8 SendGrid Alternatives For Better Transactional Emails [2023]
Published By Marilia Dimitriou
June 2, 2023
02/06/23
SendGrid has been a great SMTP relay and transactional email service for online businesses. While the platform has various features to help you deliver your messages to your customers, it seems to be lacking in some areas.
If you want to nail your strategy, you will need an email marketing tool that will let you create, send and automate your marketing and sales process easily.
Today, we’ll discover the best SendGrid alternatives for your business, their features, and pricing.
But first, let’s take a quick look at the following comparison table.
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Best SendGrid Alternatives: Compared
As mentioned above, Sendgrid has a reputation for being a great SMTP relay service. However, if you’re looking for an all-in-one email marketing service with better functionality, you need to look at its best competitors to find a solution to help your small business and enterprises succeed.
Below, we collected the best email marketing automation and SMTP server alternatives to show you an overview of their pricing and best features.
Let’s take a look!
| Price/Month | Free Plan/Trial | Unique Feature | Ratings | |
| Moosend | $9/month | Yes (30-day free trial) | Reliable email API |  |
| Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) | $25/month | Yes (very limited) | Email testing features | |
| Mailchimp | $20/month | Yes (very limited) | Multi-step automated workflows | |
| Amazon SES | Pay-as-you-go | Yes (limited) | Activity and reputation monitoring | |
| Mailgun | $35/month | Yes (90-day trial) | Suppression management | |
| Netcore | $25/month | Yes (very limited) | 90-day history log | |
| Postmark | $15/month | Yes (very limited) | Message streams | |
| SparkPost | $20/month | Demo/testing account | Predictive insights |  |
Now that you know the tools we’ll look at, it’s time to see them in more detail.
1. Moosend
Pricing: Paid plans start at $9/month, 30-day Free trial (Sign up here)
Best for: Small Businesses, eCommerce, Startups
Unique feature: Reliable email API
One of the best SendGrid alternatives out there is Moosend, an email marketing automation tool with powerful tools and capabilities.
The newsletter creator is perfect for crafting beautiful email marketing campaigns from scratch or you can use one of the responsive email templates. Moreover, the automated workflows will allow you to automate your business processes in a couple of minutes.
Compared to SendGrid, this service combines the above tools with a smart SMTP server solution to allow you to send transactional emails to your customers. Whether it is password reset messages or order notification emails, the email service will let you create and send them. What’s more, the API will let you connect your apps directly to Moosend’s infrastructure, calling methods that will allow you to manage your lists, campaigns, etc.
Apart from the SMTP relay, you can benefit from the advanced email automation, personalization, and segmentation options that this email marketing platform offers. You can use the tools to create personalized journeys for your subscribers and see them convert into customers in no time.
Lastly, you can take advantage of the powerful real-time reporting and analytics to keep track of your performance, monitoring, among others, your open rates, click-throughs, and bounce rates.
If you don’t see the results you desire, you can use the A/B Testing feature to optimize your messages accordingly. And to make things sweeter, Moosend sports a 98% sender score to help you nail your email deliverability, land your campaigns in the inbox, and minimize your unsubscribes.
Moosend Best Alternative Features
- Easy-to-use drag-and-drop email builder
- Email marketing automation and pre-made recipes
- First-class infrastructure and IPs
- Forms and landing pages for lead generation
- Powerful custom reporting and analytics
- API integrations with CRM tools, eCommerce, WordPress, etc.
Pricing
Moosend’s pricing starts at $9/month for up to 500 subscribers, unlimited emails, and immediate access to the SMPT server to send your transactional emails, craft your reports, and provide a stellar customer experience to your audience.
You can sign up for a free account to see why getting an email marketing automation platform like Moosend is better than using SendGrid.
2. Brevo (Formerly Sendinblue)
Pricing: Paid plans start at $25/month, Limited free plan
Best for: Publishers, Agencies, eCommerce
Unique feature: Email testing features
Brev- is a simple email service solution to create newsletters and transactional email campaigns for your customers. This solution offers an email campaign builder to craft your messages and automate them through the workflow editor.
When it comes to the SMTP server, Brevo will provide you with core API features and advanced templating to build dynamic campaigns. If you use the free plan, there’s, unfortunately, a daily sending limit. To lift it, you need to upgrade to one of the premium plans starting at $25/month. Moreover, a dedicated IP is also offered, but it’s only available in the Enterprise plan.
