30 august 2024, 12:17
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Mailgun might not work as well for you anymore, and you are here looking for a better alternative to Mailgun to manage your transactional emails?
A reliable email delivery service is crucial for your business, especially if that’s a core offering essential for customer loyalty.
You need a trusted and reputable email service provider (ESP) to achieve that.
While Mailgun is great, it is not the only option available. Businesses looking for a better option with better features, higher performance, and a lower price, there are options to consider.
We are going to explore the 10 best alternatives to Mailgun offering email and SMTP services. Let’s start by reviewing Mailgun features and see where Mailgun competitors stand out.
Top Alternatives To Mailgun
|
Platform |
Free Options |
Best For |
Stands Out For |
Starting Price |
|
Free Trial |
All types of businesses, developers, SaaS companies, e-commerce. |
Instant event notifications, AI-powered HTML editor, click & unsubscribe tracking, up to 45 days of log retention, and 100 days of analytics data storage. |
$6 / month for 10,000 emails. |
|
|
Free Demo |
E-commerce, small to medium-sized businesses. |
Email marketing automation, landing page builder, CRM integration. |
$9.27 / month for 5,000 emails. |
|
|
Free Plan |
High volume transactional emails, developers. |
Dynamic templates, email validations, sub-user management. |
$19.95 / month for 10,000 emails. |
|
|
Free Plan |
Transactional emails, developers. |
Event-triggered actions, SMTP & API integration, and detailed email analytics. |
$15 / month for 10,000 emails. |
|
|
Free Plan |
Small to medium-sized businesses, SaaS companies. |
Email automation, customizable CRM functionality. |
$9 / month for 5,000 emails. |
|
|
Free Plan |
E-commerce, Saas companies, and developers. |
Dedicated IP addresses, advanced email routing, API integration. |
$10 / month for 10,000 emails. |
|
|
Free 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 |
Small to medium-sized businesses, marketers. |
Suppressions management, unlimited sub-accounts with custom settings. |
$49 / month for 37,500 emails. |
|
|
Free Plan |
Small to medium-sized businesses, email marketing. |
Up to 50 sender identities, inbound routing, SMS API. |
$35 / month for 50,000 emails. |
|
|
Free Trial |
Small to medium-sized businesses, email marketing. |
Detailed metrics, and a user-friendly interface. |
$39.95 / month for 40,000 emails. |
What is Mailgun Used For?
Mailgun is a cloud-based email delivery service built with developers in mind to handle both transactional, and bulk emails.
As an API-first solution, Mailgun takes a flexible approach that allows users to customize its functionality to their needs. Its extensive feature set includes
- inbound email routing,
- scheduling,
- batch sending,
- A/B testing, and
- email personalization with support for languages like PHP, Python, Ruby, C#, and Java.
Why are people switching away from Mailgun?
Reason #1: Expensive for low volumes
The pricing of Mailgun is quite high, especially for businesses or individuals sending low volumes of emails per month. The cost-benefit analysis encourages users to consider more affordable options without sacrificing essential features.
Reason #2: Intimidating for non-developers
Mailgun is marketed as a service aimed at developers and built for them since it is API-driven, developer-friendly, and takes an approach that makes it powerful and versatile for developers but intimidating to non-devs. Many user reviews have expressed frustration over the inconvenient UI, which comes with limitations in productivity and forcing them to seek more intuitive alternatives.
Reason #3: Not suitable for email validations
User reviews have reported unexpected high charges associated with email validations. This lack of transparency in reporting and as some reviews mention weak safeguards against abuse undermine user trust and cause financial burdens, leading users to seek better alternatives.
Reason #4: Customer support issues
Customer support is a critical factor in choosing a service, and Mailgun has received some criticism in online reviews. Generic responses, unhelpful and sometimes unresponsive support, and a lack of understanding of how to solve complex issues negatively impacted users, pushing them to seek providers with more responsive and helpful support teams.
All these factors combined suggest that while Mailgun might be a very viable option for technical use cases, it may not be optimal for businesses seeking affordability, reliability, and responsive support.
