MailerSend is a great solution for businesses craving for features like email APIs, templates, and team collaboration tools to automate tasks. It is widely trusted, however it may not meet every business's long-term needs.
Some find its pricing plans too high, others consider it unsatisfactory in terms of scalability, feature set, and reliability, and all this is driving them to look for alternatives.
Whether you’re looking for a powerful Email API, a user-friendly interface, or high email deliverability, exploring the best MailerSend alternatives is a smart move.
In this article, we’ve reviewed and compared 9 MailerSend competitors to help you find the right fit for your business. Let’s dive in.
Top Alternatives To MailerSend
Platform |
Free Options |
Best For |
Stands Out For |
Starting Price* |
Free Trial |
Developers, small to medium-sized businesses, and large enterprises |
Instant event notifications, webhooks, AI-powered HTML editor, Click & Unsubscribe tracking, 45 days of log retention, 100 days of analytics data storage |
$6 / month for 10,000 emails |
|
Free Plan |
E-commerce, SaaS companies, and developers |
Dedicated IP addresses, advanced email routing, API integration |
$10 / month for 10,000 emails |
|
Free Plan |
Small-to-medium sized businesses, SaaS companies |
Email automation, customizable CRM functionalities |
$9 / month for 5,000 emails |
|
Free Trial |
Small to medium-sized businesses, marketers |
Suppressions management, unlimited sub-accounts with custom settings |
$19 / month for 50,000 emails |
|
Free Plan |
Marketers, small-to-medium sized businesses |
AI-powered segmentation, personalization, automation, and integration with various platforms |
$7.08 / month for 25,000 emails |
|
Free Plan |
Marketers, and SMBs |
Drag-and-drop editor, A/B testing, advanced analytics, and segmentation |
$17 / month for 15,000 emails |
|
Free Trial |
Developers, businesses, large enterprises, startups |
Integration with AWS ecosystem, pay-per-use pricing, high volume capacity |
$0.10 / 1000 emails with pay-as-you-go |
|
Free Trial |
Developers, businesses, and SaaS companies |
Advanced email analytics, flexible email tagging, and RESTful API |
$15 / month for 10,000 emails |
|
Free Plan |
High volume transactional emails, developers |
Dynamic templates, email validations, sub-user management |
$19.95 / month for 10,000 emails |
* Note on pricing: Services mentioned in this article use different pricing schemes, which may be quite confusing. Usually, a few pricing plans are offered, based on the selection of features available. Within each plan, a user may also select a tier which is determined by the number of contacts, or, sometimes, the number of messages sent per month. Some ESPs, notably UniOne, offer a full set of features for any plan (even the free one), and the overall price is based on the number of messages or contacts only. Still others may charge extra for certain premium features.
These variations make it difficult to compare prices directly. Therefore, we give the pricing information for the lowest plan and tier available for each service, and add a few other pricing options as an example. To evaluate your expenses for a particular product, be sure to visit their pricing page.
What is MailerSend?
MailerSend is a comprehensive transactional email and SMS service built by the same team as MailerLite, so you’ll find them very similar regarding SMTP and email services. It is designed to help developers and teams work efficiently and collaborate on email marketing campaigns.
Why Are People Switching From MailerSend?
Reason #1: Expensive for growing businesses
MailerSend starts off affordable, but the cost escalates quickly as a business grows. For this reason, businesses operating on tight margins or sending large email volumes seek powerful and, above all, an affordable alternative to MailerSend.
Reason #2: Deliverability issues
MailerSend users have reported deliverability issues, often at peak times. Such issues and delayed deliveries negatively impact engagement and lead users to switch to ESPs offering high deliverability rates and better reputation management.
Reason #3: Inadequate customer support
Users report slow response times and inadequate customer support from MailerSend, especially when faced with complex or technical issues. Businesses counting on timely email communication may find this discouraging and look for alternatives to MailerSend with responsive customer support.
*The above reasons were taken from public online reviews of MailerSend users.
