People look for a SendGrid alternative when a project outgrows its 60-day trial, when the features they need sit on the Pro tier, or when they would rather not hold an email contract inside a larger Twilio account. They move to a developer-first API, a metered cloud service, or a relay with a standing allowance.
Short answer: The first three alternatives to SendGrid in our transactional email services ranking are Mailgun, Postmark and Resend. 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 Mailgun if you want the same API-plus-relay model with a published price ladder and an EU option. All 11 alternatives below are ranked products from Best Transactional Email Services in 2026, and each says where it differs from SendGrid.
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Pricing: 60-day trial of 100 emails a day; paid plans by volume
Established in: United States
Built for: Teams already buying Twilio services who want one supplier for messaging
Not for: Buyers who need a price list before signing up
01
Why buyers look past SendGrid
01
The way in is a trial, then a volume-priced plan
Twilio's SendGrid page offers 100 emails a day for 60 days with no card, after which Essentials starts at $19.95 a month and Pro at $89.95, both priced by monthly volume. A side project that sends a few hundred emails has to pay once the trial ends, whereas Resend, Mailgun and Brevo keep a standing allowance.
02
Team and network features are on Pro
Per the pricing page, Essentials has 1 teammate, 2 event webhooks and 3 days of activity history. Pro lifts that to 1,000 teammates, 5 webhooks, 7 days of history, subuser management, SSO and one dedicated IP. A company that needs only SSO or a second user still buys the larger tier.
03
The contract is with a communications platform
The sendgrid.com address now lands on twilio.com, and the terms are Twilio Inc.'s, a Delaware corporation in San Francisco. Marketing Campaigns is a separate product with its own pricing link. Buyers who want one small supplier for email only will find the pure email vendors below closer to that.
you already run Mailchimp marketing and want transactional mail on the same account
#12
03
What each one does differently
1
Mailgun
United States · Published
Closest in shape: API and SMTP sending, and a US or EU region from one account. Plans run from Basic ($15 a month, 10,000 emails, 1 day of logs) to Foundation ($35, 50,000) and Scale ($90, 100,000, 30 days of logs, SAML SSO, phone and chat support). The free plan stops at 100 emails a day.
Switch from SendGrid if you want the same API-plus-relay model with a published price ladder and an EU option.
A narrower product built around message streams. Basic costs $15 a month for 10,000 emails, Pro adds inbound processing and up to 365 days of retention, and the free plan allows only 100 emails a month with no overages. Dedicated IPs are reserved for senders above 300,000 emails a month and start at $50 per IP.
Switch from SendGrid if most of your mail is password resets and receipts and you want separate streams for bulk.
A newer, API-first service with a free plan of 3,000 emails a month (100 a day), Pro from $20 for 50,000 and Scale from $90 for 100,000 with 1,000 domains. There are no annual plans, overage needs pay-as-you-go switched on, and a dedicated IP at $30 a month is limited to Scale senders above 3,000 emails a day.
Switch from SendGrid if you are a small team that wants a short price table and React Email support.
Metered per email on an AWS account: Essentials at $0.16 per 1,000, Pro at $105 a month plus $0.22 per 1,000, Enterprise at $500. Dedicated IPs cost $24.95 each a month. New accounts start on Essentials from 21 July 2026. It sends through API or SMTP, but the bill, region and tooling are AWS's.
Switch from SendGrid if your volume is large, you already run on AWS and want the lowest per-email rate.
Sells marketing and transactional sending on shared plans: a free plan at 300 emails a day, Starter from 5,000 emails a month, Professional from 150,000. Every plan includes the API, SMTP, webhooks and unlimited log retention, per its FAQ. The company is registered in Paris. In our reading, a pure API buyer pays for campaign tools.
Switch from SendGrid if you send newsletters and receipts from one tool and want a free plan to start on.
Offers a free plan of 500 emails a month, Hobby at $7 for 5,000, then Starter and Professional with 7 and 30 days of activity data. A 14-day trial opens Professional features. SMS is limited to US and Canada customers, and the page shows conflicting email counts for Starter, so confirm that plan before buying.
Switch from SendGrid if you send small volumes and want a trial of the top tier before choosing.
A Sinch Email brand like Mailgun, with Free at 6,000 emails a month capped at 200 a day, Starter at $9 for 8,000 and Essential or Premium at $19 and $29 for 15,000. A dedicated IP comes with Premium on 100,000-email plans on request. It leans towards campaigns more than API developer tooling.
Switch from SendGrid if you want a low entry price and a visual email editor beside the API.
A relay-first service: a free plan of 1,000 emails a month, Starter at $10 for 10,000 and Professional at $75 for 100,000, with extra emails at $1 and $0.85 per thousand. A dedicated IP starts at Professional. Phone and chat support run on all plans, 14 days only on the free one. The operator is New Zealand based.
Switch from SendGrid if you only need an SMTP relay and prefer a flat plan with support included.
