SendGrid Alternatives (2026): The Free Tier Is Gone, Now What?

For new direct SendGrid signups, the permanent free plan is gone. Twilio retired it on May 27, 2025. New accounts now get a 60-day free trial (100 emails/day), then paid Email API plans start at $19.95/month.

We compared seven alternatives on pricing, strengths, and trade-offs so you can pick the right fit.

Last updated: March 30, 2026 Validated against SendGrid pricing, SendGrid's trial-plan FAQ, Twilio's SendGrid free-plan changelog, Resend pricing, Postmark pricing, Mailgun pricing, Amazon SES pricing, Brevo pricing, and Mailtrap pricing. Prices last checked March 30, 2026.

What happened to SendGrid?

2019Twilio acquires SendGridTwilio acquires SendGrid for $3B.Source

Mar 25, 2025New direct signups moved to trialNew direct SendGrid accounts start on a 60-day free trial (100 emails/day).Source

May 27, 2025Free tier retiredTwilio marks the free-plan change complete; paid Email API plans start at $19.95/mo.Source

1. 2019Twilio acquires SendGridTwilio acquires SendGrid for $3B.Source
2. Mar 25, 2025New direct signups moved to trialNew direct SendGrid accounts start on a 60-day free trial (100 emails/day).Source
3. May 27, 2025Free tier retiredTwilio marks the free-plan change complete; paid Email API plans start at $19.95/mo.Source

Since Twilio's acquisition, SendGrid has shifted new direct accounts from a permanent free plan to a time-limited trial and a paid-first model. It still works for higher-volume teams on Pro (starting at $89.95/month), but it's harder to justify for smaller senders that previously depended on the old free plan.

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SendGrid free tier: what you lost and what to use instead

Before spring 2025, SendGrid offered a permanent free plan: 100 emails per day, no expiration. It was the default starting point for most developers adding transactional email to a new project.

That plan is no longer available for new direct signups. New accounts get a 60-day free trial (still 100 emails/day), then must move to a paid Email API plan starting at $19.95/month. There's no permanent way to stay on SendGrid for free after the trial ends.

Several alternatives still offer permanent free plans. The differences are in volume, retention, and what they expect from you:

If you're sending under 3,000 emails a month, most of these cover you indefinitely. The real question is what happens when you outgrow the free tier, which is where pricing, DX, and architecture start to matter. That's what the rest of this page is for.

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Provider overview

Each alternative targets a different type of team. Here's how they compare on paid pricing, positioning, and migration effort:

Provider	Starting Price	Best For	Migration
Mailgun	$15/mo for 10K	Developer teams who need email validation + sending	2/5
Postmark	$15/mo for 10K	Teams who prioritize deliverability with clean transactional/broadcast separation	2/5
Resend	$20/mo for 50K	React/Next.js devs wanting modern DX	2/5
Amazon SES	~$1/mo for 10K	High-volume senders on AWS with engineering resources	4/5
Brevo	From $9/mo for 5K	Small businesses wanting email + CRM + SMS in one tool	2/5
Mailtrap	$15/mo for 10K	Developer teams wanting email testing + sending in one tool	2/5
Dreamlit	$20/mo for 30K	Supabase/Postgres devs who want zero email code	None

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The alternatives

1. Mailgun

What it is: A developer-focused email API with strong deliverability tooling. Mailgun has been around since 2010 and sits between the simplicity of Resend/Postmark and the rawness of Amazon SES.

Mailgun pricing:

Best for: Developer teams who want email sending + validation in one product, and who need a deeper feature set than Resend or Postmark without going full AWS.

Watch out for: The free tier is limited to 100 emails/day. Phone and live chat support are limited to higher tiers.

Migration difficulty: 2/5. Mailgun is often described as the most straightforward drop-in replacement for SendGrid. Both use RESTful APIs, SMTP relay, and webhooks. The main differences are webhook event schemas and template syntax (Handlebars vs. SendGrid's syntax).

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2. Postmark

What it is: A transactional-first email service that deliberately separates transactional and broadcast email into different IP pools (called Message Streams). This protects your transactional email reputation even if you also send marketing emails.

Postmark pricing:

Dedicated IPs: $50/month (requires 300K+ monthly volume). DMARC monitoring: $14/month per domain.

Best for: Teams who prioritize deliverability and want clean separation between transactional and broadcast email. Postmark's Message Streams architecture keeps transactional and broadcast traffic on separate IP pools, which protects your sender reputation by design.

Watch out for:

• Limited marketing features: Postmark supports broadcast emails through Message Streams, but there's no automation, A/B testing, segmentation, or list management
• Free tier is limited to 100 emails/month (not per day)

Migration difficulty: 2/5. Clean API, strong documentation. The biggest adjustment is that Postmark is opinionated about keeping transactional and broadcast separate. It supports both, but if you need advanced marketing features (automation, segmentation, A/B testing), you'll need a second tool.

