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28 Comments

2020 prices for transactional emails. Who gets you the cheapest 1 million? What do you use?

Hi all,

I was thinking of transactional email services lately so I put a little table together with what you get for free and the prices for:

  • 10000/emails a month
  • 20000/emails a month
  • 50000/emails a month
  • 1000000/emails a month

I included charges for email validation and dedicated IPs as well.

See the whole table in the blog post Transactional email providers for indie businesses.

Here are the prices for 1 million:

  • Mailgun $810+
  • SendGrid $449+
  • PostMark $535+
  • Mandrill $14.00 + $720
  • Sendinblue $599
  • Pepipost $245
  • Amazon SES $100+

The best price for 1 million has Pepipost with as low as $171/month if paid yearly and maybe Amazon SES (hard to calculate real usage).

The only providers that get you a continuous free quota are SendGrid, Sendinblue, and Amazon SES (with a condition). Do you know any other?

What do you currently use? Poll attached. Share your experience (deliverability, customer support) below.

What do you use for transactional emails
  1. Mailgun
  2. SendGrid
  3. PostMark
  4. Mandrill
  5. Sendinblue
  6. Pepipost
  7. Amazon SES
  8. Other
  9. None yet
Vote
  1. 6

    Ive used mailgun and sendgrid. Sendgrid had much better deliverablility. So don't just look at prices u need to make sure ur emails are getting to ur customers.

    1. 3

      100%. I actually used only Mailgun (at work). We did not have issues per se, maybe support because we were on free plan and could upgrade or smth. That's why I am started this discussion to pick something well for myself :).

    2. 1

      I use both sendgrid and mailgun as well and noticed the same thing but not at first. It seems that with time and a paid account, sendgrid moves you over to better ips and eventually you start getting good delivery.

  2. 5

    Postmark has the best delivery rates by a long shot, it's amazing that they aren't the most expensive. Best value for sure!

    1. 2

      +1 for Postmark. I've tried a couple now and none have come close to their delivery rates, even on the cheaper plans.

  3. 1

    Mailgun is easy to use. But I got banned one time for poor deliverability when spammers abused my service. When that happened Mailgun support was very slow to reply and unblock me. I would hate to have been depending on it to put bread on the table.

    It was this experience that motivated me to start Real Email to help reduce bounce rate.

    SES is not really a comparable. Its so hard to get out of sandbox.

  4. 1

    Amazon SES is cheap but note that you will have to worry about analytics and reporting yourself.

  5. 1

    So sad you didn’t mention my business bro Kingmailer.co
    Which is solely for Transactional emails

    While 1M emails are a lot a lot, using Kingmailer this would cost $1000 p/mo

    Pricing starts at $5 p/mo for 5,000 emails
    Most sites that uses transactional email services, don’t send more than 5,000 or usually between 5,000 and 10,000 ($10 p/mo for 10,000 emails)

  6. 1

    I’m pretty sure that I’m on a forever free plan with 10k emails/month on Mailgun. Did they change it?

  7. 1

    We are using Mailgun for splitbee.io automations! I'm pretty happy with it.
    I've used SendGrid for feedback.fish and I hate it.

    For the next project I am going to use PostMark for sure. Simple, clean, good pricing, great company!

    1. 1

      Give Kingmailer a try bro

    2. 1

      Can you explain what do you hate on SendGrid?

      1. 1

        The UX is bad in my opinion and API/SDK's are not a breeze to use
        Just prefer the others much more. bloated like GA - I often prefer smaller companies

        1. 1

          Thanks, I only used Mailgun so far.

  8. 1

    Can anyone comment on deliverability for Mailgun vs Mailgun dedicated IP?
    Or whether dedicated IP's are worth the extra money?
    I've read that you have to be sending semi-reguarly on a dedicated IP, or mailbox providers suspect spammy mail blasts.

    1. 2

      We tried the dedicated IP with Mailgun and was not impressed. You are responsible for IP warmup and reputation management. However, over 500 emails a day and you get warnings. We ended the service after three months.

    2. 2

      Dedicated IP’s are worth it if you want complete control of your deliverability and send 50k (preferably 100k) emails per month. If you send less, a dedicated IP can hurt you

      1. 1

        That's great info, thanks!

  9. 1

    Depends on your category, for me I am a free plan with sendinblue and they seem good (I still did not launch, but with my very small usage atm, it is okay). In the higher categories, I would recommend researching, along with the poll.

  10. 3

    This comment was deleted 2 years ago.

    1. 2

      I should add Mailjet to the list, thank you.

      Edit: Updated.

    2. 1

      note that Mailjet is acquired by Mailgun now.

      1. 1

        Wow did not know this

      2. 1

        Good to know, thanks.

      3. 1

        This comment was deleted 2 years ago.

  11. 2

    This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

    1. 2

      I don't see a separate transactional offering?

      1. 1

        wrong read sorry my bad.

    2. 2

      This comment was deleted 2 years ago.

      1. 1

        wrong read sorry my bad.

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