1. UniOne – Best For High Deliverability And Reliable Email API
UniOne is hands down one of the best email delivery services with a powerful email API for businesses focused on automation and deliverability at scale.
A reliable MailerSend alternative known for its high deliverability, precise analytics, and slick integration capabilities. UniOne ensures high deliverability through IP reputation management, real-time monitoring, and compliance with best practices.
Users can sign up for a 4-month-long free trial to test out all of the advanced features available on the paid plans, making it the best free MailerSend alternative.
To send emails, users can either access the web API or connect via an SMTP API. For those struggling to integrate, there is extensive documentation and 24/7 support available for timely assistance.
Once ready to send, users can create emails easily with a drag-and-drop editor, or save time by choosing one from 40+ modern email templates designed by industry experts.
UniOne supports webhooks for instant event notifications. There are visual dashboards and CSV data export options to help users track and improve their email performance.
With features like click/unsubscribe tracking, custom unsubscribe links, dedicated IPs with automated warmup, and custom domain tracking, UniOne equips businesses with the tools they need to maintain control of their campaigns.
Overall, an ideal email marketing service for businesses looking for a reliable and cost-effective solution to send transactional emails.
Pros
Affordably priced – paid plans start at $6/month for 10,000 emails.
Advanced anti-spam measures – protect the sender's reputation and safeguard email delivery.
Email campaign grouping feature – organize email campaigns into groups based on type, topic, and sender.
Pre-designed templates – to help users create engaging emails in no time.
Detailed analytics and advanced segmentation options – track the performance of your campaigns in detail.
24/7 customer support – for immediate response to queries and concerns with a 95% customer satisfaction rate.
Cons
No SMS integration (yet) – UniOne relies entirely on transactional email delivery for email marketing campaigns.
Only 40+ ready-made templates – while enough for most this might not suit all business types.
Pricing
Free Plan
Duration: 4 months.
Email allowance: 6,000 emails per month.
Paid Plans
Paid plans are based on the number of emails sent per month:
- $6/month: for up to 10,000 emails.
- $11/month: for up to 20,000 emails.
- $25/month: for up to 50,000 emails.
*Pricing information retrieved from UniOne in September 2024.
Note: UniOne handles email volumes of up to 60 million emails per hour, allowing you to scale up seamlessly as your email volume grows.
2. SMTP2GO – Best For Anti-Spam Protection
SMTP2GO stands second on our list with worldwide servers. A reliable email delivery service with SMTP and API integration and a set of features to ensure high deliverability.
One notable feature is its real-time analytics for tracking delivery, open, and bounce rates, so users can monitor and optimize their email campaigns in real-time. There’s a spam trap detection feature that many find useful.
The intuitive interface makes it easy to navigate, access features, set up the service or even manage email campaigns, even for non-techies.
Overall, SMTP2GO is a viable option for businesses looking for simple and reliable email delivery service.
Pros
Cost-effective plans – favored by businesses globally.
Spam prevention – actively monitors for potential spam issues and takes action to prevent them.
Detailed performance insights for every email – email open rates, click-through rates, and other key metrics.
Extensive email testing across 40 clients – ensures your emails render as expected on any email client app.
Cons
Expensive – for users with low email volume needs.
Email history storage – only available for the last 30 days.
Geographic constraints – as SMTP2GO's servers are located in the US, recipients in Europe may experience slower delivery.
Pricing
Free Plan
Free plan for up to 1,000 emails per month with 5 days of email reporting and ticket support only.
Paid Plans
At their lowest plan (Starter), the pricing begins with:
- Free: for up to 1,000 emails.
- $10/month: for up to 10,000 emails.
At their higher Professional plan, the pricing begins with:
- $10/month: for up to 10,000 emails.
- $75/month: for up to 100,000 emails.
*Pricing information retrieved from SMTP2GO in September 2024.
