SendGrid vs Mailgun
Two veterans of the transactional email space, both now part of larger telco-style parents.
What matters for 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.
| Priority | SendGrid | Mailgun |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | 60-day free trial only (permanent free tier was removed May 2025) | 100/day permanent free plan |
| Best published rate per 1,000 | $0.40 | $0.70 |
| Starts at | $19.95/mo for 50,000 emails | $15/mo for 10,000 emails (Basic) |
| DX score | 6/10 | 7/10 |
| Deliverability | Established delivery infrastructure, but shared-IP reputation can vary and the product is broader than pure transactional delivery. | Generally good, with deliverability monitoring tools available on higher tiers. Inbound routes and suppressions are battle-tested. |
| Operating since | 2009 | 2010 |
| Scheduling | Yes | Yes |
| SDKs | node, python, go, ruby, php, java, dotnet | node, python, go, ruby, php, java |
| Webhooks | Yes | Yes |
For a pre-revenue or early-revenue team running a waitlist, a launch announcement, onboarding email, and the first transactional sends, SendGrid takes best published rate per 1,000, operating track record, and SDK breadth, while Mailgun takes developer experience. On free tier, SendGrid offers 60-day free trial only (permanent free tier was removed May 2025) against 100/day permanent free plan from Mailgun. That ordering reflects this audience. Weigh the same table differently and the answer changes.
Side by side
| Feature | SendGrid | Mailgun |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | 60-day free trial only (permanent free tier was removed May 2025) | 100/day permanent free plan |
| Starts at | $19.95/mo for 50,000 emails | $15/mo for 10,000 emails (Basic) |
| DX score | 6/10 | 7/10 |
| Deliverability | Established delivery infrastructure, but shared-IP reputation can vary and the product is broader than pure transactional delivery. | Generally good, with deliverability monitoring tools available on higher tiers. Inbound routes and suppressions are battle-tested. |
| SDKs | node, python, go, ruby, php, java, dotnet | node, python, go, ruby, php, java |
| Webhooks | Yes | Yes |
| Tagline | Twilio-owned veteran with broad SDK coverage. | Developer-leaning email infra, owned by Sinch. |
| Pricing model | tiered | tiered |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| SMTP | Yes | Yes |
| Templates | rich | rich |
| React Email | No | No |
| Inbound | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-tenant | Yes | Yes |
| Idempotency | No | No |
| Dedicated IP | Yes | Yes |
| Best for | Enterprises that want a single Twilio-backed vendor for email and SMS. | Technical teams that want SMTP relay plus advanced routing. |
SendGrid
- ›Mature, broad SDK coverage
- ›Twilio backing means long-term operational stability
- ›Marketing platform alongside transactional
- ›Inbound parse webhook is well-documented
- ›Removed the permanent free tier in May 2025
- ›No idempotency keys
- ›No API request logs for debugging
- ›Pricing climbs steeply across plan tiers; many features gated to higher SKUs
- ›Legacy v3 API patterns feel dated next to Resend or MailerSend
Mailgun
- ›Strong SMTP relay support, useful when migrating off self-hosted Postfix
- ›Inbound routes with regex matching
- ›Validation and parsing tools available
- ›Sub-accounts for agency use cases
- ›Overage pricing and plan differences need close review at scale
- ›Documentation is comprehensive but occasionally out of date
- ›No idempotency keys
- ›Sinch ownership has moved focus toward enterprise