What’s more, Brevo offers contact management tools, including customizable newsletter signup forms, a sales CRM, and email segmentation to group your audience. On top of that, you’ll also get a workflow builder to set up automated sequences.
This service also sports various SMS marketing features to help you increase your marketing efforts. While this solution is a great alternative, it may not be ideal for small businesses on a budget as it is more expensive than other Brevo competitors.
Brevo (Formerly Sendinblue) Best Email Service Features
- Mobile-friendly email designer
- Email & SMS personalization
- Customizable signup forms
- Social media ads
- Contact management system
- Reporting and analytics
Pricing
Brevo gives you a limited free plan to test out its features. Nevertheless, you can only send 300 emails per day. For full access and no sending limits, you can get a paid subscription plan starting at $25/month.
3. Mailchimp
Pricing: Paid plans start at $20/month, Limited free plan, $20/25K emails (SMTP)
Best for: Agencies, Publishers, eCommerce
Unique feature: Multi-step automated workflows
Moving on, we have Mailchimp, one of the popular SendGrid alternatives for eCommerce businesses and publishers. Like the previous tools, this platform offers an SMTP server solution named Mailchimp Transactional Email (formerly Mandrill) to send and manage inbound emails.
Before you proceed, it’s good to know that Mailchimp’s email platform and SMTP service have different prices. To send transactional emails you need to get block credits starting at $20/block for 25K emails, unlike other Mailchimp alternatives that offer transactional emails as part of their paid plans.
As an email service provider, Mailchimp will give you access to an email builder and a non-visual workflow editor. The platform is famous for its advanced multi-step sequences that will let you deliver more targeted emails to your recipient based on their actions and funnel stage.
Moreover, you can use the form and landing page builders to increase your lead generation and then use email segmentation and manage your contacts more efficiently.
Mailchimp Best Software Features
- Email marketing campaign editor
- Non-visual workflow builder
- Campaign push notifications
- Landing page builder
- Dedicated IP address
Pricing
Mailchimp offers a limited free plan with an email send limit of 2,500 campaigns per month (500/day). For more, pricing starts at $20/month for up to 500 contacts for the marketing features. To get access to the SMTP server you need to buy a credit block starting at $20 for 25K emails.
4. Amazon SES
Pricing: Pay-as-you-go, Free plan
Best for: eCommerce, Developers
Unique feature: Activity and reputation monitoring
Next on our list, we have Amazon SES, a simple email service that gives developers the tools they need to send emails from different applications. While this SendGrid competitor isn’t like the ESPs mentioned above, you can use it to deliver transactional, marketing campaigns, and bulk emails to your audience.
To help you ace your email delivery, this alternative offers you various authentication options, including Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM). This way you’ll ensure that your deliverability remains intact and you avoid getting flagged as spam or ending up on a blacklist.
What’s more, Amazon SES offers activity and reputation monitoring, an essential feature to keep track of your performance. You can easily check your open rates and click-throughs to see how effective your efforts are.
When it comes to email sending, this alternative to SendGrid lets you send 62K messages/month but only from Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) hosted applications. If you want to send more than that or use a different email client, you need to pay $0.10 for every 1,000 emails.
Amazon SES Transactional Service Features
- Dedicated IP addresses
- Activity and reputation monitoring
- Sender identity management
- Sending statistics
- Mailbox simulator
Pricing
Amazon SES has a very particular pricing structure. If you send from Amazon EC2 hosted apps, then you have 62K free emails and you pay $0.10 for every 1K messages sent after that. If you send emails from another email client then you have no free emails and pay $0.10 per 1000 messages. To receive emails you also pay nothing for the first 1,000 emails and $0.10 for every 1,000 emails you get after that.
5. Mailgun
Pricing: Paid plans start at $35/month, 90-day Free trial
Best for: Online marketers, Creators
Unique feature: Suppression management
Among the top SendGrid alternatives, you’ll also find Mailgun, an email marketing software and SMTP service geared towards online marketers and creators who want to send transactional campaigns to their audience.
As you may know, Mailgun has acquired Mailjet, so if you get this competitor you also get access to various tools to ace your marketing efforts. More specifically, users can use the platform’s SMTP Relay or Send API. By integrating Mailgun you can easily send and track emails via the SMTP server or the available RESTful API.
Apart from transactional campaigns, you can leverage Mailjet’s features to craft messages through the drag-and-drop email builder. What’s more, you can personalize your copy and segment your audience to amp your conversion endeavors.
Last but not least, Mailgun will give you access to suppression management to make sure that you are in control of your email marketing and are compliant with the CAN-SPAM law.
