11 SendGrid Alternatives to Consider for Email Marketing

What is SendGrid?

Twilio SendGrid (formerly SendGrid) is an email delivery platform within Twilio that provides both transactional email (via API) and email marketing tools.

SendGrid is no longer a standalone platform — its website, pricing, and documentation are now fully integrated into Twilio. However, it is still maintained as a distinct product line within Twilio. So, unlike most tools on this list, SendGrid is part of a broader communications platform (Twilio), which also includes SMS, voice, and other APIs.

Pros and cons of choosing SendGrid for your business

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. 

SendGrid advantages

• Scalable as businesses grow, adapting to higher volume demands
• In-depth data analysis and reporting tools
• Extensive integration options

SendGrid disadvantages

• Prohibitively expensive for small companies
• Challenging initial setup
• Intense learning curve
• Inefficient marketing automation
• Challenging integrations with lesser-known software like Monday.com and Pipedrive that require custom solutions
• Unsatisfactory support

Twilio SendGrid pricing (via Twilio)

Free plan

No free plan.

Free trial with $0/mo for 60 days, store up to 100 contacts and send up to 100 emails/day.

Paid plans

Twilio SendGrid has separate pricing for its two products:

Email API (transactional emails):

• Free trial: $0/month for 60 days, up to 100 emails/day
• Essentials: starting at $19.95/month (email-volume based)
• Pro: starting at $89.95/month
• Premier: custom pricing

Marketing Campaigns (email marketing):

• Free trial: $0/month for 60 days (limited contacts and sends)
• Basic: starting at $15/month
• Advanced: starting at $60/month
• Custom: custom pricing

Top alternatives to SendGrid: The overview

Selzy — Best for its affordable pricing, automation, A/B Testing

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 that 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 prebuilt automation workflows for common scenarios like welcome emails, abandoned carts, and re-engagement.

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.

Pros

• Much more affordable than SendGrid with plans starting at $5.25/month for 500 contacts and unlimited emails
• 99% email deliverability with built-in optimization utilities like spam testing
• Simple and user-friendly email builder
• Built-in AI assistant
• Chatbot builder for enhanced customer experience
• 24/7 customer support with quick turnaround via chat, email, and phone on all plans, even on the free one
• Transactional emails via SMTP and API, allowing businesses to send system emails alongside marketing campaigns
• In addition to email, Selzy supports SMS campaigns and building landing pages

Cons

• Fewer integration options but it does integrate with Google Sheets, WordPress, Hubspot, Shopify, and Facebook

Pricing

Free plan

The free plan includes 100 contacts, 1,000 emails per month, and a basic set of features. 

Paid plans

• Lite: $5.25/month for unlimited emails and 500 contacts + A/B testing, segmentation, and shareable email URLs
• Standard: $10.5/month for unlimited emails, 500 contacts + lite plan features + anti-spam tips, email size check, Telegram chatbots, and more
• Full Service: Custom price for personalized service, 360 campaign management to individual solutions

MailerSend — Best for efficient workflows

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. It includes features such as email verification, inbound routing, webhooks, and developer-focused API tools.

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.

Pros

• Real-time collaboration features for more efficient teamwork
• Reliable deliverability optimization tools

Cons

• MailerSend falls short of advanced features like A/B testing, automated IP warmup, and custom metadata, making it less suitable for larger companies.
• The free plan only includes 3 email templates which many users find limiting.
• MailerSend often experiences deliverability issues, especially during the IP warmup phase, potentially affecting campaign performance during the crucial early stages​.

Pricing

Free plan

The free plan includes 500 emails/month

Paid plans

• Hobby: $5.6/month includes 5,000 emails/month as an entry-level paid tier
• Starter: $28/month for 50,000 emails + 50 sender identities and inbound routing feature. 
• Professional: $88/month for 50,000 emails + 400 email verification credits, 1,000 domains, unlimited templates, and high throughput API.

Mailgun — Best for API-based bulk email with robust analytics

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.

Mailgun also supports inbound email routing and webhook-based event tracking for application workflows.

One great feature of Mailgun is its comprehensive analytics, which allows businesses to figure out a data-driven email strategy.