Email API plans of Free (3,000 emails, 1,000 contacts), Starter at $19 and Pro at $49, which differ by features such as inbound processing, webhooks and sub accounts rather than volume. Logs last 3 days on Free and Starter, 7 on Pro. Private IPs are an add-on listed at $40 and $50 a month.
Switch from SendGrid if you want a cheap entry plan and can live with short log retention.
Now sold by Bird, and the sparkpost.com address redirects there. Plans are monthly deposits, not email counts: a free plan of 1,000 emails a month, Startup at $15 at $0.40 per 1,000, Growth at $250, and Scale from $1,000 at lower rates. Message retention is 30 days. The terms name Bird B.V. in the Netherlands for non-US customers.
Switch from SendGrid if your volume is high and you accept a prepaid balance with a per-thousand rate.
Mailchimp Transactional, the former Mandrill, is an add-on for legacy, Standard and Premium Mailchimp plans, sold in blocks of 25,000 emails from $20, up to 20 blocks. New users get 500 free test emails to their own verified domain. It suits teams that already pay for Mailchimp; as a standalone SendGrid replacement it does not work.
Switch from SendGrid if you already run Mailchimp marketing and want transactional mail on the same account.
Stay with SendGrid if you already use Twilio and want email on the same contract, or if you need Pro features from one vendor: its pricing page lists a dedicated IP, subuser management, SSO and 1,000 teammates there, and a volume selector that runs up to 5,000,000 and more emails a month. A migration costs rewriting the integration and re-establishing sender reputation on new infrastructure, so leave for a stated reason, such as the entry price, the Pro cut-off or the supplier, not for novelty.
05
What moving off SendGrid involves
01
Change the relay settings first
Applications that use SMTP need little more than new credentials. SendGrid's relay is smtp.sendgrid.net with the username apikey on ports 25, 2525, 587 or 465. Resend uses smtp.resend.com with the username resend, Postmark smtp.postmarkapp.com on ports 25, 2525 or 587, and Mailgun smtp.mailgun.org on ports 25, 465, 587 or 2525. Code that calls the SendGrid v3 API has to be rewritten against the new vendor's API.
02
Export suppressions and rewrite webhooks
SendGrid's Bounces API lets you retrieve and delete addresses on the bounce list, so export bounces, spam reports and unsubscribes before the account closes. Bird's migration guide notes that SendGrid unsubscribe groups do not carry over and that webhook signature checking must be rewritten, from ECDSA to HMAC in Bird's case. Expect the same kind of change at any destination.
03
Authenticate in parallel and plan the IP
Bird's guide advises keeping existing DNS records and publishing the new vendor's records beside them so both authenticate during the cut-over. Dedicated IPs differ by destination: Postmark requires 300,000 emails a month, Resend limits them to Scale senders above 3,000 a day, SMTP2GO starts at Professional and Amazon SES charges $24.95 per IP a month.
06
Questions about replacing SendGrid
6 answers
Does SendGrid still have a permanent entry tier?
Its pricing page describes a trial of 100 emails a day for 60 days with no card, then paid Essentials from $19.95 a month.
Resend (3,000 a month), Mailgun (100 a day), Brevo (300 a day), Mailjet (6,000 a month), Elastic Email (3,000 a month), SMTP2GO (1,000 a month) and Bird (1,000 a month) publish standing allowances.
Which alternative is cheapest for 50,000 emails a month?
Not like for like, because the meters differ. On published rates: Amazon SES Essentials at $0.16 per 1,000 is about $8 before add-ons, Resend Pro is $20 for 50,000, Mailgun Foundation is $35, and SMTP2GO Starter is $10 for 10,000 plus $1 per extra thousand, about $50.
Check support, retention and IP costs before choosing on price alone.
Can I keep my SMTP integration?
Often yes. Resend, Postmark, Mailgun, Amazon SES and Mailchimp Transactional document SMTP sending, as do SendGrid and Mailjet's relay on the plans we read.
You change host and credentials, not code. Features that depend on SendGrid's API, such as dynamic templates or unsubscribe groups, still need rework.
Which of these vendors are based outside the United States?
Brevo is registered in Paris, Mailjet contracts under French law with Mailjet SAS, Bird B.V. is in the Netherlands for non-US customers, SMTP2GO's terms follow New Zealand law and Elastic Email lists offices in Vancouver and Szczecin.
Mailgun offers sending through the US or the EU from one account. Country is a fact here, not a ranking criterion.
Do these services also cover marketing email?
Partly. Brevo and Mailjet include campaign editors on their plans, Elastic Email lists an Email Designer, Resend has a Broadcasts feature and Postmark has broadcast message streams.
SendGrid sells Marketing Campaigns as a separate product. Check which meter, emails or contacts, your newsletter would be billed against.
Will changing provider improve deliverability?
No vendor page we read promises inbox placement. Your sender reputation belongs to your domain and sending behaviour, so a new provider needs authenticated domains and a gradual ramp-up.
Keep the old records in DNS during the move, as Bird's guide advises, and send a trial volume first.
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 9 November 2026. How we review.
