Short answer
For most developer teams the shortlist is Postmark, Resend, Groundmail, SendGrid and Mailgun, with Amazon SES as the lowest-cost option at very high volume if your team can take on more setup. At 50,000 emails a month, published prices run from $5 (Amazon SES a la carte, computed) to $55 (Postmark Basic), with the developer-focused APIs starting around $20; at 1,000,000 a month, most volume-priced plans cost $600 to $800, against $100 to $160 on SES (computed).
We make Groundmail, so weigh our entry with that in mind. Every competitor price below was read from the vendor's own public pricing page on 2026-10-16, and anything we couldn't verify is marked as such rather than guessed.
On this page
We make Groundmail. Here's how we built this list
Groundmail is our product: a transactional email API that runs on our own mail servers and our own IP space, with dedicated IPs and dedicated servers for senders who need isolation. That makes us a party to this comparison, not a referee. So instead of a score out of ten, this page gives you the numbers and the terms we could check on each vendor's own pages, with links, and tells you where we think each one fits.
Lists like this are often written by a vendor that ranks itself first. We've put Groundmail in the table and given it an entry like everyone else's, with its downsides stated. Where another vendor is the better choice for a use case, the "How to choose" section says so.
- Source: each vendor's public pricing page (and, where noted, its docs or support pages), read on 2026-10-16. Links are in each entry and in the sources at the end.
- Billing: monthly, in USD. Annual discounts aren't included.
- Which plan: for each volume, the cheapest self-serve plan whose included volume covers it. We don't add overage to a smaller tier unless the vendor publishes the overage rate and the result is cheaper.
- Computed values: where a vendor prices per email or per 1,000, we multiply the published rate by the volume and mark the result "(c)". These are list-price arithmetic, not quotes.
- Not verified: if a term wasn't on a page we could check, the cell says "—" or "not verified". We didn't fill gaps from memory or third-party reviews.
- Scope: transactional email, meaning password resets, sign-in codes, receipts, alerts and invites. Marketing features are mentioned only where they change the price or who shares the IPs.
Prices at 50k, 100k and 1M emails a month
| Vendor | Free tier | 50k / month | 100k / month | 1M / month | Dedicated IP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Groundmail (ours) | 3,000/mo, 100/day; card on file required, not charged | $20 (Pro) | $35 (Pro) | $650 (Scale) | Dedicated IPs: talk to us. Dedicated server from $299/mo incl. 250k |
| Resend | 3,000/mo, 100/day | $20 (Pro) | $35 (Pro) | $650 (Scale) | $30/mo add-on, Scale only, over 3,000/day |
| Postmark | 100/mo | $55 (Basic) | $115 (Basic 125k tier) | $775 (Basic 1.5M tier) | $50/IP/mo, 300k+/mo and Pro or higher |
| SendGrid | 60-day trial, 100/day | $19.95 (Essentials) | $34.95 (Essentials) | $799 (Pro 1.5M tier) | 1 included on Pro and Premier; extra $30/IP/mo |
| Mailgun | 100/day, 1 domain | $35 (Foundation) | $75 (Foundation) | $700 (Scale) | Included on Foundation 100k+ and Scale; extra $59/IP/mo |
| Amazon SES (Essentials, default for new accounts) | None for SES; new AWS customers get up to $200 in credits | $8 (c) | $16 (c) | $160 (c) | $24.95/IP/mo standard; managed $15/mo + $0.08/1k |
| Amazon SES (a la carte) | Same | $5 (c) | $10 (c) | $100 (c) | Same |
| MailerSend | 500/mo, card asked for | $35 (Starter) | $68 (Starter) | $600 (Starter) | — |
| Mailjet | 6,000/mo, 200/day | $40 (Essential) | $112 (Premium) | Custom | — |
| Brevo | 300/day | ~$56 (c, Starter) | ~$82 (c, Starter) | — | — |
| Bird (formerly SparkPost) | 1,000/mo | $45 (c, Startup $0.90/1k) | $90 (c, Startup) | $450 (c, Growth $0.45/1k) | $24.95/IP/mo on eligible plans |
| Loops (contact-based) | 1,000 contacts, 4,000 sends per 30 days | From $49 (5k contacts) | From $49 (5k contacts) | From $49 (5k contacts) | — |
| Plunk | 1,000/mo | $50 (c) | $100 (c) | $1,000 (c) | — |
Monthly billing, USD. (c) = computed from published rates. "—" = not published or not verified by us. SendGrid doesn't publish overage rates, so its 1M figure is the cheapest tier that includes 1M. Loops prices by contacts, not sends; see its entry below.