*The above reasons were taken from public online reviews of Mailgun users.
UniOne – Best Mailgun Alternative With An Affordable, Comprehensive Feature Set
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 August 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.
UniOne is a top-tier email delivery service that outshines Mailgun in many aspects.
Easy setup, high email delivery rates, and exceptional customer support set it apart from Mailgun, which is often criticized for its complex interface, sluggish performance, and poor customer service.
With an impressive 99.88% deliverability rate and a comprehensive feature set, UniOne is one of the best options for early-stage startups and businesses seeking a reliable email marketing and transactional email solution.
Featuring an intuitive user interface, UniOne offers flexible logging options and easy-to-navigate tools to streamline email campaign management and analysis.
A transparent and budget-friendly pricing model with a free trial including 6,000 emails per month for the first 4 months places it among the best free Mailgun alternatives on the market.
Through 40+ customizable email templates, dedicated IP warmup, custom domain tracking, and seamless integration options, UniOne equips businesses with the right tools to maximize their impact.
Pros
- Very High Deliverability: UniOne’s impressive deliverability rate of 99.88% prevents your emails from being bounced.
- Streamlined Integration: The adaptable infrastructure makes UniOne readily compatible with external software.
- Detailed Analytics: Refine your transactional email strategies through detailed analytics and valuable insights into your campaigns.
- Exceptional Customer Support: UniOne keeps you in the loop and delivers exceptional customer service with a 24/7 support team.
- Scalable: The system can handle millions of emails per hour.
Cons
- Focus on Transactional Emails: UniOne focuses on transactional messages, unlike other providers that offer all-in-one solutions.
- Limited Email Templates: While UniOne offers 40+ ready-made email templates with a drag-and-drop visual email builder, the selection might not be enough to suit all businesses' design preferences.
Mailchimp Transactional (Formerly Mandrill) – Best Mailgun Alternative With Efficient CRM For Mailing
Pricing
Free Plan
No free plan, but new transactional email users can send up to 500 emails for free to their verified domain.
Paid Plan
- $20 + the regular Mailchimp subscription: for 10,000 emails/per month.
- $240 + the regular Mailchimp subscription: for 300,000 emails/per month.
- $720 + the regular Mailchimp subscription: for more than 300,000 emails/per month.
*Pricing information retrieved from Mailchimp in August 2024.
Mailchimp Transactional (formerly Mandrill) was once a standalone service but is now available as a paid add-on. A perfect solution for Mailchimp users or those planning to become one with a range of features designed for email marketing growth.
There’s a library of customizable email templates for brands to match their style along with the options to create custom templates if necessary.
Users will also benefit from Mailchimp's marketing automation feature, which provides dynamic, automated marketing paths for contacts. The package also includes A/B testing to try different email subject lines, content, and send times, to determine what resonates best.
Overall, a good fit for businesses focused on sending personalized, one-to-one e-commerce emails.
Pros
- All-in-one Solution: Mailchimp, combined with Mandrill, is a comprehensive email marketing, transactional email, and automation solution.
- Detailed Insights for Performance Optimization: Understand how your emails are performing with customizable analytics and dashboards.
Cons
- Steep Learning Curve: The platform's interface is quite challenging to navigate, especially for novices.
- Slow Customer Support: Users (through online reviews) have reported long wait times for issue resolution and inadequate compensation for service disruptions.
- Unresolved Technical Problems: Mailchimp users reportedly suffer from bugs, such as the inability to sync e-commerce stores or recover abandoned carts.
- Integration Issues: Users have reported difficulties integrating Mailchimp with some platforms they commonly use.
SendGrid – Best Mailgun Alternative With SMTP & Marketing Features
Pricing
Free Plan
A free plan is available for up to 100 emails per day with essential tools like integration APIs, SMTP relay, basic analytics, and customer support.
Paid Plans
- $19.95/month: for up to 10,000 emails
- $249/month: for up to 300,000 emails
1 million emails require the Pro 700k plan plus an additional overage charge of $602.