3. Brevo – Best For Multi-Channel Marketing
On number 3 we have “Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)” – an all-in-one MailerSend alternative with SMS marketing, CRM functionality, the Conversations app, WhatsApp campaigns, and transactional email functionality.
Built for scalability, Brevo features a user-friendly interface and advanced segmentation options. This makes it easier to segment audiences by various criteria, such as demographics or buying history, to ensure precise targeting.
Brevo offers plenty of responsive email templates for users to create stunning emails without any prior design experience.
Marketers can set up automation workflows based on user behavior tracked by the Brevo Tracker script. Users can choose from 9 prebuilt workflows or create their own with Brevo.
There’s a detailed analytics tab that provides valuable insight into emails' performance, particularly open, click, and bounce rates which helps users make informed decisions.
Pros
Free forever plan – provides 300 emails/day and access to customizable email templates, drag-and-drop editor, and transactional email without committing to anything.
Easy to use – with an intuitive user interface.
Lead scoring – assigns scores to contacts based on predefined criteria.
Brevo Wordpress plugin – with more than 80,000 active installations, with a 4.5 stars rating.
Cons
Limited free plan – with a low daily limit of 300 emails, no landing pages, and only basic analytics, and Brevo logo.
Users are forced to purchase more emails – more than they need, with volume-based pricing.
Premium features require additional charges – such as enhanced user limits and high-volume marketing capabilities.
Building landing pages costs extra – as the landing page builder is only available on the Business plan.
Basic reporting and analytics – limited in low-tier plans.
Pricing
Free Plan
Free forever plan with 300 emails daily to a contact list of 100,000 people.
Customizable email templates, drag & drop editor, transactional emails, SMS and WhatsApp campaigns are all available in Brevo’s free plan.
Paid Plans
- $9/month: for up to 5,000 emails.
- $18/month: for up to 5,000 emails + multi-user access and phone support.
*Pricing information retrieved from Brevo in September 2024.
Check out more Brevo Alternatives here.
4. Elastic Email - Best For Mass Email Sending
Elastic Email is a low-cost MailerSend alternative known for its stable HTTP API and SMTP relay service. It comes with an intuitive interface that makes it pretty easy for users to manage lists, contacts, and funnels.
There’s a handy drag-and-drop editor plus 116 pre-made templates for users to cut down on editing time and effectively communicate with customers.
Email verification is one of its key strengths, which helps maintain high deliverability rates. Dedicated IP addresses and features like IP warm-up further enhance deliverability and help it stand out.
Those with good coding skills can use the HTML editor to create better emails.
Pros
Relatively cheap – compared to many of its competitors out there.
User-friendly interface – beginners can easily navigate and set up campaigns.
Cons
Quite basic email automation options – with limited triggers and no means to create multi-step email journeys.
Insufficient customer support – with no live chat or a chat support option.
Starter Email API plan does not include crucial features – like A/B testing, and webhooks.
Pricing
Free Plan
No free plan but you can sign up for a trial account which allows you to send up to 100 emails to your own email address.
Paid Plans
- Starter – $19/month for up to 50,000 emails.
With features like Email API and SMTP relay, email designer, suppressions management, single & bulk Email Verification, tracking and analytics, and customer support.
- Pro – $49/month for up to 50,000 emails.
Includes all features from the Starter plan + Inbound email processing, webhooks, reseller features, user management, sub-accounts, and Custom rDNS.
*Pricing information retrieved from Elastic Email in September 2024.
5. SendPulse - Best For Omnichannel Marketing
Next on our MailerSend alternatives list is SendPulse – a versatile marketing automation platform meant to simplify customer communication. The platform comes with fair pricing and advanced tools for automated lead nurturing via email, SMS, and web push notifications.
The program even includes a spam checker to prevent blacklisting and improve delivery.
There’s a chatbot builder for automating social media flows, along with a CRM to manage customer relationships. There’s also a landing page builder for those planning to capture leads via separate website pages.
Overall, a great email delivery service with an impressive toolset, but probably not suitable for those in need of highly sophisticated contact segmentation or detailed reporting.
