Transactional email APIs
Transactional email services send messages triggered by an action in your app.
Use for: Sign-up confirmations, password resets, receipts and notifications.
A European transactional email API and SMTP relay with a 1,000-email free tier, a $10 plan including 25,000 emails and pay-as-you-go overage around $0.50 per 1,000.
AWS's pay-per-use email service at $0.10 per 1,000 emails, with inbound processing, dedicated IP options and new optional plans for deliverability tools.
Microsoft Azure's pay-as-you-go email sending service at $0.25 per 1,000 emails plus data transfer, with SDKs, SMTP support and a choice of data geography.
Developer-friendly email marketing platform priced by active users, with unlimited marketing sends, automations and a usage-based transactional add-on.
French multichannel marketing platform, formerly Sendinblue, priced by monthly email volume rather than contacts, with transactional API and SMTP on every plan.
Cloudflare's email sending (beta) and routing service: send from Workers bindings, REST or SMTP, with 3,000 emails included on Workers Paid and $0.35 per 1,000 after.
A low-cost email API and SMTP relay with a 3,000-email free plan and $19 for 50,000 emails, sold alongside Elastic Email's marketing and chat tools.
An email API and SMTP service billed with prepaid credits that never expire, from $0.20 down to $0.10 per 1,000 emails, run from its own data center in Prague.
A Dutch, founder-owned email API running on its own EU infrastructure and IP ranges, with ISO 27001 certification and plans from €10 for 10,000 emails.
Email platform for software companies that combines lifecycle workflows, campaigns and transactional sending, priced only by subscribed contacts with unlimited sends on paid plans.
Mailchimp's transactional email API (formerly Mandrill), sold as blocks of 25,000 emails at $20 each on top of a paid Mailchimp Standard or Premium plan.
Email marketing with campaigns, automations and transactional email, billed per email sent with unlimited contacts, and an optional bring-your-own-provider rate.
An SMTP relay and email API with 3,000 free outbound and 1,000 inbound emails a month, paid plans from $10 for 25,000 emails and a free dedicated IP from 250,000.
A transactional email API and SMTP relay with a $7 Hobby plan, inbound routing, template builders for non-developers and US/Canada SMS on paid plans.
An email API and SMTP relay with US and EU hosting from one account, inbound routing and a permanent 100-emails-a-day free plan.
A French email platform that combines a send API and SMTP relay with a drag-and-drop campaign editor, priced by monthly email volume with unlimited contacts from Essential.
A small, independent, EU-hosted transactional email service with no open or click tracking by design, every feature on every plan, and idempotent API requests.
An email API and SMTP service paired with Mailtrap's well-known testing sandbox, with a 4,000-email free plan and $30 for 100,000 emails.
Open-source, self-hostable newsletter and transactional email platform that sends through your own provider (SES, Postmark and others), with a paid cloud priced by active contacts.
An AGPL open-source email platform for transactional email, campaigns and workflow automations, EU-hosted in the cloud at $0.001 per email with unlimited free contacts.
A transactional-first email API and SMTP service that keeps bulk mail on separate message streams and retains 45 days of full message history.
A developer-focused email API with React Email support, a 3,000-email free tier and published volume pricing up to 2.5 million emails a month.
A French cloud provider's transactional email service hosted in Paris, billed at €0.25 per 1,000 emails after 300 free, with a €80 plan adding a dedicated IP and SLA.
An SMTP relay and email API with a permanent 1,000-email free plan, servers worldwide and phone, chat and ticket support on every paid plan.
An email delivery platform with SMTP and an injection API, reputation scoring, a dedicated IP on its $89.95 Pro plan and routing across other providers for large senders.
Bird's email sending service with a no-card free tier of 1,000 emails, flat volume plans from $15 for 50,000 emails and overage capped at five times the plan.
A French email and SMS sending API from the team behind Mindbaz, with data centers in France, a 100-emails-a-day free plan and inbound routing on paid plans.
Twilio's long-running email API and SMTP relay, with volume plans from 50,000 to 2.5 million emails and a dedicated IP included from the Pro tier.
An AGPL open-source alternative to Resend and SendGrid that sends through Amazon SES, adds a dashboard, contacts and campaigns, and can be self-hosted or used as a cheap cloud.
Zoho's transactional-only email service sold as prepaid credits of 10,000 emails with no monthly fee, hosted in the US, EU, India, Australia, Japan or China.
