5 Best Mailgun Alternatives to Switch to in 2025
Looking for a Mailgun Alternative? Discover the best email service providers based on pricing and features in 2024.
Campaign Refinery Team
Email Marketing Experts
What you'll learn
Mailgun was launched in 2010 as a developer-friendly and API-integrated email delivery service. To date, the platform helps businesses send, receive, and track transactional and marketing messages.
But Mailgun may not be the right ESP for everyone, especially with its limited account capabilities — if you have a larger email list, it’s challenging to email all your subscribers at once.
If you’re on the lookout for a Mailgun alternative, here are 5 of them based on their core features, functionality, and pricing.
Why Switch to a Mailgun Alternative?
Mailgun launched ahead of many ESPs in the market and was considered a beginner-friendly email delivery platform with APIs.
Email API (short for Application Programmable Interface) helps developers connect an application or service to an email service provider and use the provider’s features, including sending emails, extracting email stats, etc., without having to create the functionalities from scratch.
Mailgun is quite easy to set up and allows up to 10,000 emails per month for free. As you scale, you can pay $35 for 50,000 emails and $90 for 100,000 emails.
Although it was widely used for its reliability and affordability, Mailgun started to witness stiff competition with many ESPs delivering more powerful features and functionalities for lower pricing.
Currently, many users are opting for Mailgun alternatives for several reasons, such as — sudden account closures and an increase in account usage charges without warning.
Additionally, Mailgun’s basic UX design, deliverability limitations, and UI issues lead many users to migrate to other platforms that provide more value for the price.
Now that we know the basics about Mailgun, let’s compare it to other ESPs based on the common requirements.
What to Consider When Moving to a Mailgun Alternative
As you prepare to take your email marketing journey with a new ESP, evaluating your requirements and looking for a platform that matches your budget is important.
We have put together a few critical factors you must consider before making the leap:
| Factor | Description |
|---|---|
| Deliverability | Assess the ESP’s deliverability record to understand your email reach |
| Integration capabilities | Compare the features such as automation, A/B testing, analytics, and segmentation with your business requirements. |
| Pricing structure | Ensure the new ESP fits your budget and there are no extra charges as you scale |
| Features and functionality | Evaluate the quality of customer support, including knowledge and dedicated support staff for each account. |
| Customer support | Choose a platform that’s easy to use and has beginner-friendly functionalities. |
| Data security and complaince | Ensure the ESP follows data security acts such as CAN-SPAM and GDPR |
| User interface and ease of use | Consider the nature of analytics, including the level of detail provided regarding your email campaign metrics. |
| Reporting and analytics | Analyze the ESP’s uptime and reliability to avoid service disruptions |
| Customization options | Check for the ability to tailor email campaign templates and other design features |
| Reliability | Analyze the ESPs uptime and reliability to avoid service disruptions |
| Community and reviews | Read through the user reviews thoroughly before making a decision |
While this checklist can help you evaluate your options, you must know the Mailgun alternatives in detail to make an informed decision. Let’s review each platform’s functionalities and pricing structure.
Mailgun Alternatives: Quick Overview
Migrating your entire email list to another ESP isn’t an easy task. That’s why we’ve compiled the best Mailgun alternatives list to help you make quicker decisions.
| ESP | Campaign Refinery | SendGrid | Amazon SES | Mailpoet | Mandrill |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ease of Use | 10 | 6 | 4 | 8 | 8 |
| Advanced Automation | 10 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 8 |
| Advanced Sender Reputation Practices | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Unlimited Contacts | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Engagement Gamification | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Automatic Email list cleaning | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Deliverability | Excellent | Good | Good | Average | Good |
Now that we’ve narrowed the ESP options for you, it’s time to look at them in detail.
SendGrid: An Expensive Alternative to Mailgun
SendGrid was launched in 2009 as an email API and since then, has grown into a full-service email platform. SendGrid aspires to be the largest email platform to send millions of emails per day with features like autoresponders, A/B testing, customizable branding, disposable email detection, and response management.
SendGrid aims to be an intuitive email marketing platform for businesses, but it misses out on helpful features such as activity tracking, churn management, and multi-channel communication.
Pros
- If you want to send transactional emails, then Sendgrid has better API functionality. However, for marketing emails, it might not be the best Mailgun alternative.
- SendGrid allows easy tracking and configuration for different email campaign metrics.
- The platform is easy to use and likely supports customizable email marketing design.
Cons
- SendGrid is a bit shaky when it comes to email deliverability and reliability.
- When customers face deliverability issues, they are usually advised to upgrade to the next pricing tier.
- The customer support is poor — if you want premium support, you have to pay extra.
SendGrid Pricing
SendGrid offers 3 pricing tiers with different features, customer support, and send volumes.
We’ll show you the pricing outline, but it’s always best you look through the pricing structure before making a decision.
- Sending 6000 emails? At $0 per month (2000 contacts),
- Sending 25,000 emails? Starting at $25 per month (15,000 contacts),
- Sending 50,000 emails? Starting at $60 per month (10,000 contacts).
