SendGrid vs Mailgun: Pricing, Deliverability and Fit
11/02/2026
Technology
Compare SendGrid vs Mailgun to find the right email platform, improve deliverability, control costs, and support business growth.
Choose Mailgun if you are a developer-led team that wants flexible routing, inbound parsing and a cheaper path to 50,000 emails a month. Choose SendGrid if you want transactional and marketing email under one roof, with SMS and voice close at hand through Twilio. Add Postmark to the shortlist if your email is purely transactional and speed is the priority. The rest of this guide shows the numbers and the trade-offs behind that call.
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What each service is built to do
All three are email delivery services. They take messages from your application, such as receipts, password resets and shipping notices, and get them to the inbox. They differ in scope.
SendGrid offers an Email API, SMTP service and marketing campaigns. Mailgun describes itself as an email delivery platform built by developers for sending, tracking, testing, optimizing and validating email, and for parsing incoming messages. Postmark focuses on transactional and application email, and keeps transactional and broadcast traffic in separate message streams.
Per one independent comparison, Postmark supports transactional and broadcast email in separate message streams, while SendGrid and Mailgun handle transactional and marketing email. That one distinction settles a lot of decisions before you ever open a pricing page.
Feature comparison at a glance
• Core focus: SendGrid combines API delivery and a separate marketing campaigns product; Mailgun emphasizes developer workflows; Postmark emphasizes application email with isolated transactional and broadcast message streams.
• Sending methods: all three offer APIs and SMTP-based sending.
• Inbound processing: verify availability by plan; Mailgun supports inbound routes, and Postmark supports inbound processing.
• SMS and voice: SendGrid belongs to Twilio’s broader product ecosystem, but SMS and voice are separate Twilio services.
• Data location and optimization: verify region choices, send-time features and plan eligibility in each vendor’s current documentation.
The Mailgun and SendGrid rows on inbound handling and send time optimization come from Mailgun’s own comparison page, so read them as one vendor’s view and confirm in each product’s documentation. The Twilio documentation for SendGrid shows code examples for building both transactional and marketing email.
Developer experience and integrations
Both platforms give you an API and SMTP, so a competent engineer can get either sending in an afternoon. The differences show up later.
Mailgun’s strengths. Its listed plans include custom sending domains, tracking, analytics and webhooks, inbound routing, log and message retention, templates, email validation, and SPF, DKIM, DMARC and BIMI authentication support. Its routing engine, as described by one comparison, matches incoming mail by regex or recipient pattern and forwards it as a JSON webhook. That makes it a natural fit for support tickets, reply handling and email-to-action pipelines.
SendGrid’s strengths. It sits inside the Twilio family, so a product that already sends SMS or voice notifications can keep one vendor relationship. One comparison notes the integration with Twilio’s SMS and voice products. SendGrid also bundles marketing campaign tools, so a small team can run newsletters and transactional mail from one account.
Support. Reports vary. One review says SendGrid users report slower support on smaller accounts, and that Mailgun response times can lag on cheaper plans. On Mailgun, live phone and chat support begins on the Scale plan, so budget for the tier that matches how much you will depend on a human.
Pricing in the US
Pricing is where most readers land first, and where most mistakes happen. The figures below come from each provider’s own pages, so check them again before you commit.
SendGrid
According to the figures Mailgun publishes about SendGrid, SendGrid offers up to 100 emails per day for 60 days, $19.95 a month for up to 50,000 emails, and $89.95 a month for up to 100,000 emails. An independent comparison notes tiered overage pricing beyond those limits.
One rule change to know: from June 25, 2026, SendGrid capped Email API Essentials and Pro plans at 10 times their plan allotment. If your volume spikes, such as a Black Friday send or a product launch, sending can stop at that cap instead of billing you for the excess. Plan headroom accordingly.
Mailgun
Mailgun’s pricing page lists these plans:
• Free: limited sending allowance; verify its current monthly limit.
• Basic: starting at $15 per month for 10,000 emails, with additional usage charges.
