If you are searching for “SendGrid free tier,” you likely discovered that Twilio SendGrid’s free plan no longer works the way it used to. The short answer is that SendGrid’s free tier was limited to 100 emails per day for 60 days, after which it expired. As of 2026, SendGrid has fully migrated its offerings to Twilio.com, and the standalone free tier that developers relied on for years is no longer available. This article explains exactly what changed, what SendGrid offers now, and which free alternatives give you reliable email sending without a ticking clock.
What Happened to SendGrid’s Free Tier
SendGrid historically offered a free tier that allowed users to send up to 100 emails per day with no time limit. This made it the go-to choice for developers building side projects, startups testing their MVP, and anyone who needed reliable transactional email without paying. The free tier was a key reason SendGrid became the dominant email API provider for small-scale sending.
In 2023, Twilio (which acquired SendGrid in 2019) began phasing out the unlimited free tier. The replacement was a 60-day trial that still offered 100 emails per day but expired after two months. After the trial period ended, users had to upgrade to a paid Essentials plan starting at $19.95 per month for 50,000 emails. This change caught many developers off guard, especially those running low-volume applications that had relied on the free tier for years.
By 2025, SendGrid had fully consolidated its brand and website onto Twilio.com. The old sendgrid.com/pricing page now redirects to a migration announcement. The free tier as developers knew it is effectively gone. Users who never upgraded found their accounts either suspended or converted to paid plans with billing charges.
The core problem is straightforward: if you need to send fewer than 3,000 emails per month (100 per day), paying $19.95 per month is expensive on a per-email basis. A developer running a personal blog notification system, a side project with occasional user signups, or a small e-commerce store sending order confirmations does not need 50,000 emails per month. What they need is a genuinely free tier that does not expire.
SendGrid’s Current Pricing and Free Tier Options
As of 2026, SendGrid’s pricing structure has consolidated under Twilio’s platform. Here is what is currently available:
Essentials Plan – $19.95 per month for up to 50,000 emails. This is the entry-level paid plan. It includes the Email API, SMTP service, and basic analytics. There is no free tier equivalent to what existed before.
Pro Plan – $89.95 per month for 100,000 emails, scaling up to $799.95 per month for 1.5 million emails. This adds subaccounts, webhook management, dedicated IP options, and role-based access control (as a paid add-on).
Premier Plan – Custom pricing for enterprises needing more than 1.5 million emails per month, with dedicated support and SLAs.
The key takeaway is that SendGrid no longer offers a meaningful free tier. The 60-day trial gives you 100 emails per day for two months, but after that you must pay. For developers who need ongoing free email sending, this creates a real problem.
SendGrid still delivers more than 200 billion emails per month across its platform, and its deliverability infrastructure remains strong. But for low-volume senders, the pricing no longer makes sense. The market has responded with several alternatives that offer genuinely free tiers with no expiration dates.
Best SendGrid Free Tier Alternatives Compared
Several email service providers now offer free tiers that rival what SendGrid used to provide. Each has different limits, strengths, and ideal use cases. The right choice depends on whether you need transactional email, marketing email, or both.
The six alternatives covered in this article are SMTP2GO, Mailgun, Postmark, Brevo, Amazon SES, and Mystrika. Each offers a free tier or a very low-cost entry point that can replace SendGrid for most use cases.
SMTP2GO – Forever-Free Plan for Transactional Email
SMTP2GO offers a free plan that never expires and requires no credit card to start. It is designed specifically for developers who need reliable transactional email without paying.
Free Plan Limits:
- 1,000 emails per month
- 200 emails per day
- Up to 5 verified sender domains or addresses
- 2 team member accounts
- 1 webhook endpoint
- 5 days of activity log retention
- Ticket-based support
The daily cap of 200 emails has a smart queuing system. If you exceed 200 in a day, excess messages are queued and sent automatically when the next day’s allocation becomes available. No manual resubmission is needed. The monthly cap of 1,000 is a hard stop. Once you hit it, sending pauses until the cycle resets. New attempts are rejected rather than queued, which prevents silent backlog growth.
SMTP2GO requires sender verification before full sending is enabled. You can verify a domain (which enables SPF and DKIM authentication and covers all matching From addresses) or a single email address for quick tests. Until verification is complete, sending is throttled to a minimal rate for light testing only.
