Twilio SendGrid is a large-scale email marketing tool built to help businesses, developers, and marketers interested in sending bulk emails, automating, creating signup forms, and managing lists.
SendGrid is trusted by large companies like Uber, Yelp, Spotify, and Airbnb as a tool to engage with subscribers.
Choosing the right email marketing tool requires a clear understanding of its strengths and weaknesses to ensure it meets business-specific needs. Let’s explore the pros and cons of SendGrid, drawing on authentic user feedback from trusted review sites like G2 and Trustpilot.
Free plan
Free plan with 100 emails a day along with analytics and deliverability optimization features.
Paid plans
*Pricing information retrieved from SendGrid in November 2024.
| Platform | Free options | Best for | Stands out for | Starting price |
| Selzy | Free plan with up to 100 contacts, 1,500 emails/month, and basic functionality | SMBs, startups, e-commerce businesses, non-profit organizations, and solopreneurs | AI writing assistant, Premade blocks, Chatbot builder, Anti-spam helper | $5.25/month for 500 contacts and unlimited emails |
| MailerSend | Free plan with 3,000 emails/month | Small to medium-sized businesses looking for a transactional email service | API-driven service, deep analytics, and webhooks | $28/month for 50,000 emails |
| Mailgun | 30-day free trial with 100 emails/day | Developers, businesses, and SaaS companies | Advanced analytics, flexible tagging system, and RESTful API | $15/month for 10,000 emails |
| Postmark | Free plan with 100 emails/month | Developers, small to medium-sized businesses, and enterprises | Event-triggered actions, pre-built email templates, and thorough analytics | $15/month for 10,000 emails |
| Aweber | Free plan with up to 500 subscribers and 3,000 emails/month | Non-profits, small companies, and entrepreneurs | Email automation, split testing, web push notifications | $12.5/month for 500 subscribers |
| Kit | Free plan with up to 10,000 subscribers | Creators, bloggers, and marketers | Visual automation templates and builder, customizable sign-up forms | $25/month for 1,000 subscribers |
| Zoho Campaigns | Free plan with up to 2,000 contacts and 6,000 emails/month | Small businesses, and marketers | Contact scoring & tags, dynamic content, Email polls, and attachments, Recipient time zone & optimal open time sends | $3/month for 500 contacts and unlimited emails |
| Omnisend | Free plan with up to 250 contacts and 500 emails/month | Small and medium-sized businesses, ecommerce | Pre-built automation workflows, and dynamic content options | $16/month for 500 contacts and 6,000 emails |
| Brevo | Free plan with up to 300 emails/day | Small businesses, startups | SMS marketing, automation, built-in CRM | $8.08/month for 5,000 emails |
| Mailchimp | Free plan with up to 500 contacts and 1,000 emails/mo or 500/day | Startups, small to medium-sized businesses | Generative AI, custom-coded email templates, robust segmentation and analysis tools | $13/month for 500 contacts |
| Constant Contact | 30-day free trial with up to unlimited contacts and 100 emails total | Small businesses, and nonprofits | Drag-and-drop editor, landing pages, event marketing, and social media integration | $12/month for 500 subscribers |
Selzy is a widely acclaimed SendGrid alternative thanks to its reliable performance, cost-effective pricing, and top-notch customer service. This unified and feature-rich marketing tool is ideal for expanding the reach and driving sales. Even better, its user-friendly interface is intuitive enough so even a newbie can launch their first campaign in under 15 minutes!
Selzy doesn’t stop there and takes email automation to the next level with more than 12 customer journey scripts for tailored engagement with subscribers.
Other notable features include built-in anti-spam and quality checks to ensure high deliverability. The email builder also comes with an AI assistant that helps you with many things from generating an entire email to writing, creating images, and translating.
Need support? Selzy offers 24/7 customer support to assist you whenever you need it.
Free plan
The free plan includes 100 contacts, 1,500 emails per month, and a basic set of features.
