GraphQL needs a deploy step and a stricter schema, because "The schemas for Sanity Studio are more flexible than what GraphQL is able to represent" (Sanity GraphQL docs, October 2026).
Our judgment: a team standardized on GraphQL clients and code generation moves faster on Contentful; a team that wants joins and projections in one query moves faster on Sanity. GROQ doesn't port, so budget a query rewrite whichever way you later move.
How hard is it to move from Contentful to Sanity?
Moving from Contentful to Sanity is a modeling project first and a data transfer second, and our Contentful to Sanity migration plan walks through it. Count the size drivers before you ask anyone for a quote. A Contentful Space is the container that holds one content model and its entries. We don't estimate hours from a call, because each estimate starts from your own space's counts.
| Driver | Contentful ceiling |
|---|---|
| Content types | 1,000 per environment; 25 in a Starter Space, 50 in a Lite Space |
| Fields per content type | 50 |
| Locales | 500 per environment |
| Rich text field | 200,000 characters |
| Entry size | 2 MB |
| Asset size | 50 MB on Free, 1,000 MB on paid plans |
Deploi’s point of view
- Where we disagree
- Three standard claims are wrong or stale. First, that Contentful edits sequentially: Contentful's own pricing page lists live collaboration on Lite, and we haven't tested either claim. Second, that Sanity has unlimited locales and content types: both are free to add, but a 10,000 attribute budget per dataset on Growth caps how many fit when each language is stored as its own field object. Third, that Contentful caps you at 150 content types: its current limits page says 1,000 per environment, and the cap that bites is the 25 or 50 of your plan's Space.
- What we’ve seen
- deploi.ca's Shopify sections run on Sanity: one Studio with three workspaces over two datasets, counted 24 October 2026. We wrote validation as code there, including a capsule length rule, and the FAQ Hub with AI Chatbot template, which Martin Dejnicki published on Sanity Exchange, carries a dependent-reference check that queries the dataset before an editor can publish. That is what modeling in code buys: rules that can read content. Our view of Contentful rests on its documentation and public sources.
- What we'd tell you to do first
- Write down who edited your content model in the last twelve months and how often. If the answer is developers, monthly, price Sanity first. If it is nobody, rarely, price Contentful Lite first. Then count your locales and brands against each vendor's gate.
- What we refuse to promise
- We won't say either platform launches faster or costs less over three years. Neither vendor publishes that figure, and it depends on build effort we don't estimate without a scoped brief.
When this answer changes
- Contentful changes the Lite price, the Starter Space limits or the 3 locale cap
- Sanity changes the Growth seat price or the 50 seat limit
- Sanity resolves whether the Enterprise attribute limit is custom or 10,000
- Contentful publishes a price for Contentful Studio
- Salesforce changes Contentful plan names, prices or the Lite and Starter Space limits after the 1 September 2026 completion it reports
- Sanity moves Content Releases below Enterprise or adds locale-based publishing for field-level localization, or Contentful moves locale-based publishing below Enterprise
Follow-up questions
Sources
Every source opened and checked on 25 October 2026.
- Sanity, Plans that scale with you
- Sanity Docs, Localization
- Sanity Docs, Visual Editing
- Sanity Docs, GROQ introduction
- Sanity Docs, GraphQL
- Sanity Docs, Introduction to schemas
- Sanity Docs, Attribute limit
- Sanity Docs, Roles
- Sanity, Why choose Sanity over Contentful?
- Sanity, Sanity vs Contentful: Why Teams Are Migrating in 2026
- Sanity, Sanity for Startups
- Contentful, Pricing
- Contentful Docs, Technical limits
- Contentful Docs, Locales
- Contentful Docs, Roles and permissions
- Contentful Docs, GraphQL Content API
- Contentful Docs, Contentful data model
- Contentful Docs, Scripting migrations
- Contentful Docs, Live preview
- Contentful, Contentful Studio
- Contentful Docs, Developer documentation
- Salesforce, Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Contentful
- Contentful Help Center, Space roles and permissions
- Contentful Help Center, Billing
- Contentful, Terms of Service