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3. Resend

What it is: A modern email API built by the team behind React Email. If you're building with React or Next.js, Resend lets you write email templates as JSX components instead of wrestling with table-based HTML.

Resend pricing:

Overage on paid plans: $0.90 per 1,000 emails. Dedicated IPs available on Scale ($30/mo, requires 500+ daily sends).

Best for:

• React/Next.js teams who want to write email templates as JSX components
• Early-stage SaaS wanting a clean API and fast integration
• The react-email ecosystem is mainstream (~1.35M weekly npm downloads for Feb 11-17, 2026)

Watch out for:

• Free tier still has limits: 100/day cap and 1 domain on Free
• Broadcasts are priced separately: Resend's contact-based broadcast pricing is separate from its transactional API plans.
• Overage gets expensive at high volume ($0.90/1K vs. Amazon SES at $0.10/1K)

Migration difficulty: 2/5. Resend's API is clean and well-documented. If you're using SendGrid's API for transactional email, the switch is straightforward. Template migration requires rebuilding in React Email (which is a benefit if you prefer code-based templates, a cost if you have dozens of existing SendGrid templates). For a deeper comparison, see our Resend vs SendGrid vs Dreamlit breakdown.

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4. Amazon SES

What it is: Raw email infrastructure from AWS. The cheapest option at scale by a wide margin, but it's an engine without a dashboard. You'll need to build your own template management, analytics, and deliverability monitoring on top of it.

Amazon SES pricing:

That's $0.10 per 1,000 emails. Standard dedicated IPs are $24.95/month each. AWS Free Tier includes up to 3,000 message charges/month for your first 12 months.

Best for: Teams already on AWS who send at high volume and have the engineering resources to build their own email layer. If you're sending 500K+ emails/month, the cost savings are significant. SES costs $50/month where SendGrid Pro costs $89.95+.

Watch out for:

• Minimal built-in UX: SES has an AWS console, but not the workflow and campaign UX many teams expect from SendGrid
• Sandbox mode: new accounts can only send to verified email addresses until you get manual approval from AWS
• Complex setup: DNS records, IAM permissions, and DKIM/SPF/DMARC configuration
• Requires engineering time: if you don't have dedicated resources for email infrastructure, SES will slow you down

Migration difficulty: 4/5. SES is a fundamentally different product from SendGrid. You'll lose the dashboard, template editor, sub-user management, and built-in analytics. Budget 1-3 weeks for a full migration depending on your setup complexity.

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5. Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)

What it is: An all-in-one platform that bundles transactional email, marketing campaigns, CRM, SMS, and WhatsApp into a single dashboard. If you want one tool for everything instead of stitching together multiple services, Brevo is the most complete option on this list.

Brevo pricing:

Brevo paid pricing is credit-based, so your monthly cost depends on selected email volume and add-ons. In Brevo's pricing chart, both Starter and Standard are shown as starting from 5,000 emails/month and scale upward with larger credit bundles.

Best for: Small businesses and non-technical teams who want email marketing, transactional email, CRM, and SMS without managing multiple vendors. The free tier is the most generous on this list by daily send limit (300 emails/day).

Watch out for:

• Marketing-first: transactional features are solid, but the developer experience is less focused than Resend or Mailgun
• Pricing changes often: Brevo has changed plan structure and naming over time, so re-check current pricing before committing long term

Migration difficulty: 2/5. Brevo supports SMTP relay and REST API, so the technical switch is straightforward. The bigger adjustment is conceptual: SendGrid is developer/API-first while Brevo is marketing/UI-first.

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6. Mailtrap

What it is: An email delivery platform that combines email testing and sending under one roof. Mailtrap started as an email sandbox for developers (catch test emails before they reach real inboxes), then expanded into a full sending API. If your team already uses Mailtrap for testing, adding sending is a natural next step.

Mailtrap pricing:

Dedicated IP is included on Business and Enterprise plans (not Free/Basic).

Best for:

• Teams already using Mailtrap for email testing who want to consolidate sending into the same dashboard
• Polyglot teams: SDKs for Ruby, Python, PHP, Node.js, Go, Java, and Elixir

Watch out for:

• Short log retention: 5 days on Basic, 15 days on Business
• Limited support on lower tiers: email-only on Free/Basic (Mon-Fri), live chat only on Business/Enterprise

Migration difficulty: 2/5. Mailtrap supports both REST API and SMTP relay, making it a straightforward swap from SendGrid. The API is well-documented with SDKs in most popular languages. The main adjustment is moving your email testing workflow into the same platform if you haven't already.

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Why is SendGrid so expensive?

SendGrid's Email API entry point is now $19.95/month for up to 50,000 emails. That's not unreasonable at volume, but for teams sending under 10,000 emails a month, most alternatives are cheaper or free. The pricing gap is especially stark at low volumes, where providers like Amazon SES (~$1/mo for 10K) and Resend (free up to 3,000/mo) cost a fraction of what SendGrid charges.