Paid plans
* Pricing information retrieved from Selzy in November 2024.
MailerSend is another great SendGrid alternative for small to medium-sized businesses aiming to send sales-related emails with higher deliverability.
It offers a smooth API integration process and clear documentation, which makes it perfect for developers and marketers. Its simple user interface and drag-and-drop editor will let you effortlessly build emails without coding skills.
MailerSend also provides webhooks and SMTP relay support, facilitating integration with existing workflows and applications.
Then there are collaboration tools for team members to work together in real-time, ensuring everyone is on the same page and reducing communication-related errors.
Free plan
The free plan includes 3,000 emails/month, API, SMTP relay, email builder, and 7-day data retention.
Paid plans
* Pricing information retrieved from MailerSend in November 2024.
Mailgun is a popular tool among developers, businesses, and SaaS companies mainly because it’s built around transactional email APIs designed to send, receive, or monitor emails.
The tool also provides a reliable and quick email delivery service, with features such as real-time list validations, reputation monitoring, and inbox placement testing. It even supports users staying off blocklists, avoiding spam traps, and monitoring domain and IP reputation.
One great feature of Mailgun is its comprehensive analytics, which allows businesses to figure out a data-driven email strategy.
Free plan
Paid plans
* Pricing information retrieved from Mailgun in November 2024.
Postmark is a cloud-based email service renowned for user-friendliness, high deliverability, and excellent support.
Unlike the other options listed here, Postmark uses a dedicated sending system for both bulk & transactional emails. Its Message Streams feature prevents them from mixing, which ensures faster delivery.
Beyond that, Postmark provides extensive analytics with bounce reports, open tracking, link tracking, and message events. This helps users closely monitor their campaigns and optimize accordingly.
Then there’s a large template library, detailed documentation, and a friendly customer service team ready to help users get started.
Free plan
The free developer plan provides 100 emails a month.
Paid plans
* Pricing information retrieved from Postmark in November 2024.
AWeber is a terrific email marketing solution for startups, entrepreneurs, and non-profits with many essential features like segmentation, A/B testing, real-time advanced analytics, and third-party integrations.
One of AWeber’s strengths is its ability to create autoresponder campaigns which helps businesses set up these campaigns to engage subscribers based on actions like sign-ups or purchases. There is an extensive knowledge base, webinars, and tutorials designed to get new users up and running instantly.
Free plan
The free plan includes up to 500 contacts and 3,000 sends/month.
Paid plans
* Pricing information retrieved from AWeber in November 2024.
Kit (ex-ConvertKit) is another great email marketing platform suitable for content creators, like bloggers, YouTubers, podcasters, and even course creators. Platform features, especially email marketing automation, are designed to help users monetize their content and sell digital products.
One of Kit’s main selling points is its visual automation builder, which allows users to build sophisticated email sequences and funnels in no time.
Tagging and segmentation tools are also noteworthy, helping users organize subscribers into different groups based on behavior, preferences, or engagement.
Free plan
Free for up to 10,000 subscribers, but limited to 1 basic visual automation, email sequence, and user.
Paid plans
* Pricing information retrieved from Kit in November 2024.
Zoho Campaigns is a subset of the Zoho suite and therefore integrates nicely with other Zoho products. Best suited for ecommerce businesses with simple workflow requirements or marketing agencies working with multiple clients.
A few of its features are sure to appeal to ecommerce users, like cart abandonment and purchase follow-up workflows. It also includes a mobile app, a drag-and-drop email builder, pre-designed layouts, analytics, and automation. Yet, advanced features like advanced segmentation and drag-and-drop workflows, are only available on the pricey ‘Professional’ plan.
Overall, Zoho Campaigns is worth considering, especially for professionals already using Zoho CRM or Zoho suite products. A learning curve is, however, associated with this tool.
Free plan
Free for up to 2,000 contacts, 6,000 emails per month, and 5 users, but with limited ready-made templates.
