Resend vs SendGrid vs Postmark (2026): Free Tiers, Pricing

Your app needs to send email: welcome messages, password resets, receipts, notifications. You shouldn't send these from your own server — they'd likely land in spam. You use an email API (a transactional email service) instead. (How to send email from your app)

Three names come up most: Resend, SendGrid and Postmark.

Free tiers and prices as of October 2026 — check each provider's pricing page before choosing.

The short version

Resend — modern, developer-first, great with React and Next.js; generous free tier.
SendGrid — the long-established big player (owned by Twilio), with marketing email tools too. No permanent free plan any more.
Postmark — focused on fast, reliable transactional email; strong reputation for deliverability.

Side by side

	Resend	SendGrid	Postmark
Focus	Developer experience	Transactional + marketing	Transactional deliverability
Free option	3,000 emails/month (100/day)	60-day trial only	100 emails/month (developer tier)
Templates	React Email (code)	Visual editor + code	Templates in the dashboard
Marketing / newsletters	Broadcasts	Full marketing suite	Separate broadcast streams
SDKs	Modern, TypeScript-first	Many languages, older API style	Many languages

SendGrid retired its permanent free plan in May 2025; new accounts get a time-limited trial before moving to a paid plan.

Resend

Built by developers for developers. Sending an email is a few lines:

import { Resend } from 'resend'
const resend = new Resend(process.env.RESEND_API_KEY)

await resend.emails.send({
  from: 'App <hello@yourdomain.com>',
  to: user.email,
  subject: 'Reset your password',
  html: `<p><a href="${resetUrl}">Reset your password</a></p>`,
})

It pairs with React Email, which lets you build email templates as React components. Many AI app builders default to it.

Good for: new apps, small teams, JavaScript/TypeScript stacks, getting started free.

SendGrid

Mature, large, and feature-rich: transactional and marketing email, a visual template editor, detailed analytics. Widely supported by other tools and plugins.

Good for: teams already on Twilio, or who want transactional and marketing in one big platform. Watch for: a busier interface, and shared IP reputation on lower tiers.

Postmark

Deliberately focused on transactional email, and keeps it separate from bulk/marketing email so one doesn't hurt the other's reputation. Known for fast delivery and excellent bounce and delivery reporting.

Good for: apps where "the password reset must arrive in seconds" matters most.

The fourth option: Amazon SES

Amazon SES is far cheaper at volume (fractions of a cent per email), but more work: AWS account setup, leaving the "sandbox", and building your own templates and tracking. Worth it once you send hundreds of thousands of emails a month.

Whichever you choose, set up your domain

Deliverability depends more on your domain setup than on which provider you pick. All three require you to verify your sending domain with DNS records:

SPF — says which services may send for your domain
DKIM — cryptographically signs your emails
DMARC — tells inboxes what to do with emails that fail those checks

Without them, your emails go to spam or are rejected outright by Gmail and Yahoo. (How to send email without landing in spam, DNS records explained)

Also: send from a subdomain (mail.yourdomain.com or notifications.yourdomain.com) so app email doesn't affect your normal inbox's reputation.

How to choose

Starting out, JS/TS app: Resend.
Password resets and receipts must be rock-solid: Postmark.
Need marketing campaigns too, or already on Twilio: SendGrid.
Very high volume, cost-sensitive: Amazon SES.

Switching later is mostly changing one function — keep email sending in one place in your code.

EasySpawn gives your app a server-side backend where your email API key stays secret, and tells you which DNS records to add so your emails land in inboxes. See how it works or join the waitlist.

Resend vs SendGrid vs Postmark: Which Email API for Your App?