MailerSend vs Twilio SendGrid
MailerSend and Twilio SendGrid are both popular choices in the transactional email service space. Twilio SendGrid has been around since 2009, giving it a 11-year head start over MailerSend (founded 2020). MailerSend is the more affordable option at $7/mo — that's $8 less per month than Twilio SendGrid's $15/mo entry point. Both offer free plans to get started. MailerSend stands out with SMS marketing, while Twilio SendGrid offers marketing automation and ecommerce integrations.
Quick Verdict
MailerSend wins on price, rating.
Twilio SendGrid wins on deliverability, integrations.
Best for most users: MailerSend (developers building transactional email flows).
MailerSend
Developer-friendly transactional email by the MailerLite team
MailerSend is a transactional email service built by the team behind MailerLite, launched in 2020 with over a decade of email deliverability expertise. It offers a polished developer experience with a full API, SMTP relay, drag-and-drop template builder, and SMS capabilities, making it an ideal choice for SaaS and app developers who need reliable transactional email delivery without the complexity of AWS.
Twilio SendGrid
Scalable email API trusted by developers worldwide
Twilio SendGrid is a cloud-based email delivery platform founded in 2009 and acquired by Twilio for $2 billion in 2019. It uniquely splits its offering into a developer-focused Email API (for transactional messages) and a marketer-focused Marketing Campaigns product, each with separate pricing. With 320 integrations and SDKs in multiple languages, it remains the go-to choice for engineering teams that need reliable, high-volume email infrastructure.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | MailerSend | Twilio SendGrid |
|---|---|---|
| Rating | 4.2/5 | 4/5 |
| Starting Price | $7/mo | $15/mo |
| Free Plan | 500 emails/month (100/day max), 1 domain, 1 template | 100 emails/day (60-day trial), Marketing: 100 contacts |
| Founded | 2020 | 2009 |
| Email Templates | 90 | 60 |
| Integrations | 29 | 320 |
| Deliverability Rate | 86.8% | 95.5% |
| Marketing Automation | ✕ | ✓ |
| A/B Testing | ✓ | ✓ |
| Landing Pages | ✕ | ✕ |
| Segmentation | ✕ | ✓ |
| Drag & Drop Editor | ✓ | ✓ |
| SMS Marketing | ✓ | ✕ |
| Ecommerce Features | ✕ | ✓ |
| API Access | ✓ | ✓ |
| Multi-Language | ✕ | ✕ |
| Web Push Notifications | ✕ | ✕ |
| Live Chat | ✓ | ✕ |
| Advanced Analytics | ✓ | ✓ |
MailerSend: Pros & Cons
Pros
- +Excellent developer experience with SDKs for Node.js, Python, Java, Laravel, PHP, Go, and Ruby
- +Strong deliverability averaging 86.8% inbox placement in EmailToolTester third-party tests (2nd best tested)
- +Intuitive drag-and-drop email builder with 90+ pre-built content blocks for quick template creation
- +Built by the MailerLite team with 10+ years of email deliverability expertise behind the platform
- +Includes SMS API for US and Canada on Starter plans and above at no extra base cost
Cons
- −Free plan reduced from 3,000 to just 500 emails/month in October 2025, with 100/day cap
- −No marketing automation or campaign features; purely transactional and lacks segmentation tools
- −Starter and Professional plans both start at $25/month for same 50,000 emails, confusing tier differentiation
- −Some users report sudden account suspensions for high bounce rates with no refunds offered
- −Pricing can become expensive at scale compared to Amazon SES or Elastic Email ($0.90 per 1,000 overage)
Twilio SendGrid: Pros & Cons
Pros
- +Industry-leading RESTful API with SDKs in 7 languages and clear documentation, enabling integration in under 2 hours
- +320 native integrations including Zapier, Shopify, Oracle, Litmus, and Drift
- +95.5% delivery rate with dedicated IP options and deliverability optimization tools on Pro plans
- +Detailed analytics suite with geographical breakdown, client usage stats, and real-time event webhooks
- +Handles massive scale with plans supporting up to 2.5 million emails/month on self-serve and 5M+ on enterprise
Cons
- −Customer support is slow with tickets taking days or weeks; phone support reserved for Custom plan customers only
- −Steep pricing jumps at scale — moving from 200K to 250K emails/month increases cost from $89.95 to $249/month
- −Shared IP pools on lower tiers cause frequent blacklisting and unreliable inbox placement
- −Automation builder limited to a single trigger (list join) with only one condition (time delay), far behind competitors
- −Visual email editor and template system feel dated with poor color contrast and counterintuitive design compared to modern platforms
The Verdict
MailerSend edges ahead with a 4.2/5 rating compared to Twilio SendGrid's 4/5. The gap comes mainly from support (4.7 vs 3.8) and value for money (4.9 vs 4.4). On deliverability, Twilio SendGrid reports 95.5% compared to 86.8% for MailerSend — a meaningful difference if inbox placement is critical for your campaigns.
| Criterion | Weight | MailerSend | Twilio SendGrid |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting Price | 30% | $7/mo | $15/mo |
| Deliverability | 25% | 86.8% | 95.5% |
| Rating | 25% | 4.2/5 | 4/5 |
| Integrations | 10% | 29 | 320 |
| Free Tier | 10% | Yes | Yes |
Weights determine how much each criterion counts toward the final score. See full methodology
Choose MailerSend if…
- + You want lower starting costs ($7/mo)
- + You need SMS marketing
- + You're a developers building transactional email flows
- + You're a saas companies sending password resets and notifications
Choose Twilio SendGrid if…
- + You need marketing automation
- + You need ecommerce integrations
- + You're a developers needing transactional email api
- + You're a saas companies with high email volume