# Alternatives to useSend 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. It is built as a directly-branded alternative to Resend, SendGrid, and Postmark for developers who want API parity with an open codebase. useSend ranks #11 of 12 in Transactional email APIs, with an Alt Score of 81. It is licensed under AGPL-3.0, open source with paid hosting from $10/mo and available on the web. 11 of 12 checklist rows are verified against a public source. Source: https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/usesend/ Category: Transactional email APIs ## Overview - **Who it's for**: Developers and teams that need to send transactional and marketing email from their own applications, including those who want an open-source, self-hostable alternative to hosted email-sending providers rather than a closed SaaS-only product. - **What you get**: A REST API, SMTP relay, and typed SDKs (Node.js, Python, Go) for sending transactional email, plus a marketing side with a WYSIWYG campaign editor, reusable templates, contact book management, double opt-in, webhooks for delivery/engagement events, automatic suppression of bounced/complained addresses, and per-domain analytics and reputation metrics. - **How it works**: useSend is an AGPL-3.0 licensed application that sends mail through Amazon SES (and receives delivery status via SNS); it can be self-hosted with Docker or Railway using your own AWS credentials and region, or used as usesend.com's hosted cloud service with a free tier plus usage-based paid billing above that. ## Profile - **License**: AGPL-3.0 (verified 2026-07-30) - **Pricing model**: OSS + paid hosting (verified 2026-07-30) - **Starts at**: $10/mo (verified 2026-07-30) - **Platforms**: Web - **Status**: active (verified 2026-07-30) ## 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 | [Mailgun](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/mailgun.md) | 100 | Proprietary | Web | | 4 | [Amazon SES](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/amazon-ses.md) | 93 | Proprietary | Web | | 5 | [Mailtrap](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/mailtrap.md) | 93 | Proprietary | ? | | 6 | [Resend](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/resend.md) | 93 | Proprietary | Web | | 7 | [SMTP2GO](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/smtp2go.md) | 93 | ? | Web | | 8 | [Twilio SendGrid](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/sendgrid.md) | 93 | Proprietary | Web | | 9 | [Zoho ZeptoMail](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/zeptomail.md) | 93 | Proprietary | Web | | 10 | [Postmark](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/postmark.md) | 85 | Proprietary | 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 | useSend | Elastic Email | MailerSend | Mailgun | Amazon SES | Mailtrap | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Pricing model | OSS + paid hosting | Freemium | Freemium | Freemium | Usage-based | Freemium | | Starts at | $10/mo | $19/mo | $7/mo | $15/mo | $0.10 per 1,000 emails | $15/mo | | License | AGPL-3.0 | ? | 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 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Webhooks / events | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | | Suppression & bounce handling | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Dedicated IPs | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Analytics / logs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | SDKs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | EU data residency | Partial | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | | Free tier volume | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | ## Sources Sources for useSend. Each alternative is sourced on its own page. - **License**: AGPL-3.0 — (verified 2026-07-30) - Note: Read directly from the LICENSE file (the README's license badge is an image and was not used as evidence). - Quote: “GNU AFFERO GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 3, 19 November 2007” - **Starts at**: $10/mo — (verified 2026-07-30) - Note: Hosted cloud (usesend.com) 'Paid' plan: $10/mo minimum usage credit, then usage-based at $0.0004/transactional email and $0.001/marketing email. Self-hosting itself has no license fee. - Quote: “Paid $10 minimum usage per month” - **Pricing model**: OSS + paid hosting — (verified 2026-07-30) - Note: Self-hostable for free (AGPL-3.0); usesend.com also runs a hosted cloud version with a free tier plus usage-based paid tier. - Quote: “Open source • Self-host in minutes • Free tier” - **Platforms**: Web — (verified 2026-07-30) - Note: useSend is a web dashboard/API product (accessed via browser, self-hosted via Docker or used as hosted cloud at usesend.com); no native desktop or mobile client is offered. - Quote: “Open source • Self-host in minutes • Free tier” - **Status**: active — (verified 2026-07-30) - Note: Changelog shows a shipped release dated March 2026 (about 4 months before this research date of 2026-07-30), following earlier releases in Feb 2025, Oct 2024 and Sept 2024 — a regular release cadence, - Quote: “March 2026 v1.9.0 Campaign Personalization with Contact Books” - **REST API**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-30) - Note: Base URL https://app.usesend.com/api/, Bearer token auth. - Quote: “useSend's API is built on REST principles and is served over HTTPS.” - **SMTP relay**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-30) - Note: SMTP credentials documented with ports 465/587/2465/2587; self-hosted deployments can also run an optional separate SMTP proxy server. - Quote: “Host: smtp.usesend.com” - **Deliverability tooling**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-30) - Note: Domain API exposes DKIM status, SPF details and DMARC record state (example SPF value: v=spf1 include:amazonses.com ~all). A separate reputation-metrics endpoint reports bounceRate and complaintRate p - Quote: “dkimStatus ... spfDetails ... dmarcAdded” - **Templates**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-30) - Note: Described as part of the visual, Notion-like WYSIWYG marketing email editor. - Quote: “Reuse templates and brand styles, and personalize with variables.” - **Inbound email parsing**: No — (verified 2026-07-30) - Note: Listed as an unchecked (not implemented) item in the repository's own Features checklist on the current main branch README. - Quote: “- [ ] Inbound email” - **Webhooks / events**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-30) - Note: Documents email/contact/domain event types, signed payloads (HMAC-SHA256), and retry/auto-disable behavior. - Quote: “Webhooks allow you to receive HTTP POST requests to your server when events occur in useSend, such as when an email is delivered, bounced, or clicked.” - **Suppression & bounce handling**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-30) - Note: Also surfaced on the homepage feature grid as 'Suppression List' with import/export and API management. - Quote: “Hard bounce and complained email addresses are automatically added to the suppression list. Works for both transactional and marketing emails.” - **Analytics / logs**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-30) - Note: Backed by public API endpoints for email time-series and per-domain reputation metrics. - Quote: “Track deliveries, opens, clicks, bounces and unsubscribes in real time with a simple, searchable log. Filter by domain, status, api key and export them.” - **SDKs**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-30) - Note: Official SDKs documented for Node.js, Python and Go; SDK also supports pointing at a self-hosted base URL. - Quote: “npm install usesend-js” - **EU data residency**: Partial — (verified 2026-07-30) - Note: Applies to self-hosted deployments only: you supply your own AWS SES region (which can be an EU region). No EU-specific region or data-residency option is documented for the hosted usesend.com cloud s - Quote: “In order to send emails, you need to select a region in AWS. Use a region where your users are located / where useSend is hosted.” - **Free tier volume**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-30) - Note: Hosted cloud (usesend.com) free plan: 3000 emails/month, capped at 100 emails/day, 1 contact book, 1 domain, 1 team member. This is a standing free tier, not a time-limited trial. Self-hosting has no - Quote: “Send up to 3000 emails per month” --- Ranked by verified data, never by who paid. https://altcatalog.com/trust/