Pros

• Good email deliverability and suppression list management
• Robust analytics and data logs for detailed performance tracking

Cons

• A slightly confusing interface is challenging for beginners.
• Many users, especially EU residents have expressed dissatisfaction with the platform’s customer support.
• Pricing plans can be costly for high-volume users.

Pricing

Free plan

Free plan: with a daily sending cap of 100 emails.

Paid plans

• Basic: starts from $15/month for up to 10,000 emails.
• Foundation: starts from $35/month to 50,000 emails.
• Scale: starts from $90/month for 100,000 emails.

Postmark — Best for quick transactional email delivery and intuitive UI

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.

Postmark includes features such as message streams (separating transactional and broadcast emails), inbound email processing, and webhook-based event tracking.

Pros

• User-friendly interface with easy-to-use templates
• Separate message streams for transactional and broadcast emails

Cons

• No yearly plan
• Insufficient email marketing tools
• Some users have reported that managing multiple accounts can prove challenging
• Data retention is limited to 45 days across all tiers

Pricing

Free plan

The free developer plan provides 100 emails a month. 

Paid plans

• Basic: $15/month for 10,000 emails + $1.80 per 1,000 additional emails
• Pro: $16.50/month with lower overage costs
• Platform: $18/month with the lowest overage rates

AWeber — Best for easy autoresponders and quick campaign setup

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. 

AWeber also includes features such as web push notifications, AI writing assistance, landing page builders, and ecommerce tools for selling products and subscriptions.

Pros

• Autoresponders and drip campaigns
• Extensive template library with 700+ customizable templates

Cons

• The interface and templates may look and feel a bit outdated.
• Unsubscribed contacts still count towards the subscriber total.
• No segmentation options in the free plan and only one segment in the Lite plan.
• Falls short of advanced features like dedicated sender IP addresses.

Pricing

Free plan

No free plan.

AWeber offers a 14-day free trial.

Paid plans

• Lite: $12.50/month for 500 subscribers with email sends of 10x your subscriber list + 3 landing pages, users, and more. 
• Plus: $20/month for 500 subscribers with email sends of 12x your subscriber list + unlimited landing pages, users, and more.
• Done For:$20.00/month + $79 setup fee for unlimited subscribers; and 15x subscribers max, monthly email sends + email marketing setup done in 7 days.

Kit (ex-ConvertKit) — Best for automation workflows tailored to creators

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.

Kit includes built-in monetization tools, allowing users to sell digital products, subscriptions, and earn through creator recommendations.

Pros

• Tailored for content creators
• Flexible list management options
• Supports paid newsletters and other content monetization options

Cons

• No drag-and-drop builder
• Relatively basic reporting and analytics options
• Not a great choice for midsize and large businesses, as price increases steeply for mailing lists with 1000+ subscribers

Pricing

Free plan

Free for up to 10,000 subscribers, but limited to 1 basic visual automation, email sequence, and user.

Paid plans

• Creator: $33/month for 1,000 subscribers + unlimited visual automation, email sequences, and 2 users. 
• Pro: $66/month for all features from Creator + unlimited users. 

Zoho Campaigns — Best for CRM integration within the Zoho suite

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. 

Automation features are limited on lower-tier plans, with advanced workflows available only on the Professional plan.

Pros

• Multiple useful integration options
• Pre-built templates, workflows, and automation

Cons

• Workflow and automation setup can be confusing and difficult.
• Email deliverability has been reported to be lower than other options, especially if email authentication is not set up correctly.
• Loading times can be slow, especially for automated sequences that target thousands of subscribers.

Pricing

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

• Standard: $3/month for 500 contacts and unlimited emails + basic segmentation and drag-and-drop workflows, access to all ready-to-use email templates, dedicated IP, SMS marketing, and 10 users.
• Professional: $4.50/month for everything from standard plan + advanced segmentation and, additional advanced features, + 20 users.

Omnisend — Best for multichannel marketing (email, SMS, web push)

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 e-commerce platforms and customer review management features for Shopify, Omnisend also features “shoppable emails” that import product listings directly from stores.

Omnisend provides pre-built e-commerce automation workflows such as abandoned cart recovery and post-purchase follow-ups.