| Tool | Pricing | Free | 50k emails/mo | Dedicated IP | Inbound |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AhaSend ahasend.com · EU | Freemium | 1,000/month | About $22.50 (Pro $10 + 25k at $0.50/1k) | Access at 100k on Pro; included at 300k+ on Max | Yes (inbound routing) |
| Amazon SES aws.amazon.com · EU | Paid | None; new AWS accounts get up to $200 credits | $5 (a la carte, plus attachment data) | $24.95/mo per IP, or managed from $15/mo | Yes, $0.10/1,000 plus chunks; Mail Manager |
| Azure Communication Services Email learn.microsoft.com · EU | Paid | None | About $12.50 plus data transfer | Not offered in the docs we read | |
| Bento bentonow.com | Paid | ||||
| Brevo brevo.com · EU | Freemium | ||||
| Cloudflare Email Service developers.cloudflare.com | Paid | 3,000/month on Workers Paid ($5) | About $21.45 (incl. $5 Workers Paid) | Yes, Email Routing, unlimited on all plans | |
| Elastic Email API elasticemail.com | Freemium | 3,000/month (100/day) | $19/mo (Starter) or $49/mo (Pro) | Private IP add-on $40/mo | Not listed on the pricing page |
| Emailit emailit.com · EU | Paid | None (free tier retired) | About $10 in credits at $0.20/1k | $300/year add-on | Yes |
| Lettermint lettermint.co · EU | Freemium | 300/month | €40/mo (Starter 50,000) | €50/mo add-on, Pro plan, 300k+ emails | Yes, from Starter |
| Loops loops.so | Freemium | ||||
| Mailchimp Transactional mailchimp.com | Paid | Up to 500 demo sends to your verified domain | $40/mo in blocks + Mailchimp plan | $29.95/mo add-on | Yes (inbound email handling) |
| Mailcoach mailcoach.app | Paid | ||||
| Maileroo maileroo.com | Freemium | 3,000/month (+1,000 inbound) | Not readable (slider) | Free on 250k+ plans; extra $50/mo each | Yes, all plans |
| MailerSend mailersend.com | Freemium | 500/month | $35/mo (Starter) | Enterprise only, over 100K emails/week | Yes (inbound routing) |
| Mailgun mailgun.com · EU | Freemium | 100/day | $35/mo (Foundation) | Access at 50k, 1 included at 100k+; extra $59/mo | Yes (1 route free, 5 Basic, full Foundation+) |
| Mailjet mailjet.com · EU | Freemium | 6,000/month (200/day) | Not readable (slider) | 1 IP on Premium 100k+ plans | Not listed on the pricing page |
| MailPace mailpace.com · EU | Paid | 100/month plan on request | Not readable (slider) | Yes, all plans | |
| Mailtrap Email API/SMTP mailtrap.io | Freemium | 4,000/month (150/day) | $20/mo (Basic 50K) | Included on Business ($85+) | Yes, all plans |
| Notifuse notifuse.com · OSS · EU | Open source | ||||
| Plunk useplunk.com · OSS · EU | Open source | 1,000/month | About $50 ($0.001/email) | Yes (webhook notifications) | |
| Postmark postmarkapp.com | Freemium | 100/month | Not shown without the slider; $15 plan + $1.80/1k over 10k | $50/mo per IP, 300k+ emails/mo, Pro or higher | Yes, Pro and Platform |
| Resend resend.com | Freemium | 3,000/month (100/day) | $20/mo (Pro) | $30/mo add-on on Scale, 3,000+ emails/day | Yes, all plans |
| Scaleway Transactional Email (TEM) scaleway.com · EU | Freemium | 300/month | About €12.43 (Essential, pay as you go) | Managed dedicated IP on Scale (€80/mo) | Not offered on the pages we read |
| SMTP2GO smtp2go.com | Freemium | 1,000/month | Not readable (slider) | Included on Professional ($75+) | Not listed on the pricing page |
| SocketLabs socketlabs.com | Paid | First month of Core free (trial) | Core $39.95 + $0.0013 per email over 40k | Included on Pro ($89.95) | Not listed on the pricing page |
| SparkPost sparkpost.com | Freemium | 1,000/month | $15/mo (Startup 50K) | $24.95/mo each, Growth and above, up to 5 | Not listed on the pricing page |
| Sweego sweego.io · EU | Freemium | 100/day | Individual 50K tier; price not readable | Available on Startup, included on Scaleup | Yes, paid plans |
| Twilio SendGrid Email API twilio.com · EU | Paid | 60-day trial, 100/day | $19.95/mo (Essentials 50k) | 1 included on Pro ($89.95+) | Yes (Inbound Parse webhook) |
| useSend usesend.com · OSS | Open source | 3,000/month (100/day) on cloud | $20 on cloud (transactional) | Listed as not yet done in the README | |
| Zoho ZeptoMail zoho.com · EU | Paid | First credit (10,000) free, expires in 1 month | About $12.50 in credits | Annual add-on, some data centers only | Not offered on the pages we read |
No tools match these filters.
How to choose an email API
- Estimate your monthly volume and compare the price at that volume, not the entry price.
- Keep transactional and marketing mail on separate streams or providers, so a newsletter complaint cannot hurt password resets.
- Check the free tier: some are a daily cap, some a monthly cap, some expire after a trial period.
- If you need to receive mail (replies, parsing), check inbound support.
- A dedicated IP only helps at steady high volume; below that, a shared pool with a good reputation usually delivers better.
Questions
What is the cheapest transactional email service?
At high volume Amazon SES is usually cheapest per email, but it needs more setup. Each tool page lists the provider's prices by monthly volume.
Can I send transactional email from my own SMTP server?
You can, but new servers and IP addresses start with no reputation, and major mailbox providers now require SPF, DKIM and DMARC. A transactional provider handles reputation, bounces and complaints for you.
Pricing changes
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New Amazon SES accounts default to the Essentials plan
Amazon SES · source ↗
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ZeptoMail pricing update for new sign-ups
Zoho ZeptoMail · source ↗
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Postmark Pro and Platform features available at 10,000 emails
Postmark · source ↗
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SendGrid retires its Free Email API plan
Twilio SendGrid Email API · source ↗
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New SendGrid accounts get a 60-day trial instead of a free plan
Twilio SendGrid Email API · source ↗