Review and compare the top SendGrid Alternatives with features and pricing to select the best SendGrid Competitor per your requirements:
Emails are an integral part of modern business communication. If used strategically, they can play a significant role in the marketing and promotion of a product or service. This is where customer communication solutions like SendGrid come into play.
SendGrid can help businesses send transactional emails and launch successful email marketing campaigns in a bid to build better relationships with their clients.
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SendGrid Competitors: Market Trends
SendGrid arms its users with a plethora of templates and pre-set designs to create engaging email campaigns that effectively convey the intended message. SendGrid can intuitively detect and suppress invalid email addresses in real time. As such, businesses can rest assured that their emails are always being delivered to valid inboxes.
So why look for alternatives to a decent tool like SendGrid? Different businesses have different preferences upon which they decide whether to subscribe to a particular service or not. SendGrid, for instance, is a tad bit difficult to maintain and deploy. The pricing plans it offers are not affordable and it is lacking in key API features.
It is wiser to look for an alternative solution to SendGrid that outmatches it with regards to user-friendliness, affordability, flexibility, and features. In this article, we will recommend a list of API and SMTP solutions that we believe are some of the best alternatives to SendGrid available today.
Expert Advice:
- Look for an email solution that is easy to set up and maintain.
- The software must come with a ton of templates and pre-set designs that make creating custom email campaigns easier.
- Look for an SMTP or API solution that exhibits a higher email deliverability rate and lower average bounce rates.
- The software must be capable of predicting delivery issues and implement necessary actions to solve them.
- It must be capable of sending and managing a higher volume of emails at a competitive price.
- The price mentioned should be clear, with flexible plans offered depending on how many emails you expect to send per month. Do not go for a tool that exceeds your budget.
List of the Best SendGrid Alternatives
Here is the list of popular SendGrid competitors:
- Brevo
- SMTP
- Mailgun
- Mailjet
- Constant Contact
- HubSpot Email Marketing
- InboxPro
- Mailchimp
- Mandrill
- Postmark
- Pepipost
- Amazon SES
- Moosend
- WP Mail SMTP
Comparing the Top Alternatives to SendGrid
Name | Best For | Fees | Ratings |
---|---|---|---|
Brevo | Customizable Email Marketing Campaigns and Transactional Emails. | Free for 300 emails per month, Lite: $25/month, Premium: $65/month, Enterprise: Contact them. | |
SMTP | Transactional and email-relay API | The price starts at $25 for 50000 mails per month | |
Mailgun | Cloud-Based Transactional API for Developers | $35/month for 50000 emails, – $80/month for 100,000 emails – $ 90/month for 100,000 emails | |
Mailjet | Email API and marketing solution | Free plan available, Basic plan for $9.65 per month, Premium plan for $20.95/month, | |
Constant Contact | Email Marketing Automation and Contact List Management. | 30 days free trial available, Core: $9.99/month, Plus plan: $45/month. | |
HubSpot Email Marketing | Integration with HubSpot products | Free plan available, $45/month for 1000 marketing contact, $800/month for 2000 marketing contact, $3200/month for 10000 marketing contacts. | |
InboxPro | AI assisted email composition | Pro: $24/month, Advanced: $ 49/month, Growth: $ 99/month | |
Mailchimp | All-in-One integrated branding solution | Free plan available with 2000 contacts/month, Essential plan – $9.99/month, $14.99/month, Premium – $299. | |
Mandrill | SMTP Transactional Email Service | Starts at $20 for 25000 emails per month. |
Best SendGrid Alternatives Review
#1) Brevo
Best for easy transactional email management.
Brevo is yet another email marketing solution that acts as a better alternative to SendGrid on several key aspects. Compared to SendGrid, you are getting more features without paying any extra amount when using Brevo.
It is very easy to track emails with this software as you can easily learn about the open, click and bounce rate associated with your sent emails. It also optimizes your email marketing experience with A/B testing for emails, advanced report generation, and drag-and-drop email builders.
Features:
- Separate dashboard for transactional email configuration
- A/B Testing for emails
- Drag and drop email builder
- Advanced report generation
Verdict: Brevo establishes itself as one of the best alternatives to SendGrid by simply offering more features at a relatively lesser price. You can build branded emails via its email builder, make strategic decisions via the reports it generates and perform A/B testing to ensure the emails are sent to the correct email addresses.
