Mailgun
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About Mailgun
Mailgun is a developer-focused transactional email API service used by over 150,000 companies to send, receive, and track emails programmatically. Founded in 2010 and acquired by Sinch in 2021, Mailgun provides reliable email infrastructure for applications that need to send password resets, order confirmations, notifications, and other transactional messages via simple REST API calls. The platform's core strengths are its clean, well-documented API that developers can integrate in minutes, inbound email parsing (receive and parse emails to a URL), and powerful routing rules that filter and route incoming mail based on patterns. Mailgun's email validation API helps clean email lists before sending to improve deliverability. Deliverability is a key selling point — Mailgun maintains relationships with major ISPs and provides dedicated IP addresses for high-volume senders. Pricing is pay-per-email: the Flex plan is free for the first 100 emails/day (100 per month on trial, then pay-as-you-go). Foundation starts at $35/month for 50,000 emails. Scale plans go up to millions of emails monthly. Mailgun competes directly with Twilio SendGrid and Postmark.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Mailgun free?
Mailgun's Flex plan is pay-as-you-go: 100 emails/day free during trial, then $0.80 per 1,000 emails after trial expires. Foundation is $35/month for 50,000 emails with 5-day email logs. Scale plans are $90/month (100K emails) and $250/month (500K emails) with longer log retention and dedicated IPs.
Mailgun vs SendGrid: which is better?
Both are strong transactional email APIs. Mailgun is often preferred for its inbound email parsing and routing capabilities — if you need to receive and process emails programmatically, Mailgun is stronger. SendGrid is better if you need both transactional email and marketing campaigns in one platform. Pricing is similar; developer preference often comes down to API design.
What is Mailgun used for?
Mailgun is used to send transactional emails from applications — password reset emails, order confirmations, shipping notifications, account alerts, and automated sequences. It's also used to receive and parse inbound emails (building email-to-ticket systems, for example) and to validate email addresses before adding them to lists.
Top Alternatives to Mailgun
SendGrid
More features including marketing email campaigns
Postmark
Better deliverability focus, faster delivery, simpler pricing
Amazon SES
Cheapest at $0.10/1,000 emails for AWS users
Brevo
Adds SMS and marketing campaigns alongside transactional
Twilio
If you need SMS + voice alongside email in one platform
Mailchimp
Better for marketing campaigns rather than transactional API
All Comparisons
SendGrid vs Mailgun
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