Here's what you'd pay at different volumes (cheapest ongoing monthly plan):

*SendGrid currently offers a 100/day free trial for 60 days, then paid plan required.

**Amazon SES new-customer free usage is time-limited and based on message charges, not just outbound sends.

***Brevo paid pricing is credit-based; Starter/Standard chart entries start from 5,000 emails/month and scale with larger bundles.

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A different approach: what if you didn't need an email API at all?

Every alternative above works the same way SendGrid does: sign up, get API keys, write code in your app to call the API. But your database already knows when a user signed up, made a purchase, or is about to churn. Why write code to tell an external service what your database already knows?

Dreamlit takes a different approach:

• Connects to your Postgres database and reacts to changes automatically
• Describe what you want in plain English, and the AI Workflow Agent generates the trigger logic, email template, and copy
• Zero-code: no API keys, no webhooks, no email code in your app at all

Dreamlit pricing:

Dreamlit's public pricing page defaults to annual billing, so the lower $16/mo and $79/mo figures are annual-billing equivalents rather than month-to-month rates.

Best for: Developers on Supabase or Postgres who want professional email workflows without adding email infrastructure to their app.

The trade-off: Requires a Postgres database. If you need a standalone email API you can call from code, a traditional provider is a better fit.

You don't have to choose one or the other. Keep your current email provider for legacy flows that already work. Use Dreamlit for new workflows. Your database handles the triggering, so there's no conflict.

Try Dreamlit free →

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What is better than SendGrid?

It depends on what you're optimizing for:

• Solid API with email validation built in: Mailgun
• Inbox placement is your top priority and you want clean transactional/broadcast separation: Postmark
• Most modern developer experience, building with React/Next.js: Resend
• Absolute lowest cost at scale (and you have engineering resources): Amazon SES
• Email, CRM, SMS, and marketing in one platform: Brevo
• Email testing and sending in one platform: Mailtrap
• Skip email code entirely and let your database drive everything: Dreamlit

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Looking for a completely different approach to app email? Try Dreamlit free. Connect your database, describe what you want, and let AI handle the rest. No API keys needed.

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References

1. SendGrid Pricing
2. Mailgun Pricing
3. Postmark Pricing
4. Resend Pricing
5. Amazon SES Pricing
6. Brevo Pricing
7. Mailtrap Pricing
8. Twilio SendGrid Trial Account Plan
9. Changes coming to SendGrid's Free Plan

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Frequently asked questions

Is SendGrid still worth using in 2026?

SendGrid can still be a good fit for higher-volume teams, especially on higher tiers with dedicated IPs. For smaller teams, pricing and shared-IP trade-offs make alternatives more attractive.

What's the best free SendGrid alternative?

It depends on your needs. Brevo offers 300 emails/day free, Mailtrap gives 4,000/month free, Resend provides 3,000/month free with a clean developer API, and Dreamlit offers 3,000/month free for Postgres-based workflows.

Can I migrate from SendGrid without downtime?

Yes. Most teams run providers in parallel during migration: set up domain authentication, test a subset of traffic, then gradually shift sends.

Why did SendGrid remove its free tier?

Twilio retired SendGrid's permanent free plan on May 27, 2025. New direct accounts now get a 60-day free trial (100 emails/day) before paid Email API plans starting at $19.95/month.

What's the cheapest SendGrid alternative for high volume?

For raw cost per email, Amazon SES is usually the lowest-cost option at high volume, though it requires more engineering ownership.

Which SendGrid alternative has the best deliverability?

There is no universal winner. Deliverability depends more on sender reputation, list quality, authentication, and sending patterns than on provider brand alone.

Does SendGrid still have a free tier?

Not for new direct SendGrid signups. New accounts get a 60-day free trial (100 emails/day), then must move to a paid Email API plan starting at $19.95/month. For a permanent free tier, alternatives like Brevo (300/day), Resend (3,000/month), Mailtrap (4,000/month), and Dreamlit (3,000/month) all offer free plans with no expiration.

What is better than SendGrid?

It depends on your priorities. Mailgun for email validation + sending, Postmark for deliverability, Resend for modern React/Next.js DX, Amazon SES for lowest cost at scale, Brevo for all-in-one email + CRM, Mailtrap for testing + sending, and Dreamlit for database-driven workflows with no email code.

Why is SendGrid so expensive?

SendGrid's Email API entry point is $19.95/month after a 60-day trial. For teams sending under 10,000 emails a month, most alternatives are cheaper or free. Amazon SES costs about $1/month for 10K emails, and Resend, Mailtrap, and Dreamlit all offer permanent free tiers.

Is Mailtrap a good SendGrid alternative?

Yes, especially for teams that already use Mailtrap for testing and want to consolidate testing and production sending in one platform.