Free Transactional Email Services - The Best Alternatives to Mandrill & Co.

Mandrill, the beloved-by-many transactional email service, recently announced that it will switch to a paid-only model under the MailChimp umbrella. This came as a surprise to many developers who used them for sending emails for free from various servers and backends. This post provides a round-up of some of the more popular Mandrill alternatives.

Free Transactional Email Providers

This section covers a number of popular transactional email providers with a free tier.

Mailgun

http://www.mailgun.com/pricing

First 10,000 emails per month free, then starting at $5 per 5k mails

Used by: GitHub, Stripe, Heroku

Sending via SMTP, HTTP API

Features: Delivery statistics, Recipient Variables (first name, order value, …), Open, click & unsubscribe tracking, Dedicated IP, Inbound Email

Amazon SES (Simple Email Service)

http://aws.amazon.com/ses/pricing

62k emails per month free, then $0.10 per 1,000. $0.12 per GB of attachments sent

Sending via SMTP, HTTP API

Features: Analytics for last 24 hours only (delivery attempts, bounces, complaints, rejects), Only Basic Interface, Inbound Email

SparkPost

https://www.sparkpost.com/pricing

First 100k emails per month free, then ~$0.2 per thousand ($24.99 per 100k)

Sending via SMTP, HTTP REST API

Features: Email Open and Click Tracking, Analytics, Templating (incl. conditionals, loops), Open Source Libraries, Dedicated IP, Inbound Email

Position themselves as Mandrill replacement, including a migration guide and low prices for life for new customers

Mailjet

https://www.mailjet.com/pricing_v3

Free for 6k emails / month, paid plans starting at $7.50 for 30k mails

Sending via SMTP, HTTP API

Features: Tracking, Analytics, Personalization, Templates, Dedicated IP, Inbound Email

Elastic Email

http://elasticemail.com/pricing

First 25k emails per month free, then $0.19 per thousand

Sending via SMTP, HTTP API

Features: Email Open and Click Tracking, Templates, Dedicated IP, Inbound Email API

SendinBlue

https://www.sendinblue.com/pricing

9k emails per month free (limited to 300 per day)

Sending via SMTP, HTTP API

Features: Delivery statistics, Templates, Template Editor, SMS Marketing, Dedicated IP

smtp.google.com

Gmail allows sending 2000 emails per day with SMTP via any standard user account

How To Use Google’s SMTP Server

Postage App

https://secure.postageapp.com/register

1k emails per month free (max 100/day), $9 for 10k emails/month, $29 for 40k emails/month, $79 for 100k emails/month

Sending via SMTP, HTTP API

Features: Analytics, Templates, Personalization, Dedicated IP

Paid-Only Transactional Email Providers

This incomplete section covers a number of paid-only transactional email providers.

Mandrill

http://www.mandrill.com/pricing

by Mailchimp, paid starting March 16

Starting at $20 for 25k emails, then about $.8/k.

Features: Fine grained API, Open Source Libraries, Dedicated IP, Templates, Inbound Email

Postmark App

https://postmarkapp.com/pricing

$1.50 per 1k emails

First 25k emails free

Sending via SMTP, HTTP API

Features: Analytics, Open tracking, Dedicated IP, Templates, Inbound Email, Full content for every mail of past 45 days

SMTP.com

https://www.smtp.com/plans-pricing

10k emails/month $15, 50k emails/month $70, 100k emails/month $160

Sending via SMTP, HTTP API

Sendgrid

https://sendgrid.com/pricing

Free plan for 12k emails / month. Paid plans starting at $10 for 40k emails, or $0.10 for 1k emails

30 day trial with 40k emails

Sending via SMTP, HTTP API

Features: Analytics (open, click, bounce, etc.), Templates, Mobile apps, Fine grained API permissions, Dedicated IP, Inbound Email

Summary

Finally a quick overview in tabular form:

Service Free Tier 20k Emails 50k Emails 100k Emails SMTP API Dedicated IP Templates Inbound Email Mailgun 10k/m $5 $20 $45 ✅ ✅ ✅ ⛔ ✅ Amazon SES 62k/m $0 $0 ~$4 ✅ ✅ ⛔ ⛔ ✅ SparkPost 100k/m $0 $0 $0 ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ MailJet 6k/m $7.49 $21.95 $74.95 ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ Elastic Email 25k/m $0 $4.75 $14.25 ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.sendinblue.com">Sendin Blue</a></td> <td>300/day, 9k/m</td> <td>$7.37</td> <td>$39</td> <td>$66</td> <td>✅</td> <td>✅</td> <!-- <td>Analytics, Variables, Tracking, Template Editor, SMS</td> --> <td>✅</td> <td>✅</td> <td>⛔</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://support.google.com/a/answer/176600?hl=en">Gmail SMTP</a></td> <td>2k/day, 60k/m</td> <td>$0</td> <td>$0</td> <td>-</td> <td>✅</td> <td>⛔</td> <!-- <td>No Analytics, just plain SMTP</td> --> <td>⛔</td> <td>⛔</td> <td>⛔</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://secure.postageapp.com">Postage App</a></td> <td>1k/month</td> <td>$9</td> <td>$79</td> <td>$79</td> <td>✅</td> <td>✅</td> <!-- <td>Analytics, Variables, Tracking</td> --> <td>✅</td> <td>✅</td> <td>⛔</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="http://www.mandrill.com/">Mandrill</a></td> <td>0</td> <td>$20</td> <td>$40</td> <td>$80</td> <td>✅</td> <td>✅</td> <!-- <td>Analytics, Variables, Tracking</td> --> <td>✅</td> <td>✅</td> <td>✅</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://postmarkapp.com">Postmark</a></td> <td>0</td> <td>$30</td> <td>$75</td> <td>$150</td> <td>✅</td> <td>✅</td> <!-- <td>Analytics, Variables, Tracking</td> --> <td>✅</td> <td>✅</td> <td>✅</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.smtp.com">SMTP.com</a></td> <td>0</td> <td>$70</td> <td>$70</td> <td>$160</td> <td>✅</td> <td>✅</td> <!-- <td>Analytics, Variables, Tracking</td> --> <td>✅</td> <td>✅</td> <td>⛔</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://sendgrid.com/solutions/transactional-email">SendGrid</a></td> <td>0</td> <td>$9.95</td> <td>$19.95</td> <td>$19.95</td> <td>✅</td> <td>✅</td> <!-- <td>Analytics, Variables, Tracking</td> --> <td>✅</td> <td>✅</td> <td>✅</td> </tr>

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