12 Best Mailgun Alternatives in 2026 (Free & Paid) — Honestly Compared

Last updated: September 2026 | Pricing verified on September 13, 2026 | 15 min read

Mailgun is a capable email API with one recurring complaint that shows up in almost every review: you can’t see what happened to your email last week. Log retention is one day on the Free and Basic plans and five days on Foundation; 30-day logs only arrive on Scale at $90/month. Add a free tier of 100 emails a day, ticket-only support on the lower plans, and a price that steps from $15 to $35 to $90 as you cross 10,000, 50,000, and 100,000 emails, and developers start looking around, especially now that Mailgun’s siblings under Sinch (Mailjet, Email on Acid) pull its roadmap toward the enterprise.

We compared 12 Mailgun alternatives on deliverability, API and SMTP quality, price at 10,000, 100,000, and 500,000 emails a month, log and event visibility, and support. Every price was verified on the provider’s official pricing page on September 13, 2026. The short version: Mailercloud’s Email API is the best Mailgun alternative in 2026 for teams that want transactional sending with inbox visibility at a flat price: $10/month for 50,000 emails, $100 for 500,000, REST and SMTP, webhooks, and Inbox Tracker to show whether mail landed in the inbox or spam. For pure developer sending, Postmark, Amazon SES, and Resend are excellent and we say where each wins.

Why People Are Leaving Mailgun in 2026

• Log retention. One day on Free and Basic, five days on Foundation, 30 days only on Scale ($90/month). Debugging a delivery problem from last Thursday on a $15 plan isn’t possible.
• The free tier is small. 100 emails a day, with the same one-day logs. Mailtrap, Mailjet, and Resend offer 3,000–6,000 a month free.
• Support is tiered. Ticket-only on lower plans; faster channels and account management sit on Scale and enterprise.
• Price steps at volume. $15 for 10,000, $35 for 50,000, $90 for 100,000, and custom pricing above that. At 500,000 emails a month several alternatives are a fraction of the cost.
• No inbox placement visibility. Mailgun reports delivered, opened, and clicked; it can’t tell you whether “delivered” meant inbox or spam.
• Enterprise drift. Since the 2021 acquisition by Sinch, Mailgun’s roadmap has leaned toward larger senders, and users on G2 note the shift.

None of these make Mailgun a bad product. They make it the wrong fit for a lot of the teams that started on it.

How We Ranked These Alternatives

1. Deliverability and speed — inbox placement, time-to-inbox, and separation of transactional traffic
2. Price at real volumes — 10,000, 100,000, and 500,000 emails a month, including dedicated IPs and log retention
3. API and SMTP quality — documentation, SDKs, webhooks, templates, inbound routing where it matters
4. Visibility — log retention, event tracking, and whether you can see where mail landed
5. Support and reliability — channels on entry plans, uptime commitments, account-suspension risk

Deliverability observations draw on EmailTooltester’s 2026 inbox-placement rounds where a provider was tested, plus G2 and Reddit reports.

Transactional-Only or Transactional Plus Marketing?

Mailgun is a transactional API with marketing bolted on through Mailjet. Before you replace it, decide which you need. Transactional-only services (Postmark, Amazon SES, Resend, SMTP2GO, Mailtrap, ZeptoMail) are fast, cheap per email, and deliberately limit bulk marketing. Combined platforms (Mailercloud, Brevo, Mailjet, SendGrid, MailerSend, Elastic Email) give you the API plus campaigns, automation, and contact management. We rank Mailercloud first because most product teams eventually need both, and it prices the API side like a developer tool rather than bundling it into a marketing plan.

At-a-Glance Comparison

1. Mailercloud Email API — Best Overall Mailgun Alternative

Mailercloud’s Email API is the best Mailgun alternative in 2026 because it answers the two questions Mailgun leaves open on its lower plans: what happened to my email, and where did it land. Message-level logs run from queued to delivered to opened, with readable error responses, and Inbox Tracker (an add-on on Pro and above) shows placement across Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo, something no pure transactional API on this list provides.

The API itself covers what a Mailgun migration needs: a REST endpoint and an SMTP relay, webhooks for delivered, bounced, opened, clicked, and complaint events, guided SPF, DKIM, and DMARC setup, and dedicated IPs on the higher plans. Mailercloud quotes around one-second transactional delivery, 1,000+ emails per second throughput, and a 99%+ transactional delivery rate.

