People look for a Mailgun alternative when the plan ladder stops fitting: the free plan is capped at 100 emails a day with one day of logs, and the next steps up are priced at $15, $35 and $90 a month. Mailgun has also changed hands several times, and it now sits inside Sinch. They move to a usage-priced service, to a developer-first newcomer with longer log retention, or to a vendor that is not part of a larger communications group.
Short answer: The first three alternatives to Mailgun in our transactional email services ranking are SMTP2GO, Resend and Postmark. Places 1 to 3 go to challengers, vendors outside the best-known brands in a category, wherever the category has them; the established names follow from place 4 in their ranked order. Choose SMTP2GO if you want a plain relay with support on every plan and a lower entry price. All 11 alternatives below are ranked products from Best Transactional Email Services in 2026, and each says where it differs from Mailgun.
Vendors can pay for visibility on this site; it never changes what we say
about a product. How that works.
Pricing: Free plan of 100 emails a day; Basic to Scale published
Established in: United States
Built for: Developers who want to choose between EU and US sending regions
Not for: Small senders who need more than one day of logs
01
Why buyers look past Mailgun
01
Logs and domains depend on the tier
Mailgun's pricing page gives the Free and Basic plans one custom sending domain and one day of log retention. Foundation ($35 a month, 50,000 emails) raises that to 1,000 domains and 5 days, and only Scale ($90, 100,000 emails) reaches 30 days of logs. A team that debugs a bounce a week later, or an agency with several client domains, is pushed up a tier to do so.
02
Fixed steps with overage on top
Each Mailgun plan includes a block of email and bills the rest per 1,000: from $1.80 on Basic, $1.30 on Foundation and $1.10 on Scale. The free plan stops at 100 emails a day. Email validation is a separate meter, priced from $1.20 per 100 validations on Basic, with 5,000 included only on Scale. Volume that grows unevenly makes the monthly bill hard to predict.
03
Four owners since 2012
Mailgun's about page lists acquisition by Rackspace in 2012, a spin-out in 2017, Thoma Bravo in 2019 and Sinch in 2021. Its menu now groups Mailgun with Mailjet and Email on Acid under Sinch Email. We cannot say what this means for prices or roadmap, but a buyer who wants an independent vendor has a reason to look elsewhere.
Prepaid email blocks, published; needs a paid Mailchimp plan
Mandrill's successor, sold as a Mailchimp add-on in prepaid blocks
you already pay for Mailchimp and want transactional mail on the same invoice
#12
03
What each one does differently
1
SMTP2GO
New Zealand · Free plan to 1,000 emails a month; paid tiers published
Priced by monthly volume on its page: a free plan to 1,000 emails, Starter at $10 for 10,000 and Professional at $75 for 100,000, all billed in US dollars. Ticket support is on every plan, phone and chat limited to 14 days on free. A dedicated IP starts at Professional. The company is Sand Dune Mail Ltd, under New Zealand law.
Switch from Mailgun if you want a plain relay with support on every plan and a lower entry price.
United States · Free plan to 3,000 emails a month; Pro and Scale tiers published
A newer API-first service with a free plan of 3,000 emails a month (100 a day), Pro at $20 for 50,000 and Scale at $90 for 100,000, monthly billing only. Data retention is 30 days on all three, against Mailgun's 1 to 5 days on cheaper tiers. Dedicated IPs cost $30 a month and need Scale and over 3,000 emails a day.
Switch from Mailgun if you want 30-day logs and no annual contract on a modern developer interface.
United States · Free plan to 100 emails a month; paid tiers by volume, published
Separates transactional and broadcast message streams. The free plan is 100 emails a month with no overage; Basic is $15, Pro $16.50 and Platform $18, each starting at 10,000 emails with 45 days of data retention. Inbound processing starts on Pro. It belongs to ActiveCampaign, so it is another acquired product.
Switch from Mailgun if transactional deliverability and longer history matter more than a big free allowance.
United States · Pay as you go per 1,000 emails; plan and add-on rates published
Metered rather than tiered. Essentials charges $0.16 per 1,000 emails up to 10 million a month; Pro adds a $105 monthly fee and Enterprise $500. Managed dedicated IPs and email validation are add-ons on Essentials. New accounts receive up to $200 in AWS Free Tier credits. It is infrastructure inside an AWS account, so you assemble more yourself.
Switch from Mailgun if volume is high and an engineer can own the integration inside AWS.
United States · 60-day trial of 100 emails a day; paid plans by volume
Owned by Twilio; the sendgrid.com address now forwards to twilio.com. The trial is 100 emails a day for 60 days across SMTP relay, SMTP API and Web API, then a paid plan. The pages we could fetch showed no tier prices, so request a quote before comparing. Twilio Inc. is a Delaware corporation based in San Francisco.
Switch from Mailgun if you already buy Twilio services or want a trial longer than a month.
Canada · Free plan to 3,000 emails a month; Starter and Pro published
Free plan allows 3,000 emails a month with up to 1,000 contacts; Starter and Pro are listed from $19 and $49 a month at the 50,000-email setting of its slider. Email logs are kept 3 days on Free and Starter and 7 on Pro. Private IPs cost extra each month. Contact page lists Vancouver, Canada and Szczecin, Poland.
Switch from Mailgun if you want a bigger free allowance and a low first paid step.
United States · Free plan to 500 emails a month; Hobby to Professional published
Free plan is 500 emails a month with 1 domain, 1 webhook and 1 day of activity data, and it asks for a card to prevent abuse. Hobby costs $7 a month ($5.60 billed yearly). Professional adds unlimited domains and 30 days of data. MailerSend, Inc. is a New York company from the team behind MailerLite.