Pros
Comprehensive solution – with email, SMS, web push notifications, and chatbot builder.
Affordable plans – including a pay-as-you-go model with ample features.
An intuitive user interface – which makes SendPulse easy to navigate and use by beginners.
Cons
A complicated pricing structure – especially regarding SMS costs calculated by character count rather than by a simple per-message fee.
Unexpected account restrictions – several SendPulse users have reported unexpected account restrictions without prior warning or explanation.
Email deliverability issues – users have reported several instances where their legitimate emails were blocked by SendPulse's spam filters.
Pricing
Free Plan
Free for up to 500 subscribers with 15000 monthly emails.
Paid Plans
- Basic plan – comes with 2 levels of email capacity.
- $8.85/month for 25,000 emails.
- $16.85/month for 50,000 emails.
- Pro plan – comes with 3 levels of email capacity.
- $74.85/month for 100,000 emails.
- $124.85/month for 200,000 emails.
- $174.85/month for 300,000 emails.
- Enterprise plan – supports up to 5M emails and starts at $1,824.85/month.
*Pricing information retrieved from SendPulse in September 2024.
6. Mailjet - Best For Collaborative Features.
Mailjet, which is now part of Mailgun, is a complete email marketing solution built for marketers, small businesses, and SaaS companies.
It comes with all the essential tools a business needs to create and send emails, automate workflows, and build signup forms. It includes a drag-and-drop email editor, mobile-responsive templates, and an autoresponder. Mailjet integrates with notable CRMs, e-commerce platforms, and popular programming languages like PHP, Java, and Ruby.
But what really sets Mailjet apart is its real-time collaboration feature which allows the whole team to collaborate on email designs and leave comments.
Users can also build pop-ups and grow their email lists with Mailjet's Subscription widget.
Businesses with modest email marketing needs or those without a need for both marketing and transactional emails might find other well-balanced alternatives better for their tasks. UniOne, for example, may be a more focused and cost-effective solution.
Pros
A versatile solution – empowers users to send both transactional and marketing emails.
Added flexibility – users can have an unlimited number of subscribers.
Collaboration feature – a true time saver in email campaign management with team collaboration.
Built-in smart AI – helps users create personalized messages based on preferences for word count, prompts, language, and target audience.
Cons
Advanced features are complex to learn – new users may not find them very intuitive.
Relatively less options for segmentation – users can only select opened and clicked emails within a specific period and cannot specify the exact email.
List management takes time – removing users once they hard bounce can be tedious.
Very few automation conditions – only date staggering and anniversary events are included.
Unsatisfactory customer support – with users reporting long delays in responding to tickets, many of which are irrelevant or canned.
Pricing
Free Plan
Free plan of up to 6,000 emails/month with a daily cap of 200 emails.
Paid Plans
The more emails you send through Mailjet, the more features you unlock as you are forced to upgrade to the next plan at specific milestones. For example, the Essentials plan is limited to 50,000 emails per month; to go beyond that, you need the Premium plan.
- Essential plan
- $17/month for 15,000 emails.
- $37/month for 50,000 emails
Includes all features from the free plan plus unlimited contacts, online customer support, 500 email previews/month, and more.
- Premium plan
- $27/month for 15,000 emails.
- $55/month for 15,000 emails.
- $105/month for 100,000 emails.
- $250/month for 250,000 emails.
- $470/month for 500,000 emails.
Includes all Essential plan features plus advanced statistics, marketing automation, dynamic content, A/B testing, landing pages, 2000 email previews/month, real-time collaboration on templates, priority support and more.
- Custom plan – pricing upon request.
Includes all Premium plan features plus dedicated technical account manager, dedicated IP strategy, IP performance monitoring and management, activity logs, and many more custom options.
*Pricing information retrieved from Mailjet in September 2024.