Mailgun Best SMTP Server Features
- Inbound email routing
- Email address verification
- Suppression Management
- Send Time Optimization
- Email APIs, SMTP Relay, and webhooks
Pricing
Mailgun pricing has a 90-day free trial for 5,000 emails a month. To continue delivering your campaigns you need to get one of the paid plans, starting at $35/month. If you want to get Mailjet, the tool gives you a free plan for 6,000 email sends/month (200/ daily emails). Then the Essential plan begins at $15/month for 15,000 emails/month.
6. Netcore (Formerly Pepipost)
Pricing: Paid plans start at $25/month, Limited free plan
Best for: Developers
Unique feature: 90-day History log
Netcore (previously Pepipost) is a free SMTP server alternative to SendGrid to deliver transactional messages and bulk email campaigns. This popular open-source email service will equip you with a plethora of tools to reach your subscribers’ inboxes and maintain a great sender score.
What’s more, you can benefit from the AI-powered tools to make sure that you stay away from spam traps and avoid getting blacklisted, which will harm your email marketing strategy.
Apart from that, you can also use the predictive engagement feature to engage your most active contacts through priority emails. This way you will target them more effectively and ensure higher open rates.
Lastly, Netcore’s SMTP service has a 3-month history log to help you improve your transactional emails and increase your email metrics. Not only that, but the relay service allows you to connect it to any app/service, including your WordPress website.
Netcore Top Email Service Features
- Flexible SMTP Relay setup
- Email tracking tools and webhooks
- Custom Metadata
- Template APIs
Pricing
Netcore offers a free plan you can use but it’s very limited in terms of email sending, allowing you to deliver 30,000 campaigns for free for one month. Then, you only get 100 campaigns/day. To lift this limit you can sign up for a paid subscription, starting at $25/month for 150,000 emails ($0.60/1,000 extra emails)
7. Postmark
Pricing: Paid plans start at $10/month, Limited free plan
Best for: Developers, SaaS
Unique feature: Message streams
Another premium SMTP relay server you can get is Postmark. This SendGrid alternative allows you to craft and deliver transactional email campaigns to your audience. The tool also comes with a series of features like premade email templates to help you build an effective email program.
When it comes to sending, Postmark promises fast and reliable email delivery to popular clients like Outlook and Gmail.
What’s more, the service has also developed a feature called Message Streams which doesn’t allow your transactional and bulk email or promotional messages to mix for better traffic management.
Lastly, Postmark features great email Restful email APIs to help you connect your applications and nail your email marketing efforts.
Postmark Top Email Service Features
- Ready-made templates
- Message streams
- Powerful analytics
- Email expert assistance
Pricing
Postmark has a free developer plan you can use to test out its capabilities, giving you 100 test emails per month. For more, you need to get a paid plan starting at $10/month for 10,000 emails. Dedicated IPs are available through an add-on that you can get for an extra price.
8. SparkPost
Pricing: Paid plans start at $20/month, Demo
Best for: Developers, eCommerce
Unique feature: Predictive insights
Sparkpost is another email sending and deliverability platform you can use to manage your campaigns, improve your email delivery and analyze your results through advanced analytics.
More specifically, SparkPost offers Signals, a predictive feature that analyzes your email data and helps you optimize your email strategy before issues arise.
The real-time analytics and performance insights will also work in tandem with Signals to help you see how your subscribers interact with your emails. This way, you can improve certain aspects of your email sending and apply changes to enhance the customer journey.
Moreover, SparkPost offers customizable email templates to craft campaigns for your audience, allowing you to create personalized messages that will engage and convert them.
Sparkpost Top Email Service Features
- Recipient validation
- Real-time alerts
- Dynamic email templates
- Email analytics & performance data
Pricing
SparkPost has a demo that you can use to see how the platform works before you purchase a paid plan. These start at $20/month with the Starter, which is suitable for new senders getting started with email marketing. Also, there’s an Enterprise plan, but you have to contact sales to find out more about the price.
Choose The Best SendGrid Alternative
Finding the right email tool to create and deliver your email messages is essential for a successful email marketing strategy. While SendGrid has a reputation for being a good service for sending transactional emails, you can always find better all-in-one and scalable solutions to amp your efforts.
The market has numerous options for you to choose from. If you want a great solution to improve every aspect of your email strategy, why not give Moosend’s email tools and API a chance?
All you need to deliver your transactional email campaigns is to sign up for a paid subscription plan starting at $9/month.
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