8 best SendGrid alternatives for 2025 (free & paid)

Reading Time: 9 minutes

If you want to send transactional and marketing emails at scale, you might be considering SendGrid. It’s used by high-profile businesses like Spotify and Airbnb, with over 90 billion emails sent every month on the platform. 

However, there are also lots of SendGrid alternatives to consider, to ensure you’re getting all the features you need alongside value for money.

To make your decision easier, we’ve put seven of the leading SendGrid competitors to the test. 

In this article, we’ll outline what SendGrid has to offer, provide an overview of the alternatives, then dig deeper into each option. 

Our method of research

Each of these SendGrid alternatives has been selected based on a wide range of criteria. This includes key features, pricing, user reviews from reputable sites, and first-person testing by our team. 

We’ve also scoured the web for other comparison articles to make sure we’re not missing anything important. The result is an overview of the best SendGrid competitors, which is both comprehensive and objective.

What does SendGrid have to offer?

SendGrid is a popular email API and marketing campaigns platform, providing intuitive tools for designing and sending emails. Its solutions cater to various needs, from transactional emails to sophisticated marketing campaigns. Features include seamless API integrations and detailed deliverability insights.

Pros:

• SendGrid is easy to set up and integrate with lots of third-party apps
• It has great analytics and reporting with insights into lots of different metrics
• Its customer service has been praised for simple documentation
• There’s a free tier, so businesses can try the software without any cost

Cons:

• Some users report deliverability issues
• Email automations are difficult to master
• Customer support is slow, especially when problems arise
• Starting at $15 per month, it’s more expensive than some of the alternatives

SendGrid alternatives: overview

Here’s an overview of the results:

Alternative	Best for	Free plan	Paid plans starting from	Extra marketing features
Omnisend	Ecommerce businesses	✅	$16 / month	Email template library, Drag and drop builderAutomated workflows
Maileroo	Ecommerce businesses	✅	$10 / month	Personalization and campaign performance optimization
Moosend	Large businesses	❌	$9 / month	In-depth A/B testingRefined analytics
Mailtrap	Small businesses	✅	$10 / month	Helicopter view dashboardCritical alerts for email performance
Amazon SES	AWS users	✅	$0.10 per 1,000 emails	AWS integrationMailbox simulator
Mailchimp	Agencies	✅	$13 / month	Content Studio for asset management, Social media capabilities
Postmark	Small businesses	✅	$10 / month	Message Streams to separate promotional, bulk, and transactional emails
Mailgun	Developers	✅	$15 / month	Built-in verification service

Base rates can be misleading when comparing pricing for SendGrid alternatives. You can get a much better idea of costs using our email provider pricing comparison, which clearly outlines the different tiers available for each platform based on your specific requirements.

Use our email pricing calculator below to quickly compare costs and features with other top platforms. Input your desired number of contacts, choose up to two other email marketing providers from the list, and see how Omnisend stacks up against them.

8 best SendGrid alternatives

Now it’s time to dig a little deeper. Below, we’ll look at all the features, pricing, and support available for the various alternatives to SendGrid. First up…

1. Omnisend

⭐ G2 rating: 4.6/5

? Pricing – from $16/month

Both Omnisend and SendGrid have a free plan. With Omnisend, you get 500 emails per month to 250 contacts and 50 published reviews on Shopify for free each month. SendGrid doesn’t specify the number of contacts but provides 100 emails per day with permission for just one user.

Moving up to the paid plans, Omnisend’s Standard package starts at just $16 per month with up to 500 contacts, 6,000 emails each month, and unlimited web push notifications. SendGrid’s Essentials provides up to 50,000 emails but starts at $19.95.

Finally, Omnisend offers a Pro plan from $59 per month. That includes unlimited emails, web push notifications, and published reviews. SendGrid’s Pro plan is a little pricier from $89.95 per month, rising if you exceed 150,000 monthly emails.

Features

• Email builder
  
  As it was built for ecommerce, Omnisend has features specifically designed to help you increase sales — such as the Product Recommender. You can also add products directly from a compatible store, and Omnisend will automatically include the image, details, and price. 
  
  SendGrid features a drag-and-drop editor, with the option of a code editor for more advanced users. Using the drag-and-drop function, you can select from a range of content types, such as images, text, and columns.

• List building features
  
  Omnisend makes it easy to build an email list with its array of signup forms, popups, and landing pages. There are templates to choose from — or you can build your own from scratch with the intuitive form builder.
  
  SendGrid also has useful features like adding and updating contacts with CSV uploads and creating strategic segments.

• Marketing automation 
  
  Omnisend is an automation powerhouse. Pre-built workflows make it quick and easy to get started quickly, including welcoming new subscribers, recovering abandoned carts, and cross-selling to drive sales.
  
