Mailgun alternatives for developer-led sending

What people leave Mailgun over

One day of log retention on Basic

Mailgun’s Basic plan keeps one day of message logs. If a customer emails on Friday saying they never received the password reset, the logs are gone by Monday. Foundation ($35 a month) extends that to five days; Scale ($90 a month) to thirty. Postmark keeps 45 days of message history on every plan including the free tier. SendGrid’s log retention varies by plan. For teams that use logs for debugging, compliance, or customer support, one day is often the reason Mailgun gets replaced.

The free plan is 100 emails a day

Mailgun’s free plan allows 100 emails a day with one custom sending domain and one day of log retention. That is about 3,000 emails a month — enough for development and testing, not for a real product. Resend’s free plan allows 3,000 emails a month with 100 a day and 3 domains. Postmark’s free plan allows 100 emails a month but keeps full message history. If you are running a side project on the free tier, the difference between 100 a day and 3,000 a month is often nothing; if you are close to the cap, the alternatives give more room.

It is not a marketing platform

Mailgun is sending infrastructure. It has no campaign studio, no visual automation builder, no forms, and no subscriber segmentation in the marketing sense. If the team that owns Mailgun also needs to send newsletters, onboarding sequences, or product announcements, they are paying for a second tool. Brevo and SendGrid both pair API delivery with a campaign surface on the same bill. Mailgun does not — and treating the $15 Basic plan as the whole answer ignores the cost of the tool next to it.

Where Mailgun is still the better choice

Stay if the pipeline is the product: inbound routing, email validations, deliverability analytics, dedicated IPs (included with Foundation 100k, Growth and Scale), SAML SSO, and US/EU sending from one account. Mailgun’s slider shows Foundation at 100,000 emails is $75 a month, Scale at 250,000 is $215, and Scale at 500,000 is $400 — competitive volume pricing for high senders. If your complaint is log retention or the lack of a campaign tool, the alternatives below solve those; if your complaint is the volume price at 50,000+ emails, compare the slider readouts before switching.

The alternatives, one by one

SendGrid — API delivery with a campaign tool alongside

SendGrid is the natural Mailgun alternative when the team wants API sending and a marketing surface from one vendor. The Email API side: a free trial of 100 emails a day for 60 days, then Essentials at $19.95 a month for 50,000–100,000 emails in the plan selector, and Pro at $89.95 a month for 100,000–2,500,000 emails with dedicated IPs included. The Marketing Campaigns side bills separately: free for up to 2,000 contacts and 6,000 emails a month, Basic from $15 a month at up to 5,000 contacts and 15,000 emails ($25 at 10,000 contacts and 30,000 emails), and Advanced from $60 a month at 10,000 contacts and 50,000 emails. Decide which surface you are buying before moving — each has its own plan, its own limits, and its own contact selector. Prices: sendgrid.com/en-us/pricing.

Postmark — transactional delivery with 45-day message history

Postmark is the answer when log retention and message history matter more than marketing features. Every plan — including the free tier — keeps 45 days of message history. Free allows 100 emails a month with no overages; Basic is $15 a month for 10,000 emails with extra volume at $1.80 per 1,000; Pro is $16.50 a month for 10,000 emails with extras at $1.30 per 1,000 and dedicated IPs included; Platform is $18 a month for 10,000 emails with extras at $1.20 per 1,000. Slider readouts show Basic at 50,000 emails is $55 a month. The gap: Postmark is transactional-only — there is no campaign studio or visual automation builder. If you also need marketing sends, you will need a second tool. Prices: postmarkapp.com/pricing.

Resend — developer email with a modern API

Resend is built for developers who want a clean API and React-based email templates. The free plan allows 3,000 emails a month (100 a day) across 3 domains; Pro is $20 a month for 50,000 emails with extra volume at $0.90 per 1,000; Scale is $90 a month for 100,000 emails with the same overage rate. Marketing features (campaigns to contacts) are on a separate tab with their own pricing: Marketing Free at 1,000 contacts is $0 a month and Pro marketing at 5,000 contacts is $40 a month. Where it falls short: Resend is younger and has a smaller ecosystem of integrations than Mailgun or SendGrid. Inbound routing is not the focus. Prices: resend.com/pricing.

Amazon SES — the lowest unit cost at scale

Amazon SES is the choice when volume is high and the team wants the lowest per-email price. It charges $0.16 per 1,000 emails for the first 10 million a month (Essentials tier), with lower marginal rates at higher volume. The Pro tier is $0.22 per 1,000 emails plus $105 per account per region per month for a dedicated IP; Enterprise is $0.23 per 1,000 plus $500 per account per region per month. Eligible new AWS customers receive up to $200 in credits. The trade-off is total: SES has no campaign tools, no visual editor, no built-in forms, and deliverability is your problem. A team that uses SES usually has application code, bounce handling, and reputation monitoring built around it. Prices: aws.amazon.com/ses/pricing.