When you need to scale beyond the free tier, SMTP2GO’s paid plans remove daily limits, increase monthly quotas, and unlock features like live chat support, unlimited team members, multiple webhooks, SMS messaging, email archiving, and subaccounts. Your SMTP credentials and API keys remain the same when you upgrade, so no code changes are required.
SMTP2GO is best for developers who need a straightforward transactional email service with clear limits and no surprises. The free tier is genuinely useful for low-volume production traffic, staging environments, QA testing, hackathon projects, and proof-of-concept applications.
Mailgun – Free Tier With No Expiration
Mailgun offers a free plan that provides up to 100 emails per day with no expiration date. This is the closest direct equivalent to what SendGrid’s original free tier offered.
Free Plan Limits:
- 100 emails per day
- No expiration
- Access to Email API and SMTP service
- Basic analytics and tracking
- Tags and analytics included on all plans
Mailgun’s free plan is designed as an always-on option for developers who need consistent, low-volume sending. Unlike SendGrid’s 60-day trial, Mailgun’s free plan does not expire. You can use it indefinitely as long as your daily volume stays under 100 emails.
Mailgun’s paid plans start at $15 per month for up to 10,000 emails, which is actually cheaper than SendGrid’s Essentials plan on a per-email basis at the low end. The $35 per month plan covers 50,000 emails, and the $90 per month plan covers 100,000 emails. Paid plans include unlimited teammate seats, generous webhook limits, and free DMARC reporting through a partnership with Red Sift.
Mailgun claims an average delivery rate of 97.4% for its deliverability services customers, compared to the industry average of 85%. Its average bounce rate is 0.42%, compared to the industry average of 2%. These numbers come from Mailgun’s own published data on its comparison page.
Mailgun is best for developers who want a free tier that mirrors what SendGrid used to offer, with a clear upgrade path to paid plans as volume grows. The 100-emails-per-day limit works well for personal projects, small applications, and testing environments.
Postmark – Developer-Friendly Premium Alternative
Postmark takes a different approach. Instead of a generous free tier, it offers a developer plan with 100 emails per month that never expires. This is enough for testing and very low-volume applications, but not for production use at any real scale.
Developer Plan Limits:
- 100 emails per month
- No expiration
- Full access to API and SMTP
- 45 days of message event storage and full content rendering
- Email and live chat support during business hours
Postmark’s strength is not its free tier but its deliverability and developer experience. The platform offers several features that SendGrid does not:
- Separate infrastructure for transactional and bulk email (SendGrid lumps them together)
- Spam score checking before sending
- DMARC support
- Custom header metadata tagging
- Time to Inbox metric showing actual delivery speed
- 45 days of full message storage included by default (SendGrid offers 3 days, with 30 days as a paid upgrade)
Postmark reports an average first response time of under two hours and a customer happiness rating of 95%. Notable customers include IKEA, Minecraft, UNICEF, Asana, Moz, 1Password, Webflow, and InVision.
Paid plans start at $15 per month for 10,000 emails. At 125,000 emails per month, Postmark costs $115 compared to SendGrid’s $114.95. At 700,000 emails, Postmark costs $455 compared to SendGrid’s $449. The pricing is competitive with SendGrid at higher volumes.
Postmark is best for developers who prioritize deliverability and developer experience over free sending volume. The 100-emails-per-month developer plan is enough for testing but not for production. If you need more than 100 emails per month, you will need a paid plan starting at $15.
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) – Free Marketing and Transactional Email
Brevo offers a free plan that includes 300 emails per day with no credit card required. This is the most generous free tier among the major alternatives for daily sending volume.
Free Plan Limits:
- 300 emails per day
- No credit card required
- Drag-and-drop email editor
- Email templates
- AI content generator
- Advanced segmentation
- Basic reporting
- Email support in 6 languages
Brevo’s free plan is unique because it includes marketing email features alongside transactional sending. You get a drag-and-drop editor, pre-built templates, and AI-powered content generation tools that no other free tier offers. This makes Brevo a strong choice if you need both transactional and marketing email capabilities.
