SendGrid alternatives for developer and marketing teams

What people leave SendGrid over

Two products, two bills

SendGrid’s Email API and Marketing Campaigns are separate products with separate pricing pages, separate contact selectors and separate plan names. A team that sends transactional email through the API and campaigns through Marketing Campaigns is paying two invoices and managing two sets of limits. Brevo combines both in one plan; Mailgun is API-only but cheaper per email at some volumes. The split is manageable when one product is clearly primary — it is friction when both are core.

The free tier is a trial, not a plan

The Email API free tier is a 60-day trial at 100 emails a day. After that it is Essentials at $19.95 a month or nothing. Marketing Campaigns does have a real free plan (2,000 contacts, 6,000 emails a month), but if you came for the API, the free runway ends in two months. Mailgun’s free plan (100 emails a day) is ongoing. Postmark’s free plan (100 emails a month) is ongoing. Resend’s free plan (3,000 emails a month) is ongoing. If you need free API sending past 60 days, SendGrid is not the answer.

Plan complexity and selector fatigue

Between Email API (Essentials, Pro, Premier) and Marketing Campaigns (Free, Basic, Advanced, Custom), each with its own volume selector and contact bands, the total cost of a SendGrid setup is hard to predict without reading two pricing pages carefully. A team that needs 50,000 API emails and 10,000 marketing contacts is looking at Essentials ($19.95) plus Basic ($25 at 10,000 contacts) — $44.95 a month — which is more than Brevo Standard ($18) for a combined programme at a smaller volume.

Where SendGrid is still the better choice

Stay if the API is the backbone and the marketing tool is secondary. SendGrid’s Email API plans scale from 50,000 to 2,500,000+ emails a month with dedicated IPs on Pro and above, and the platform handles sender authentication, template versioning, webhook event streams, and deliverability observability at a scale few alternatives match. If you are sending 500,000 emails a month through the API and a small newsletter on the side, SendGrid’s Pro plan ($499 at 700,000 emails) is competitive against Mailgun Scale ($400 at 500,000) and Amazon SES ($0.16 per 1,000). Check the slider at your volume before assuming the alternatives are cheaper.

The alternatives, one by one

Brevo — one plan for campaigns and transactional

Brevo is the alternative that eliminates the two-product problem. Free allows 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. Transactional email is part of the same email volume, not a separate product. SMS is a channel with its own credits. The trade-off: Brevo does not have SendGrid’s scale of dedicated IP infrastructure or the same depth of deliverability observability. At 500,000 emails a month, SendGrid Pro ($499 at 700,000) is a different class of product. Prices: brevo.com/pricing.

Postmark — transactional delivery with 45-day history

Postmark is the answer when the API is the need and the campaign tool is not. Every plan keeps 45 days of message history: Free allows 100 emails a month (no overages), Basic is $15 a month for 10,000 emails (extra from $1.80 per 1,000), Pro is $16.50 a month for 10,000 emails (extra from $1.30 per 1,000, dedicated IPs included), and Platform is $18 a month for 10,000 emails (extra from $1.20 per 1,000). The slider shows Basic at 50,000 emails is $55 a month. There is no campaign studio, no visual automation, and no forms. If you are leaving SendGrid because you need both API and campaigns, Postmark only solves half the problem. Prices: postmarkapp.com/pricing.

Resend — a modern developer email API

Resend is built for developers who want a clean API and React-based email templates. Free allows 3,000 emails a month (100 a day) across 3 domains; Pro is $20 a month for 50,000 emails (extra at $0.90 per 1,000); Scale is $90 a month for 100,000 emails. Marketing features live on a separate tab: Marketing Free at 1,000 contacts is $0 a month, and Pro marketing at 5,000 contacts is $40 a month. The gap: Resend’s ecosystem is younger than SendGrid’s — fewer pre-built integrations, a smaller template library, and inbound routing is not the focus. For a new product that wants developer-first email, Resend is a strong start; for an enterprise with legacy integrations, SendGrid’s breadth matters. Prices: resend.com/pricing.

Amazon SES — raw sending at the lowest unit cost

Amazon SES 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 ($0.22 per 1,000) adds a dedicated IP for $105 per account per region per month; Enterprise ($0.23 per 1,000) adds $500 per account per region per month for advanced features. Eligible new AWS customers receive up to $200 in credits. SES has no campaign tools, no visual editor and no built-in forms — it is infrastructure, and the team owns bounce handling, suppression, reputation monitoring and template rendering. If that sounds like your team, SES at $0.16 per 1,000 makes SendGrid’s Essentials ($19.95 for 50,000, which works out to $0.40 per 1,000) look expensive. Prices: aws.amazon.com/ses/pricing.