Paid plans
* Pricing information retrieved from Zoho Campaigns in November 2024.
Omnisend is a tool for e-commerce businesses looking to streamline their email marketing efforts and drive more sales. Omnisend facilitates this by allowing users to combine email, SMS, web push notifications, and even Google or Facebook retargeting ads within the same workflow. This gives users exceptional flexibility to reach their customers through their preferred channels.
Users can then utilize Omnisend’s pre-designed email templates and a drag-and-drop email editor, advanced segmentation, customizable pop-ups, and more to build an effective campaign.
One standout feature, however, is its advanced automation capabilities. The drag-and-drop automation builder helps users create complex workflows relevant to their customers’ behavior. Apart from seamless integrations with ecommerce platforms and customer review management features for Shopify, Omnisend also features “shoppable emails” that import product listings directly from stores.
Free plan
Free for up to 250 contacts, and 500 emails.
Paid plans
* Pricing information retrieved from Omnisend in November 2024.
Brevo is a versatile email marketing and communication tool that is ideal for small to medium-sized businesses aiming to manage email marketing automation, SMS campaigns, WhatsApp messaging, and live chat all in one place.
With its user-friendly drag-and-drop email editor and wide selection of pre-built templates, users can quickly create professional-looking emails.
One of Brevo’s key strengths is its advanced automation capabilities and visual workflow editor. These capabilities help users create automated workflows based on audience behavior. That’s where the platform’s segmentation options tie in, too.
Free plan
The free plan offers 300 emails/day, customizable email templates, all the necessary infrastructure for transactional emails, and other basic features.
Paid plans
* Pricing information retrieved from Brevo in November 2024.
Mailchimp is one of the best-known email marketing tools widely used by businesses due to its powerful feature set. Mailchimp provides users with everything they need to manage email campaigns, automation, and audience engagement effectively.
There’s an advanced automation mode named Customer Journeys. It includes a library of pre-built sequences, along with a range of rules and actions for users to create simple or complex sequences for their audience.
Free plan
The free plan includes 500 contacts and 1,000 emails/month with a sending limit of 500 emails/day.
Paid plans
* Pricing information retrieved from Mailchimp in November 2024.
Constant Contact is an email marketing solution built for small businesses and beginners with features geared toward e-commerce and brand marketing.
These features help users build an audience, create eye-catching emails, and manage events effectively. It has pretty much all the essential features like email automation, segmentation, third-party app and service integrations, detailed reporting, analytics, and more.
One notable feature, however, is event management, which can be found in the lite plan.
This allows users to create and promote events, send invitations, track RSVPs, and manage registrations for webinars, workshops, and live events in one place.
Free plan
No free plan but you can sign up for a 30-day free trial period limited to 100 emails total.
Paid plans
* Pricing information retrieved from Constant Contact in November 2024.
SendGrid is a reliable service with a good reputation but not devoid of pitfalls. However, its alternatives maintain a good balance between pricing, functionality, and support. The choice, however, depends on your specific requirements.
Take the time to evaluate each alternative thoroughly utilizing their free plan before committing so you can find an email marketing tool that aligns perfectly with your needs, goals, and budget.
Unlike basic SMTP, SendGrid and its alternatives provide advanced features like email automation, analytics, deliverability optimization, and easy integration with apps. They allow businesses to send out high volumes of emails while having more control and insights than with traditional SMTP services.
SendGrid’s shortcomings include a steep learning curve, insufficient marketing automation features, and high pricing, which makes it unaffordable for small businesses and startups. Small businesses or users who prefer a simpler email marketing tool with more competitive pricing would be advised to look at SendGrid’s many alternatives and find something that fits their needs better.
Yes, SendGrid offers a free plan. It allows up to 100 emails per day with basic features like analytics and deliverability optimization. Free plan restrictions and the lack of advanced features, however, make it suitable only for users with very basic email marketing needs.