  With SendGrid, it’s trickier to automate tasks. You can create automations by confirming entry criteria, choosing times and dates, then using the design or code editors to create your emails.

• A/B testing
  
  Both platforms offer A/B testing, with a choice of metrics and test durations. This allows you to see how audiences respond to different offers, discounts, images, text, subject lines, sender names, and other email elements. 
  
  Once complete, the better-performing email will be sent to the rest of your recipients. Omnisend also gives you the option of getting metrics reported back to you before making a decision. With Omnisend, you can create two versions of an email campaign and then choose a winner based on the open rate or click rate. With SendGrid, you can A/B test for up to six concurrent variations to create an A/B/C/D test, for example.

• Analytics and reports
  
  Omnisend and SendGrid both provide robust analytics for email marketing. In addition to showing you the performance of your sent emails, Omnisend automatically builds detailed revenue and engagement reports for each campaign. SendGrid gives you a streamlined dashboard with a range of insightful metrics, such as emails delivered, bounce rates, and unique opens.

• Integrations
  
  Omnisend seamlessly integrates with the most popular platforms, including ecommerce platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce. It also syncs with advertising channels like Facebook Ads and Google Ads, and its App Market has over 130 integrations, including tools like Giveaway Ninja and Recart. Similarly, SendGrid has 120 partners for easy integration, including email programs, design tools, and analytics platforms. 

Channels

Omnisend goes beyond email marketing, allowing you to reach customers by SMS and push notifications – all from a single platform with the option to combine them within the same workflows. SendGrid also allows you to connect via email and SMS, though push notifications require integration with other apps.

Customer support

Finally, as mentioned above, many previous and existing customers have found SendGrid’s customer support to be slow. Omnisend’s customer support has won multiple awards, and the company has over 5,000 five-star reviews on Shopify. Customer support is 24/7 for all users, even on the free plan.

2. Maileroo

⭐ G2 rating: 4.8/5

? Pricing – from $10/month

Maileroo sets itself apart with its GDPR-compliant architecture, keeping all servers housed just in Germany and the Netherlands. Particularly helpful for startups just starting out, Maileroo’s free sender domain provision lets companies start sending emails right away without worrying about domain configuration.

Unlike SendGrid, Maileroo offers a free ongoing plan that includes 3,000 emails per month with full access to all features. Regarding paid plans, Maileroo’s pricing is refreshingly transparent, while SendGrid’s comparable Essentials plan, which offers 50,000 emails, costs $19.95; however, SendGrid restricts many features at this tier.

Without calling for separate services or add-ons, the platform excels in merging transactional and marketing email capabilities. Maileroo guarantees high delivery rates by including built-in email verification, automated IP warm-up, and blacklist monitoring. The 99.99% uptime guarantee backed by scalable infrastructure gives businesses confidence in their email operations.

Maileroo is particularly praised for its developer-friendly approach, offering clean API documentation, webhooks, and a WordPress plugin. The real-time analytics with 14-day message retention and custom tracking domains help businesses maintain brand consistency while monitoring performance.

The only Maileroo’s main limitation compared to SendGrid is the lack of advanced automation workflows and SMS capabilities. Maileroo focuses purely on email delivery, so businesses needing complex customer journeys or multi-channel marketing like SMS will need to look elsewhere or integrate additional tools.

3. Moosend

⭐ G2 rating: 4.6/5

? Pricing – from $9/month

Moosend is priced based on the number of subscribers you have, meaning it’s often cheaper for businesses with fewer subscribers (up to around 10,000).

In terms of features, Moosend excels with better A/B testing, allowing users to fine-tune their emails and find the best option available. Moosend’s analytics are also more extensive, adding to that theme of optimization. The platform also excels when it comes to personalization, allowing you to segment your audience and create custom messages for each group.

One clear area where it falls behind is SMS, which requires you to integrate your CMS with Moosend. In contrast, SMS functionality is standard on SendGrid, since it was acquired by Twilio, which specializes in SMS.

In terms of customer support, Moosend has an online Help Center with articles covering a wide range of topics. If you want to contact Moosend, you can fill in an online form and a member of staff will get back to you. However, there’s also the option of an online web chat. Support is poorly rated, with a score of 2.1 out of 5 on Trustpilot.

Unlike SendGrid, Moosend doesn’t have a free plan, just a free trial that lasts 30 days. Pricing is only available for its Pro plan – which starts from $9 per month for up to 500 subscribers. Beyond that, the options are Moosend+ (selected additional features) and Enterprise (all features), with no pricing specified.

4. Mailtrap

⭐ G2 rating: 4.8/5

? Pricing – from $10/month

Mailtrap prides itself on its helicopter view dashboard, which provides an overview of all the critical details about your campaigns. One of its most unique features is critical alerts, where the system keeps tabs on your email performance. If anything falls below predetermined thresholds (based on their industry research), you’ll receive an alert.