Last checked on each vendor's public page.
Three things stand out. First, the 50k entry price clusters around $20 (Groundmail, Resend, SendGrid), with Mailgun and MailerSend at $35, Mailjet at $40 and Postmark at $55. Second, at 1M most volume-priced APIs land between $600 and $800 a month; only Amazon SES and Bird's Growth rate sit well below that, while Plunk's flat per-email rate comes to $1,000. Third, Groundmail's Pro and Scale list prices are the same as Resend's at every tier. We aren't claiming to be cheaper than Resend; the difference is in the infrastructure and isolation options, covered next.
Dedicated IPs, shared pools and log retention
Price per email is only half the decision for transactional mail. The other half is who shares your IPs, whether you can get fixed IPs your customers can allowlist, and how long you can look back at what happened to a message. This table lists only what we could verify on the vendors' pages.
| Vendor | What shares the IPs | Dedicated IP terms | Log retention |
|---|---|---|---|
| Groundmail (ours) | Shared pool carries transactional mail only (AUP) | Dedicated IPs (quote); dedicated server from $299/mo incl. 250k, $0.80/1k after | Not published |
| Resend | Not verified | $30/mo add-on, Scale only, over 3,000 emails/day, automatic warmup | 30 days on Free, Pro and Scale |
| Postmark | Transactional and broadcast on separate streams; broadcast has its own IP pool | $50/IP/mo, no setup fee; 300k+/mo and Pro or higher | 45 days default on every plan; 7 to 365 days configurable |
| SendGrid | Trial and Essentials send from shared IPs | 1 included on Pro and Premier; extra $30/IP/mo | Email Activity: 3 days (Trial, Essentials), 7 days (Pro, Premier) |
| Mailgun | Not verified | Foundation: access at 50k, included at 100k+; Scale includes 1; extra $59/IP/mo | Logs: 1 day (Free, Basic), 5 days (Foundation), 30 days (Scale) |
| Amazon SES | Not verified | Standard $24.95/IP/mo, you manage warmup; managed $15/mo + $0.08/1k; included on Pro (1) and Enterprise (12) | Not verified |
| MailerSend | Not verified | Not verified | 1 day (Hobby), 7 days (Starter), 30 days (Professional) |
| Bird | Not verified | $24.95/IP/mo on eligible plans | Not verified |
| Loops | Transactional and marketing share your domain and a small shared Loops IP pool by default | Not verified | Not verified |
Mailjet, Brevo and Plunk are left out because we couldn't verify these terms on their pages.
Last checked on each vendor's public page.
If your shared pool also carries newsletters or bulk marketing, a spike in someone else's complaint rate can follow your password resets. That's why we list what the pool carries. For the longer version of this trade-off, see shared vs dedicated IP for transactional email.
Developer-first transactional APIs
These four are built around an API key, a JSON send call and webhooks, and are where most teams start. Groundmail is listed first because it's ours, not because it ranks first for every need.
Groundmail (ours)
- What's different: we run our own mail servers on our own IP space, and we offer both dedicated IPs and dedicated servers (your own mail server and IPs, built, warmed and managed by us). Our team has run mail servers at scale and worked with Google Postmaster and Spamhaus directly.
- Best for: transactional senders who want a shared pool that carries only transactional mail, and a path to dedicated IPs or a dedicated server later without changing code.
- Watch out for: it's transactional only, so marketing, newsletters and cold email need a different tool (AUP). A credit card on file is required even on Free (it isn't charged). Official SDKs are Node and Go today; other languages use the REST API or the SMTP relay. Dedicated IP pricing is by quote, and we don't publish a log retention figure.
- Price: Free 3,000/mo (100/day, 1 domain). Pro $20 for 50k, $35 for 100k, overage $0.90/1k, 10 domains. Scale $90 for 100k up to $1,150 for 2.5M ($650 at 1M), overage falling to $0.46/1k, up to 1,000 domains. Dedicated from $299/mo with 250k included. Every feature on every plan. These are the same list prices as Resend's Pro and Scale tiers.
