Alternatives to Mailgun
Email API and deliverability platform for developers
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Why people leave Mailgun
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Ranked alternatives
Ordered by Alt Score. Click any score to see the breakdown.
Elastic Email is a long-running email delivery service offering a REST API and SMTP relay for transactional sending, along with drag-and-drop templates, suppression list management, and delivery/engag.
MailerSend is a developer-focused transactional email service offering REST API and SMTP relay, dynamic templates, inbound email routing, domain management, and built-in analytics.
Amazon SES (Simple Email Service) is a scalable, pay-as-you-go email sending service from AWS, offering an API and SMTP interface, deliverability and reputation tooling, suppression handling, dedicate.
Mailtrap is a transactional email sending and testing platform used by product and dev teams to send app-triggered emails via REST API or SMTP, plus a sandbox for previewing emails before they hit pro.
Resend is a developer-first transactional email platform offering a clean REST API and SMTP, React-based email templates, webhooks, deliverability tooling, and analytics for sending product and notifi.
SMTP2GO provides SMTP relay and a REST API for sending transactional and bulk email, routed through multiple global data centers for redundancy.
SendGrid (a Twilio company) is an email delivery platform for both transactional and marketing email, offering a REST API and SMTP relay, templates, deliverability and validation tooling, dedicated IP.
ZeptoMail is Zoho's purpose-built transactional email service, separate from its marketing tools, offering a REST API and SMTP relay for app-triggered emails such as receipts and password resets.
Postmark is a transactional email service focused on speed and deliverability, providing a REST API and SMTP relay, templates, inbound parsing, webhooks, detailed message logs, and separate transactio.
useSend is an open-source transactional email platform offering a REST API, SMTP relay, campaign/template management, and analytics, deployable self-hosted or via managed cloud.
Feature comparison
Rows come from the Transactional email APIs checklist (16 rows). Human-verified cells only. ? means the value has not been verified.
| Transactional email APIs checklist | Mailgun | Elastic Email | MailerSend | Amazon SES | Mailtrap | Resend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | ||||||
| Starts at | ||||||
| License | ||||||
| Platforms | ||||||
| REST API | ||||||
| SMTP relay | ||||||
| Deliverability tooling | ||||||
| Templates | ||||||
| Inbound email parsing | ||||||
| Webhooks / events | ||||||
| Suppression & bounce handling | ||||||
| Dedicated IPs | ||||||
| Analytics / logs | ||||||
| SDKs | ||||||
| EU data residency | ||||||
| Free tier volume |
Every fact and feature listed for Mailgun is verified against its own pages. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.
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License Proprietary verified 2026-07-13
Mailgun's Inbound Routes – our proprietary email parsing software.
https://www.mailgun.com/features/inbound-email-routing/ -
Pricing model Freemium verified 2026-07-13
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.
Free Test us out for $ 0 /mo 100 emails/day included
https://www.mailgun.com/pricing/ -
Starts at $15/mo verified 2026-07-13
Basic Starting at $ 15 /mo 10,000 emails/mo included
https://www.mailgun.com/pricing/ -
Platforms Web verified 2026-07-13
you'll be able to find a personalized API key in your user dashboard
https://www.mailgun.com/features/email-api/ -
Status acquired verified 2026-07-13
Mailgun was acquired by leading cloud communications provider, Sinch.
https://www.mailgun.com/about/ -
REST API Yes verified 2026-07-13
Mailgun's Email API makes integrating email into your applications incredibly easy with our RESTful architecture design
https://www.mailgun.com/features/email-api/ -
SMTP relay Yes verified 2026-07-13
In addition to its RESTful Email API, Mailgun supports the standard SMTP protocol (with or without TLS).
https://www.mailgun.com/features/email-api/ -
Deliverability tooling Yes verified 2026-07-13
Part of the separate Mailgun Optimize product line (inbox placement testing, reputation monitoring, deliverability services).
With inbox placement testing, you can proactively test where your emails will land at major mailbox service providers before you send.
https://www.mailgun.com/features/email-inbox-placement/ -
Templates Yes verified 2026-07-13
Mailgun's Templates API allows you to store, create versions of, duplicate, and delete any templates on your account.
https://www.mailgun.com/features/email-templates/ -
Inbound email parsing Yes verified 2026-07-13
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.
https://www.mailgun.com/features/inbound-email-routing/ -
Webhooks / events Yes verified 2026-07-13
Email Event Webhooks Push email campaign data to other apps for cross-team insights, enabling real-time, data-driven decisions to improve email performance.
https://www.mailgun.com/features/smtp-server/ -
Suppression & bounce handling Yes verified 2026-07-13
Mailgun automatically classifies and records bounce events (hard and soft), spam complaints, and unsubscribes into a Suppressions list.
https://www.mailgun.com/features/email-api/ -
Dedicated IPs Yes verified 2026-07-13
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.
Mailgun offers dedicated IPs starting on the foundation plan (and IP pools at Scale and up) so you control your sending reputation
https://www.mailgun.com/features/email-api/ -
Analytics / logs Yes verified 2026-07-13
Dig into every detail of your message delivery and gather insightful data on your email program with Mailgun's Email Analytics.
https://www.mailgun.com/features/email-analytics/ -
SDKs Yes verified 2026-07-13
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
https://documentation.mailgun.com/docs/mailgun/sdk/introduction -
EU data residency Yes verified 2026-07-13
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.
https://www.mailgun.com/pricing/ -
Free tier volume Yes verified 2026-07-13
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.
Free Test us out for $ 0 /mo 100 emails/day included
https://www.mailgun.com/pricing/
FAQ
Yes. Elastic Email, MailerSend and Mailtrap have a free tier or are fully free. Free-tier limits in the comparison table are verified and dated.
useSend and Postal — every license claim links its source.