Best SendGrid Alternatives for High-Volume Emails
Businesses and developers have long relied on SendGrid to send high volumes of emails. However, many people are now looking into alternative email solutions that provide better pricing, speed, deliverability, and security.
In this article, we review 5 SendGrid competitors and explore the top alternatives to SendGrid that won’t compromise on key features and email volumes while meeting your business needs.
Overview of Top SendGrid Alternatives
| Platform | Free Option | Best For | Stands Out For | Starting Price |
| E-commerce, SMBs | 4-month free trial | Developers, SMBs, Enterprises | Instant notifications, 45-day logs, intuitive interface | $6/month 10K emails |
| Amazon SES | Free tier available | Developers, Startups, Enterprises | Integration with AWS, robust API | $0.10 per 1,000 emails |
| Mailchimp Transactional | 500 free emails | Ecommerce, SMBs | Automation, CRM integration | $20/month 10K emails |
| Mailjet | 6K free emails/month | Marketing, SMBs | Drag and drop builder, A/B testing | $17/month 15K emails |
| Mailgun | 100 free emails/day | Developers, SaaS | Workflow automation, APIs | $15/month 10K emails |
What Does SendGrid Offer?
SendGrid is a popular cloud-based email delivery platform used by businesses to send:
- Transactional Emails: Welcome messages, password resets, order confirmations
- Marketing Emails: Newsletters, promotions, surveys
Easy SMTP setup, email analytics, automation tools, APIs, and deliverability options abound here. However, users are now considering SendGrid alternatives to resolve concerns around:
High and Complex Pricing
SendGrid’s pricing is expensive for mid to high-volume emails and increases rapidly as volumes grow. Only more costly plans allow certain demanded features like dedicated IPs.
Limited Free Plan
The free plan is way too limited — just one hundred emails daily.
Two-Factor Authentication Issues
Users frequently report problems with SendGrid’s 2FA preventing login access.
Other Disadvantages
- Dedicated IPs are needed to avoid reported deliverability issues.
- Customer support concerns after the acquisition by Twilio
- Extra fees for more sophisticated capabilities, such as a long email history
Now, we will discuss the best choices that overcome SendGrid’s flaws and offer related advantages.
Unione – Most Affordable & Powerful SendGrid Alternative
UniOne is a strong SendGrid competitor fit for all business sizes and an enterprise-grade transactional email solution.
| Pricing | Starts $6/month 10K emails |
| Free Tier | 6K emails/month for 4 months |
Key Advantages
- Affordable pricing that stays low as volumes increase
- Excellent deliverability, ensuring emails consistently reach inboxes
- Intuitive interface for easily sending precision transactional emails
- 4-month 6,000 email free tier for testing before upgrading
- Lightning-fast support via chat, phone, tickets
UniOne brings security, speed, and inbox placement to transactional email delivery.
UniOne gives developers webhooks, event notifications, bulk sending, and other automation features. SMBs benefit from scalability to 60+ million emails per hour and reliable deliverability at a fraction of SendGrid’s cost.
The free trial plan and transparent pricing make it easy for any business to get started. For any email volume, UniOne matches SendGrid’s dependability at more reasonable costs.
Amazon SES – Cheapest High-Volume Email Service
For startups and developers already using AWS, Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) is the cheapest SendGrid alternative.
| Pricing | $0.10 per 1,000 emails |
| Free Tier | 62K emails/month |
Key Advantages
- Lowest cost – pay only for what you use
- High scalability – has the capacity for billions of emails
- Dedicated IPs are included with all plans
- Easy AWS integrations like Lambda, S3, CloudWatch
Amazon SES is used by companies like Netflix and Reddit to send billions of emails a day.
It is great for developers building on AWS as well as high-volume senders because of pay-as-you-go pricing and high scalability. Even at scale, the cost per email remains low.
The free tier, available for existing AWS users only, allows as much as 62,000 emails per month, letting startups fully test capabilities before paying.
For those leveraging AWS, Amazon SES is the simplest and cheapest high-volume alternative to SendGrid.
