Startup alternatives guide
12 SendGrid Alternatives for Startups in 2026
Where to go when SendGrid stops fitting, what it costs there, and how hard the move is.
SendGrid is two products on one login: an Email API and Marketing Campaigns, each priced separately. On the Email API, Essentials starts at $19.95 a month for 50,000 emails and reads $34.95 at 100,000, and Pro starts at $89.95 with dedicated IPs. Marketing Campaigns has a free plan, then Basic from $15 and Advanced from $60, per the Twilio SendGrid pricing page. Teams usually leave because one of those two halves no longer fits.
Our recommendation, by reason for leaving: Postmark or Resend if you only need API email and want a smaller product, Amazon SES if volume makes the bill the problem, Brevo or Loops if you mostly send campaigns, and Customer.io if messages should be triggered by what users do in the product.
Why teams move off SendGrid
Four things stand out on the plan pages. The Email API no longer has a permanent free tier: the page offers a free trial of 100 emails a day for 60 days. Dedicated IPs are part of Pro, so an Essentials customer who wants one has to jump from $34.95 to $89.95 at 100,000 emails. Pro then climbs steeply with volume: $249 at 300,000 emails, $499 at 700,000, $799 at 1,500,000 and $1,099 at 2,500,000. And because Marketing Campaigns is priced on its own, a startup using both pays two bills with different units, contacts on one and emails on the other.
None of that makes SendGrid a bad choice. It is a reason to check whether a smaller product, or a cheaper one at your volume, does the same job. The table lists the 12 destinations most startups consider, and the sections below give the price next to SendGrid's and the steps to move.
| # | Alternative | Best for | Entry price | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Postmark | Teams that want transactional mail kept apart from marketing | $15/mo for 10,000 emails | Not a campaign tool; costs about the same as SendGrid Pro at volume |
| 2 | Resend | Engineering-led teams that want a short API and flat plan prices | $20/mo for 50,000 emails | Smaller feature surface and a 100-a-day cap on the free plan |
| 3 | Brevo | Startups that use SendGrid mostly for newsletters and campaigns | $9/mo Starter | Free plan is capped at 300 emails a day |
| 4 | Mailgun | Developers who want a SendGrid-style API with US or EU sending | $15/mo for 10,000 emails | Log retention and support depend on the tier you buy |
| 5 | Amazon SES | AWS-based startups with high volume and an engineer who owns deliverability | $0.16 per 1,000 emails | You build the monitoring and bounce handling yourself |
| 6 | MailerSend | Small startups that want a cheap API plan and a free tier to start | $6.30/mo billed yearly | Costs more than SendGrid Essentials at 100,000 emails |
| 7 | Customer.io | Product teams whose Marketing Campaigns usage outgrew list-based sending | $100/mo at 5,000 profiles | $100/mo floor; profiles, not emails, set the price |
| 8 | Loops | Small SaaS teams with one newsletter and a short onboarding sequence | Free, then $99/mo at 9,998 subscribers | A lean feature set, not a full automation suite |
| 9 | HubSpot | Startups that want their email attached to sales and support records | Free tools; Starter $7/mo | A CRM subscription rather than a sending service |
| 10 | ActiveCampaign | Sales-led teams that want scoring and nurture sequences | $15/mo at 1,000 contacts | Annual billing and no transactional API to speak of |
| 11 | Klaviyo | Startups whose email is driven by store orders and product catalogs | $30/mo at 1,000 profiles | Designed around ecommerce data |
| 12 | Braze | Well-funded teams that run mobile, in-app, push and SMS with a lifecycle team | Quote-based (no public price) | Sold through sales with no published price |
Numbers 1 to 6 are sending providers, 7 to 12 are lifecycle and CRM tools. The order follows the kind of move SendGrid customers make most often, not a quality score.
1. Postmark: Teams that want transactional mail kept apart from marketing
Postmark suits a startup that has decided its password resets and receipts should never share infrastructure with newsletters. It separates sending into streams, which keeps a campaign send from sharing a pipeline with a password reset.
Price against SendGrid: Postmark's slider reads Basic at $15 for 10,000 emails, $55 at 50,000, $115 at 125,000 and $245 at 300,000; Pro reads $269.50 at 300,000. SendGrid's selector puts Pro at $249 for 300,000 emails, so there is no saving at that size. A managed dedicated IP starts at $50 a month, for customers sending at least 300,000 emails a month on Pro or higher. Postmark pricing page .
Steps to switch: Create separate transactional and broadcast streams, publish Postmark's DKIM and return-path records, replace the SendGrid API call with Postmark's, and import suppression lists before you switch DNS.
2. Resend: Engineering-led teams that want a short API and flat plan prices
Resend is the move when SendGrid's console feels like more product than you use: you send a few kinds of system email from code and want that to be simple. It now also has a Marketing tab, so a small newsletter can live in the same account.
