Best SendGrid Alternatives in 2026

Twilio SendGrid retired its free plan on May 27, 2025. New accounts now get a 60-day free trial (100 emails/day), then paid plans start at $19.95/month. If you're looking for a SendGrid alternative, you're not alone.

We compared seven alternatives: real pricing, honest strengths, and trade-offs for each one so you can pick the right fit.

Last updated: February 20, 2026 Prices and plan names were last checked: February 18, 2026

What happened to SendGrid?

Here's a quick summary of how we got here:

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

Mar 2025Free users moved to trialFree-plan users begin moving to a 60-day trial model.Source

May 27, 2025Free tier retiredSendGrid confirms migration complete; paid plans start at $19.95/mo.Source

1. 2019Twilio acquires SendGridTwilio acquires SendGrid for $3B.Source
2. Mar 2025Free users moved to trialFree-plan users begin moving to a 60-day trial model.Source
3. May 27, 2025Free tier retiredSendGrid confirms migration complete; paid plans start at $19.95/mo.Source

Since Twilio's acquisition, SendGrid has shifted from a permanent free plan to a time-limited trial and a paid-first model. It still works for high-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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Quick comparison

Here's the overview. Details for each provider follow below.

Provider	Free Tier	Starting Price	Best For	Migration
Mailgun	~3,000/mo 100/day cap	$15/mo for 10K	Developer teams who need email validation + sending	2/5
Postmark	100/mo	$15/mo for 10K	Teams who prioritize deliverability with clean transactional/broadcast separation	2/5
Resend	3,000/mo 100/day cap	$20/mo for 50K	React/Next.js devs wanting modern DX	2/5
Amazon SES	3,000/mo first 12 months, then $0.10/1K	~$1/mo for 10K	High-volume senders on AWS with engineering resources	4/5
Brevo	~9,000/mo 300/day cap	$9/mo + email credits	Small businesses wanting email + CRM + SMS in one tool	2/5
Mailtrap	4,000/mo 150/day cap	$15/mo for 10K	Developer teams wanting email testing + sending in one tool	2/5
Dreamlit	3,000/mo 100/day cap	$16/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:

• Short data retention: 1 day on Free, 3 days on Pro, 7 days on Scale
• Marketing is a separate add-on: Resend now offers broadcast emails, but it's a separate product starting at $40/mo (Pro Marketing). No drip campaigns or automation yet.
• 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 outbound messages/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 Business 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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SendGrid pricing vs. alternatives at a glance

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.

***Brevo paid pricing is credit-based; Starter/Business 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 watches for 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:

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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How to choose

The "right" alternative depends on what matters most to you:

• 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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Frequently asked questions

Is SendGrid still worth using in 2026?

SendGrid still works, and it's still a capable platform for high-volume senders on the Pro plan ($89.95/month) with dedicated IPs. The problems mostly affect lower-tier users: shared IP deliverability, limited support, and the removed free tier. If you're happy on Pro or Premier, there's no urgent reason to switch. If you're on Essentials or were on the free tier, you have better options.

What's the best free SendGrid alternative?

• Brevo: 300 emails/day on its free plan (most generous daily volume)
• Mailtrap: 4,000 emails/month free (150/day) with email testing included
• Resend: 3,000 emails/month with a clean, modern API
• Dreamlit: 3,000 emails/month free with zero-code setup if you're on Postgres

Can I migrate from SendGrid without downtime?

Yes. Most providers support running in parallel during migration. Set up your new provider, verify your domain, test with a subset of traffic, then gradually shift over. DNS changes for DKIM and SPF propagate within hours.

Why did SendGrid remove its free tier?

Twilio announced it was retiring SendGrid's free plans and gave customers a 60-day window before free accounts would pause sending. If you were on the free plan, you now need to upgrade to continue sending.

What's the cheapest SendGrid alternative for high volume?

Amazon SES at $0.10 per 1,000 emails. Sending 1 million emails costs roughly $100/month, compared with SendGrid pricing that starts at $34.95/month for 100K on Essentials or $89.95/month for 100K on Pro.

Which SendGrid alternative has the best deliverability?

There's no single winner. Deliverability depends on your sending patterns, domain reputation, and authentication setup (DKIM, SPF, DMARC) more than which provider you pick. That said, Postmark separates transactional and broadcast traffic into different IP pools by design, which helps protect your sender reputation. Benchmark posts from vendors can be useful directional data, but they're still controlled tests and not guarantees for your sending profile.

Is Mailtrap a good SendGrid alternative?

Yes, especially if your team already uses Mailtrap for email testing. Mailtrap started as a testing sandbox and expanded into a full sending API, so you can consolidate testing and production sending into one dashboard. The free tier is 4,000 emails/month (150/day), and paid plans start at $15/month.

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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.