SendGrid alternatives in 2026, with real prices
The best SendGrid alternative depends on what you used SendGrid for. For transactional email: Postmark for a transactional-only focus, Resend for developer experience, Mailgun for price at high volume, Amazon SES for the lowest cost if you build the rest yourself, and SendForAI for SES-level cost with suppression, unsubscribe and approvals built in. If you mainly send newsletters from a visual editor, a marketing platform fits better than any of these APIs.
We build SendForAI, so we're one of the options here. To keep it fair, every competitor price below comes from that provider's pricing page, read November 7, 2026, and each one gets the cases where it beats us.
Why teams are moving off SendGrid
Three changes come up again and again in developer threads. SendGrid's permanent free plan is gone: new accounts get a 60-day trial at 100 emails a day, then the cheapest plan is $19.95 a month. Transactional and marketing email are two separate purchases, so a product that sends receipts and a newsletter pays for two plans. And dedicated IPs, subusers and single sign-on sit on Pro, which starts at $89.95 a month. See SendGrid pricing, explained for every tier.
What each alternative costs by volume
Monthly cost of transactional email on each provider's cheapest plan for that volume, including published overage where it's cheaper than the next tier.
| Emails / month | SendGrid | Postmark | Mailgun | Resend | Amazon SES | SendForAI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 | $19.95 | $15 | $15 | $20 | $1.04 | $5 |
| 50,000 | $19.95 | $55 | $35 | $20 | $5.19 | $9.40 |
| 100,000 | $34.95 | $115 | $75 | $35 | $10.38 | $14.90 |
| 300,000 | $249 | $245 | $260 | $215 | $31.15 | $36.90 |
| 500,000 | $499 | $455 | $400 | $350 | $51.92 | $58.90 |
| 1,000,000 | $799 | $775 | $700 | $650 | $103.84 | $113.90 |
| 2,500,000 | $1,099 | $2,052.50 | $1,250 | $1,150 | $259.60 | $333.85 |
Monthly USD before tax. SendGrid: cheapest Email API plan that covers the volume (its overage rate isn't published). Postmark: Basic plan. Mailgun: Basic, Foundation or Scale, whichever is cheapest. Resend: Pro or Scale plus overage. Amazon SES: à la carte at $0.10 per 1,000 plus $0.12 per GB of message data at 32 KB per email, no support or tooling. SendForAI: $5 in months you send (10,000 emails included), then $0.11 per 1,000; above 1M a dedicated IP and $0.02 per 1,000 infrastructure, both at cost.
If you also send a newsletter
SendGrid and Resend price newsletters on a separate plan by contacts; SendForAI bills every email on one bill. With the list emailed weekly:
| Workload | Transactional | Contacts | SendGrid | Resend | SendForAI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Growing SaaS | 50,000 | 10,000 | $69.95 | $100 | $13.80 |
| Newsletter-heavy | 100,000 | 25,000 | $154.95 | $215 | $25.90 |
The alternatives, one by one
Postmark
Focused on transactional email. Free: 100 emails a month. Basic is $15 for 10,000 emails, then $1.80 per 1,000; Pro ($16.50) and Platform ($18) add features and lower overage. Dedicated IPs start at $50 a month per IP, for senders of 300,000+ emails a month on Pro or higher. Best for teams that want a transactional-only provider and will pay more per email for it. Watch out for cost at volume: 1M emails a month is $775 on Basic.
Mailgun
Free: 100 emails a day with 1 day of logs. Basic is $15 for 10,000; Foundation $35 for 50,000 or $75 for 100,000; Scale runs from $90 for 100,000 to $1,250 for 2.5 million, with overage falling to $0.40 per 1,000. Extra dedicated IPs are $59 a month. Best for high-volume senders who want a full platform at falling per-email rates. Watch out for the Basic plan's $1.80 per 1,000 overage if you grow past 10,000.
Resend
Free: 3,000 emails a month (100 a day). Pro is $20 for 50,000 or $35 for 100,000; Scale starts at $90. Newsletters (Broadcasts) are a separate plan priced by contacts, from $40 a month for 5,000. Best for developers who want a polished API and React Email. Watch out for paying twice once you add a newsletter. Details in Resend pricing.