Price against SendGrid: Resend's Pro plan is $20 a month for 50,000 emails and $35 at 100,000; Scale is $90 at 100,000 and $160 at 200,000. SendGrid's Essentials is $19.95 at 50,000 and $34.95 at 100,000, so Resend is level on price and wins on simplicity rather than cost. Resend's free plan is 3,000 emails a month, 100 a day, which replaces SendGrid's 60-day trial. Resend pricing page .
Steps to switch: Add the Resend domain, create an API key, swap the send call, point your event webhook at Resend's webhook endpoints, and re-create templates in code.
3. Brevo: Startups that use SendGrid mostly for newsletters and campaigns
Brevo is the natural landing place if your SendGrid usage is mainly Marketing Campaigns. Its free plan stores up to 100,000 contacts, where SendGrid's free Marketing Campaigns plan stops at 2,000 contacts.
Price against SendGrid: SendGrid Marketing Campaigns starts at $15 for Basic (up to 100,000 contacts and 300,000 emails) and $60 for Advanced. Brevo's ladder is a free plan with 300 emails a day, then Starter from $9, Standard from $18 and Professional from $499. Brevo's entry steps sit lower on paper, but each price rises with the volume you choose, so read its selector at your own list size. Brevo pricing page .
Steps to switch: Export contacts and list membership from SendGrid, import them into Brevo with their opt-in status, recreate the sender authentication, and keep API mail on your current sender until the campaigns are stable.
4. Mailgun: Developers who want a SendGrid-style API with US or EU sending
Mailgun is the closest like-for-like swap for a team that is happy with a raw sending API and only wants a different vendor. It lets you send through the US or the EU from a single account, and its Scale plan includes a dedicated IP, which on SendGrid sits on Pro.
Price against SendGrid: On Mailgun, 10,000 emails is the $15 Basic plan; 50,000 is Foundation at $35, with a free first month; and the Scale plan starts at $90. Its slider shows Foundation at $75 for 100,000 and Scale at $215 for 250,000. SendGrid Pro is $89.95 at 100,000 and $249 at 300,000, so Mailgun Scale at 250,000 is cheaper than SendGrid at a similar size. One dedicated IP is included with Foundation 100k, Growth and Scale. Mailgun pricing page .
Steps to switch: Add a Mailgun sending domain, pick the US or EU region, move the API calls, and mirror your SendGrid event webhooks before shifting traffic.
5. Amazon SES: AWS-based startups with high volume and an engineer who owns deliverability
SES is the cheapest destination by a wide margin when SendGrid's volume tiers are the pain. In exchange, you assemble pieces SendGrid gives you in a console: suppression handling, bounce notifications and alarms.
Price against SendGrid: AWS's own worked example prices 250,000 outgoing emails at $40 on the $0.16-per-1,000 rate, against SendGrid Pro's $249 at 300,000. If you move up to the higher SES tier, the rate rises to $0.22 and a fixed $105 per account and region applies each month; a standard dedicated IP is $24.95 a month. Amazon SES pricing page .
Steps to switch: Get out of the SES sandbox, verify the domain, wire bounce and complaint notifications into your app, and ramp traffic over several weeks while SendGrid still carries the rest.
6. MailerSend: Small startups that want a cheap API plan and a free tier to start
MailerSend is the right stop for a small app that wants to drop SendGrid's setup overhead. It gives a free plan of 500 emails a month for testing.
Price against SendGrid: The Hobby plan covers 5,000 emails at $6.30 a month when billed yearly. Moving to 50,000 emails means Starter at $31.50 (also billed yearly), and the vendor's FAQ example puts 100,000 emails on Starter at $68. SendGrid Essentials is $34.95 at 100,000, so MailerSend is cheaper only at small volume. MailerSend pricing page .
Steps to switch: Verify the domain, recreate the two or three templates you actually use, and run both senders in parallel on a low-risk stream for a few days.
7. Customer.io: Product teams whose Marketing Campaigns usage outgrew list-based sending
Customer.io replaces the Marketing Campaigns half of a SendGrid account when your messages should fire from what users do in the product. It includes a visual workflow builder, 1 million emails a month on Essentials, and a free year for companies that raised under $10 million.
Price against SendGrid: Against SendGrid Marketing Campaigns Advanced at $60 a month, Customer.io Essentials costs $100 at 5,000 profiles, $145 at 10,000 and $235 at 20,000, and Premium begins at $1,000 billed yearly. You pay more and get event-driven journeys for it. Customer.io pricing page .
Steps to switch: Send your events into Customer.io, recreate a single activation journey there, and leave API mail with SendGrid or a transactional provider while you compare deliverability.
8. Loops: Small SaaS teams with one newsletter and a short onboarding sequence
Loops replaces a SendGrid Marketing Campaigns account that has become too elaborate for a small team. Paid plans send unlimited emails to subscribers and include transactional sends, so there is one bill instead of two products.