- Link: pricing, quickstart, SMTP relay.
Resend
- Best for: teams that want official SDKs in many languages (Node.js, PHP, Laravel, Python, Ruby, Go, Java, Rust and .NET) and contact-based marketing email from the same vendor.
- Watch out for: a dedicated IP is a $30/mo add-on on Scale only, for senders above 3,000 emails a day. Data retention is 30 days on Free, Pro and Scale. Overage needs pay-as-you-go switched on and is billed in buckets of 1,000. Billing is monthly only.
- Price: Free 3,000/mo (100/day, 3 domains). Pro $20 for 50k, $35 for 100k. Scale $90 for 100k to $1,150 for 2.5M ($650 at 1M). Marketing plans are separate and contact-based (free for 1,000 contacts, paid from $40/mo for 5k), and broadcasts don't count against the transactional quota.
- Link: resend.com/pricing. Our detailed comparison: Groundmail vs Resend.
Postmark
- Best for: teams that value long default log retention (45 days on every plan, including Free, configurable from 7 to 365 days) and want transactional and broadcast mail on separate message streams, which Postmark describes as parallel but completely separate sending infrastructures.
- Watch out for: the highest list price of this group at 50k and 1M. The free Developer plan is 100 emails a month. Dedicated IPs cost $50/IP/mo and need at least 300,000 messages a month on Pro or higher. Basic overage is $1.80/1k on the smaller tiers.
- Price: Basic $15 (10k), $55 (50k), $115 (125k), $245 (300k), $455 (700k), $775 (1.5M). Pro and Platform cost more per tier; Basic includes 5 domains, Pro 10, Platform unlimited.
- Link: postmarkapp.com/pricing. See also Groundmail vs Postmark and Postmark vs Resend.
SendGrid (Twilio)
- Best for: teams that want one dedicated IP included from the Pro plan up, and a separate Marketing Campaigns product if needed.
- Watch out for: the free plan is a 60-day trial (100 emails a day, no card). Overage rates aren't published; the page says only that overage charges may apply. Email Activity history is 3 days on Trial and Essentials and 7 days on Pro and Premier. Essentials and Trial send from shared IPs.
- Price: Essentials $19.95 (50k), $34.95 (100k). Pro $89.95 (100k), $249 (300k), $499 (700k), $799 (1.5M), $1,099 (2.5M). Premier is custom. Extra dedicated IPs are $30/IP/mo.
- Link: SendGrid pricing. See Groundmail vs SendGrid and migrating from SendGrid.
Established platforms and marketing suites
Mailgun and MailerSend publish volume tiers up to 1M and beyond. Mailjet and Brevo sell marketing features alongside their API and SMTP sending, so check how marketing and transactional mail share quota and IPs before you choose them for password resets.
Mailgun
- Best for: senders around 100k a month and up who want a dedicated IP included in the plan, and lower per-1,000 rates at the top Scale tiers.
- Watch out for: log retention is 1 day on Free and Basic, 5 days on Foundation and 30 days on Scale. The free plan is 100 emails a day on 1 domain. Extra IPs cost $59/IP/mo.
- Price: Basic $15 (10k, overage $1.80/1k). Foundation $35 (50k), $75 (100k). Scale $90 (100k), $215 (250k), $400 (500k), $550 (750k), $700 (1M), $1,250 (2.5M, overage $0.40/1k).
- Link: mailgun.com/pricing. See Groundmail vs Mailgun.
MailerSend
- Best for: a low monthly entry price (Hobby is $7 for 5k) with published tiers up to 1M.
- Watch out for: the free plan is 500 emails a month and asks for a card. Retention is 1 day on Hobby, 7 days on Starter and 30 days on Professional.
- Price: Starter $35 (50k), $68 (100k), $325 (500k), $600 (1M).
- Link: mailersend.com/pricing.
Mailjet
- Best for: teams that want marketing features alongside API and SMTP sending, and a free tier of 6,000 emails a month (200 a day).
- Watch out for: pricing above 500k a month is a custom quote. We couldn't verify dedicated IP or retention terms.