*Pricing information retrieved from SendGrid in August 2024.
Twilio SendGrid is a popular all-in-one email marketing solution designed to send both transactional and promotional emails. Known for its email marketing suite and integration options like web API and SMTP relay, SendGrid is ideal for both developers and businesses.
But SendGrid goes beyond transactional email delivery and offers tools for email marketing and automation, which some users find problematic. For instance, users who want to use SendGrid's marketing campaigns or email API products will have to purchase the plan separately.
So, if you prioritize flexibility, Mailgun is a strong contender. However, if your business requires a comprehensive solution comprising transactional email and marketing tools, SendGrid might be the better choice.
Pros
- Industry veteran: SendGrid has a long-standing reputation for handling massive email volumes, especially during peak periods.
- All-in-one solution: SendGrid offers email marketing, transactional emails, and customer engagement features due to its integration with Twilio.
- Free tier: SendGrid has a free plan with basic features.
- Scalable options: You can always scale up your plan if your email volume increases.
Cons
- Expensive: SendGrid is overly expensive compared to other email service providers.
- Technical difficulties: SendGrid users have reported issues with the login system, authenticators, text message verification, and account recovery.
- Not the best support: Contacting support requires login credentials, which can create a circular issue if the login fails. SendGrid's email support has also been criticized in online reviews for its slow response times.
- Complex setup: Users without technical expertise find the initial setup process daunting.
- Template editor falls short of expectations: The email template editor provides a few advanced features and design options.
- Shadow account blocking: Several users have reported instances where their accounts were unexpectedly blocked, preventing them from resolving issues due to support inaccessibility.
Find out more about SendGrid Alternatives.
Postmark – Best Mailgun Alternative With Flexible Data Storage
Pricing
Free Plan
- 100 emails/month: Good enough for testing the service.
Paid Plans
- $15/month for 10,000 emails/per month.
- $33/month for 20,000 emails/per month.
- $55/month for 50,000 emails/per month.
*Pricing information retrieved from Postmark in August 2024.
Before 2020, Postmark focused solely on transactional emails, but they now offer promotional and bulk email functionality via SMTP and web API, making it more sophisticated (and expensive).
If you are just starting, it’s a good idea to consider other beginner-friendly alternatives like UniOne, which offers a generous free trial.
As for email delivery, they promise to deliver 99% of your emails within 10 seconds via a separate channel allocated for transactional emails. For better results, Postmark employs dedicated IP addresses, robust sender screening, and proactive monitoring.
Overall, Postmark is fairly easy to use for transactional emails since the API and SMTP documentation are developer-friendly. Still, you have to be a tech person, comfortable with code.
Pros
- User Friendly: The platform's intuitive design makes it easy to use and access the data you need for reporting.
- Flexible Data Storage: Keeps a detailed record of your email campaigns' performance for 45 days.
- Pre-designed Templates: Offers many well-designed email templates for transactional emails.
Cons
- Very Expensive: Postmark's pricing structure is comparatively high for its features.
- No entry-level plan: There's no free or low-cost option for users with small email volumes, which limits its appeal to startups.
- Complex Analytics: The platform's analytics dashboard is challenging to navigate, with limitations like viewing 30-day periods only, making it difficult to track trends over time.
- Confusing Admin Panel: Some users find the interface confusing and unfriendly, with a steeper learning curve.
- Minimal Training Resources: Postmark offers only minimal guidance for new users, making it difficult to get started without prior knowledge of email marketing software.
- No Email Archiving: The absence of an email archiving feature is a significant drawback for businesses that require this functionality.
Brevo (Formerly Sendinblue) – Best Mailgun Alternative With Intuitive Interface
Pricing
Free Plan
Brevo offers a limited free plan for sending 300 emails daily to a contact list of 100,000 people.
Paid Plan
Brevo’s paid plans start at $9 per month.
*Pricing information retrieved from Brevo in August 2024.