• Foundation: approximately $35 per month for 50,000 emails.
• Scale: approximately $90 per month for 100,000 emails; higher-volume and enterprise pricing varies.
Scale adds SAML SSO, dedicated IP pools, send time optimization and live phone and chat support. The pricing page also confirms you can send through US or EU hosting regions from one account.
Postmark
Postmark’s published plans run as follows:
• Free developer plan: 100 emails per month.
• Basic: starts at $15 per month with included email volume and per-1,000 overages.
• Pro and Platform: higher tiers for additional capabilities, users and retention controls; check current plan limits and prices.
Dedicated IPs start at $50 a month per IP, for customers sending at least 300,000 emails a month on Pro or higher. Custom activity retention starts at $5 a month, and DMARC monitoring starts at $14 a month per domain.
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Side by side at common volumes
• Free or trial: SendGrid has a 60-day free trial at 100 emails per day; Mailgun has limited free sending; Postmark offers 100 free emails per month.
• Approximately 10,000 emails/month: Mailgun Basic starts at $15; Postmark Basic starts at $15; SendGrid Essentials begins at a larger volume tier.
• Approximately 50,000 emails/month: SendGrid Essentials 50K is listed at $19.95/month; Mailgun Foundation 50K at approximately $35/month; calculate Postmark’s plan plus overage.
• Approximately 100,000 emails/month: SendGrid Essentials 100K and Pro 100K have different prices and feature sets; Mailgun Scale 100K is approximately $90/month; calculate Postmark’s total based on its current pricing calculator.
• These are directional examples, not guaranteed quotes. Confirm billing, overages, applicable taxes, and traffic limits before buying.
The lesson: compare total cost at your projected volume, not the entry price. Postmark’s per-1,000 overage looks cheap at low volume and adds up fast at 100,000. At 50,000 emails, compare Mailgun Foundation with SendGrid Essentials and include any add-ons. SendGrid’s plan caps can interrupt sending during a spike. Third-party price trackers also mention that SendGrid’s dedicated IP arrives at the higher tiers, so ask what is bundled, not just what is listed.
Deliverability: what actually moves the needle
Searchers want a winner here, and vendors will gladly hand you one. Mailgun publishes a comparison in which its own numbers beat SendGrid’s on inbox and spam rates. That is a vendor claim worth reading with the usual caution, and any inbox-placement test depends on the sender, list and content tested.
What the evidence does support:
• Configure SPF, DKIM and DMARC correctly, and align authentication with the sending domain.
• Separate transactional mail from promotional campaigns using appropriate domains or streams.
• Monitor bounces, complaints, blocks and engagement trends by message type.
• Warm up any new dedicated IP or sending domain gradually.
• Test inbox placement using your own audience and representative messages, not only vendor benchmarks.
In practice, a clean list, authenticated domain, warmed IP and relevant content beat provider choice. A well-run account on any of the three will outperform a neglected one on the “best” provider.
Which one fits which team
Pick Mailgun when:
• You have engineering resources and need flexible API integration, inbound routing or message parsing.
• You need region-aware hosting options and expect a developer to manage deliverability workflows.
Pick SendGrid when:
• Your team needs transactional sending and may also use SendGrid Marketing Campaigns.
• You already use Twilio services and value keeping related vendor relationships together.
• You can account for separate marketing product pricing and sending-volume limits.
Pick Postmark when:
• Reliable application email is the primary use case, especially password resets and receipts.
• You want clean separation between transactional and promotional broadcast traffic.
• Its plan limits, inbound features and costs fit your expected sending volume.
A growth-stage checklist boils down to five things: use case, deliverability needs, developer experience, pricing at projected volume, and whether you need EU data residency. Score each vendor against those, not against feature counts.