- Price: Essential $40 (50k). Premium $112 (100k), $499 (500k).
- Link: mailjet.com/pricing.
Brevo
- Best for: one tool for marketing campaigns and transactional email under one quota.
- Watch out for: because the quota is shared, marketing sends and transactional sends draw on the same allowance. The 50k and 100k figures are computed from the Starter base price plus email credits. We couldn't verify 1M pricing, dedicated IPs or retention.
- Price: free 300 a day. Starter from $9; about $56 at 50k and $82 at 100k (computed).
- Link: brevo.com/pricing.
Lowest cost per email
Amazon SES
- Best for: very high volume where cost per 1,000 dominates, for teams comfortable configuring more of the pipeline themselves.
- Watch out for: since 2026-07-21, new accounts start on the Essentials plan at $0.16/1k (falling to $0.14 and $0.11 at higher volumes); the page says you can switch to a la carte at $0.10/1k at any time. Pro ($0.22/1k plus $105 per account per region per month) and Enterprise ($0.23/1k plus $500) include managed dedicated IPs (1 and 12 respectively). New accounts start in a sandbox: verified recipients only, 200 messages per 24 hours, 1 message a second, per region, until production access is approved. SMTP credentials are generated from IAM, and delivery events go out through configuration sets to services such as SNS or EventBridge. Standard dedicated IPs are $24.95/IP/mo and you manage warmup. Attachments add $0.12 per GB.
- Price: 50k: $8 on Essentials or $5 a la carte. 1M: $160 or $100 (computed). No SES-specific free allowance; new AWS customers get up to $200 in Free Tier credits.
- Link: aws.amazon.com/ses/pricing. See Groundmail vs Amazon SES and migrating from Amazon SES.
Bird (formerly SparkPost)
- Best for: high-volume senders comfortable with prepaid usage pricing; the Growth plan's $0.45/1k is the lowest published rate here after SES.
- Watch out for: plans are a monthly deposit (Startup $15, Growth $250) drawn down at the plan's per-email rate, and the balance is shared with Bird's other channels. Dedicated IPs are $24.95/IP/mo on eligible plans.
- Price: free 1,000 a month. Startup at $0.90/1k: $45 at 50k, $90 at 100k. Growth at $0.45/1k: $450 at 1M (computed).
- Link: bird.com/pricing/email.
Plunk
- Best for: teams that want an open source option (AGPL-3.0) they can self-host, or simple pay-per-email hosted pricing.
- Watch out for: at $0.001 per email, the hosted plan costs more than most volume tiers at 1M. We couldn't verify dedicated IP or retention terms.
- Price: free 1,000 a month, then $0.001 per email: $50 at 50k, $100 at 100k, $1,000 at 1M (computed).
- Link: useplunk.com/pricing.
Contact-based pricing: Loops
Loops doesn't price by emails sent. It prices by the number of contacts in your audience, with unlimited sends on paid plans. The free plan covers 1,000 contacts and 4,000 sends per 30 days; paid plans start at $49 a month for 5,000 contacts. According to the pricing page, transactional email to recipients who aren't in your audience is included.
That flips the usual maths. A product with a small marketing list and lots of transactional mail can pay a flat amount for a lot of sending (check Loops' terms against your volume). A product with a large audience pays by contact count, however little it sends. Compare both models against your own numbers before choosing.
- Best for: SaaS teams that want lifecycle, product and transactional email in one tool, priced by audience size.
- Watch out for: Loops' docs say transactional and marketing mail send from your domain and a small shared pool of Loops IPs by default. We couldn't verify dedicated IP or retention terms.