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is a robust email marketing solution with a user-friendly and intuitive interface designed for small and medium-sized businesses. Whether you are new to email marketing or a seasoned pro, Brevo makes campaign creation and management simple for everyone.
The platform features a selection of mobile-friendly email templates that you can use to create stunning emails without any prior design experience.
Moreover, the detailed analytics tab in Brevo offers valuable insight into emails' performance, particularly open, click, and bounce rates which you can use to make informed decisions about your campaigns.
Pros
- Generous Free Tier: Start using Brevo without spending a dime and send up to 9,000 emails monthly for free.
- Pay-as-You-Grow Pricing: Brevo doesn't lock you into expensive plans.
- All-in-One Marketing Tool: Brevo is a comprehensive marketing tool, not just a transactional email service, and can be used by your marketing team as well.
Cons
- High Cost: Brevo is expensive compared to other options with similar characteristics.
- Lacking Features: Brevo fails to provide several basic features. Users can't create full-size signatures, forward emails, or easily add CC or BCC recipients.
- Restrictive Policy: Brevo can’t be used for sales or job-related emails, even if people have opted in. This is unusual for a sales CRM. If your business relies on email outreach, Brevo might not be a good fit.
- Technical Limitations: Creating automated email campaigns with Brevo is complicated and time-consuming. Your entire list cannot be emailed at once, nor can you tag contacts based on their replies.
- User Interface Issues: The platform isn't very user-friendly. Basic tasks may take too long, and the design could be improved. Features like audience segmentation based on purchase history are missing.
SMTP2GO – Best Mailgun Alternative With Strong Anti-Spam Protection
Pricing
Free Plan
- Email limit: 1,000 emails per month
- Reporting: 5 days of email reporting
- Support: Ticket support only
Paid Plans
- $10/month: 10,000 emails per month
- $75/month: 100,000 emails per month
*Pricing information retrieved from SMTP2GO in August 2024.
SMTP2GO is a powerful email delivery service designed to handle both transactional and marketing emails and provide users with visual reports to track the email recipients' behavior.
Its feature set includes setup assistance, spam trap detection, real-time analytics, feedback streams, blacklist checks, weekly summaries, and bounce reports. If you're just getting started, use the SMTP2GO free plan for a smooth start.
Pros
Effortless Setup: Easily integrate email sending with your existing system even without any technical experience.
Strong Anti-Spam Protection: With SMTP2GO, your emails are protected from spam as it monitors for suspicious activity.
In-Depth Email Performance Tracking: Track your email's open rate, click-through rate, and more with SMTP2GO. This helps determine what's working and what's not.
Cons
Learning Curve: Getting started with SMTP2GO is quite challenging, especially for non-technical users. The initial setup process requires a lot of information, which can be overwhelming.
Pricing Structure Issues: The pricing plans for sending a small number of emails aren't very flexible, which can be expensive for users with low-volume needs.
Strict Quota Limitations: Sending bulk emails can quickly eat up your monthly quota. Any unplanned mass emailing can lead to inconveniences.
Limited Customization Options: You can't assign specific actions to individual users, which limits the ability to automate tasks based on specific user behavior.
Slow and Clunky Interface: Sluggish performance and confusing layout can make navigation difficult.
Device Authentication Challenges: Device authentication can be restrictive, and devices without dedicated email addresses may require extra approval steps for sending emails.
Performance and Data Retention Issues: Sending high volumes of emails can slow down the authentication process. Additionally, the 30-day log storage might limit access to crucial email data.
Geographic Limitations: SMTP2GO's servers are located in the US, causing slower delivery times for recipients in areas like Europe.
Paid Email Archive: Previously free, email archiving is now a paid feature. While understandable, this added cost might be unwelcome for some users.
Amazon SES – Best Mailgun Alternative With Affordable Plans
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 August 2024.
Note: Amazon SES pricing varies by location. Additionally, the setup of your email accounts and hosting infrastructure can affect the overall cost.
Amazon SES (Simple Email Service) is a simple and inexpensive Mailgun alternative for transactional or bulk emails and marketing campaigns. It’s especially useful for those already using Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure and EC2.
