# Alternatives to Mailgun
Mailgun (by Sinch) is a developer-focused email sending platform with a REST API and SMTP, inbound routing and parsing, templates, deliverability tooling, dedicated IPs, webhooks, and detailed logs and analytics.
Mailgun ranks #3 of 12 in Transactional email APIs, with an Alt Score of 100. It is proprietary, freemium from $15/mo and available on the web. 12 of 12 checklist rows are verified against a public source.
Source: https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/mailgun/
Category: Transactional email APIs
## Overview
- **Who it's for**: Developers and engineering teams who need to send transactional email (password resets, receipts, notifications) from their applications and also want to receive and parse inbound email programmatically.
- **What you get**: A RESTful Email API and SMTP relay for sending, a Templates API for reusable HTML emails, Inbound Routes for parsing incoming mail into JSON, event webhooks, suppression/bounce management, dedicated IPs, and analytics/log retention, plus a separate Optimize product line for deliverability tooling like inbox placement testing and reputation monitoring.
- **How it works**: You send email through Mailgun's HTTP API or SMTP endpoint using an API key from your dashboard; incoming mail can be routed through Inbound Routes rules that parse messages into structured JSON and forward them to your app, while delivery, bounce, and engagement events flow back via webhooks and the analytics dashboard. Mailgun was acquired by Sinch in 2021 and now sits alongside Sinch's SMS, messaging, and voice products.
## Profile
- **License**: Proprietary (verified 2026-07-13)
- **Pricing model**: Freemium (verified 2026-07-13)
- **Starts at**: $15/mo (verified 2026-07-13)
- **Platforms**: Web
- **Status**: acquired (verified 2026-07-13)
## Ranked alternatives
| # | App | Alt Score | Licence | Platforms |
|---|-----|-----------|---------|-----------|
| 1 | [Elastic Email](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/elastic-email.md) | 100 | ? | Web |
| 2 | [MailerSend](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/mailersend.md) | 100 | Proprietary | Web, iOS |
| 3 | [Amazon SES](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/amazon-ses.md) | 93 | Proprietary | Web |
| 4 | [Mailtrap](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/mailtrap.md) | 93 | Proprietary | ? |
| 5 | [Resend](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/resend.md) | 93 | Proprietary | Web |
| 6 | [SMTP2GO](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/smtp2go.md) | 93 | ? | Web |
| 7 | [Twilio SendGrid](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/sendgrid.md) | 93 | Proprietary | Web |
| 8 | [Zoho ZeptoMail](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/zeptomail.md) | 93 | Proprietary | Web |
| 9 | [Postmark](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/postmark.md) | 85 | Proprietary | Web |
| 10 | [useSend](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/usesend.md) | 81 | AGPL-3.0 | Web |
| 11 | [Postal](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/postal.md) | 78 | MIT | Linux |
Alt Score = Verified coverage (90%) + Visibility (10%). See https://altcatalog.com/how-alt-score-works/
## Feature comparison
Legend: Yes / No / Partial / ? (not verified).
| Transactional email APIs checklist | Mailgun | Elastic Email | MailerSend | Amazon SES | Mailtrap | Resend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Freemium | Freemium | Freemium | Usage-based | Freemium | Freemium |
| Starts at | $15/mo | $19/mo | $7/mo | $0.10 per 1,000 emails | $15/mo | $20/mo |
| License | Proprietary | ? | Proprietary | Proprietary | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Platforms | Web | Web | Web, iOS | Web | ? | Web |
| REST API | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SMTP relay | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Deliverability tooling | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Templates | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Inbound email parsing | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Webhooks / events | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | Yes |
| Suppression & bounce handling | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Dedicated IPs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial |
| Analytics / logs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SDKs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| EU data residency | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Partial |
| Free tier volume | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | Yes |
## Sources
Sources for Mailgun. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.
- **License**: Proprietary — (verified 2026-07-13)
- Quote: “Mailgun's Inbound Routes – our proprietary email parsing software.”
- **Pricing model**: Freemium — (verified 2026-07-13)
- Note: Ongoing $0/mo Free plan (100 emails/day, not a time-limited trial) sits alongside paid Basic/Foundation/Scale plans that include a monthly volume plus per-1,000-email overage pricing.
- Quote: “Free Test us out for $ 0 /mo 100 emails/day included”
- **Starts at**: $15/mo — (verified 2026-07-13)
- Quote: “Basic Starting at $ 15 /mo 10,000 emails/mo included”
- **Platforms**: Web — (verified 2026-07-13)
- Quote: “you'll be able to find a personalized API key in your user dashboard”
- **Status**: acquired — (verified 2026-07-13)
- Quote: “Mailgun was acquired by leading cloud communications provider, Sinch.”
- **REST API**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-13)
- Quote: “Mailgun's Email API makes integrating email into your applications incredibly easy with our RESTful architecture design”
- **SMTP relay**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-13)
- Quote: “In addition to its RESTful Email API, Mailgun supports the standard SMTP protocol (with or without TLS).”
- **Deliverability tooling**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-13)
- Note: Part of the separate Mailgun Optimize product line (inbox placement testing, reputation monitoring, deliverability services).
- Quote: “With inbox placement testing, you can proactively test where your emails will land at major mailbox service providers before you send.”
- **Templates**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-13)
- Quote: “Mailgun's Templates API allows you to store, create versions of, duplicate, and delete any templates on your account.”
- **Inbound email parsing**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-13)
- Quote: “Inbound Routes allow senders to clean up complicated email threads by fully parsing your inbound messages and converting them to UTF-8 JSON for easy reading.”
- **Webhooks / events**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-13)
- Quote: “Email Event Webhooks Push email campaign data to other apps for cross-team insights, enabling real-time, data-driven decisions to improve email performance.”
- **Suppression & bounce handling**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-13)
- Quote: “Mailgun automatically classifies and records bounce events (hard and soft), spam complaints, and unsubscribes into a Suppressions list.”
- **Dedicated IPs**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-13)
- Note: Paid-plan feature: pricing page shows dedicated IPs available from the 50k volume tier and included at 100K+ volumes, or $59/IP/month add-on.
- Quote: “Mailgun offers dedicated IPs starting on the foundation plan (and IP pools at Scale and up) so you control your sending reputation”
- **Analytics / logs**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-13)
- Quote: “Dig into every detail of your message delivery and gather insightful data on your email program with Mailgun's Email Analytics.”
- **SDKs**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-13)
- Quote: “Mailgun offers a variety of SDKs designed to simplify email integration for developers. Our SDKs support multiple programming languages, allowing you to seamlessly send, receive, and track emails with”
- **EU data residency**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-13)
- Quote: “Send email through the US or the EU from a single account. Mailgun's service is hosted within both regions, so your data can remain in the region of your choice.”
- **Free tier volume**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-13)
- Note: Ongoing free plan (not a time-limited trial) capped at 100 emails/day; distinct from Foundation/Scale plans which offer a 1-month free trial of paid tiers.
- Quote: “Free Test us out for $ 0 /mo 100 emails/day included”
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Ranked by verified data, never by who paid. https://altcatalog.com/trust/