Mailgun

Mailgun has long positioned itself as the developer-friendly alternative to SendGrid. The API is well-documented, SMTP is first-class, and routing rules are powerful. Still a strong pick for technical teams that want SMTP relay plus rich routing.

A SaaS product sends on behalf of its customers, so the deciding factors are tenant isolation, whether suppressions can be scoped rather than global, and whether support can answer why one specific account did not receive one specific email. Lifecycle automation and transactional sending usually need to coexist.

Against trial expiry notices, dunning, onboarding sequences, and per-tenant transactional mail, Mailgun covers multi-tenant support, event stream, the suppressions API, scheduling, and webhook coverage, and does not cover operating track record and best published rate per 1,000. Whether that gap matters depends on how central those are to the build.

• Multi-tenant: Yes
• Event stream: Yes
• Suppressions API: Yes
• Operating since: 2010
• Scheduling: Yes
• Best published rate per 1,000: $0.70
• Deliverability: Generally good, with deliverability monitoring tools available on higher tiers. Inbound routes and suppressions are battle-tested.
• Webhooks: Yes
• Starts at: $15/mo for 10,000 emails (Basic)

Generally good, with deliverability monitoring tools available on higher tiers. Inbound routes and suppressions are battle-tested.

Technical teams that want SMTP relay plus advanced routing.

Teams that need a generous free tier or simple billing.