Mailgun alternatives
Providers that compete with Mailgun on at least one of: Transactional
Developer-leaning email infra, owned by Sinch.
Switching as early-stage startups
At an early stage the deciding factors are what the free tier actually covers, what the first paid invoice looks like, and how much of a founding engineer's week the setup costs. Feature depth that only matters at a million sends a month is noise until it is not.
Mailgun does not cover best published rate per 1,000 and operating track record, and none of the alternatives below close that gap either. If it is a hard requirement, the shortlist has to widen beyond this category.
ranked for early-stage startups
- 01
Loops
Marketing TransactionalModern lifecycle and broadcast email for SaaS.
Matches Mailgun on every priority weighed here, so the decision is price and preference.
1,000 contacts and 4,000 sends/mo on the Free plan · $49/mo for 5,000 contacts - 02
Resend
TransactionalEmail API tightly coupled to React Email.
Matches Mailgun on every priority weighed here, so the decision is price and preference.
3,000/mo permanent, capped at 100/day, one domain · $20/mo for 50,000 emails - 03
MailerSend
TransactionalModern transactional API with a clean UI.
Matches Mailgun on every priority weighed here, so the decision is price and preference.
500/mo permanent · $7/mo for 5,000 emails - 04
Brevo
Transactional MarketingAll-in-one with a generous daily free tier.
Matches Mailgun on every priority weighed here, so the decision is price and preference.
300/day permanent · $9/mo for 5,000 emails - 05
Postmark
TransactionalTransactional-only, fast and well-delivered.
Gives up scheduling against Mailgun and adds nothing on these priorities.
100/mo developer plan · $15/mo for 10,000 emails - 06
Mailtrap
Transactional TestingOriginally a staging inbox, now a sender too.
Gives up scheduling against Mailgun and adds nothing on these priorities.
4,000/mo (sending), free testing tier · $15/mo for 10,000 sending - 07
SMTP2GO
TransactionalReliable SMTP relay with strong deliverability.
Gives up scheduling against Mailgun and adds nothing on these priorities.
1,000/mo permanent · $10/mo for 10,000 emails - 08
Cloudflare Email Service
Inbound TransactionalFree routing, programmable inbound via Workers, sending in beta.
Gives up scheduling and webhook coverage against Mailgun and adds nothing on these priorities.
Email Routing free; Email Workers on Workers Free plan · Sending: $0.35 per 1,000 messages (Workers Paid required, $5/mo)
Mailgun and its alternatives, side by side
Columns are the priorities early-stage startups weigh, in order. Mailgun is the first row so the trade in each direction is readable at a glance.
| Provider | Best published rate per 1,000 | DX score | Operating since | Scheduling | SDKs | Webhooks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mailgun | $0.70 | 7/10 | 2010 | Yes | node, python, go, ruby, php, java | Yes |
| Loops | Tiers not published in comparable form | 9/10 | 2022 | Yes | node, python, go, ruby, php | Yes |
| Resend | $0.35 | 8/10 | 2023 | Yes | node, python, go, ruby, php, rust, java, elixir, cli | Yes |
| MailerSend | Tiers not published in comparable form | 8/10 | 2020 | Yes | node, python, go, ruby, php | Yes |
| Brevo | Tiers not published in comparable form | 7/10 | 2012 | Yes | node, python, go, ruby, php, java, dotnet | Yes |
| Postmark | $1.50 | 9/10 | 2010 | No | node, python, go, ruby, php, java, elixir, rust, dotnet | Yes |
| Mailtrap | Tiers not published in comparable form | 8/10 | 2014 | No | node, python, go, ruby, php, elixir | Yes |
| SMTP2GO | Tiers not published in comparable form | 7/10 | 2006 | No | node, python, go, ruby, php | Yes |
| Cloudflare Email Service | Tiers not published in comparable form | 8/10 | Not published | No | node | No |
Nothing on this list is a clean upgrade: every alternative trades something away against Mailgun on these priorities, so the choice depends on which of them the build actually needs.
before you switch
Mailgun pricing, tier by tier
All 3 paid tiers with effective cost per 1,000 emails. Worth checking whether the cost curve, rather than the feature set, is what is prompting the switch.