Price: Free Plan available, $25/month – Lite, $65/month – Premium.
#2) SMTP
Best for Transactional and email-relay API.
SMTP is a tool made specifically for email marketing as it facilitates the sending of transactional emails. It also offers a robust email relay API service. It is successful at performing both of these functions because of its powerful sending engine.
This engine is bolstered by a highly scalable infrastructure. SMTP scales effortlessly. So you can expect it to meet your organization’s specific email volume requirements with ease. We also like SMTP’s ability to proactively vet mailboxes for spam. As such, the tool helps businesses maintain a high deliverability rate.
Features:
- Shared and Dedicated IP
- ISP Management
- In-house expert support team
- Proactive Spam Detection
- Detailed Reporting
Verdict: With a scalable infrastructure and reliable sending engine to boast, SMTP is a remarkable little email marketing solution for businesses. It is best used for sending transactional emails while maintaining an unmatched deliverability rate.
Price: You get four subscription plans to choose from. The essential plan costs $25 for 50000 mails per month. The starter plan costs $80 for 100,000 emails per month. The Growth plan costs $300 for 500000 mails per month. The Business plan costs $500 for 1,000,000 emails per month.
#3) Mailgun
Best for cloud-based transactional API for developers.
Mailgun is a powerful cloud-based solution that is ideally designed for developers. Its APIs are useful to send, receive and track transactional emails without a hassle.
With simple SMTP integration and flexible HTTP API, the tool facilitates hassle-free sending of transactional and bulk emails. Additionally, its real-time email validation feature helps weed out invalid email addresses from your contact list.
Apart from this, Mailgun can also help personalize your emails, parse incoming messages automatically, engage customers with compelling campaigns, and use templates to create well-branded marketing emails. The software also presents its users with actionable insights, which can optimize the performance of your emails.
Mailgun also offers email deliverability services for companies sending over 500,000 emails a month. This service pairs you with a deliverability expert, called a Technical Account Manager, to build a custom deliverability plan to improve your email performance. They can help troubleshoot problems and advise on strategies for the best inboxing rate to Gmail, Yahoo, and more.
Features:
- Easy SMTP integration and flexible HTTP API
- Personalize and schedule emails
- Automatic Email Parsing
- Improved Email Deliverability
- Email analytics
Verdict: Mailgun is a powerful cloud-based solution that was designed with developers in mind. Its intuitive features along with easy SMTP integration, make it a capable email service to send, receive and track transactional and bulk emails. It is the best SMTP and API service available today if you wish to improve the deliverability rate of emails or launch a large-scale email marketing campaign.
Price: Pay-as-you-go service–5000 emails free for three months, after which you only pay for the messages you send. Foundation plan – $35/month for 50000 emails, Growth plan – $80/month for 100,000 emails, Scale plan – $90/month for 100,000 emails with advanced settings.
#4) Mailjet
Best for Email API and marketing solutions.
Mailjet is an intuitive solution that can help both developers and marketers create, send, and track transactional and marketing emails. Mailjet provides marketers with an intuitive email builder that comes pre-loaded with attractive email templates. You can edit, modify or create unique email campaigns that convey the intended message.
The online email builder also harbors a real-time collaboration feature, which allows multiple users to collaborate on a single campaign together as a team. Mailjet also features a robust a/b testing tool, which you can use to acquire statistical data on email sequence, the images, and subject line being used in emails.
Sending transactional emails is also simple with Mailjet. You can schedule, send, and track transactional emails with Mailjet’s SMTP server or RESTful API. Mailjet can be used for sending transactional SMSs as well. Mailjet’s transactional SMS API can be integrated effortlessly within no time to send SMS messages internationally.
Apart from all the above features, it is Mailjet’s email deliverability service that puts it way ahead of SendGrid. You get access to Mailjet’s email deliverability service experts who help optimize your email deliverability to improve sender reputation.
Features:
- Intuitive Online Email Builder
- Real-Time online collaboration
- Send Transactional emails easily via SMTP relay or RESTful API
- Personalized email templates
- Transactional SMS API
Verdict: Mailjet allows developers and marketers to work together in real time to build reliable large-scale email marketing campaigns and manage transactional emails. The software integrates seamlessly with pre-built eCommerce, CRM, and other applications to deliver a robust user experience.