Pricing is flat rather than stepped: Basic is $10/month for 50,000 emails (Mailgun Foundation is $35 for the same volume), Pro is $100/month for 500,000, and Platform is $450/month for 2.5 million with a 99.9% SLA. The trade-offs: a 14-day trial with 100 test emails rather than a permanent free tier, 7-day log retention on Basic (30 on Pro), Inbox Tracker and dedicated IPs as paid add-ons, no inbound email routing, and a smaller SDK ecosystem than Mailgun’s. The same account includes Mailercloud’s marketing platform if you need campaigns and automation.

Key Features

• REST API and SMTP relay on every plan
• Webhooks for delivered, bounced, opened, clicked, and complaint events
• Inbox Tracker add-on for placement across Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo
• ~1-second delivery, 1,000+ emails/second, 99%+ transactional delivery
• Message-level logs with readable error codes; 7-day retention on Basic, 30-day on Pro
• Guided SPF, DKIM, DMARC; up to 5 custom domains on Basic
• Dedicated IPs ($50/month per IP) on Pro and Platform; 99.9% SLA on Platform
• Marketing platform (campaigns, automation, segmentation) in the same account

Pricing: Basic $10/month for 50,000 emails; Pro $100/month for 500,000; Platform $450/month for 2.5M. 14-day trial, no credit card.

Best for: Product and SaaS teams that want transactional and marketing email from one vendor with inbox-placement visibility.

Verdict: If Mailgun’s one-day logs and “delivered” that means “somewhere” are why you’re here, Mailercloud fixes both for less than Mailgun Foundation. Start a free trial →

2. Postmark — Best for Deliverability and Speed

Postmark is the transactional specialist: separate streams for transactional and broadcast mail, published time-to-inbox data, excellent documentation, 45 days of full message retention on paid plans, and a 93.8% average inbox placement in EmailTooltester’s 2026 rounds. It added a free plan in 2026 (100 emails a month) and Basic starts at $15/month for 10,000. The cost is per-thousand overages ($1.20–$1.80) that put 500,000 emails at roughly $600–$800 a month, and dedicated IPs require 300,000+ monthly volume.

Key Features

• Separate transactional and broadcast streams
• Published time-to-inbox metrics; 45-day message retention
• Official SDKs and top-tier documentation
• Free plan: 100 emails/month

Pricing: Free for 100 emails/month. Basic from $15/month for 10,000; overages from $1.20 per 1,000.

Best for: Teams where time-to-inbox on transactional mail matters more than price at volume.

3. Amazon SES — Best for the Lowest Cost at Scale

Amazon SES is $0.10 per 1,000 emails at any volume: a million a month for $100. It runs on Amazon’s own infrastructure and integrates with the rest of AWS. What it lacks is a product: no real dashboard, no templates worth the name, no placement view, paid support only, and a sandbox limiting new accounts to 200 emails a day until production access is granted. Dedicated IPs are $24.95/month. Right for engineering-led teams at volume; wrong for anyone who wants to be sending by lunch.

Key Features

• $0.10 per 1,000 emails
• Deep AWS integration (SNS for bounces, CloudWatch, Lambda)
• Virtual Deliverability Manager (extra cost)
• Dedicated IPs from $24.95/month

Pricing: $0.10 per 1,000 emails. Free tier on new AWS accounts in year one.

Best for: High-volume senders with engineers to build the tooling.

4. SendGrid — Best-Known API, Now Without a Free Plan

SendGrid (Twilio) has the largest SDK and integration ecosystem in the category and handles very high volume on dedicated IPs. Essentials is $19.95/month for 50,000 emails and Pro $89.95 for 100,000 with a dedicated IP. The permanent free plan was replaced by a 60-day trial, support on entry tiers is ticket-only, and shared-IP deliverability complaints recur; EmailTooltester’s 2026 rounds put it at 82% average placement. Our SendGrid alternatives post covers the migration options in depth.

Key Features

• Largest SDK and integration ecosystem
• Dynamic templates with Handlebars
• Dedicated IP and subusers on Pro
• 60-day trial (no free plan)

Pricing: 60-day trial. Essentials from $19.95/month for 50,000; Pro from $89.95/month for 100,000.

Best for: Teams already invested in the Twilio ecosystem.