Brevo’s paid plans start at $9 per month (Starter) for 5,000 emails per month, which is significantly cheaper than SendGrid’s $19.95 Essentials plan. The Standard plan at $18 per month adds unlimited marketing automation, A/B testing, send time optimization, and landing pages. The Professional plan at $499 per month includes advanced features like multi-user seats, contact scoring, AI recommendations, and phone support.
Brevo is B Corp certified and reports serving over 600,000 customers worldwide. The platform integrates with 150+ digital tools including Shopify, WordPress, Stripe, and Zapier.
Brevo is best for users who need both transactional and marketing email capabilities in a single platform. The 300-emails-per-day free tier is the most generous among the alternatives covered here, and the marketing features are a bonus that no other free tier matches.
Amazon SES – Pay-as-You-Go at Scale
Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) takes a completely different approach. Instead of a traditional free tier, it offers a pay-as-you-go model with very low per-email costs.
Free Tier Limits:
- 62,000 emails per month free when sending from an Amazon EC2 instance
- 1,000 emails per month free when sending from outside AWS
- $0.10 per 1,000 emails after the free tier
- $0.12 per 1,000 attachments
Amazon SES is by far the cheapest option at scale. At $0.10 per 1,000 emails, sending 100,000 emails costs just $10. Compare that to SendGrid at $89.95 or Mailgun at $90 for the same volume. The cost difference is dramatic.
However, Amazon SES has significant trade-offs. It has no built-in bounce and spam complaint handling, no open and click tracking by default, no pre-built templates, and no drag-and-drop editor. You need to build these features yourself or use third-party tools. The setup process is more complex than other providers, requiring you to verify domains, request production access, and configure feedback notifications through Amazon SNS.
Amazon SES is best for developers who are already on AWS, have high sending volumes, and are comfortable building their own email infrastructure around the raw sending capability. It is not ideal for beginners or anyone who wants a turnkey solution.
Mystrika – Modern Cold Email Outreach Platform
Mystrika is a cold email outreach platform that includes email warmup, a unified inbox (Unibox), a sequencer, and whitelabel capabilities. While it is not a direct replacement for SendGrid’s transactional email API, it serves a different but related need: sending outreach emails at scale with proper deliverability infrastructure.
Mystrika’s platform starts at $15 per month and includes features that transactional email providers do not offer, such as automated email warmup, bounce detection and suppression, and a unified inbox for managing replies across multiple email accounts. The warmup feature is particularly relevant for users migrating from SendGrid, because switching email providers can damage sender reputation if not done carefully.
Mystrika is best for users who need cold email outreach capabilities with built-in deliverability management. It is not a transactional email API for application-generated emails like password resets or order confirmations. If you need both transactional email and outreach capabilities, you might use SMTP2GO or Mailgun for transactional sending and Mystrika for outreach.
Free Tier Alternatives Comparison Table
| Provider | Free Tier Limit | Daily Cap | Expiration | Credit Card Required | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SMTP2GO | 1,000/month | 200/day | Never | No | Transactional email, staging, QA |
| Mailgun | ~3,000/month | 100/day | Never | No | Developer projects, low-volume apps |
| Postmark | 100/month | ~3/day | Never | No | Testing, very low volume |
| Brevo | ~9,000/month | 300/day | Never | No | Marketing + transactional combined |
| Amazon SES | 62,000/month (EC2) | No cap | 12 months | Yes | High volume, AWS users |
| Mystrika | N/A (paid from $15) | N/A | N/A | Yes | Cold email outreach, warmup |
Decision Matrix – Which Alternative Should You Choose
| Use Case | Recommended Provider | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Side project with <1,000 emails/month | SMTP2GO | Best free tier limits, no credit card, never expires |
| Personal blog notifications | Mailgun | Simple setup, 100/day is enough, no expiration |
| Testing and development only | Postmark | 100/month free dev plan, best debugging tools |
| Marketing emails + transactional | Brevo | 300/day free, includes drag-and-drop editor |
| High-volume app on AWS | Amazon SES | $0.10/1,000 emails, dramatically cheaper at scale |
| Cold email outreach | Mystrika | Built-in warmup, unibox, sequencer, whitelabel |
| Production app needing reliability | SMTP2GO or Mailgun | Proven infrastructure, clear upgrade paths |
| E-commerce order notifications | SMTP2GO | 1,000/month covers most small stores, queues on overage |
How to Migrate From SendGrid Free Tier Step by Step
Migrating from SendGrid to a new email provider requires careful planning to avoid downtime, lost emails, and deliverability problems. Here is a step-by-step guide.