How to choose
| If you need | Look at | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Marketing and transactional email in one tool | Brevo, Mailjet, Loops; Resend or SendGrid with their separate marketing products; Postmark broadcast streams | One account and one template system. Check whether marketing shares IPs or quota with transactional mail. |
| The lowest cost at very high volume | Amazon SES, then Bird Growth | At 1M a month: $100 to $160 on SES and $450 on Bird Growth (computed), against $600 to $800 on most volume-priced plans. Budget for the setup and monitoring you take on. |
| Fixed IPs your customers can allowlist | Groundmail dedicated IPs or dedicated server; Postmark, Resend, SendGrid Pro, Mailgun, SES dedicated IPs | Check the volume floor and plan requirement for each. Postmark needs 300k+/mo on Pro or higher; Resend needs Scale and over 3,000/day. |
| A shared pool that carries transactional mail only | Groundmail; Postmark's transactional stream | Groundmail's AUP doesn't allow marketing on its IPs. Postmark keeps broadcast on separate infrastructure and its own IP pool. |
| Your own mail server, not just your own IPs | Groundmail Dedicated | From $299/mo with 250k included; nothing else in the queue but your mail. |
| Small audience, lots of sends | Loops (contact-based) | Flat price by contacts, with transactional sends to non-audience recipients included. |
| Large user base, predictable per-email cost | A volume-priced API | Contact-based pricing grows with your user count; volume pricing grows with what you send. |
| Long log history by default | Postmark | 45 days on every plan, configurable to 365. |
Last checked on each vendor's public page.
Whichever you pick, deliverability depends as much on your setup as on the vendor: SPF, DKIM and DMARC aligned on your own domain, bounces suppressed, and transactional mail kept apart from marketing. Start with SPF, DKIM and DMARC for transactional email and the Google, Yahoo and Microsoft sender rules.
If you'd like to try Groundmail, the free plan includes every feature; you need a verified domain and a card on file to send. Questions about dedicated IPs or a dedicated server go to contact@groundmail.dev.
Frequently asked questions
What is the cheapest transactional email API in 2026?
On published list prices, Amazon SES: $0.10 per 1,000 a la carte or $0.16 per 1,000 on the Essentials plan new accounts start on, so about $5 to $8 at 50,000 emails and $100 to $160 at 1,000,000 (computed). It has no SES-specific free allowance and new accounts start in a sandbox. Among plan-priced APIs, SendGrid Essentials ($19.95) and Groundmail and Resend ($20) are the cheapest at 50,000 a month.
Is Groundmail cheaper than Resend?
No. Groundmail's Pro and Scale list prices are the same as Resend's at every tier we checked on 2026-10-16, from $20 for 50,000 to $1,150 for 2.5 million. The differences are elsewhere: Groundmail runs on its own mail servers and IP space, its shared pool carries transactional mail only, and it offers dedicated IPs and dedicated servers. Resend offers more official SDKs and contact-based marketing plans.
Which email API has the best free tier?
By volume, Brevo (300 a day, so up to about 9,000 in a 30-day month) and Mailjet (6,000 a month, 200 a day) are the largest on this list. Groundmail and Resend give 3,000 a month at 100 a day, Bird and Plunk 1,000 a month, MailerSend 500 and Postmark 100. SendGrid's free option is a 60-day trial. Groundmail and MailerSend ask for a card on the free plan.
Which providers include a dedicated IP?
SendGrid includes one dedicated IP on Pro and Premier, Mailgun includes one on Scale and on Foundation from 100,000 emails, and Amazon SES includes managed dedicated IPs on its Pro and Enterprise plans. Postmark, Resend and Bird sell them as add-ons with conditions. Groundmail offers dedicated IPs by quote and dedicated servers from $299 a month.
Should transactional and marketing email use the same provider?
They can, as long as the two kinds of mail don't share reputation. Marketing mail draws more complaints, and if it shares IPs with your password resets those complaints can affect them. Ask whether marketing uses separate IPs or streams. Groundmail is transactional only, so if you use it you'd send marketing from another tool, ideally on a separate subdomain.
How often are these prices checked?
Every competitor price on this page was read from the vendor's public pricing page on 2026-10-16, the date shown above the tables. We update the date only when the prices have actually been re-checked.
Sources
Facts on this page about other companies' products, prices and policies come from these public pages. They change, so check them before you decide.
- Resend pricing
- Resend SDKs
- Postmark pricing
- Postmark dedicated IPs
- Postmark message streams
- SendGrid (Twilio) email API pricing
- SendGrid dedicated IP addresses
- Twilio Marketing Campaigns pricing
- Mailgun pricing
- Amazon SES pricing
- Amazon SES: request production access
- Amazon SES: SMTP connection
- Amazon SES developer guide
- MailerSend pricing
- Mailjet pricing
- Brevo pricing
- Bird email pricing
- Loops pricing
- Loops: transactional vs marketing email
- Plunk pricing