While this solution is inexpensive, it lacks some features, such as the ability to track and monitor message events by default; you’ll have to do that by yourself. Their focus on email sending rather than a full end-to-end product is evident from the pretty basic dashboard.
Overall, Amazon SES is well-suited for integrations that require flexibility.
Pros
More Affordable than Mailgun: Amazon SES offers competitive pricing, charging only for the emails you send, receive, or forward, which makes it a better alternative to Mailgun.
Integration and Flexibility: Amazon SES easily integrates with other AWS services like Amazon S3 for storage, AWS Lambda for serverless computing, and Amazon SNS for notifications. Additionally, it supports multiple email-sending interfaces, such as SMTP and APIs, providing flexibility.
Cons
Costly Support for Small Businesses: Support isn't included in the basic plan. To get proper assistance, especially in critical situations, businesses must enable AWS Business Support, which comes at additional cost.
Less Email Tracking and Management Features: You can't easily filter emails by a specific person or subject, resend emails, or determine why an email bounced.
Deliverability Issues: Amazon SES shows low availability for some regions causing emails to be sent from less optimal locations, which may lead to deliverability issues. Additionally, AWS IPs can sometimes be blocked by security software like Trend Micro.
Susceptibility to Spam: Amazon SES is susceptible to spam because of its low cost and ease of setup. Therefore, mailbox providers may penalize its IPs.
Less Configuration and Automation Options: SES is designed to be simple, but this simplicity comes at a cost. It cannot configure advanced workflows or automate email processes.
Potential for Messages to Be Lost: Some users have reported issues with emails being lost or not sent, especially during the initial setup or sandbox period.
Check out the best Amazon SES Alternatives.
Elastic Email – Best Mailgun Alternative With Shared IPs
Pricing
Free Plan
100 emails per day.
Paid Plans
- Starter: Costs $29 per month and allows you to send 37,500 emails per month.
- Pro: Costs $49 per month, comes with 2,500 contacts plus 37,500 emails.
*Pricing information retrieved from Elastic Email in August 2024.
Elastic Email is a cost-effective email marketing platform and a great Mailgun alternative that streamlines bulk email creation and management.
With an SMTP relay and robust HTTP API, Elastic Email makes it easy and convenient for everyone to create and send emails. The platform also includes a newsletter editor and a variety of ready-made templates that you can use to communicate with your customers professionally. If you have good coding skills, you can also use a simple HTML editor to create better emails.
Pros
Cheap & Flexible Pricing: The flexible pricing and pay-as-you-go options make it a cost-effective solution for growing businesses.
User-friendly Interface: The platform has an intuitive and easy-to-navigate interface which makes campaign management easy for marketers of all skill levels.
Cons
Difficult Setup: The setup process is time-consuming and difficult compared to other alternatives.
Slow Email Delivery: Emails may take an excessive amount of time to reach recipients.
Deliverability Problems: Users have reported high bounce rates, spam complaints, and issues with spam filters.
No Phone Support: The lack of phone support can impede timely issue resolution.
No Credit Warnings: Low credit balances go unnoticed until email delivery fails, causing service interruptions.
Insufficient Reporting: Reporting tools fail to provide the necessary data and insights for effective analysis.
Limitations to Account Management: Inability to adjust subscription levels and resolve support tickets.
MailerSend – Best Mailgun Alternative With Flexible Sending Options
Pricing
Free Plan
- Free plan available – 3,000 emails/month.
Paid Plans
- $35/month: for up to 50,000 emails, 100 SMS, and 100 email verification credits.
- $110/month: for up to 50,000 emails, 150 SMS, and 400 email verification credits.
*Pricing information retrieved from Mailersend in August 2024.
MailerSend is a cloud-based dedicated transactional email service by MailerLite designed specifically for developers to maximize the efficiency of email communications.
This tool combines a drag-and-drop email builder, dynamic personalization, and bulk email-sending capabilities that anyone can use to create and send personalized emails.