Step 1: Inventory Your Senders
List every From address and sending domain you use in your application. This includes password reset emails, order confirmations, notification emails, and any automated messages. For each sender, note whether it uses a custom domain or a shared address. This list determines what you need to verify with your new provider.
Step 2: Choose Your New Provider
Use the decision matrix above to select the provider that matches your volume, use case, and budget. Sign up for an account and note your new SMTP credentials and API keys. Do not delete your SendGrid configuration yet.
Step 3: Verify Your Sender Identity
With your new provider, verify each domain or email address from your inventory. For domain verification, you will add DNS records (TXT records for SPF and DKIM) to your domain’s DNS configuration. This step is critical because unverified senders are throttled or blocked by most providers.
Step 4: Configure Email Authentication
Set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records for your sending domain. Proper authentication is essential for deliverability. Without it, your emails are likely to land in spam folders or be rejected outright. Most providers give you the exact DNS records to add.
Step 5: Update Your Application Configuration
Replace your SendGrid SMTP credentials or API keys with the new provider’s credentials. This typically involves updating environment variables or configuration files in your application. Test with a single email before switching fully.
Step 6: Test and Validate
Send a small batch of test emails to verify that DKIM alignment passes, SPF checks out, and emails arrive in the inbox (not spam). Check your new provider’s activity logs to confirm delivery. Test different email types (password resets, notifications, etc.) to ensure everything works.
Step 7: Monitor and Switch
Once testing passes, update your production configuration. Keep your SendGrid account active for a few days in case you need to roll back. Monitor your new provider’s delivery metrics and bounce rates closely during the first week.
SMTP Migration Guide With Code Examples
If your application uses SMTP to send email through SendGrid, here is how to switch to a new provider. The changes are minimal because SMTP is a standard protocol.
Python (using smtplib):
Before (SendGrid):
import smtplib
from email.mime.text import MIMEText
msg = MIMEText("Your order has been confirmed.")
msg["Subject"] = "Order Confirmation"
msg["From"] = "[email protected]"
msg["To"] = "[email protected]"
with smtplib.SMTP("smtp.sendgrid.net", 587) as server:
server.starttls()
server.login("apikey", "YOUR_SENDGRID_API_KEY")
server.send_message(msg)After (SMTP2GO):
import smtplib
from email.mime.text import MIMEText
msg = MIMEText("Your order has been confirmed.")
msg["Subject"] = "Order Confirmation"
msg["From"] = "[email protected]"
msg["To"] = "[email protected]"
with smtplib.SMTP("smtp.smtp2go.com", 2525) as server:
server.starttls()
server.login("YOUR_USERNAME", "YOUR_PASSWORD")
server.send_message(msg)Node.js (using nodemailer):
Before (SendGrid):
const nodemailer = require("nodemailer");
const transporter = nodemailer.createTransport({
host: "smtp.sendgrid.net",
port: 587,
auth: {
user: "apikey",
pass: "YOUR_SENDGRID_API_KEY"
}
});
await transporter.sendMail({
from: "[email protected]",
to: "[email protected]",
subject: "Order Confirmation",
text: "Your order has been confirmed."
});After (Mailgun):
const nodemailer = require("nodemailer");
const transporter = nodemailer.createTransport({
host: "smtp.mailgun.org",
port: 587,
auth: {
user: "[email protected]",
pass: "YOUR_MAILGUN_SMTP_PASSWORD"
}
});
await transporter.sendMail({
from: "[email protected]",
to: "[email protected]",
subject: "Order Confirmation",
text: "Your order has been confirmed."
});The only changes are the SMTP host, port, and authentication credentials. Your email content, headers, and sending logic remain identical. This is why SMTP is the easiest migration path.
API Migration Guide With Code Examples
If your application uses SendGrid’s REST API (v3), the migration requires more changes because each provider has its own API structure.
