Transactional email pricing compared
Password resets, receipts and other transactional mail. Rates vary with volume, templates, support and delivery tools.
14 services · sources last checked 2026-10-06 · how we compare
What the most-compared services cost
Estimated yearly bill at 1M emails / month. Enter your own usage below.
- Postmark$9,300/yrBasic 1.5M · $1.7 per 1k over 1500k · Published rates
- SendGrid$8,868/yrPro 700k · $0.8 per 1k over 700k · Estimated rates
- Mailgun$8,400/yrScale 1M · $0.5 per 1k over 1000k · Published rates
- Resend$7,800/yrScale 1M · $0.65 per 1k over 1000k · Published rates
- Amazon SES$1,200/yr$0.1 per 1k · Published rates
Enter your usage to estimate each bill. Services differ in what they include; check the rates, assumptions and extra charges below.
The estimates below use the default usage. Choose your current provider to compare costs.
| Provider | Parent jurisdiction | Features / pricing source | Est. monthly | Est. yearly |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon SESAWS pay-per-use email sending at $0.10 per 1,000 emails, available in multiple EU regions. | 🇺🇸 United States | EU residencyGDPR DPAPublished rates | $100$0.1 per 1k | $1,200 |
| ZeptoMailZoho's transactional-only email service, prepaid at $2.50 per 10,000 emails; EU data center available. | 🇮🇳 India | EU residencyGDPR DPAPublished rates | $250$0.25 per 1k | $3,000 |
| Elastic EmailLow-cost email API and SMTP relay with fixed monthly volume tiers from 50k to 10M emails; operated largely from Poland. | 🇨🇦 Canada | GDPR DPAPublished rates | $269Starter 1M · 1000k included | $3,228 |
| Scaleway Transactional EmailFrench cloud provider's transactional email service, hosted in Paris; pay-as-you-go or a Scale plan with dedicated IP. | 🇫🇷 France | EU residencyGDPR DPAPublished rates | $280Essential (pay as you go) · $0.28 per 1k over 0.3k | $3,359 |
| SparkPost (Bird Email)SparkPost's email infrastructure, now sold as Bird Email; flat $0.90/1k overage and $24.95 dedicated IPs. | 🇳🇱 Netherlands | GDPR DPAPublished rates | $530Growth 1M · $0.9 per 1k over 1000k | $6,360 |
| LettermintDutch transactional and broadcast email API on EU-only infrastructure, with volume tiers up to 1.5M emails/month. | 🇳🇱 Netherlands | EU residencyGDPR DPAPublished rates | $560Starter 1M · $1.23 per 1k over 1000k | $6,720 |
| MailerSendTransactional email and SMS API from the MailerLite group, hosted on Google Cloud in the EU. | 🇵🇱 Poland | EU residencyGDPR DPAPublished rates | $600Starter 1M · $1 per 1k over 1000k | $7,200 |
| ResendDeveloper-focused email API with React Email integration; sending from US, EU, SA or JP regions, account data stored in the US. | 🇺🇸 United States | GDPR DPAPublished rates | $650Scale 1M · $0.65 per 1k over 1000k | $7,800 |
| MailtrapEmail sending API/SMTP plus testing sandbox from Railsware; US-hosted, volume plans up to 2.5M emails/month self-serve. | 🇺🇸 United States | GDPR DPAPublished rates | $670Business 750k · $0.88 per 1k over 750k | $8,040 |
| MailgunDeveloper email API from Sinch with US and EU sending regions on all plans; one dedicated IP included from the Scale plan. | 🇸🇪 Sweden | EU residencyGDPR DPAPublished rates | $700Scale 1M · $0.5 per 1k over 1000k | $8,400 |
| SendGridTwilio-owned email API and SMTP relay with Essentials and Pro volume tiers; dedicated IPs and EU data residency on Pro and above. | 🇺🇸 United States | EU residencyGDPR DPAEstimated ratesPro overages are approximate. EU residency requires Pro or above with a dedicated EU IP. | $739Pro 700k · $0.8 per 1k over 700k | $8,868 |
| PostmarkTransactional-focused email API from ActiveCampaign with separate message streams; US-hosted, no EU region. | 🇺🇸 United States | GDPR DPAPublished rates | $775Basic 1.5M · $1.7 per 1k over 1500k | $9,300 |
| BrevoFrench marketing and transactional email platform (formerly Sendinblue); plans priced by monthly email volume, hosted in the EU. | 🇫🇷 France | EU residencyGDPR DPAPublished rates | $999Professional 1M · 1000k included | $11,988 |
| MailjetEU-hosted email API and marketing platform owned by Sinch; volume plans with overage per 1,000 emails. | 🇸🇪 Sweden | EU residencyGDPR DPAPublished rates | $1,099Premium 500k · $1.2 per 1k over 500k | $13,188 |
Dedicated IPs, extra log retention and marketing-email features are extra on most vendors.
Need EU residency? Turn on the EU filter to pick a plan that includes it, which may cost more. “EU plan available” alone does not mean the price shown includes residency. Shared links save your inputs and filters, but prices can change.
Looking for a European-owned provider? See European transactional email providers.
Head-to-head comparisons
Transactional email pricing explained
What drives the bill
Amazon SES lists sending at $0.10 per 1,000 messages. Most other vendors sell monthly plans that bundle a sending allowance with templates, logs and support. Compare the whole plan, including overages. The calculator picks the cheapest listed self-serve plan that covers your volume.
Costs the calculator leaves out
- Dedicated IP addresses, if you need to manage a separate sender reputation. They also need enough steady traffic and a warm-up plan.
- Longer retention for logs and message content.
- Inbound email processing, which some vendors charge for separately.
- Marketing features (contacts, campaigns), which are often priced per contact on the same account.
When paying more makes sense
Deliverability support, separate transactional and broadcast streams, templates and analytics can save your team work. Support is especially useful when a mailbox provider starts filtering your messages. At high volumes, compare a lower-cost sender, including the monitoring and bounce handling you’d need to run yourself.