Switch from Mailgun if you want a low-cost entry plan and a vendor focused on transactional email.
France · Free plan of 300 emails a day; paid plans by send volume, published
A marketing platform first: its pricing page leads with Starter, Standard and Professional campaign plans, and the free plan sends 300 emails a day. Transactional email, SMS and WhatsApp sit beside automation and CRM. The company is registered in Paris, France. You pay for a suite when you only want an API.
Switch from Mailgun if you also send newsletters and want one account for both kinds of mail.
France · Free plan to 6,000 emails a month; paid plans by volume, published
Free plan of 6,000 emails a month with a 200-a-day cap, then Starter $9 for 8,000, Essential $19 and Premium $29 for 15,000, with an email editor and contact limits. Its pricing page is titled Sinch Mailjet and Mailgun lists it under Sinch Email, so moving does not leave that group.
Switch from Mailgun if you want a bigger free allowance and campaign tools but accept the same parent.
Netherlands · Free plan to 1,000 emails a month; monthly balance plans published
Sold as Bird, and sparkpost.com forwards to bird.com. Free is 1,000 emails a month (50 a day); paid plans are monthly deposits of $15, $250 or $1,000 spent at about $0.35 to $0.45 per 1,000 emails, so billing is by balance, not by volume tier. Customers outside the USA contract with Bird B.V. in the Netherlands.
Switch from Mailgun if you prefer a prepaid balance and a contract with a Dutch entity.
United States · Prepaid email blocks, published; needs a paid Mailchimp plan
Mailchimp Transactional needs a Mailchimp account and is an add-on to Standard and Premium plans or the legacy Monthly plan. Sold in blocks of 25,000 emails at $20 each up to 500,000 a month, with a dedicated IP at $29.95 a month. New users can try a limited demo.
Switch from Mailgun if you already pay for Mailchimp and want transactional mail on the same invoice.
Mailgun remains a reasonable choice when you want to pick the US or EU region from a single account, which its pricing page states. It also suits teams that need inbound routing (1 route on Free, 5 on Basic, full access from Foundation), 1,000 sending domains from $35 a month, or validation and inbox-placement tools from the same vendor. Scale adds SAML SSO and dedicated IP pools. It is a poorer fit if you need weeks of logs on a small plan or want to avoid an owner that is itself part of a larger group.
05
What moving off Mailgun involves
01
List the Mailgun features you really use
Mailgun's feature table names inbound routes, mailing lists, recipient variables, templates, subaccounts and validations. Not every alternative has an equivalent: Postmark offers inbound processing only from Pro, and Mailchimp Transactional needs a Mailchimp plan. Write down your usage first so the replacement does not leave a gap.
02
Authenticate the new service before you cut over
Each service issues its own SPF and DKIM records for your sending domain. Add them next to Mailgun's, send test traffic through the new service, and switch the API key last. A dedicated IP needs warm-up; Amazon SES states that its managed dedicated IPs are warmed up and scaled automatically, while Mailgun lists automated warm-up on its own plans.
03
Check where mail is processed
Mailgun lets you send through the US or the EU. If your contracts require that choice, ask each alternative which regions it offers and which entity signs the contract. Bird, for example, contracts with Bird B.V. outside the USA, while Resend's terms are with Plus Five Five, Inc., governed by California law.
06
Questions about replacing Mailgun
6 answers
What does Mailgun cost?
According to its pricing page, Free is 100 emails a day, Basic starts at $15 a month for 10,000 emails, Foundation is $35 for 50,000 and Scale is $90 for 100,000.
Foundation and Scale are free for the first month. Overage runs from $1.80 down to $1.10 per 1,000 emails. Enterprise is quoted.
Is there a free Mailgun plan?
Yes, 100 emails a day with one custom domain, 2 API keys and 1 day of log retention. Resend (3,000 emails a month), Elastic Email (3,000) and Mailjet (6,000 a month, 200 a day) publish larger monthly free allowances.
Who owns Mailgun?
Sinch acquired it in 2021. Its about page also lists Rackspace (2012), a spin-out in 2017 and Thoma Bravo (2019). Mailgun Technologies, Inc. contracts under Texas law, and the site lists Mailjet and Email on Acid in the same Sinch Email group.
Which alternative has the lowest published per-email rate?
Of those we checked, Amazon SES: $0.16 per 1,000 emails on Essentials up to 10 million a month.
Resend charges $0.90 per 1,000 beyond plan volume and Bird about $0.35 to $0.45. Mailgun's Scale overage is $1.10. Rates exclude add-ons and the monthly fee on SES Pro.
Does Mailgun validate email addresses?
Yes, as a separate paid service priced per 100 validations, from $1.20 on Basic. Scale includes 5,000. Alternatives in this category list validation differently: Amazon SES offers it as an add-on, MailerSend and Mailjet list it among their features.
Is Mailjet a way out of the Sinch group?
No. Mailjet's pricing page is titled Sinch Mailjet, and Mailgun's menu lists Mailjet under Sinch Email. If independence from Sinch is the reason for moving, look at Resend, Postmark, SMTP2GO or Elastic Email instead, and check each one's own owner.
—
Sources
Checked 23 October 2026
Mailgun pricing: plan prices, included volumes, overage rates, log retention, domains, inbound routes, validation pricing, US and EU hosting, Sinch Email menu.
Founder of The Knowledge Engineers and of 2 Steps Ahead, an AI search visibility agency. Editorially responsible for every page on this site; research and drafting are AI-assisted.
Written, edited and fact-checked by Sebastiaan Smits. Last reviewed
23 October 2026. How we review.