Python (using requests):
Before (SendGrid v3 API):
import requests
response = requests.post(
"https://api.sendgrid.com/v3/mail/send",
headers={
"Authorization": f"Bearer YOUR_SENDGRID_API_KEY",
"Content-Type": "application/json"
},
json={
"personalizations": [{"to": [{"email": "[email protected]"}]}],
"from": {"email": "[email protected]"},
"subject": "Order Confirmation",
"content": [{"type": "text/plain", "value": "Your order has been confirmed."}]
}
)After (Mailgun API):
import requests
response = requests.post(
"https://api.mailgun.net/v3/mg.yourdomain.com/messages",
auth=("api", "YOUR_MAILGUN_API_KEY"),
data={
"from": "[email protected]",
"to": "[email protected]",
"subject": "Order Confirmation",
"text": "Your order has been confirmed."
}
)After (SMTP2GO API):
import requests
response = requests.post(
"https://api.smtp2go.com/v3/email/send",
headers={"Content-Type": "application/json"},
json={
"api_key": "YOUR_SMTP2GO_API_KEY",
"to": ["[email protected]"],
"sender": "[email protected]",
"subject": "Order Confirmation",
"text_body": "Your order has been confirmed."
}
)Each API has a different endpoint, authentication method, and payload structure. Plan for a more involved migration if you use the REST API directly rather than SMTP.
Setting Up Email Authentication After Migration
Email authentication is the single most important factor in deliverability. When you switch from SendGrid to a new provider, you must update your DNS records to authorize the new provider to send on your behalf.
SPF (Sender Policy Framework)
SPF tells receiving mail servers which IP addresses are authorized to send email for your domain. To update it, add or modify a TXT record in your DNS:
v=spf1 include:spf.yournewprovider.com ~allReplace `spf.yournewprovider.com` with the SPF include value from your new provider. For example, SMTP2GO uses `include:_spf.smtp2go.com`, Mailgun uses `include:mailgun.org`, and Brevo uses `include:spf.brevo.com`.
You can include multiple providers in a single SPF record, which is useful during migration:
v=spf1 include:spf.sendgrid.net include:spf.yournewprovider.com ~allThis allows both SendGrid and your new provider to send during the transition period. Remove the SendGrid include once you have fully migrated.
DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail)
DKIM adds a digital signature to your emails that receiving servers can verify against a public key in your DNS. Your new provider will give you a DKIM record to add. It looks like this:
default._domainkey TXT "v=DKIM1; k=rsa; p=MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQC..."The exact value depends on your provider. Add this as a TXT record in your DNS. DKIM alignment (where the domain in the DKIM signature matches the From address) is increasingly required by Gmail and Yahoo for inbox delivery.
DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance)
DMARC tells receiving servers what to do when SPF or DKIM fails. It also provides reports about authentication failures. A basic DMARC record is:
_dmarc TXT "v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:[email protected]"Start with `p=none` to monitor without affecting delivery. Once you confirm authentication is working, move to `p=quarantine` and eventually `p=reject` for maximum protection.
Email Warmup – Why It Matters When Switching Providers
When you switch from SendGrid to a new provider, you are effectively starting fresh with a new sending IP address. Email providers like Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook do not know whether your new IP is legitimate or a spam source. They need to build trust over time through a process called email warmup.
Email warmup is the gradual increase in sending volume from a new IP address or domain. You start by sending a small number of emails per day and increase volume over several weeks. This gives receiving servers time to observe your sending patterns and build a positive reputation.
If you switch providers and immediately send your full volume from the new IP, you risk triggering spam filters. A sudden burst of email from an unknown IP looks like a spam campaign, even if your emails are legitimate. This can result in your new IP being blacklisted before you even get started.
The warmup process typically takes 2 to 4 weeks. Start by sending 10 to 20 emails per day from your new provider. Increase by 10 to 20 emails per day each week. Monitor bounce rates, spam complaints, and inbox placement throughout the process. If you see elevated bounce rates or spam complaints, hold at your current volume until things stabilize.
Some providers offer automated warmup tools. For example, Mystrika includes automated email warmup as part of its platform, which gradually increases sending volume and engages with other warmup networks to build reputation. This is particularly useful if you are sending cold outreach emails where deliverability is critical.
During the warmup period, keep your SendGrid account active as a fallback. You can route a portion of your email through SendGrid and a portion through your new provider, gradually shifting the balance. This reduces the risk of delivery problems during the transition.