5. Brevo — Best Transactional Plus Marketing Suite

Brevo bundles a transactional API and SMTP with campaigns, SMS, WhatsApp, a CRM, and automation, with unlimited contacts and pricing by volume (Starter from around $9/month for 5,000 emails). The free plan’s 300-a-day cap limits it to hobby use, transactional and marketing share one volume allowance, and its 79.8% average placement in EmailTooltester’s rounds trails the specialists.

Key Features

• Transactional API and SMTP inside a full marketing suite
• SMS and WhatsApp
• Unlimited contacts; pricing by volume
• Free plan: 300 emails/day

Pricing: Free with 300 emails/day. Starter from around $9/month for 5,000 emails.

Best for: Small teams that want transactional, SMS, and marketing in one cheap account.

6. Mailjet — Best for Teams Leaving Mailgun Within the Sinch Family

Mailjet is Mailgun’s sibling at Sinch, sharing infrastructure, with a collaborative template editor (roles and approvals) that suits teams where marketers design what developers send. Free plan is 6,000 emails a month (200 a day), Essential from $17/month for 15,000, and 85% average placement in EmailTooltester’s 2026 testing. The API is less developer-focused than Mailgun’s, and advanced features sit on Premium.

Key Features

• Collaborative template editor with approvals
• Transactional API and SMTP
• Free plan: 6,000 emails/month
• Same infrastructure family as Mailgun

Pricing: Free for 6,000 emails/month. Essential from $17/month for 15,000.

Best for: Teams that want Mailgun’s infrastructure with a marketer-friendly editor.

7. MailerSend — Best Low-Cost API With a Template Builder

MailerSend pairs an API and SMTP relay with a drag-and-drop template builder, inbound routing, an SMS API, and fast domain approval. Free plan is 500 emails a month, Hobby is $5.60/month for 5,000, and Starter $25/month for 50,000. It averaged 86.8% placement in EmailTooltester’s 2026 rounds. The template builder is the reason to pick it over pure-API tools.

Key Features

• Drag-and-drop transactional template builder
• API, SMTP, inbound routing, SMS API
• Free plan: 500 emails/month
• Fast domain approval

Pricing: Free for 500 emails/month. Hobby $5.60/month for 5,000; Starter $25/month for 50,000.

Best for: Small teams that want non-developers to edit transactional templates.

8. SMTP2GO — Best Value for a Simple SMTP Relay

SMTP2GO is a relay with an API, automatic DKIM and SPF, subaccounts, and phone, chat, and ticket support on every paid plan. It posted the best inbox placement in EmailTooltester’s 2026 tests (95.5% average). Free plan is 1,000 emails a month; Starter $10/month for 10,000; Professional $75/month for 100,000 with a dedicated IP. No template engine, no marketing side, no placement reporting.

Key Features

• SMTP relay plus API
• Best measured placement in EmailTooltester’s 2026 tests
• Phone support on all paid plans
• Free plan: 1,000 emails/month

Pricing: Free for 1,000 emails/month. Starter $10/month for 10,000; Professional $75/month for 100,000.

Best for: Anyone who needs a dependable relay and a person to call.

9. Mailtrap — Best for Testing and Sending Together

Mailtrap’s sandbox is the standard way to test transactional templates without emailing real users, and its production sending is among the cheapest at 100,000 emails a month ($30 on Basic). Free plan is 4,000 emails a month (150 a day); Basic from $15/month for 10,000; Business with dedicated IP and auto warm-up from $85. Placement in EmailTooltester’s tests was uneven (77% average). Log retention is 3–5 days on Free and Basic, so it doesn’t fix Mailgun’s log problem on entry plans.

Key Features

• Email sandbox plus production sending
• $30/month for 100,000 emails on Basic
• Dedicated IP with auto warm-up on Business
• Free plan: 4,000 emails/month

Pricing: Free for 4,000 emails/month. Basic from $15/month for 10,000; $30/month for 100,000.

Best for: Development teams that want staging and production under one account.

10. Resend — Best Modern Developer API

Resend is the API developers recommend for new projects: minimal, well documented, SDKs for every major language, React Email for component-based templates, and a fast dashboard. Free plan is 3,000 emails a month (100 a day), Pro $20/month for 50,000, Scale $90/month for 100,000, with 30-day data retention on all plans and dedicated IPs at $30 on Scale. It’s newer than Mailgun and has less history at very high volume.