Mailjet can be a great alternative to SendGrid if you are looking for an email solution that is user-friendly, affordable, and packs tons of advanced features.
Price: Free plan available to send 6000 emails per month and 200 emails per day. The basic plan for $9.65 per month allows 30000 emails per month with no limits on daily emails. A premium plan for $20.95/month allows 30000 emails per month with no limits on daily emails. A customized plan is also available.
#5) Constant Contact
Best for Email Marketing Automation and Contact List Management.
Constant Contact is arguably one of the finest alternatives we have to send grid. This is proven by the platform’s amazing email marketing automation capabilities.
It is easy to deploy and instantly wins you over with hundreds of pre-designed templates and a drag-and-drop email builder. This allows you to customize your emails to closely resemble the aesthetic of your brand.
The platform further excels about contact list management. The platform will automatically segment your contacts based on certain factors. This allows you to send only relevant emails to the right person… one who is most likely to positively respond to the email.
The platform also allows you to easily upload contacts from external sources like Excel, Salesforce, etc.
Features:
- Drag-and-drop email editor
- Hundreds of pre-designed templates
- Contact segmentation
- Real-time analytical reporting
- Integrate with several powerful applications like Shopify, Salesforce, etc.
Verdict: Email marketing automation, contact list segmentation, and excellent customer support are just a few things that make Constant Contact a fine alternative to SendGrid. The platform is also relatively more affordable than SendGrid, and as such, has our highest recommendations.
Price: 30 days free trial available, Core: $9.99/month, Plus plan: $45/month.
#6) HubSpot Email Marketing
Best for integration with HubSpot products.
HubSpot is an email marketing solution that emphasizes email optimization to improve deliverability rates. However, it is the ability to seamlessly integrate with other HubSpot products that makes it an impressive marketing tool.
For instance, by integrating this software with HubSpot CRM, you can personalize your marketing emails, thus making them more compelling to the recipient. The tool combined with native integrations has exhibited promise in boosting conversion rates for businesses and helping in their growth.
Features:
- Create landing pages, popups, and forms for marketing
- Drag and drop builder
- Tons of templates to build branded emails
- Content segmentation.
Verdict: HubSpot comes with a ton of marketing tools that allow you to create custom landing pages, popups, or forms for free. With a plethora of templates and an intuitive email builder, it is easy to create beautiful marketing emails with this software.
Price: Free plan available, $45/month for 1000 marketing contacts, $800/month for 2000 marketing contact, $3200/month for 10000 marketing contacts.
#7) InboxPro
Best for AI-assisted email composition.
InboxPro is widely regarded for its ability to conjure a predictable email customer acquisition system via AI and automation. For starters, you can use the tool to generate professional emails automatically, thanks to InboxPro’s intelligent AI. The AI can also summarize emails on your behalf within seconds.
InboxPro can also be used to track emails you’ve sent in real time. You’ll be able to monitor who’s opened and read your emails to know exactly how well your emails are performing. Perhaps the best aspect of InboxPro is its reporting capabilities. The tool lets you visualize all your Gmail activity. You’ll get a complete overview of top-performing emails, emails sent and received, etc.
Features:
- Email tracking
- AI-assisted email summarizer
- Email Report and Analytics
- Automated Follow Up Sequences
Verdict: InboxPro’s reliance on an advanced AI to optimize various aspects of the email marketing process definitely gives it an edge over SendGrid. It features exceptional email composing, tracking, and reporting capabilities. Also, the solution is quite affordable.
Price: InboxPro can be used for free with limited features. The Pro plan can be used for $24 per month. The Advanced will cost you $49/month whereas the Growth plan costs $99/month. A custom plan is also available.
#8) Mailchimp
Best for an all-in-one integrated branding solution.
Mailchimp is an all-in-one marketing solution that arms you with all the tools you will ever need to build a brand, sell online or grow your business. You get access to tons of pre-loaded templates that not only allow you to create compelling emails but also help you build landing pages, social ads, postcards, and more.