Monitoring Deliverability After Migration
After you migrate to a new provider, monitoring deliverability is essential. Here are the key metrics to track:
Bounce Rate: A bounce rate above 2% indicates problems with your email list or authentication. Hard bounces (invalid addresses) should be removed from your list immediately. Soft bounces (temporary failures) should be retried but tracked for patterns.
Spam Complaint Rate: Keep this below 0.1% (1 complaint per 1,000 emails). If it goes higher, email providers may block your messages. High complaint rates often mean you are sending to recipients who did not opt in.
Inbox Placement Rate: This is the percentage of emails that land in the inbox versus spam. Most providers do not report this directly, but you can use seed list testing or third-party tools to measure it. An inbox placement rate below 90% requires investigation.
Open and Click Rates: These engagement metrics signal to email providers that recipients want your email. Low engagement can hurt your sender reputation over time.
Most email providers include basic analytics in their dashboards. SMTP2GO offers 5 days of activity logs on the free plan showing deliveries, bounces, spam reports, opens, clicks, and unsubscribes. Mailgun includes tags and analytics on all plans. Postmark provides 45 days of full message storage and event history by default.
For more detailed monitoring, consider using a dedicated deliverability monitoring tool. Good email deliverability starts with proper authentication and continues with ongoing monitoring of your sending reputation.
Common Migration Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
Migrating from SendGrid to a new provider seems straightforward, but several common mistakes can cause delivery problems, data loss, or extended downtime. Here are the most frequent pitfalls and how to avoid each one.
Pitfall 1: Not Testing Before Switching Production Traffic
The most common mistake is updating DNS records and application configuration simultaneously, then discovering that emails are not being delivered. Always test with a single email first, then a small batch, before switching your full production volume. Use a staging environment or a separate API key for testing.
Pitfall 2: Removing SendGrid DNS Records Too Early
Your SPF record should include both SendGrid and your new provider during the transition. If you remove the SendGrid include before all emails have stopped flowing through SendGrid, those emails will fail SPF checks and may be rejected. Keep both providers in your SPF record for at least one full billing cycle after migration.
Pitfall 3: Ignoring DKIM Alignment
Gmail and Yahoo now require DKIM alignment for inbox delivery. This means the domain in the DKIM signature must match the domain in the From address. If you use a subdomain for sending (like mg.yourdomain.com), make sure your DKIM key is set up for that subdomain and that your From address uses the same domain.
Pitfall 4: Skipping Email Warmup
Switching to a new provider means switching to a new IP address. Even if your email list is clean and your content is high quality, sending full volume from a new IP will trigger spam filters. The warmup period is not optional. Plan for it in your migration timeline.
Pitfall 5: Not Monitoring Bounce Rates Closely
A sudden increase in bounce rates after migration often indicates an authentication problem rather than a list quality problem. If you see bounces spiking, check your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC configuration first. If those are correct, then investigate list quality.
Pitfall 6: Forgetting About Webhook and Event Configurations
If your application relies on SendGrid’s event webhooks for tracking deliveries, bounces, or opens, you need to reconfigure those with your new provider. Each provider has a different webhook format and delivery mechanism. Test webhook integration before switching fully.
Pitfall 7: Not Documenting Your SendGrid Configuration
Before deactivating your SendGrid account, document your current configuration including all sender identities, API keys, webhook URLs, suppression lists, and template IDs. You may need this information for troubleshooting or if you need to roll back. Take screenshots or export configuration data.
Pitfall 8: Overlooking Subuser and Subaccount Management
If you use SendGrid subusers or subaccounts to separate different applications or environments, you need to replicate this structure with your new provider. Not all providers support subaccounts on their free tiers. SMTP2GO allows up to 5 verified senders on the free plan, which can serve a similar purpose for small setups.
Key Takeaways
- SendGrid’s original free tier (100 emails/day, no expiration) is gone. The replacement is a 60-day trial that expires, after which you must pay $19.95/month for the Essentials plan.
- SMTP2GO offers the best free tier for transactional email with 1,000 emails/month, 200/day, and no expiration. No credit card is required.
- Mailgun provides 100 emails/day with no expiration, making it the closest direct equivalent to what SendGrid used to offer.
- Brevo offers 300 emails/day free with marketing features included, the most generous daily limit among the alternatives.