Pros

• Sales, revenue tracking, and analytics. 
• Helpful customer support.

Cons

• There are fewer design options compared to other tools.
• Advanced features, like automation workflows and omnichannel integrations, can be daunting for new users and small businesses to navigate.
• Some users have found Omnisend’s pricing structure a bit confusing.

Pricing

Free plan

Free for up to 250 contacts and 500 emails. The free plan includes access to all features but is limited by the number of contacts and monthly email sends.

Paid plans

• Standard: $11.2/month for 500 contacts, 6,000 emails, unlimited push notifications, 1,000 published Shopify reviews, and a one-time $1 in free SMS.
• Pro: $41.3/month for 2,500 contacts, unlimited emails, push notifications and published Shopify reviews, as well as advanced reporting with 3,933 free SMS/month.

Brevo — Best for SMS and email automation in one platform

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. 

Brevo includes a built-in CRM, transactional email support (SMTP/API), and multichannel marketing features such as SMS, WhatsApp, and push notifications.

Pros

• Beginner-friendly setup and implementation
• In-depth visual workflow automation options

Cons

• The free plan is quite restrictive, only allowing 300 emails per day, with Brevo’s branding.
• Advanced features like predictive sending, landing pages, A/B testing, and phone support are only available for business plan users.
• The deliverability isn’t good, according to an independent study, Brevo had a spam rate of 27.4% compared to an industry benchmark of 14.8%.

Pricing

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

• Starter: $8.08/month for 500 contacts and 5,000 emails, with basic reporting, analytics, and more.
• Business: $16.17/month for up to 500 contacts and 5,000 emails, with marketing automation, advanced reporting and analytics, and more.
• Professional: $449/month for advanced analytics, AI-powered segmentation and recommendations, WhatsApp and multichannel campaigns, push notifications, and up to 10 users.
• Enterprise: Custom price for unlimited contacts, advanced integrations, and exclusive features.

Mailchimp — Best for an intuitive content creation suite

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.

Mailchimp also includes landing pages, forms, CRM-style audience management, and optional transactional email via add-ons.

Pros

• Hosting, landing page builder, website builder
• Advanced automation features

Cons

• Transactional emails (SMPT server) cost extra.
• Free and entry-level plans are relatively basic, with no custom-coded templates, advanced analytics, segmentation, dynamic content, and more.
• Due to the pricing model, Mailchimp’s pricing can escalate quickly as it charges for duplicate, unsubscribed, and inactive contacts too.

Pricing

Free plan

The free plan includes 250 contacts and 500 emails/month.

Paid plans

• Essentials: $10/month for 500 contacts and 5,000 (10x contacts) emails, limited reporting and analytics, 4 Journey points, and 3 seats.
• Standard: $16/month for 500 contacts and 6,000 (12x contacts) emails, advanced reporting, analytics, segmentation, and other features, 200 Journey points, and 3 seats.
• Premium: $280/month for 10,000 contacts and 150,000 (15x contacts) emails, advanced reporting, analytics, segmentation, and other features, 200 Journey points, and unlimited seats.

Constant Contact — Best for live event management and RSVP tools

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.

Constant Contact also includes event management tools, social media posting, and advertising integrations.

Pros

• Over 5,000 integrations with filters by category
• Automated contact list segmentation based on engagement

Cons

• The automation workflows are insufficient.
• The template designs can feel a bit dated compared to newer alternatives.
• The pricing structure can quickly become steep for larger contact lists.

Pricing

Free plan

No free plan but you can sign up for a 30-day free trial period limited to 100 emails total.

Paid plans

• Lite: $12/month for 500 contacts, 5,000 emails (10x the number of contacts), basic reporting features, 1 automation template, and 1 user.
• Standard: $35/month for 500 contacts, 6,000 emails (12x the number of contacts), advanced reporting features, 3 automation templates, and 3 users.
• Premium: $80/month for 500 contacts, 12,000 emails (24x the number of contacts), advanced reporting features, unlimited automation templates, and unlimited users.

Conclusion

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.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Why use SendGrid and not SMTP?

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.

What are the limitations of SendGrid?

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.

Can I use SendGrid for free?

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.