Choosing a provider is the smaller half of the decision
A sending API delivers messages. It does not decide what to say, who should get it, or when. Welcome flows, post-purchase sequences and win-back campaigns are where email turns into revenue, and that work lives above whichever provider you choose. If you are weighing platforms for the marketing side too, our guide to managed email marketing campaigns shows how that layer works, and our email design and marketing strategy guide covers the strategy. Our glossary entry on email nurture explains the guided sequences that sit on top of the delivery layer.
Want to learn more about Digital Marketing and Strategy? Keep reading!
If you need help with your company’s marketing, contact us for a free custom quote.
Our perspective
Most teams treat the SendGrid versus Mailgun decision as a purely technical one. We see it differently. The provider is plumbing. It matters, and a wrong choice causes real pain, but the revenue sits in what flows through the pipes.
When we work with growth-stage and VC-backed companies, we start from the lifecycle: what should a first-time buyer hear in week one, what should a lapsed customer hear in month six, and which of those messages must never miss the inbox. Once that map exists, the provider choice gets simple. Transactional-critical mail goes on authenticated, separated infrastructure. Campaign and flow mail goes where your team can build, test and measure quickly.
That is what we mean by brand-backed performance: the same voice and design system in a receipt as in a launch email, and every send traceable to a business result. Our retention team builds those programs for brands that want repeat buyers, not one-time orders.
- Quincy Samycia
Turning your email stack into a growth channel
Once your sending infrastructure is settled, the next question is who designs, builds and measures the programs that run on it. Our retention marketing team covers email and SMS strategy, creative and measurement for growth-stage brands. Retention Marketing starts from $6,500 per month, and you can see the full range of services on our pricing page.
If you are choosing a provider and want the lifecycle plan decided first, talk to The Branded Agency and we will map it with you.
Migration and setup tips
Whichever provider wins, a few habits protect your sender reputation:
• Inventory domains, templates, tags, suppression lists and webhooks before migration.
• Authenticate the new sending domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC.
• Move transactional and promotional traffic into separate streams or subdomains.
• Test critical flows, including password resets, receipts, replies, bounces and unsubscribes.
• Start with a controlled sending ramp and monitor errors, complaints and delivery delays.
• Run both systems in parallel for essential traffic until you validate logs and alerts.
• Confirm data export, retention, deletion policies and regional requirements before switching.
Some teams also put a notification layer above the email provider to handle routing, templates, preferences and cross-channel delivery, as one provider guide describes. That can make a later switch easier, at the cost of another system to run.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Mailgun cheaper than SendGrid?
Not always. At the entry level Mailgun’s Basic plan starts at $15 a month for 10,000 emails. At 50,000 emails a month, SendGrid lists $19.95 against Mailgun’s $35 Foundation plan. At 100,000 the two are close, depending on the SendGrid 100K tier selected and Mailgun Scale pricing. Price your real volume, including spikes.
Which has better deliverability, SendGrid or Mailgun?
No vendor can promise inbox placement. Mailgun publishes comparison figures that favor itself, and results vary by sender. Your authentication, list quality and IP reputation count for more than the logo. On shared IPs, other customers’ behavior can affect you, so consider a dedicated IP once your volume justifies it.
How does Postmark compare with SendGrid?
Postmark supports transactional and broadcast email and separates transactional and broadcast streams. SendGrid covers both transactional and marketing email and connects to Twilio’s SMS and voice products. Choose Postmark for focused application email, and SendGrid when you want one platform for several kinds of messaging.
Can I use one provider for transactional and marketing email?
Yes, SendGrid and Mailgun both handle both. Keep the two on separate subdomains or IPs so a promotional complaint spike never delays a password reset.
Do I need an agency to choose between them?
Not for the technical comparison. An agency earns its place on the work that follows: lifecycle strategy, creative, segmentation and measurement, which decide how much revenue the email channel produces.
Quincy Samycia
As entrepreneurs, they’ve built and scaled their own ventures from zero to millions. They’ve been in the trenches, navigating the chaos of high-growth phases, making the hard calls, and learning firsthand what actually moves the needle. That’s what makes us different—we don’t just “consult,” we know what it takes because we’ve done it ourselves.
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