Mailchimp Transactional – Top Pick for Mailchimp Users
Mailchimp Transactional Email (formerly Mandrill) is the best choice for existing Mailchimp users needing to add transactional email capabilities.
| Pricing | From $20/month |
| Free Tier | 500 emails free |
Key Advantages
- Deep Mailchimp integrations like shared contacts and email activity syncing
- Drag and drop templates
- Automation with Mailchimp journeys
- Scales to 300K emails/month out of the box
This tool isn’t a standalone option – rather, it’s an add-on for Mailchimp marketing users to enable sending triggering and workflow emails.
Pricing is based on “email blocks,” starting at 10,000 emails per month for $20.
For Shopify stores, Mailchimp Transactional can be connected to sync order data and send shipping and tracking updates. Surveys and post-purchase review requests can also be automated.
For existing Mailchimp users, this add-on enables precisely targeted and timed transactional emails to be sent that complement bulk marketing campaigns.
Mailjet – Easy-to-Use Email Marketing & Delivery
Mailjet simplifies creating, sending, and tracking both marketing and transactional emails.
| Pricing | From $17/month |
| Free Tier | 6,000 emails/month |
Key Advantages
- User-friendly drag & drop editor
- Real-time analytics dashboard
- Team collaboration tools
- Double opt-in contact management
The service’s easy-to-use dashboard provides real-time access to email campaigns, contact lists, and reports to improve deliverability.
Granular segmentation and grouping of contacts help target transactional emails precisely. Open-and-click tracking provides insights into an engagement.
Mailjet offers an SMTP option for getting started and a free plan with 6,000 emails per month. This plan allows new users to set up and test capabilities at no cost. Overall, the platform balances simplicity and power across core email functions, from large-volume sending to real-time analytics.
Mailgun – Best for Developers & Email Automation
Mailgun is an email API service that makes sending, tracking, and automating emails easy for developers and businesses.
| Pricing | From $35/month |
| Free Tier | Limited use |
Key Advantages
- Powerful APIs – SMTP, REST, Webhooks
- Automation – scheduled sending, routing, tagging
- Deliverability tools – address validation, spam checks
Mailgun shines when it comes to developers and businesses wanting to build automated workflows for sending emails using its API and webhooks.
Drag and drop templates provide an easy starting point while all data and activity can be managed programmatically.
Control over high-volume email processes is achieved through advanced tools such as address validation, storage, analytics, and routing. Role-based access allows large teams to share responsibilities.
Mailgun’s pricing begins at $35 per month for up to 50,000 emails, which is great value for automation-focused use cases.
Other Worthy Alternatives to SendGrid
While the above solutions are among the top contenders, here are a few other SendGrid alternatives to consider:
- SparkPost – Targeted email APIs for developers and marketers.
- Postmark – Developer-friendly email delivery with tracking and monitoring.
- SendinBlue – All-in-one marketing and transactional email platform.
Choosing the Right SendGrid Alternative
When choosing an alternative to SendGrid, start by outlining your use cases, priorities, and must-have features.
- Are you looking to improve deliverability, lower costs, or scale higher volumes?
- Do you need automation features, versatile APIs, or an easy drag-and-drop builder?
- Will you send marketing and promotional emails or just transactional messages?
4 Tips for Effective Email Communication + 3 Things to Avoid(Opens in a new browser tab)
There are free tiers for testing the capabilities firsthand, so preference services offer this option.
To sum it up, UniOne is the recommended full SendGrid alternative for its robust infrastructure at an affordable price.
Amazon SES is the champion for high-volume delivery integrated with AWS, but Mailgun is the best one for developers who are building automated workflows.
If you’re a Shopify merchant using Mailchimp, its Transactional Email add-on fills in the blanks.
Hopefully, this breakdown of the top SendGrid competitors will allow you to find a competitor that will fit your needs just right.
Most importantly, don’t blindly accept unreliable deliverability, convoluted pricing, or unacceptable support. There are better and cheaper options to look into.
