Mailgun alternatives
Transactional Email · www.mailgun.com
Mailgun is an email delivery service offering RESTful email APIs and SMTP relay for sending, receiving, and tracking email, with deliverability tools such as email validation and analytics.
Switching to MailerSend, which covers 100% of the compared capabilities.
Find my alternative
Way less money.
Top Mailgun alternatives
We compared 7 products and found 3 cheaper options (2 of them cover at least half the compared features) · vs Mailgun Basic at $15/mo · scenario: 1,000 emails/month, 1 seat, monthly billing, USD.
Mailgun costs $15/mo on the Basic plan at 1,000 emails/month, 1 seat, monthly billing. We found 3 assessed alternatives that are cheaper in this scenario; 1 of them covers at least 75% of the 9 compared capabilities. The cheapest option that covers everything we compared is MailerSend at $7/mo (Hobby plan), 53% less.
| Product | Match | Price | Annual savings | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
TOP PICK MailerSend Hobby plan | 100% | $7/mo how? ⓘ | $96 / year 53% cheaper | |
SMTP2GO Starter plan · missing: Email address validation, Inbound email parsing, Event webhooks, Email templates | 56% | $10/mo how? ⓘ | $60 / year 33% cheaper |
Which Mailgun alternative for which situation
Picked by the numbers in this scenario — same subtype unless stated, assessed products only.
- Best full coverage
- MailerSend — $7/mo (Hobby plan) · covers 100%
- Best free plan
- Loops — $0/mo (Free (Early Stage Plan) plan) · covers 0%
- Best paid drop-in
- MailerSend — $7/mo (Hobby plan) · covers 100%
- Need transactional email API, custom sending/tracking domain, email address validation, inbound email parsing, event webhooks, deliverability SLA / support, SMTP & REST API, dedicated IP or email templates?
- MailerSend — from $7/mo (Hobby plan)
What you give up
Capabilities Mailgun has that the top alternatives lack.
- Transactional email API — Send transactional emails programmatically via an API.Missing from Loops.
- Custom sending/tracking domain — Send and track email from your own domain.Missing from Loops.
- Email address validation — Validate an email address before sending to it.Missing from Loops, SMTP2GO.
- Inbound email parsing — Parse incoming email into your application.Missing from Loops, SMTP2GO.
- Event webhooks — Get notified of email events like opens or bounces via webhook.Missing from Loops, SMTP2GO.
- Deliverability SLA / support — Get a guaranteed deliverability service-level agreement.Missing from Loops.
- SMTP & REST API — Send transactional email via SMTP or a REST API.Missing from Loops.
- Dedicated IP — Send transactional email from an IP address dedicated to your account.Missing from Loops.
- Email templates — Start a transactional email from a pre-built template.Missing from Loops, SMTP2GO.
Feature comparison
Mailgun vs the top alternatives, on the 9 compared capabilities.
| Capability | Mailgun | Loops | MailerSend | SMTP2GO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transactional email API from Free | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Custom sending/tracking domain from Free | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Email address validation | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Inbound email parsing | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Event webhooks | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Deliverability SLA / support | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| SMTP & REST API | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Dedicated IP | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Email templates | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Scenario price cheapest qualifying plan | $15/mo Basic | $0/mo Free (Early Stage Plan) | $7/mo Hobby | $10/mo Starter |
✓ means the product offers the capability — possibly only on a higher tier than the plan priced below it. The price row shows the cheapest plan that qualifies for our comparison scenario, with its plan name; a $0 free plan may not include every checked capability.
What Mailgun covers
The capability set used for comparison. Grey entries are not available on self-serve plans.
- ✓ Transactional email API — from Free
- ✓ Custom sending/tracking domain — from Free
- ✓ Email address validation
- ✓ Inbound email parsing
- ✓ Event webhooks
- ✓ Deliverability SLA / support
- ✓ SMTP & REST API
- ✓ Dedicated IP
- ✓ Email templates
- ↑ Email templates — only from Foundation, not compared
- ↑ Dedicated IP — only from Foundation, not compared
- ↑ Send-time optimization — only from Scale, not compared
- ↑ SSO (SAML) — only from Scale, not compared
Price ladder
Observed prices from the official pricing page.
Who switched
Anonymous: no account, no email, no IP stored. Reports are shown once a switch has 3 or more and never change ranking or order — alternatives are computed from prices and capabilities only.
Sources
Every claim traces to an official source and a check date.
- https://www.mailgun.com/pricing/ (official_pricing, checked 2026-10-26)
- https://www.mailgun.com/pricing/#navSearch (official_pricing, checked 2026-10-26)
Frequently asked
How much does Mailgun cost?
Mailgun's Basic plan costs $15/mo in our scenario (1,000 emails/month, 1 seat, monthly billing). A free plan exists.
Is there a free Mailgun alternative?
Yes. Loops has a free plan that covers 0% of the 9 capabilities we compared against Mailgun.
What is the cheapest Mailgun alternative?
In our scenario (1,000 emails/month, 1 seat, monthly billing), Loops is the cheapest assessed alternative at $0/mo (Free (Early Stage Plan) plan).
What is the cheapest Mailgun alternative with Email address validation?
MailerSend covers Email address validation and costs $7/mo (Hobby plan) in our scenario.
Does Mailgun have a free plan?
Yes. Mailgun's free plan exists; its limits are not stated on the pricing page.
When were these prices checked?
Between 2026-10-26 and 2026-10-28, on the vendors' official pricing pages.