Like SendGrid, Mailtrap has a free ongoing plan. It includes up to 1,000 emails per month with deliverability alerts as standard. In terms of pricing, you can choose from basic, business, and enterprise – each with different fees based on the number of emails you send. Their basic 50k plan is $20 per month, making it very similar to SendGrid’s Essentials plan, which also allows up to 50,000 emails.

Mailtrap is particularly well-reviewed when it comes to support, with negative opinions and anecdotes hard to come by.

5. Amazon SES

⭐ G2 rating: 4.3/5

? Pricing – from $0.10 per 1,000 emails

Short for Simple Email Service, Amazon SES is a great choice for businesses using other Amazon Web Services (AWS) products as it integrates seamlessly with other Amazon services. One of the handiest features is the mailbox simulator, which can test email campaigns before they go out to subscribers. This minimizes the risk of unexpected failures.

The other main advantage of Amazon SES as a SendGrid alternative is the cost. It’s one of the cheapest options available with fees charged per email. It costs $0.10 for every 1,000 emails you send or receive, with additional charges for things like large attachments and archiving.

Using SendGrid’s $19.95 Essentials plan for comparison, AWS could cost as little as $5 for the same 50,000 emails being sent. SES is also available as part of the AWS Free Tier, giving users the chance to try its features without any cost. You’ll get up to 3,000 emails per month for up to 12 months.

The main downside of Amazon SES as an alternative to SendGrid is that it’s limited to sending and receiving emails. Common features like a drag-and-drop builder, templates, and useful analytics need to be integrated via third-party apps.

As you may expect with such a vast organization, there are also lots of stories of subpar support. That said, it does boast 24/7 access to customer support and 24-hour response times. 

6. Mailchimp

⭐ G2 rating: 4.4/5

? Pricing – from $13/month

Mailchimp is an excellent platform for beginners, offering helpful tips and tricks on every step of your email marketing journey. Every tool in its arsenal can be used in a matter of minutes, from building lists to setting up automation – known by the less daunting moniker of Customer Journeys.

A handy Content Studio lets you keep all of your assets together, such as images and videos. You can also resize them with ease on the platform. Another useful feature is the ability to schedule posts on social media from the same place you manage your emails.

As for analytics, Mailchimp keeps things simple – summarizing only the most important data without digging too deep into metrics you don’t care about. Unfortunately, support is often cited as an issue, with a rating of just 1.4/5 on Trustpilot.

You can choose from a free plan with up to 500 contacts or a one-month free trial of Mailchimp’s Essentials or Standard plans. Pricing for these plans starts at $13 and $20 per month, respectively, with a Premium package for $350 a month at the top end of the scale.

7. Postmark

⭐ G2 rating: 4.6/5

? Pricing – from $10/month

Postmark was initially set up for transactional emails only – and it stayed that way until 2020. Today, it can be used for promotional and bulk emails too. However, these are kept separate thanks to the Message Streams feature.

In some ways, you can tell that transactional emails are the original focus, with lots of pre-built templates for classic transactions like welcoming members, sending invoices, and other common notifications. 

Pricing is refreshingly straightforward, based solely on the number of emails you send and receive. That starts with their free plan for up to 100 emails per month, moving up to $15 for up to 10,000 emails per month, with pricing gradually increasing beyond that.

Support is generally well-rated compared to other SendGrid competitors. The main drawback is that Postmark doesn’t offer some key features like automation and list management – requiring other integrations for these functions.

8. Mailgun

⭐ G2 rating: 4.2/5

? Pricing – from $15/month

If you want to maximize email deliverability, Mailgun could be the answer. An email verification service is built into the platform, ensuring all email addresses you send to are correct and active. This minimizes the number of unwanted emails, improving your email deliverability over time.

The platform has a developer focus, which makes it harder to compare to most other SendGrid alternatives. As a result, it excels when it comes to transactional emails, but doesn’t have some of the common features expected for marketing – such as pre-made templates. 

Support is generally well-reviewed, and their pricing structure echoes that of Postmark, with a free plan giving you 100 emails per month and a 10,000-email plan for $15. This is followed by tiers for Foundation ($75) and Scale ($215) for 100,000 and 250,000 emails per month, respectively.

Choosing the best SendGrid alternative

As you can see, there are plenty of alternatives to SendGrid, ranging from beginner-friendly to developer-focused. When comparing providers, be sure to consider your own specific needs in terms of functionality, capacity, and ease of use. Free trials are always a good idea to test the water, but try to also think about how your needs may change as you scale.

Omnisend offers the best of both worlds when it comes to email marketing, with a user-friendly interface for beginners plus advanced features for more experienced marketers.