Amazon SES: A Mailgun Alternative For Mass Emails
Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) is a part of Amazon Web Services and is a cost-effective email marketing platform for any business type. It’s often used for sending bulk emails, but it works for marketing and other email types too.
While the pricing is affordable, Amazon SES does not offer premium email marketing features — many users think that the features and services aren’t compatible with other marketing tools.
Pros
- If pricing is your concern when looking for a Mailgun alternative, then Amazon SES will be a good choice. It’s affordable and offers limited yet useful features for the price point.
- For daily newsletters, Amazon SES offers proper SPF and DKIM authentication.
- Customers point out that it’s easy to manage responses and track all emails from a user-friendly dashboard.
Cons
- Reviews online show that customers are not happy with the pricing system — if your emails contain high-resolution images or files, it will cost you money even with the free account.
- SES provides no support and expects users to troubleshoot issues on their own. If you lack technical knowledge or are new to email marketing, SES likely won’t be the right fit for you.
- Did your emails ever reach your intended audience? You’ll never know because SES has no deliverability tracking, which is a major flaw for marketers.
Amazon SES Pricing
- Sending 2,000 emails? At $0 (50 contacts per email),
- Sending 3,00,000 emails? At $30 (50 contacts per email),
- Additional $0.10/1000 emails after 62,000 emails on EC-2 hosted application,
- Additional pricing for dedicated IPs and virtual deliverability manager.
MailPoet: A Mailgun Alternative For Attractive Newsletters
If you’re looking for a good email plugin for WordPress, MailPoet makes the cut. Their USP is — to enjoy everything in one place; it works with any CMS platform. It’s pretty simple to use and allows you to design good-looking newsletters. Despite these features, MailPoet may not be the best fit for every email marketer.
The platform’s price point may be a concern for users looking for more affordable options. The services often get disconnected without proper reasoning, and its segmentation and integrations are limited to WordPress core features and Woocommerce only.
Pros
- You can integrate MailPoet with any WordPress site.
- MailPoet is beginner-friendly and does not require prior technical knowledge.
- It helps you build dynamic email campaigns and update your subscribers about your recent blog or website activities.
Cons
- You can only use it with WordPress, which means it does not support third-party website integrations.
- The platform is quick to disable email deliverability for any email that looks like spam. There’s no clarification involved, and the decision is solely made by MailPoet.
- Some users feel that the platform needs more built-in templates they can customize.
MailPoet Pricing
MailPoet is free for up to 1000 subscribers, which is useful if you’re testing your email marketing strategy.
However, if you’re locked in on your preferences, there are better options on this list.
- Sending up to 5000 emails? At $0 (1000 contacts),
- Unlimited emails at $55 (5,000 contacts),
- Unlimted emails at $240 (10,000 contacts).
Mandrill: User-friendly Add-on Service For Mailchimp
Mailchimp Transactional email (formerly Mandrill) is a Mailgun Alternative if you’re already a MailChimp user or are planning on becoming one. It’s only available as an add-on service for Mailchimp users, making it less usable for other marketers.
Users report that the platform is user-friendly and provides detailed analysis of the email campaigns. However, its support team might not be very active when it comes to solving customer queries. Many users also feel that this Mailgun alternative is a bit overpriced for its features.
Pros
- Mailchimp + Mailchimp transactional might act as a combo if your email marketing demands such features.
- A few users find the platform useful for its integration capabilities.
- The cross-service features of Mailchimp and Mailchimp transactional can reduce your uptime with each client. However, you can use this service only if you’re a Mailchimp user.
- Mailchimp transactional offers customizable analytics and an export API if you’re looking for a detailed analytics platform.
Cons
- A few users suggest that the API results are not completely visible from the administrator dashboard.
- You’ll have to pay for both Mailchimp and Mailchimp transactional, making it an expensive Mailgun alternative.
- Users also report that the emails tend to go missing or get sent to the wrong Gmail tabs.
Mailchimp Transactional Pricing
Mailchimp Transactional’s pricing usually depends on the number of emails sent and starts at $20/month for up to 25,000 emails.
Mailchimp calls it ‘blocks’ and each block consists of 25,000 emails.
- Sending 5,000 emails? At $20,
- Sending 50,000 emails? At $40,
- Sending 1,000,000 emails? At $720,
- These costs are additional to your Mailchimp monthly plan.
How to Choose an ESP Based on Pricing
If pricing is your concern, take a look at the ESPs on this list to understand their pricing packages at a glance. In the table below, we’ve only outlined the starter packs of all platforms. However, be mindful that each ESP offers different features and functionalities depending on the pricing tier.
Note: Campaign Refinery has a unique approach to pricing — we have a credit system and you only pay for what you use.
| Platform | Contact/Subscriber Limit | Email Send Limit | Pricing per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| SendGrid | 2,000 | 6,000 per month | $0 |
| Amazon SES | 50 contacts per email | 10,000 per month | $1 |
| MailPoet | 5000 | Unlimited emails per month | $55 |
| Mandrill | – | 5000 emails per month | $20 |
| Campaign Refinery | Unlimited contacts | 50,000 credits per month | Starting at $99 |