One area where Mailchimp outshines SendGrid is in the email marketing department. You get access to a limitless library of templates and designs, which can build beautiful, branded emails. The email builder comes with a drag-and-drop feature that makes designing emails simpler. The tool can also send fast transactional emails like order confirmation messages, using API or SMTP.
Features:
- Drag and Drop Custom Email Builder
- Email Automation
- Store content like images to use later in the campaign.
- Send transactional emails
- Real-time analytics
Verdict: Mailchimp caters to users who seek an email solution that emphasizes brand enhancement. It is a well-integrated tool that can help you build compelling marketing emails with the help of an intuitive online email builder. It is also a great branding tool as it allows you to segment your audience and target the message based on your customer’s preference, online activity, or purchase behavior.
Price: Free plan available with 2000 contacts/month, Essential plan – $9.99/month, $14.99/month, Premium – $299.
#9) Mandrill
Best for SMTP Transactional email service.
Mandrill is a paid Mailchimp add-on that facilitates STMP transactional email services. The application can send targeted, data-driven, commercial, and personalized emails to end-users. The software adds pre-defined tags to your emails. This becomes useful in simplifying email tracking as you can track the bounce rate, open rate, and click rate for your emails automatically with the help of Mandrill.
The software also allows you to add varying custom sending options. You can also apply white labeling for custom-tracking domains with this software. Mandrill also allows you to send emails via several domains, albeit using the same account and dedicated IP.
Features:
- Send targeted, personalized and commercial emails
- Advanced Email Tracking
- Deliver emails via multiple domains from a single account
- Perform intense analytics based on gathered reports.
Verdict: Mandrill works as a useful extension to Mailchimp, especially in the department of sending SMTP transactional emails. It’s a great add-on to have with your Mailchimp account if you want to track your email’s bounce, open and click rate, or get reports for intense analysis.
Price: Starts at $20 for 25000 emails per month.
#10) Postmark
Best for detailed email analytics.
With Postmark, you get access to several ready-made templates, which can be employed to create beautiful marketing emails in an instant. The software stores email logs from the past 45 days. These logs can be perused to track emails that were sent or received.
You get a detailed analysis of all your emails via Postmark. You can learn where they were sent, which emails were sent or received successfully, which ones were read, and which were marked as spam. The software also helps customize inbound addresses.
Features:
- View full email history from the past 45 days
- Filter history via events, tags, and date
- Intuitive Email builder with templates
- Auto-generate Postmark email address
Verdict: Postmark is an email marketing solution that not only builds branded commercial emails for your business but also gives a detailed analysis of the same. The insights provided by Postmark allow you to optimize your email campaigns in a bid to earn higher ROI and scale your business.
Price: $10 for 10000 emails per month, $50 for 50,000 emails per month, $100 for 125,000 emails per month and so on.
#11) Pepipost
Best for tracking email delivery.
Pepipost is a robust API and SMTP email solution that allows you to send, receive and track transactional emails easily. The software harbors an advanced email tracking system that lets you find out the open, click and bounce rates of your emails. It also notifies you of any unsubscriptions or other actions being taken by the email recipients.
The platform is easy to set up and deploy. You get real-time insights into how your marketing or transactional emails are performing, thus allowing you to make rational decisions regarding the same. This coupled with basic email marketing features makes this tool a simple, yet efficient alternative to SendGrid.
Features:
- Send, track, and receive transactional emails
- Real-time report generation
- SMTP relay for fast delivery
- Drag and drop email builder
Verdict: Pepipost facilitates the faster delivery and tracking of emails, thanks in large part to its combination of basic and advanced features. The software also provides migration guides, in case you want to switch APIs like migrating data from SendGrid to Pepipost.
Price: $17.5 for 150000 emails per month, $59.5 for 400000 emails per month, and so on.
#12) Amazon SES
Best for highly scalable SMTP Transactional email service.
Amazon SES is a widely popular email solution among marketers and developers because of its flexible SMTP transactional email service. It is a great tool to send marketing, notification, and transactional emails effortlessly.
The software facilitates easy email tracking and also allows users to apply different types of settings to avoid bounce and spam issues. The software also helps in establishing different types of marketing campaigns to reach all kinds of audiences.
