Mailgun vs SendGrid: Which One Has a Higher Deliverability Rate?

If you want to reach more subscriber inboxes, Mailgun vs SendGrid reviews might have caught your attention. Inbox placement is essential for a successful email marketing strategy — if subscribers never see your emails, customer trust and revenue will eventually take a hit.

Choosing between Mailgun and SendGrid might be challenging without comprehensive information on both platforms. We unpack every detail of these apps for better comparison.

Mailgun markets itself as the automation platform for developers. It offers a cloud-based service to send, receive, and track emails from websites or apps. The platform’s API helps developers monitor email performance and optimize emails. The inbound routing feature helps senders know precisely where their emails end up.

SendGrid is a cloud-based SMTP service that helps businesses send transactional emails. The platform also offers email marketing features such as automation, design templates, and sign-up forms. Twilio SendGrid provides application developers with deliverability expertise to ensure their emails reach the customers.

Mailgun and SendGrid simplify transactional email for developers and help manage their servers. If you’ve been weighing your options, this guide will show you Mailgun vs SendGrid comparison, including pros and cons, pricing, and ideal use cases.

Mailgun vs SendGrid — Which One Should You Choose?

Mailgun and SendGrid share similar core functionality geared towards different user types. If you’re looking for high email deliverability, your choices could differ based on each ESP. 

Feature #1: Email Deliverability

Email deliverability determines the success of email marketing, especially with transactional emails. Both Mailgun and SendGrid seem to offer similar deliverability rates. Let’s look at each of them.

Mailgun offers an email infrastructure and comprehensive deliverability features to optimize inbox placement. This includes managed deliverability service to provide API support, IP and domain reputation management, and monitoring of email programs. Mailgun shares that it has an average 97.4% delivery rate and promises a 99% inbox (deliverability) rate compared to the industry average of 85%.

SendGrid shares that its Email Validation API, which validates emails before sending them has increased delivery rates to the intended inbox. SendGrid appears to have a higher-than-average deliverability rate with automated IP warmup, SPF and DKIM authentication, branded links, and email validation tools. Their AI feature continually adapts to changing ISP rules, and its massive monthly scale of 90 billion emails generates data sufficient for machine learning.

Email Marketing Platform	Advantages	Disadvantages
Mailgun	Comprehensive deliverability features:  ‣ API support ‣ IP and domain reputation management ‣ Email program monitoring.	Known for lesser email deliverability and reliability in the past.
SendGrid	‣ Email Validation ‣ API and ACE features ‣ SPF and DKIM authenticationBranded links	Deliverability to Microsoft email address is poor with shared IP.

If you plan to choose Mailgun or SendGrid based on features other than deliverability, let’s discuss them further to help you lock in on an option.

Feature #2: Email Tracking 

Mailgun offers real-time data insights and segmentation options to track emails. The data is available through the control panel or API, and users can use webhooks to track their URLs. Additionally, the event tracking is automatically enabled except for unsubscribes, opens, and clicks, which users can enable later. All data for suppression lists (bounces, unsubscribes, and spam complaints) are stored indefinitely.  

SendGrid helps you track data in real time through customizable dashboards. The data exports allow you to run customized analyses and track clicks up to 1000 links per email. SendGrid also tracks transactional data, including notifications from email servers and actions that originate with users.

ESP	Tracking Advantages	Tracking Disadvantages
Mailgun	‣ Real-time data insights and segmentation options. ‣ Webhooks to track URLs.	The logs extend to 2 months only.
SendGrid	‣ Customizable dashboards ‣ Allows users to track transactional and deliverability data.	There is little information about tracking abilities, which could be challenging for beginners.

Campaign Refinery’s dashboard makes accessing multiple dynamic views of each campaign’s performance easy. For example, users can view broadcast data separate from campaign data and email metrics by date range.

Feature #3: Integration

Mailgun allows you to integrate APIs with existing applications with SMTP relays and comprehensive documentation. Their API library covers popular programming such as Python, Ruby, Java, and C# to suit your development needs. Mailgun may have limited integrations, but has strong partner connections with ecommerce and automated workflow apps.

SendGrid’s partner marketplace covers many apps, including Simon for better data understanding and FullContact to add insights to your customer database. SendGrid also allows you to integrate with websites through API documentation.

ESP	Integration Advantages	Integration Disadvantages
Mailgun	‣ SMTP relays ‣ Comprehensive API documentation	‣ Occasional error messages
SendGrid	‣ Website integration ‣ Comprehensive API documentation	‣ Occasional ‘Not being authenticated’ messages. ‣ Must verify your domain with SendGrid to send emails from the website

Campaign Refinery allows you to integrate with 800+ marketplaces for better optimization, including OptimizePress and PayKickstart.

Feature #4: Customer Support 

Customers often regard Mailgun as having better customer service than SendGrid. However, SendGrid may offer live chat support without a high-volume plan. On G2, Mailgun is rated 8.7/10, while SendGrid is rated 7.7/10.

User reviews on TrustPilot show that Mailgun is quicker to follow up with customer queries, especially when users are locked out of the account. Mailgun is also known to solve issues in under 24 hours of reporting. However, you can only access support tickets based on the plan. For example, you must be on their scale plan from $90/month to access live phone support.

SendGrid’s customer service may be slower than Mailgun’s, but it allows users to access ticket and chat support on the basic plan from $15 per month. However, customers say SendGrid takes almost 25 days or more to solve a query and they also suspend accounts without prior notice.