Amazon SES
$0.10 per 1,000 emails on à la carte pricing, plus $0.12 per GB of message data; new SES accounts now start on the Essentials plan at $0.16 per 1,000 unless you switch. Best for teams with engineers to build bounce and complaint handling, suppression, unsubscribe and analytics. Watch out for the sandbox: new accounts can only email verified addresses until AWS approves production access. Full breakdown in Amazon SES pricing.
SendForAI
Built on Amazon SES and priced at cost. Free for building: unlimited simulated sends and 25 real emails a day to your own domains. In any month you send to customers, $5 comes out of a prepaid balance and covers 10,000 emails; after that it's $0.11 per 1,000. Transactional and broadcast email share one balance, contacts are unlimited, and an account can send from up to 50 domains. It's API-first, made for AI agents: no API keys (your domain is your identity), every response shows its cost, and broadcasts wait for a human to approve. Watch out for: it's in early access, with no visual editor, templates or inbound email. See SendForAI pricing.
Moving off SendGrid: a checklist
- Export your suppression lists first. Pull bounces, spam reports, unsubscribes, group unsubscribes, blocks and invalid emails from SendGrid's suppression API (
/v3/suppression/*and/v3/asm/suppressions) and import them into the new provider. Emailing people who complained or unsubscribed is the fastest way to damage a new sender's reputation. - Authenticate your domain with the new provider. Add its DKIM records, its SPF include or custom MAIL FROM, and keep your DMARC policy. Leave SendGrid's records in place until the cutover is done.
- Map your webhooks. Delivered, bounced, complained and unsubscribed events have different names and payloads on every provider. Make sure bounces and complaints still update your own database.
- Move templates. SendGrid dynamic templates use Handlebars. Export them through the templates API and rebuild them, or switch to sending rendered HTML or Markdown from your code.
- Ramp up gradually. New sending IPs have no history. Send your most-engaged mail first and raise volume over 2 to 4 weeks, watching bounce and complaint rates.
- Then remove SendGrid's DNS records and cancel the plan, once nothing has been sent through it for a full billing cycle.
When to stay on SendGrid
- Your marketing team works in a visual editor. Marketing Campaigns' drag-and-drop design, A/B tests and signup forms have no equivalent in the API-first options here.
- You need enterprise controls today. Subusers, single sign-on and custom Premier terms are mature on SendGrid; newer providers, SendForAI included, are still building them.
- A migration costs more than you'd save. At 50,000 emails a month SendGrid Essentials is $19.95. If your volume is steady and the plan fits, the difference may not justify the move.
SendGrid alternatives FAQ
Is there a free alternative to SendGrid?
Several have free tiers that last: Resend includes 3,000 emails a month (100 a day), Mailgun 100 emails a day, and Postmark 100 emails a month. SendGrid itself now only offers a 60-day trial. SendForAI's free tier is for building and testing: unlimited simulated sends and 25 real emails a day to your own domains, but not to customers.
What is the cheapest SendGrid alternative?
Amazon SES directly, at $0.10 per 1,000 emails on its à la carte pricing, if you build bounce handling, suppression lists and unsubscribe yourself. Among managed services, SendForAI is closest to SES cost: $5 in months you send includes 10,000 emails, then $0.11 per 1,000.
Amazon SES vs SendGrid: which is better?
SES is far cheaper (about $10 per 100,000 emails against $34.95 on SendGrid Essentials) but is a raw sending service: you handle bounce and complaint processing, suppression, unsubscribe, templates and analytics, and new AWS accounts start in a sandbox until AWS approves production access. SendGrid includes all of that plus a marketing editor.
Which SendGrid alternative is best for transactional email?
Postmark focuses on transactional delivery. Resend has the most modern developer experience. Mailgun scales well on price at high volume. SendForAI suits teams whose AI agents send email and who want transactional and broadcast email at cost on one bill.
How hard is it to move off SendGrid?
The sending code is usually a small change. The parts that take care are exporting your suppression lists so you never email past bounces or unsubscribes, re-authenticating your domain (DKIM and SPF) with the new provider, mapping webhooks, and ramping volume up over a few weeks on the new sending IPs. The checklist on this page covers each step.
Sources and method
Read November 7, 2026: Twilio SendGrid Email API pricing, Postmark pricing, Mailgun pricing. Read November 5, 2026: Resend pricing, Amazon SES pricing. SendForAI: /v1/pricing. Each provider is priced on its cheapest plan for the volume, taking published overage when it beats the next tier, billed in 1,000-email blocks. SendForAI is in early access. Prices change; spot an error? hello@sendforai.com.