The A/B split testing option by MailerSend is another useful feature that lets you track and adjust emails based on their performance. SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are the security protocols MailerSend uses to protect the email senders' reputation.
In other words, Mailersend has everything your team needs to build and automate email workflows.
Pros
Comprehensive API: MailerSend offers an efficient and well-documented API, making it easy to integrate with multiple platforms and applications.
Advanced Analytics: Numerous analytics and reporting features are available for tracking email performance.
Team Collaboration Features: MailerSend supports team collaboration, allowing multiple users to work on email campaigns together.
Cons
Limited Functionality on a Free Plan: Users can only use 3 email templates on a free plan.
Integration Issues: Some users reported issues with the Google Firebase integration.
Lack of Onboarding: MailerSend offers minimal guidance, making it difficult for users to get familiar with the platform.
Forced Upgrades: The platform is designed to push users towards paid plans with many upsells.
SocketLabs – Best Mailgun Alternative With An Exceptional Free Plan
Pricing
Free Plan
Send up to 40,000 emails completely free for one month. Afterward, it’s 2,000 emails per month.
Paid Plans
- Core Plan: $39.95/month for 40,000 emails.
- Pro Plan: $79.95/month for 100,000 emails – $125/month — for 200,000 emails – $225/month — for 400,000 emails.
- Enterprise Plan: Custom pricing.
Note: The lower-tier pricing plans don't include detailed reporting features.
*Pricing information retrieved from SocketLabs in August 2024.
SocketLabs is an SMTP relay service and a marketing automation platform designed for professionals.
The Aston, Pennsylvania-based company makes it easy for users to create high-volume email marketing campaigns using its SMTP relay service and transactional email API.
Unlike Mailgun, this tool offers unlimited contact storage and high deliverability.
With detailed analytics, reporting, and support for optimizing email performance, SocketLabs has everything for businesses looking to enhance their email communication strategies.
Pros
Detailed Metrics: SocketLabs provides detailed metrics and statistics for tracking email performance.
User-friendly Interface: Mailgun’s user-friendly interface simplifies email management and is easy to use.
Cons
Expensive: More expensive than other similar options.
Only One Set of SMTP Credentials: Users can only have one set of SMTP credentials, which is a security risk. The entire account can be compromised if a breach occurs. Additionally, it complicates managing multiple email processes.
Shared IP Pools: Since SocketLabs uses the same IP pool for transactional and promotional emails, transactional emails may end up in the Gmail Promotions tab.
Data Retention is Short: SocketLabs does not retain report data for long.
Limited SMTP Servers: Users are restricted to one SMTP server per plan, which can be limiting for larger operations or those requiring multiple sending domains.
Difficult List Management: Creating and managing email lists, including segmentation, is a tedious process.
Choosing the Right Transactional Email Service
Choosing the right transactional email service is not an easy task.
Our reviewers selected the above products based on various criteria like affordability, features, user reviews, and friendliness. The best way to choose would be to sign up for a free trial and test the tools in your shortlist before you commit to a paid plan.
While Mailgun is a popular choice with many features, it may not be the right fit for everyone, especially those seeking a user-friendly interface, faster customer support, or more affordable plans.
UniOne is our solution of choice! We encourage you to sign up for a free trial today and discover the immense value for yourself.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Which Mailgun alternative offers the best deliverability rates?
UniOne ranks #1 with an impressive 99.88% deliverability rate significantly reducing the risk of your emails landing in spam folders., which is ideal for businesses seeking high deliverability.
Are there any free alternatives to Mailgun?
Yes, several alternatives to Mailgun offer free plans. For example, UniOne provides a free trial with 6,000 emails per month for the first four months, and Amazon SES offers 3,000 free emails per month for applications hosted on Amazon EC2. These free plans are a great way to test the services before committing to a paid plan.
Which Mailgun alternative is best for small businesses?
The best Mailgun alternative for small businesses depends on your business’ needs. Platforms like UniOne and Brevo offer user-friendly interfaces and affordable pricing plans. Consider factors like email volume, desired features, and budget to make an informed decision.