Mailgun — API sending at a lower entry price

Mailgun’s Basic plan is $15 a month for 10,000 emails with extra volume from $1.80 per 1,000 — a lower entry price than SendGrid Essentials ($19.95). Foundation is $35 a month for 50,000 emails (slider: $75 at 100,000) with five days of log retention; Scale is $90 a month for 100,000 emails with thirty days of logs and 5,000 validations included. The trade-off: Mailgun’s Basic plan keeps only one day of logs (SendGrid’s retention varies by plan, so compare directly), and there is no marketing surface. The SendGrid vs Mailgun comparison goes deeper on the API side. Prices: mailgun.com/pricing.

How to choose

1. Count API emails and marketing contacts separately, then price both on SendGrid and on the alternative. A team with 50,000 API emails and 10,000 marketing contacts pays about $44.95 a month on SendGrid (Essentials $19.95 + Basic $25) against Brevo Standard at $18 a month — but Brevo’s 5,000-email Starter is not enough at that volume, so compare at Standard or higher.
2. Decide whether one product or two. If one bill for campaigns and transactional matters, Brevo. If API-only is fine, Postmark, Mailgun or Resend. If you need both at scale, SendGrid’s two-product model is the trade-off for its depth.
3. Check log retention. Postmark keeps 45 days on every plan. Mailgun keeps 1 day on Basic, 5 on Foundation, 30 on Scale. SendGrid’s retention varies by plan — confirm it on the pricing page before assuming it is comparable.
4. List the SendGrid features you used this quarter — dedicated IPs, template versioning, webhook event streams, inbound parse, subuser management, SAML SSO — and check each on the alternative. Some of them are SendGrid-specific.
5. Budget the migration: DNS records, API key rotation, webhook endpoint updates, template re-verification, and bounce/complaint suppression list transfer. Two or three days of engineering time is a realistic minimum.

Moving off SendGrid without losing deliverability

SendGrid holds your sending domain, suppression lists, template versions and webhook subscriptions. The move is not just an API key swap — it is a reputation transfer. Warm up the new sending path gradually, keep suppression lists intact, and do not decommission SendGrid until the new path has sent a full cycle of real mail.

1. Inventory every use of the SendGrid API: which services send, which templates they reference, which webhook events they subscribe to, and how they handle bounces and complaints.
2. Export suppression lists (bounces, spam reports, unsubscribes) and import them into the new service before the first send. Addresses that hard-bounced or complained on SendGrid must never be sent to again.
3. Set up SPF and DKIM for the sending domain on the new service. Keep SendGrid’s DNS records active until cutover is complete so you can roll back if needed.
4. Warm up 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 send from a new IP is the fastest way to land in spam.
5. Update webhook endpoints and API keys in application code, verify end-to-end (send, bounce, webhook, suppression update), then decommission the SendGrid account. Keep it active for at least one billing cycle as a fallback.

FAQ

Does SendGrid have a free plan?

For the Email API, it is a 60-day trial at 100 emails a day, not a permanent free plan. Marketing Campaigns does have a free plan for up to 2,000 contacts and 6,000 emails a month. If you need free API sending past 60 days, Mailgun (100 emails a day, ongoing), Resend (3,000 emails a month) and Postmark (100 emails a month) all have permanent free tiers.

What does SendGrid cost at 100,000 emails a month?

On the Email API side, Essentials is $34.95 a month at 100,000 emails (slider readout) and Pro is $89.95 a month at 100,000. On the Marketing Campaigns side, Basic is $200 a month at 100,000 contacts and 300,000 emails. If you need both 100,000 API emails and 100,000 marketing contacts, you are on two plans: Essentials ($34.95) plus Basic ($200) = $234.95 a month. Compare against Brevo or a single-purpose tool at the same volume.

Is Brevo a real SendGrid alternative?

For small-to-mid volume, yes. Brevo combines campaigns and transactional in one plan at $9–$18 a month. At 500,000+ emails a month, SendGrid’s dedicated IP infrastructure, subuser management and deliverability observability are in a different class. If you are below 100,000 emails a month and want one bill, Brevo is worth a pilot. If you are above it, compare the volume sliders before switching.

Can I migrate my SendGrid templates to another service?

HTML templates export and re-import reasonably well across services that accept raw HTML (Mailgun, Postmark, Brevo). Dynamic template versions with handlebars-style substitutions may need syntax changes. SendGrid’s template export is available through the API and the UI; verify the new tool’s substitution syntax before assuming the templates work unchanged.

Which SendGrid alternative keeps dedicated IPs?

Mailgun includes a dedicated IP with Foundation 100k, Growth and Scale plans (extra IPs are $59 a month). Postmark includes dedicated IPs on Pro ($16.50 a month) and Platform ($18). SendGrid includes dedicated IPs on Pro ($89.95 a month) and above. Resend and Brevo do not list dedicated IPs on their standard pricing pages — confirm on their sites if it is a hard requirement.