Brevo — when marketing and transactional share a budget

Brevo is the pragmatic alternative when the team sending transactional email also needs newsletters and automation and wants one invoice. Free is 300 emails a day with storage for up to 100,000 contacts; Starter is $9 a month from 5,000 emails with no daily cap; Standard is $18 a month and adds marketing automation, A/B testing and advanced reports. It is priced by emails sent, so a small list that mails often is cheap and a large list that mails rarely can cost more than a contact-based tool. Brevo does not have Mailgun’s inbound routing or email validation API, so those move to a separate service. Prices: brevo.com/pricing.

How to choose

1. Count your monthly email volume first. Mailgun Basic is $15 for 10,000; Foundation is $35 for 50,000 (slider: $75 at 100,000); Scale is $90 for 100,000 (slider: $215 at 250,000, $400 at 500,000). SendGrid Essentials is $19.95 for 50,000–100,000. Postmark Basic is $15 for 10,000 ($55 at 50,000). The cheapest plan at 10,000 emails is rarely the cheapest at 100,000.
2. Decide whether you need marketing tools on the same bill. If yes, SendGrid or Brevo. If no, Postmark or Resend. If you need only raw sending and have engineers to own it, Amazon SES at $0.16 per 1,000 is hard to beat on unit cost.
3. Check log retention against your support and compliance needs. Mailgun gives 1 day on Basic, 5 on Foundation, 30 on Scale. Postmark gives 45 days on every plan. If a customer dispute requires pulling a message from three weeks ago, the log window is a hard requirement, not a nice-to-have.
4. List the Mailgun features you actually used this quarter — inbound routing, email validations, dedicated IPs, SAML SSO, deliverability analytics — and check each one on the alternative’s pricing page. Not all of them travel.
5. Budget the migration: DNS records, API keys, webhook endpoints, bounce and complaint handling, and template re-verification all take engineering time. Two or three days of focused work is a realistic minimum.

Moving off Mailgun without losing deliverability

Moving sending infrastructure is different from moving a marketing list. Your domain’s reputation is tied to the IP and the authentication records, not to Mailgun. The goal is to warm up the new sending path without a gap that triggers spam filters. Start by inventorying every use of the Mailgun API: transactional templates, marketing sends, inbound routes, and webhook endpoints.

1. Map every API integration: which services send through Mailgun, which templates they use, which webhooks they subscribe to, and what the retry and error handling looks like.
2. Set up SPF and DKIM for the sending domain on the new service. Do not change the MX records (inbound routing) until the outbound path is verified. Keep Mailgun’s DNS records in place until cutover is complete.
3. Export suppression lists: bounces, complaints, and unsubscribes. Every provider has a different format, but the rule is the same — addresses that hard-bounced or complained on Mailgun must never be sent to again.
4. Warm up the new sending path gradually. Start with your most engaged recipients, ramp volume over one to two weeks, and monitor bounce and complaint rates at each step. A sudden full-volume blast from a new IP is the fastest way to end up in spam.
5. Update webhook endpoints and API keys in your application code, then verify end-to-end: send a transactional message, trigger a bounce, confirm the webhook fires, and check that the suppression list updates. Only then decommission the Mailgun account.

FAQ

Does Mailgun have a free plan?

Yes. The free plan allows 100 emails a day with one custom sending domain and one day of log retention. That is roughly 3,000 emails a month — enough for development, not for a production product. Foundation and Scale both include a one-month free trial. If you need a free tier for real sends, Resend allows 3,000 emails a month and SendGrid’s Marketing Campaigns free plan allows 6,000 emails a month to 2,000 contacts.

What does Mailgun cost at 50,000 emails a month?

Foundation is $35 a month after the first free month for 50,000 emails, with extra volume from $1.30 per 1,000 and five days of log retention. The slider readout shows Foundation at 100,000 emails is $75 a month. Scale at 50,000 is included in the base $90 a month for 100,000 emails (slider: $215 at 250,000). Compare the slider, not the base price, at your real volume.

Is SendGrid or Mailgun cheaper for API sending?

At 10,000 emails a month, Mailgun Basic ($15) is cheaper than SendGrid Essentials ($19.95, which starts at 50,000 emails in the selector). At 50,000 emails, Mailgun Foundation is $35 and SendGrid Essentials is $19.95 — SendGrid is cheaper. At 100,000, Mailgun Foundation is $75 (slider) and SendGrid Essentials is $34.95 (slider readout). Price your exact volume on both before deciding; the cheaper plan changes with the band.

Can I get marketing tools and API sending from one vendor?

Yes, with SendGrid or Brevo. SendGrid has Email API (trial 100 emails a day for 60 days, then Essentials $19.95 a month) and Marketing Campaigns (free to 2,000 contacts and 6,000 emails a month; Basic $15 a month at up to 5,000 contacts) as separate products with separate billing. Brevo combines both: Starter is $9 a month from 5,000 emails and Standard is $18 with automation. Mailgun and Postmark are API-only.

How do I warm up a new sending domain after switching?

Start with your most engaged recipients and ramp volume over one to two weeks. Set up SPF and DKIM before the first send. Monitor bounce and complaint rates at each step and slow down if either rises. Keep the old Mailgun account active until the new path has sent a full cycle of real mail — cutting over and decommissioning on the same day removes your fallback if something goes wrong.