Topol Plugin vs. Topol PRO

Topol comes in two forms. Topol Plugin is a component you embed in your own application; Topol PRO is a finished application you log into. The Plugin comprises two editors, the Email Editor and the Landing Page Editor (beta); Topol PRO is built on the same email editor, and this page compares the email side of the two products.

The choice usually follows from who the editor is for. A product that needs email editing as a feature for its own users calls for the Plugin. A team that needs to design and send its own emails is served by PRO. This page covers the technical differences behind that split.

At a glance

	Topol Plugin	Topol PRO
Form	Embeddable editor (loader script + iframe)	Hosted web application
Intended user	Developers integrating into a product	Marketers and design teams
Setup	Integration work in your codebase	Sign up and start
Template storage	Your infrastructure	Managed by Topol
Asset storage	Topol by default, or your own cloud	Managed by Topol
White-labeling	Full rebranding	Not available
Customization	UI, blocks, permissions, translations	Editor settings only
Collaboration	Editor UI, stored via your endpoints	Built in and ready to use
API	JS methods and callbacks, plus JSON-to-HTML conversion	Read-only template API
Exports to email platforms	Build your own from JSON/HTML	Built-in integrations

Setup and integration

Topol Plugin is a frontend component with backend expectations. A loader script renders the editor inside an iframe and a TOPOL_OPTIONS object configures it, authenticated by an API key limited to the domains you register. Getting the editor on screen is genuinely frontend-only.

Persistence is where server work begins, and it starts immediately: saving a template at all means handling the onSave callback and storing the JSON somewhere. Beyond that, autosaves, comments, product feeds, and self-hosted storage each call endpoints you implement, and those endpoints need CORS configured for our domain. How to work with your API is the reference for all of them.

Topol PRO requires no integration. It is hosted and maintained by us, with accounts, storage, and templates handled in our infrastructure. Users log in and design; nothing needs to be built.

Data ownership

This is the sharpest difference between the two products, and it splits into two questions.

Templates: the Plugin never stores them on our servers. The editor takes a template through load and returns the edited result through onSave as JSON and HTML. Storage, access control, retention, and version history all stay in your systems, which is what makes the Plugin workable under strict compliance requirements.

Assets need a deliberate choice. Images uploaded through the File Manager go to Topol storage by default, with a monthly data traffic allowance. Configuring custom storage (AWS S3, Google Cloud Storage, Cloudflare R2, DigitalOcean Spaces) or self-hosted storage routes uploads to your own infrastructure and bypasses ours completely. Plan on this early if your policy requires that assets never leave your environment.

INFO

Custom storage requires the Plugin Expansion plan or higher; self-hosted storage requires Plugin for Business or higher. See the pricing page.

With Topol PRO, templates and assets live in our cloud. Setup disappears as a concern, and templates can be exported when local copies are needed, but the raw data is reachable only through the interface and its export options.

Customization and white-labeling

The Plugin is built to disappear into your product. Colors, fonts, and themes are configurable, the top bar can be replaced with your own, content blocks can be switched off or extended with custom ones, and roles and permissions control what each user may do. Removing Topol branding entirely is supported, so end users see only your application.

Topol PRO is a managed product with its own interface. Editor settings are adjustable, but the application's interface and branding are fixed and white-labeling is not offered.

Collaboration

The Plugin ships the collaboration interface and leaves the data layer to you. The distinction matters when estimating integration work: you are not building comment threads or an autosave timer, but you are providing the endpoints behind them.

Comments renders threads on sections and blocks, calling your conversation and comment endpoints to store them. Autosaves captures drafts on a timer and posts them to your autosave endpoints, so version history accumulates in your storage and you decide how far back it reaches. Active members displays who else has a template open from the list your application passes to setActiveMembers, which means presence detection stays on your side. It is an indicator rather than real-time co-editing.

Approval workflows and permission models come from your application, using these features as building blocks.

Topol PRO includes collaboration ready to use. Teams share templates and comment on them, with autosave snapshots available for restoring earlier versions through the interface, and nothing to set up.

APIs and exports

The Plugin's programmatic surface is mostly JavaScript rather than REST. The TopolPlugin instance on window exposes methods for controlling the editor (load, updateTemplate, save, updateOptions, setMergeTags, and others), while callbacks report events back to you. There is no getter for the current template: onSave and onSaveAndClose push the JSON and HTML to you when a save happens.

Two REST surfaces exist alongside that. We publish an endpoint for converting a JSON template to HTML, authenticated with the X-Secret-Key header, which is useful for server-side rendering such as producing HTML for a specific language mutation. Separately, the endpoints that store your templates, autosaves, and comments are ones you implement and the editor calls, as described in how to work with your API.

Topol PRO offers a read-only template API for listing templates, fetching one, and retrieving its HTML, authenticated with an account API token. Creating and editing templates happens in the interface rather than through the API.

Exports work differently in each product. Because the Plugin hands you raw JSON and HTML, sending a template to Mailchimp, SendGrid, a CRM, or an automation tool is an integration you build, in whatever shape you need. Topol PRO ships built-in integrations for platforms like Mailchimp, SendGrid, ActiveCampaign, and HubSpot, which work without development effort but only for supported platforms.

Which one to choose

Choose Topol Plugin to offer email editing inside your own product. It fits SaaS platforms, CRMs, and marketing tools that need a white-label editor, keep template data on their own infrastructure, and want the editor to match their interface. It assumes development work.

Choose Topol PRO when your team needs to design emails and nothing needs to be built. Storage, collaboration, and platform exports are ready on signup.

Getting Started walks through a first Plugin integration. For help deciding, schedule a demo call.