- Amazon SES is the cheapest option at scale ($0.10 per 1,000 emails) but requires more technical setup and lacks built-in features.
- Postmark is best for developers who prioritize deliverability and are willing to pay for it, with a 100-emails/month free dev plan.
- Email warmup is critical when switching providers. Gradually increase volume over 2 to 4 weeks to build sender reputation on your new IP.
- Update your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records when switching providers. Proper authentication is essential for inbox delivery.
- The migration process involves inventorying senders, choosing a provider, verifying identity, updating DNS, testing, and monitoring.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does SendGrid still have a free tier?
No, SendGrid no longer offers a permanent free tier. The current offering is a 60-day trial that provides 100 emails per day. After the trial expires, you must upgrade to a paid Essentials plan starting at $19.95 per month for 50,000 emails. The old free tier that developers relied on for years was phased out starting in 2023.
What is the best free alternative to SendGrid?
The best free alternative depends on your use case. For transactional email, SMTP2GO offers 1,000 emails per month with no expiration and no credit card required. For marketing email combined with transactional, Brevo offers 300 emails per day with a drag-and-drop editor. For the closest direct replacement to SendGrid’s old free tier, Mailgun offers 100 emails per day with no expiration.
How do I migrate from SendGrid to a new provider?
To migrate from SendGrid, first inventory all your sending domains and email addresses. Choose a new provider and sign up. Verify your sender identity with the new provider by adding DNS records. Update your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records to authorize the new provider. Replace your SMTP credentials or API keys in your application. Test with a small batch of emails, then switch fully. Keep your SendGrid account active for a few days as a fallback.
Can I use Amazon SES for free?
Amazon SES offers 62,000 emails per month free when sending from an Amazon EC2 instance, and 1,000 emails per month free when sending from outside AWS. The free tier lasts for 12 months. After that, the cost is $0.10 per 1,000 emails, which is still dramatically cheaper than any other provider at scale. However, Amazon SES lacks built-in features like bounce handling, open tracking, and pre-built templates.
What is email warmup and why is it important?
Email warmup is the process of gradually increasing sending volume from a new IP address or domain to build sender reputation with email providers. When you switch from SendGrid to a new provider, your new sending IP has no reputation. If you send full volume immediately, you risk being flagged as spam. Warmup typically takes 2 to 4 weeks, starting with 10 to 20 emails per day and gradually increasing.
How do I set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC for my new provider?
SPF is set up by adding a TXT record to your DNS that lists the authorized sending IPs for your domain. DKIM is set up by adding a TXT record with a public key that your new provider gives you. DMARC is set up by adding a TXT record that tells receiving servers what to do when authentication fails. Your new provider will give you the exact DNS record values to add. Start with DMARC policy set to “none” to monitor, then move to “quarantine” and “reject” as you confirm authentication is working.
Which provider has the most generous free tier?
Brevo offers the most generous free tier by daily volume at 300 emails per day. SMTP2GO offers the best monthly volume at 1,000 emails per month with a 200-per-day cap. Amazon SES offers the highest volume at 62,000 emails per month from EC2, but only for 12 months and with more technical requirements. For a permanent free tier with no credit card, SMTP2GO and Brevo are the strongest options.
Can I use multiple email providers at the same time?
Yes, you can use multiple providers simultaneously. This is common during migration when you want to gradually shift traffic from SendGrid to a new provider. You can also use different providers for different purposes, such as SMTP2GO for transactional emails and Mystrika for cold email outreach. Your SPF record can include multiple providers to authorize all of them to send on your behalf.
What happens to my SendGrid API keys after migration?
Your SendGrid API keys remain active as long as your SendGrid account is active. You should revoke or delete them once you have fully migrated and confirmed that your new provider is working correctly. Leaving unused API keys active is a security risk. If you keep your SendGrid account for fallback purposes, rotate the API keys and restrict their permissions to the minimum needed.
How long does it take to fully migrate from SendGrid?
A full migration from SendGrid typically takes 1 to 3 days for the technical switch, plus 2 to 4 weeks for email warmup. The technical migration involves updating DNS records, changing application configuration, and testing. The warmup period is the longer phase because it requires gradually building reputation on your new sending IP. Plan for at least 3 weeks from start to fully migrated and warmed up.