Price against SendGrid: The free plan on Loops allows 4,000 sends in a rolling 30 days to your 1,000 newest contacts. Paying starts at $48 for 4,788 subscribers, and its slider then shows $99 at 9,998 and $249 at 49,989. SendGrid's free Marketing Campaigns plan, by comparison, stores 2,000 contacts with 6,000 emails a month. Loops pricing page .
Steps to switch: Import the subscriber list, recreate the signup and plan-change events, rebuild the welcome email, and move the newsletter last.
9. HubSpot: Startups that want their email attached to sales and support records
HubSpot replaces SendGrid Marketing Campaigns when a salesperson or customer-success owner should see every email on the contact timeline. High-volume application mail still needs a separate sending API.
Price against SendGrid: Per-seat prices on HubSpot's Marketing Hub page run from free tools through $7 a month (Starter) to $800 (Professional) and $3,600 (Enterprise). The gap that matters sits in the feature table: Starter allows 10 automated email actions and Professional allows unlimited ones, so $800 is the realistic entry point for automation, a long way above SendGrid's $89.95. HubSpot pricing page .
Steps to switch: Sync users as contacts, move newsletters into HubSpot first, and leave transactional sends on a provider built for them.
10. ActiveCampaign: Sales-led teams that want scoring and nurture sequences
ActiveCampaign suits a startup whose SendGrid Marketing Campaigns use turned into hand-built lead nurture. It is automation logic first and a delivery network second.
Price against SendGrid: The entry price matches SendGrid's: ActiveCampaign Starter begins at $15 a month for 1,000 contacts (billed annually), the same as Marketing Campaigns Basic. The two diverge as the list grows, since ActiveCampaign's own article keeps Starter at $149 a month once you reach 10,000 contacts, and the real comparison is how much automation each plan allows. ActiveCampaign pricing page .
Steps to switch: Import contacts along with their tags, recreate your first nurture sequence, and leave the transactional API as it is.
11. Klaviyo: Startups whose email is driven by store orders and product catalogs
Klaviyo is the stop for a product that sells goods through a store, where order and catalog events decide who gets which email. A subscription app will find its data model awkward.
Price against SendGrid: Klaviyo starts free at 250 profiles and 500 sends a month; its email plan then reads $30 at 1,000 profiles and $150 at 10,000. That is well above SendGrid Marketing Campaigns Basic at $15, which allows up to 100,000 contacts. Klaviyo pricing page .
Steps to switch: Link the store, recreate the post-purchase flow, and keep order receipts on a dedicated transactional sender.
12. Braze: Well-funded teams that run mobile, in-app, push and SMS with a lifecycle team
Braze appears here because enterprise buyers compare it with SendGrid, but it is a cross-channel engagement platform that bills on the volume of users you engage. It is not a cheaper way to send API email.
Price against SendGrid: There is no published Braze price at all; it is quote-based, so nothing can be placed beside SendGrid's $19.95 or $89.95. Braze pricing page .
Steps to switch: Run it as a procurement and architecture project: event mapping, one journey pilot, then a plan for moving any mail.
Planning the migration
Most SendGrid migrations go wrong at the edges, not the API call. Before you touch DNS, export your suppression lists (bounces, spam reports and unsubscribes) from SendGrid and load them into the new system, so nobody who opted out receives mail from you again. Add the new provider's authentication records on a subdomain next to SendGrid's, route one low-risk stream through it for a few days, and compare its bounce and complaint events with SendGrid's. If you used both halves of SendGrid, move them on separate dates. More background sits in our alternatives index, the Postmark against SendGrid and SendGrid against Mailgun comparisons, and the guide to transactional email platforms for startups .
SendGrid alternatives FAQ
What is the best SendGrid alternative for a startup?
It depends on which half of SendGrid you use. For API email, Postmark, Resend and Mailgun are the closest swaps, and Amazon SES is the cheapest at volume. For newsletters and campaigns, Brevo or Loops fit small teams, and Customer.io fits product-event journeys.
Does SendGrid still have a free plan?
For the Email API it offers a free trial of 100 emails a day for 60 days, not a permanent plan. Its Marketing Campaigns product has a free plan with up to 2,000 contacts and 6,000 emails a month. Resend (3,000 emails a month), Mailgun (100 a day) and Brevo (300 a day) all have ongoing free plans.
What does SendGrid cost compared with Resend and Mailgun at 100,000 emails?
SendGrid Essentials reads $34.95 for 100,000 emails and Pro $89.95. Resend Pro reads $35 and Scale $90, and Mailgun Foundation reads $75 with Scale at $90 on its 100,000 tier. Amazon SES works out at $16 for the same volume (100 times $0.16 per 1,000), before any dedicated IP.