Features:
- Build customized email marketing campaigns
- Content filtering
- Dedicated IP addresses
- Integrate seamlessly with other applications
Verdict: Amazon SES is a flexible and highly scalable transactional and marketing email service. The software can be integrated within your application seamlessly to initiate email communication and track how your email campaigns are doing. It is also cost-effective and can be afforded by startups that are short on funds.
Pricing: Contact for Pricing
#13) Moosend
Best for creating attractive marketing campaigns.
Moosend is another highly scalable SMTP service that empowers its users to create, send, and track different types of emails. These include transactional, notification, and marketing emails. The campaign builder in Moosend allows you to create custom marketing emails with the aid of several pre-loaded templates and designs.
Moosend also helps users segment their audience and target the message as per varying parameters. The software also performs real-time analytics to grant you actionable insights into launched campaigns.
Features:
- Create, Send, and Track emails
- Build custom marketing campaigns with the campaign editor
- Advanced automation workflow builder
- Real-time analytics
Verdict: Moosend offers a robust platform to send, receive, or track transactional and marketing emails accurately. This coupled with an intuitive marketing campaign editor and real-time analytics features, make Moosend a worthy alternative to SendGrid.
Price: Free plan available. Price starts at $10/month for 2000 subscribers.
#14) WP Mail SMTP
Best for WordPress Plug-In to improve deliverability.
WP Mail SMTP is a noteworthy plug-in that can make email deliverability easy for your WordPress website. This plug-in ensures emails are authenticated for validity before they are sent. It also ensures your emails aren’t blocked or marked as spam. In hindsight, WP Mail SMTP exists to ensure emails are successfully delivered to inboxes without an issue.
Features:
- Prevent email blockage
- Verify email address for validity
- Prevent emails from being marked as spam
Verdict: If you are sending emails via your WordPress account, then WP Mail SMTP is a plug-in you must have to improve the deliverability rate of such emails. This plug-in makes sure you are sending emails to correct inboxes and also ensures your emails do not encounter any deliverability issues in transit.
Price: Pro – $39/year, Elite – $89 /year, Developer – $189/year.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Email Marketing?
Email Marketing can be defined as the act of sending targeted or personalized commercial messages to a group of people. It is done to help businesses promote their services or products via the medium of email. This type of marketing is known to be a faster, cost-effective, flexible, and effective way of reaching new customers.
What is a Transactional Email?
Transactional emails refer to automated, real-time emails that are sent to customers after a specific action has been performed by them on the website or application. For example, the email you get from Amazon that confirms your order after a purchase on the website is known as a type of transactional email.
Suggested Reading =>> Transactional Email API Service
What does it take to compose a good email marketing campaign?
How good your marketing email will be, depends entirely on your message. Hence, it is advisable to make this content as attractive, amiable, and interesting as possible. Try to inject some humor into the message. Do not sound explicitly formal. The more personal a message sounds, the more compelling it will be to the people you are targeting.
Is it legal to send unsolicited commercial emails to your customers?
This depends on the region where you are sending such emails. In the case of the US, sending unsolicited commercial emails is completely legal, provided you are not violating certain rules mentioned in the CAN-SPAM Act.
Is Email Marketing still relevant?
With social media platforms dominating the marketing space, most people have doubts over the relevancy of email marketing in this day and age. However, despite the heavy competition, email marketing still works like fine wine. Companies that employ email marketing tactics still experience higher sales. The ROI attached to email marketing is said to be around 4400% as of 2020.
Conclusion
So as you can see, there are some amazing alternatives to SendGrid being widely used today. When compared to SendGrid, all of these tools are extremely easy to deploy and offer an exhaustive list of features that simplify the process of sending or receiving transactional and marketing emails.
They are also reasonably priced as everyone from startups to large enterprises can use these tools to better communicate with their customers.
Recommended Reading =>> Free SMTP Servers And SMTP Services
As for our recommendation, if you are looking for an all-in-one SMTP and API email solution that is designed for developers, then Mailgun and Mailjet will deliver in spades. If you are looking for a hardcore email marketing solution, then Mailchimp will suffice.
Research Process:
- We spent 12 hours researching and writing this article so you can have summarized and insightful information on what SendGrid alternative will best suit you.
- Total SendGrid Alternatives Researched – 20
- Total SendGrid Alternatives Shortlisted – 11