Key Features

• Minimal API with SDKs for every major language
• React Email templates
• 30-day retention on every plan
• Free plan: 3,000 emails/month

Pricing: Free for 3,000 emails/month. Pro $20/month for 50,000; Scale $90/month for 100,000.

Best for: Developers starting fresh who want the cleanest API.

11. ZeptoMail — Best Ultra-Cheap Transactional-Only

ZeptoMail (Zoho) is transactional-only by policy, which keeps its shared IPs clean. Credits cover 10,000 emails each, the first is free for a month, and pricing works out around $2.50 per 10,000, cheaper than everything but SES. No marketing sends allowed, basic dashboard, credits expire after six months.

Key Features

• Transactional-only policy
• 1 credit = 10,000 emails; first credit free
• SMTP and API with templates and webhooks
• Zoho ecosystem

Pricing: First 10,000 emails free. Credits from about $2.50 per 10,000, valid six months.

Best for: OTPs, receipts, and alerts on a minimal budget.

12. Elastic Email — Best Budget API Plus Marketing

Elastic Email offers a transactional API and SMTP with pay-as-you-go pricing around $0.10 per 1,000 emails, plus marketing plans from $15/month, making it one of the cheapest combined options. The compromise is deliverability: it averaged 59.5% inbox placement in EmailTooltester’s 2026 rounds, the lowest of the tested providers, so it suits low-stakes or high-volume-low-margin sending rather than password resets.

Key Features

• Transactional API and SMTP plus marketing campaigns
• Pay-as-you-go from ~$0.10 per 1,000 emails
• Marketing plans from $15/month
• Dedicated IPs available

Pricing: Pay-as-you-go from ~$0.10 per 1,000 emails; marketing plans from $15/month.

Best for: Budget senders who can tolerate lower placement.

What 100,000 Emails a Month Costs on Each

Service	10,000/month	100,000/month	500,000/month
Mailgun (for reference)	$15 (Basic)	$90 (Scale)	Custom
Mailercloud Email API	$10 (Basic, 50K)	$100 (Pro, 500K)	$100 (Pro, 500K)
Amazon SES	$1	$10	$50
ZeptoMail	~$2.50	~$25	~$125
Mailtrap	$15	$30	$300 (Business)
Resend	$20 (Pro, 50K)	$90 (Scale)	~$450
SMTP2GO	$10	$75	~$415
MailerSend	$5.60	~$50	~$200
Mailjet	$17 (15K)	~$95	~$400
SendGrid	$19.95 (50K)	$89.95 (Pro)	~$499
Postmark	$15	~$150	~$600
Brevo	~$17	~$69	~$300
Elastic Email	~$1	~$10	~$50

At 100,000 emails a month Mailgun’s Scale plan ($90) is mid-pack; at 500,000 it becomes a custom quote while Mailercloud stays at $100 and SES at $50. Among services with a real dashboard, logs, and support, Mailercloud is the cheapest at volume by a wide margin.

Free Mailgun Alternatives Worth Trying

Mailgun’s free tier is 100 emails a day with one-day logs. These give you more at $0:

Service	Free allowance	Notes
Mailjet	6,000/month (200/day)	Marketing features included
Mailtrap	4,000/month (150/day)	Plus unlimited sandbox testing
Resend	3,000/month (100/day)	30-day logs even on free
Brevo	300/day (~9,000/month)	Shared with marketing sends
SMTP2GO	1,000/month	Best measured deliverability
MailerSend	500/month	Template builder
Postmark	100/month	No expiry
ZeptoMail	First 10,000 (one month)	Transactional only
Mailercloud	14-day trial, 100 test emails	Then $10 for 50,000

How to Choose the Right Mailgun Alternative

• You want to know where emails land, not just that they sent → Mailercloud
• Time-to-inbox on transactional mail is everything → Postmark
• Millions of emails and an engineering team → Amazon SES
• Largest ecosystem, Twilio stack → SendGrid
• Transactional + SMS + marketing, cheap → Brevo
• Mailgun’s infrastructure with a marketer’s editor → Mailjet
• Non-developers editing templates → MailerSend
• A relay with phone support → SMTP2GO
• Staging sandbox plus sending → Mailtrap
• The nicest new-project API → Resend
• OTPs and receipts on a shoestring → ZeptoMail
• Cheapest combined API + marketing → Elastic Email

How to Migrate From Mailgun

1. Inventory what you send. Transactional templates, webhook consumers, inbound routes (if you use Mailgun’s routing, confirm the alternative supports it; Mailercloud, Postmark, Resend, and SES don’t offer inbound parsing the same way; MailerSend and SendGrid do).
2. Authenticate the new sending domain with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC before switching traffic. Our SPF, DKIM and DMARC guide covers it.
3. Recreate templates and webhooks on the new service; map Mailgun event names to the new provider’s.
4. Run both in parallel for a few days: route a small share of traffic to the new provider and compare delivery and bounce rates.
5. Warm up dedicated IPs if you’re moving to one; shared pools don’t need it.
6. Cut over and monitor placement for two weeks. Keep the Mailgun account alive until you’re sure.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best alternative to Mailgun?