7. Amazon SES - Best For Cheap Plans.
Amazon SES (Simple Email Service) is one of the cheapest MailerSend alternatives on this list for sending transactional or bulk marketing emails. It is quite flexible and targeted at businesses and developers who need full control over their email systems.
This email service, however, works best for those already using Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure and EC2. Amazon SES’s affordability comes with a few catches worth paying attention to – it does not track or monitor message events forcing users to do it manually, and is not equipped with advanced marketing tools.
Despite everything it falls short of, scalability and core metrics of Amazon SES are the two features that are highly valued by companies like Reddit, Netflix, and Duolingo.
Pros
Cost-effective – with a flexible pay-as-you-go pricing model and no upfront costs, allowing you to only pay for what you use.
Scalable – whether you are sending hundreds or millions of emails, Amazon SES scales with businesses.
High Deliverability – Amazon SES features domain and IP warm-up, dedicated IP addresses, and strict compliance with best practices to ensure high deliverability.
Cons
Free emails are only for Amazon Services customers – everyone else has to subscribe to a paid plan.
Complex setup – where configuring essential features like tracking and monitoring requires considerable time and effort.
Relatively less features – specifically for email marketing, such as segmentation, automation, and A/B testing, compared to other ESPs.
Insufficient customer support – leaving users to handle issues on their own. Dedicated support is available for an extra charge.
Pricing
Free Plan
With Amazon EC2-hosted applications, users receive 3,000 free messages per month.
Paid Plans
With pay-as-you-go pricing, non-EC2 applications usually cost $0.10 per 1,000 emails, and $0.12 per GB of email attachments.
- $1 for 10,000 emails.
- $30 for 300,000 emails.
- $100 for 1 million emails.
*Pricing information retrieved from Amazon SES in September 2024.
*Amazon SES’ pricing is pretty complicated, and changes based on the features added to your plans. For example, including a dedicated IP (managed or BYOIP) or increasing email attachment size, will affect the price you pay.
*Amazon SES pricing also varies by location. Furthermore, the setup of your email accounts and hosting infrastructure can affect the overall cost.
Review all the top Amazon SES alternatives in our guide.
8. Mailgun - Best For Easy Workflow Automation
Next, we have Mailgun – a cloud-based email delivery system with an API and plenty of configuration tools built specifically for developers aiming to send transactional emails in a snap.
This email program features a user-friendly interface, which makes it easy for users to not only send but also receive and track emails.
There’s an SMTP relay option for those not interested in APIs. It even has a routing menu for forwarding emails to specific recipients and filtering based on specific criteria such as sender address.
There’s a detailed analytics section that provides useful insights into delivery, engagement, and open rates, all of which are crucial to any communication strategy.
Note that this solution is designed with developers in mind, and carries an intense learning curve for those new to it. Plus there’s no option to export logs, and the data is only kept for 30 days.
Pros
Developer-centric – with comprehensive documentation and API libraries tailored to developers.
Collaboration feature – for multiple Mailgun users to collaborate on emails.
Webhooks – for detailed insights into the target audience.
Schedule emails – send them at the best time to keep your audience engaged.
Cons
Too technical for non-devs – some of the tools and features are too technical for beginners; they may need technical assistance from the support team.
Confusing pricing model – for businesses with varying email volumes primarily due to the pay-as-you-go model.
Pricing
Free Plan
- Free plan – with a daily sending cap of 100 emails.
- Free 30-Day Trial – with unlimited access to high-tier features.
Paid Plans
- Basic plan
- $15/month for 10,000 emails.
No daily email limit, monthly email overage options, RESTful email APIs and SMTP relay, 1 custom sending domain, 1 API key, Email analytics and reporting, 1-day log retention, and 1 inbound route.
- Foundation plan
- $35/month for 50,000 emails.
- $75/month for 100,000 emails.
Includes all basic plan features plus full access to RESTful email APIs and SMTP relays, 1,000 custom-sending domains, email template builder and API, tracking, analytics, webhooks, 5 days log retention, 1-day message retention, and full access to inbound routing.
