Postmark vs SendGrid
Postmark publishes a short price list and a free plan, while SendGrid now sits on Twilio's site and the pages we could read show no plan table. Postmark is the easier one to cost out before signing up. SendGrid offers a longer 60-day trial and adds address validation.
Sebastiaan SmitsFounderVendors can pay for more visibility on this website, for example a higher place in a ranking or more room on a page. Commercial relationships can also affect which products we feature and how prominently. Every vendor link is marked the same, whatever the arrangement behind it. How that works.
Choose Postmark ifyou want prices you can read today, transactional and broadcast mail on separate streams, and logs kept for 45 days or more.
Choose SendGrid ifyou already buy from Twilio, want a 60-day trial before paying, or need email address validation next to sending.
Postmark and SendGrid side by side
| Postmark | SendGrid | |
|---|---|---|
| Our transactional email services rank | #4 of 13 | #10 of 13 |
| Established in | United States | United States |
| List price, 5 November 2026 | Free (100 emails/month); Basic $15, Pro $16.50, Platform $18 per month from 10,000 emails, billed monthly | Trial (100 a day, 60 days); paid plans by volume, no price list read |
| Free tier | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Self-hostable | — | — |
| Built for | Application teams that want clean transactional streams and long log retention | Teams already buying Twilio services who want one supplier for messaging |
| Not for | Low-volume senders who want a large free allowance | Buyers who need a price list before signing up |
Both are reviewed in full in our transactional email services ranking: Postmark and SendGrid.
Where they differ
Postmark 2 · SendGrid 1 · open 1- 01
Can you see the price
Postmark lists Basic at $15, Pro at $16.50 and Platform at $18 a month, each from 10,000 emails, billed monthly only. SendGrid's old pricing path redirects to twilio.com and the pages we read showed no plans or prices, only that cost scales with volume. We state no SendGrid figure.
Edge: Postmark
- 02
Testing before you pay
SendGrid's trial allows up to 100 messages daily across two months, no card needed. Postmark has no time-limited trial but a free plan of 100 emails a month that never expires and allows no overages. SendGrid's daily allowance is bigger for a month-long integration; Postmark's free plan lasts longer.
Depends on the buyer
- 03
Separating mail types and keeping logs
Postmark message streams keep promotional mail on separate infrastructure from transactional mail. Retention is 45 days, up to 365 from Pro with an add-on. The SendGrid pages we read describe a deliverability insights dashboard and 99.99% uptime, but we saw no equivalent stream split or retention figure.
Edge: Postmark
- 04
Dedicated IPs and extras
Postmark dedicated IPs start at $50 a month per IP and need 300,000 emails a month on Pro or higher. SendGrid bundles a single dedicated IP into its Pro Email API tier, bills extra addresses monthly, and lets the console add just one per month. SendGrid also offers real-time address validation at 350 checks a second.
Edge: SendGrid
When neither fits
If you want a large free allowance or need a published price for SendGrid first, look elsewhere. Resend and Amazon SES are two other tools in our transactional email list.
Postmark or SendGrid: questions
3 answersHow much does Postmark cost?
Free for 100 emails a month, then $15, $16.50 or $18 a month for 10,000 emails depending on plan. Extra emails run $1.80, $1.30 or $1.20 per 1,000.
What does SendGrid cost?
We could not read a price list. Twilio's page describes a free trial and then a paid tier whose cost follows volume sent.
Who owns each?
SendGrid sits under Twilio Inc., incorporated in Delaware. Postmark's terms are with AC PM, LLC and its site links to ActiveCampaign.
Sources
Checked 5 November 2026- Postmark pricing: Plan prices, free plan, monthly billing, retention, streams, dedicated IP terms.
- Postmark terms: Terms with AC PM, LLC, ActiveCampaign link.
- SendGrid Email API on Twilio: trial terms, absence of a price table, 99.99% uptime, validation at 350 per second, insights dashboard.
- SendGrid dedicated IP docs: Dedicated IP allocation and extra-IP charging.
- Twilio terms: Twilio Inc. as Delaware corporation.
- SendGrid vendor domain: Vendor domain; it forwards to the Twilio SendGrid pages cited above.