Mailercloud’s Email API is the best Mailgun alternative in 2026 for teams that want flat pricing ($10/month for 50,000 emails, $100 for 500,000), REST and SMTP, webhooks, readable logs, and Inbox Tracker to see whether email reached the inbox or spam, which Mailgun can’t show. Postmark is the best pure transactional specialist for speed, Amazon SES the cheapest at scale, and Resend the cleanest API for new projects.

Is there a free alternative to Mailgun?

Yes. Mailjet (6,000 emails/month), Mailtrap (4,000/month), Resend (3,000/month with 30-day logs), SMTP2GO (1,000/month), and Postmark (100/month) all have permanent free plans larger or more useful than Mailgun’s 100 a day. Mailercloud’s Email API offers a 14-day trial with 100 test emails, then $10/month for 50,000 emails.

What is the cheapest Mailgun alternative?

Amazon SES is the cheapest Mailgun alternative at $0.10 per 1,000 emails, followed by Elastic Email and ZeptoMail. Among services with a full dashboard, logs, and support, Mailercloud is the cheapest at volume: $100/month for 500,000 emails against Mailgun’s custom pricing at that level and $90 for 100,000.

Why is Mailgun’s log retention so short?

Mailgun limits log retention by plan: one day on Free and Basic, five days on Foundation, and 30 days only on Scale ($90/month). Alternatives with longer retention on entry plans include Resend (30 days on every plan), Postmark (45 days of message content on paid plans), and Mailercloud (7 days on Basic, 30 on Pro).

Does Mailercloud support inbound email routing like Mailgun?

No, Mailercloud’s Email API is outbound-focused (REST, SMTP, webhooks) and does not offer Mailgun-style inbound routing. If inbound parsing is essential, MailerSend and SendGrid offer it; otherwise Mailercloud covers outbound transactional and marketing email with inbox-placement visibility Mailgun lacks.

Can I migrate from Mailgun easily?

Yes. Migrating from Mailgun means authenticating a new sending domain, recreating templates and webhook handlers on the new provider, running both in parallel briefly, and cutting over. Most teams complete it in a day or two; the parts that need care are inbound routes, if you use them, and warming up a dedicated IP if you’re moving to one.

Is Mailgun still good in 2026?

Mailgun is still a capable, high-volume email API with strong documentation, inbound routing, and email validation, and it remains a good choice on the Scale plan where 30-day logs and a dedicated IP are included. Its weaknesses are on the lower plans: one-day logs, ticket-only support, a small free tier, and no inbox placement visibility, which is why teams on Basic and Foundation look at alternatives like Mailercloud.

Final Verdict: Why Mailercloud is the Best Mailgun Alternative

Mailgun works. It just makes you pay $90 a month to see what happened to your email, and it never tells you whether “delivered” meant the inbox. Here’s why Mailercloud is the better choice in 2026:

• Inbox visibility: Inbox Tracker shows placement across Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo; Mailgun has no equivalent
• Flat pricing: $10 for 50,000 and $100 for 500,000, against Mailgun’s $35 for 50,000 and custom pricing at 500,000
• Logs you can read: message-level, queued to opened, with plain-language errors; 30 days on Pro
• API and SMTP with webhooks on every plan; ~1-second delivery
• Marketing in the same account when you need campaigns alongside transactional mail

Mailercloud isn’t the answer for everyone. If you rely on Mailgun’s inbound routing or validation API, MailerSend or SendGrid are closer replacements; if you send tens of millions of emails with an engineering team, Amazon SES is cheaper; and Mailercloud’s SDK ecosystem is smaller than Mailgun’s, with a trial rather than a free tier. But for the common case, a product that sends receipts, resets, and alerts and wants to know they arrived, Mailercloud does the job for less.