Content and copywriting
Sanity - the practical guide.
Sanity is a developer-friendly headless CMS built around a fully customisable React-based editing environment called Sanity Studio. Founded in 2015 in Oslo, it pairs structured content APIs with a real-time collaboration layer (multiplayer editing, presence indicators) and treats the editor experience as code that lives in your repository, version-controlled alongside the rest of your application.
What Sanity does
The core covers content modelling via schemas defined in TypeScript, a real-time content lake (the underlying datastore), GROQ and GraphQL query languages, and Sanity Studio - the editor app that ships as a React project you customise to match your editorial workflow. Live preview, presentation mode and visual editing let marketers see changes in the live frontend as they type.
Recent releases have layered on AI Assist (drafting, translation, summarisation tied to your content schemas), media library improvements, scheduled publishing and a release management workflow for batched changes. Native and community integrations cover Next.js, Astro, Nuxt, Remix, Shopify, Algolia, Mux and the modern Jamstack ecosystem.
Who it's for
Engineering-led product, marketing and content teams that want a CMS they can shape rather than fight. Particularly strong for SaaS marketing sites, modern ecommerce, content-heavy startups and agency-built bespoke frontends where a tailored editor experience is part of the deliverable.
Pricing, in rough terms
Per month, billed monthly or annually, by seats, datasets, API requests and tier (Free, Growth, Enterprise). Free is genuinely usable for small projects; Growth starts around USD 99 per month and scales with seats and usage; Enterprise is quote-based with bespoke SLAs and governance.
When Sanity is the right fit
The right call when engineering wants a CMS that behaves like code, marketers want real-time collaboration and live preview, and you'd rather customise the studio than accept Contentful's defaults. Also a strong fit for agencies building bespoke client sites that need a polished editor handover. A weaker fit for marketing teams without engineering support, simple brochure sites (WordPress or Webflow), or organisations that need an out-of-the-box authoring suite without customisation.
Watch-outs
The flexibility cuts both ways - studio quality depends on the developer who built it, so insist on a thoughtful information architecture upfront. API usage and bandwidth charges can creep up on high-traffic sites; cache aggressively and monitor early. Free tier limits are real; budget the upgrade path before launching anything serious.