- Scale plan
- $90/month for 100,000 emails.
- $215/month for 250,000 emails.
- $400/month for 500,000 emails.
- $550/month for 750,000 emails.
- $700/month for 1,000,000 emails.
- $1,250/month for 2,500,000 emails.
Includes all foundation plan features plus SAML SSO, 5,000 email validations, dedicated IP pools, send time optimization, live phone & chat support, 30 days log retention, up to 7 days message retention and schedule and send analytics reports.
*Pricing information retrieved from Mailgun in September 2024.
9. SendGrid - Best For Developer-friendly API options.
Twilio SendGrid is an effective email marketing solution known for its SMTP and REST API capabilities. An ideal solution for businesses focused on maximizing their email marketing and transactional email performance. It requires, however, to purchase two separate plans if a user intends to use both email APIs and marketing automation.
Users can create emails using either a drag-and-drop editor or an HTML code editor in SendGrid. Signup form builder is also available, but it’s pretty basic and falls short of many features that would help users create compelling forms.
One notable feature is dynamic email templates that are easy to use and allow users to create multiple versions of the same email using dynamic content. For personalized marketing campaigns, users can set up automation triggers, track results, and measure their effectiveness. Marketing automation, however, isn't as advanced as some of its competitors and provides only one trigger and condition.
Pros
Free tier – offering basic features.
An all-in-one solution – with everything from email marketing to transactional emails, and customer engagement features.
Reporting and email analytics dashboard – displaying email metrics and client software usage data.
Scalable – to keep up with a growing number of emails.
Cons
Complicated to set up – users without technical expertise report difficulties navigating and setting it up.
Template editor falls short of expectations – with very few advanced features and design options.
Slow customer support – with users reporting troubles and not getting timely assistance.
Pricing
Similar to MailerSend, SendGrid forces you to upgrade to a higher plan with more features every time you pass a milestone of emails per month. While this unlocks features like a dedicated IP, it also forces a high price for unneeded volumes than you could have achieved with a lower-tier plan.
Free Plan
Free plan available for users to send 100 emails a day.
Paid Plans
- Essentials plan
- $19.95/month for 50,000 emails.
- $34.95/month for 100,000 emails.
Among the features offered are analytics and deliverability optimization, 2 event webhooks, a dynamic templates editor, and 1 additional teammate.
- Pro 100K plan
- $89.95/month for 100,000 emails.
- $249/month for 300,000 emails.
- $499/month for 700,000 emails.
- $799/month for 1.5M emails.
- $1,099/month for 2.5M emails.
Includes analytics and deliverability optimization, dedicated IPs, sub-user management, single sign-on (SSO), 5 event webhooks, 2,500 email validations, 1,000 additional teammates, and dynamic templates editor and testing option.
- Premier plan (Custom Pricing)
- For emails more than 5M+.
Includes analytics and deliverability optimization, dedicated IPs, sub-user management, single sign-on (SSO), 5 event webhooks, 5,000 email validations, 1,000 additional teammates, and dynamic templates editor and testing option.
*Pricing information retrieved from SendGrid in September 2024.
More Sendgrid alternatives.
Conclusion
While MailerSend is a good choice for many, it may not meet the needs of every business. Thus, it's a good idea to keep an eye out for worthy alternatives, with affordable plans and advanced features scalable to meet one's needs.
Whether you’re looking for high deliverability, advanced analytics, or cost-effective pricing, UniOne stands out among the options listed in this article, offering a comprehensive set of tools for email marketing success.
FAQs
– MailerSend vs. MailerLite: Which one is best?
MailerSend and MailerLite share a common family, but each serves a different purpose. MailerSend focuses primarily on transactional emails while MailerLite focuses on email marketing as a whole.
– What are the best free MailerSend alternatives?
UniOne is the best free MailerSend alternative with a generous 4-month free trial to send up to 6,000 emails a month and access all the advanced features of the paid plans.