ESP	Customer Support Advantages	Customer Support Disadvantages
Mailgun	Usually resolves problems within 24 hours.	Limited support for low-tier users.
SendGrid	Provides expert assistance and access to ticket and chat support in low-tier plans.	‣ Slow customer service. ‣ The chat redirects to another page.

Campaign Refinery usually responds to customer queries within a few hours. Whether you want to maximize usage or have concerns, our support team is available 24/7 via email and phone calls.

Feature #5: Email Marketing Functionality

Mailgun clarifies that they are more for ‘Developers’ than marketers. While they may have sound API capabilities, their email marketing features may not be the best suited for all email enthusiasts. 

However, the platform resolves these issues through Mailjet: their dedicated email marketing feature. Mailjet allows you to choose from different email templates and build fresh ones with advanced drag-and-drop editor. Their other features include email automation, list management, real-time statistics, advanced segmentation, and personalization.

A notable feature is the ease of use — SendGrid offers a user-friendly dashboard and template creation tool to help build personalized marketing campaigns.

ESP	Email Marketing Advantages	Email Marketing Disadvantages
Mailgun	‣ Pretty easy to collect feedback and surveys ‣ Storage solutions ‣ Email analytics and automation ‣ Response handling	‣ Set-up can be problematic for non-developers ‣ Data retention for logs and API is 1 day ‣ No possibility to create custom domains
SendGrid	‣ Single, recurring emails ‣ Enter contacts without complex integrations	‣ Automation needs improvement

Campaign Refinery offers a beginner-friendly user interface, advanced automation and contacts segmentation functions, customizable email header and footer, and easy-to-set-up re-engagement rules.

Mailgun vs SendGrid Pricing: Which Platform Provides Value For the Money?

If pricing is your main concern, SendGrid offers a free plan while Mailgun provides a free trial. However, both platform’s pricing depends on the number of emails you send and your requirements with the tools.

Mailgun offers a free pilot plan for the first month; look at the table for more plans.

Mailgun Plan Type	Price	Features Included
Pilot	‣ Free for the first month  ‣ Renews at $49 after trial period	‣ Unlimited users ‣ 2,500 email address validations ‣ 25 inbox placement tests ‣ 500 email previews ‣ Detailed documentation ‣ Ticket support
Starter	$99 / month	‣ Unlimited users ‣ 5000 email address validations ‣ 50 inbox placement tests ‣ 1,000 email previews ‣ Spam trap monitoring (1 domain) ‣ Blocklist monitoring (1 IP, 1 Domain) ‣ Microsoft SNDS integration ‣ Other features as pilot
Custom Pricing	—	‣ Monitor a custom number of domains and IP addresses ‣ Custom email address validations ‣ Custom inbox placement tests ‣ Custom email previews ‣ Designated Technical Account Manager

With SendGrid, how much you pay depends on whether you require an API plan or marketing campaign plan. The table below shows the full pricing structure.

SendGrid Pricing Plans	Price	Features Included
Free	$0 / month	‣ Design and code editors ‣ Segmentation ‣ A/B testing  ‣ 3 Email Testing Credits  ‣ 1 Signup Form ‣ 1 Teammate ‣ Ticket support ‣ Automation
Basic	Starts at $15 / month	‣ Everything on the Free plan ‣ 10 Email Testing Credits ‣ 5 Signup forms ‣ Ticket and chat support
Advanced	Starts at $60 / month	‣ Everything on basic plan  ‣ 60 Email Testing Credits ‣ 15 Signup Forms ‣ Guaranteed response times on ticket, chat, and phone support ‣ 1,000 Teammates ‣ Automation  ‣ Dedicated IP included

If you’re not sending millions of emails yet, Mailgun may be the right option to test and scale your email marketing. However, if you want to scale and send marketing emails with advanced features, SendGrid could be a catch for its pricing.

Still, email marketers with serious lists and strategies might need a more powerful solution.

Mailgun vs SendGrid — How to Choose One For Your Growing Needs?

Both platforms can manage many transactional and marketing emails, and choosing one depends on your business needs.

Although Mailgun is a bit technical, it helps you get into the nitty-gritty details of your campaigns and ensures higher email deliverability. SendGrid is more beginner-friendly, focusing on email marketing templates and scalability. 

Overall, SendGrid might be a better choice for non-tech-savvy marketers wanting all the features under one roof for a free plan.

Features	Mailgun	SendGrid
Auto-responders	✅	✅
Disposable Email Detection	✅	✅
Customizable Branding	❌	✅
Real-Time Analytics	❌	✅
SMTP	✅	✅
Spam Blocker	✅	✅
Threat Protection	❌	✅
Whitelisting / Blacklisting	✅	✅
Unsubscribe Database	❌	✅
Click Tracking	❌	✅
Bulk Email Verification	✅	❌
Email Campaign Management	✅	✅

SendGrid has more features and functionality than Mailgun. 

However, if you’re looking for advanced features with higher deliverability and a pay-as-you-go model, Campaign Refinery will be the best fit. Read on to see why!

Choose the Best Deliverability on The Market Today

Amidst the sophisticated features, Campaign Refinery is big on list hygiene and email deliverability — our clients report a 600% increase after onboarding with us.

With flexible automation, integrated list hygiene, and a robust tagging system, Campaign Refinery gives you the inboxing you deserve.