SendGrid Free Tier Is Gone: 5 Alternatives for Developers

SendGrid just removed their free tier. If you've been building on it, you need a replacement — fast.

This guide covers the best email sending APIs that still offer free tiers (or genuinely competitive pricing), with code examples so you can swap out SendGrid in an afternoon.

What Changed with SendGrid

Twilio (which owns SendGrid) eliminated the free plan. Previously developers got 100 emails/day free forever. Now, the cheapest plan starts at $19.95/month for 50,000 emails.

That's a brutal jump for a side project or startup in its early stages.

The Best Alternatives

1. Resend

Resend is the cleanest modern email API. Built by ex-Stripe engineers, it focuses on developer experience.

Free tier: 3,000 emails/month, 100/day Paid: $20/month for 50,000 emails

import { Resend } from 'resend';

const resend = new Resend(process.env.RESEND_API_KEY);

await resend.emails.send({
  from: 'hello@yourdomain.com',
  to: 'user@example.com',
  subject: 'Welcome!',
  html: '<p>Thanks for signing up.</p>',
});

Why choose Resend: The SDK is excellent, React Email integration is first-class, and their dashboard is the best in the space.

2. Postmark

Postmark is the gold standard for transactional email deliverability. They've been around since 2009 and take deliverability seriously.

Free tier: 100 emails/month (test only) Paid: $15/month for 10,000 emails

const postmark = require('postmark');
const client = new postmark.ServerClient(process.env.POSTMARK_API_TOKEN);

await client.sendEmail({
  From: 'hello@yourdomain.com',
  To: 'user@example.com',
  Subject: 'Welcome!',
  HtmlBody: '<p>Thanks for signing up.</p>',
  TextBody: 'Thanks for signing up.',
  MessageStream: 'outbound',
});

Why choose Postmark: Best deliverability rates in the industry. If you're sending transactional email that users must receive (password resets, order confirmations), Postmark is worth paying for.

3. Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)

Brevo has the most generous free tier of any major provider.

Free tier: 300 emails/day (9,000/month), no credit card required Paid: $9/month for 20,000 emails

const SibApiV3Sdk = require('@getbrevo/brevo');

const apiInstance = new SibApiV3Sdk.TransactionalEmailsApi();
apiInstance.authentications['api-key'].apiKey = process.env.BREVO_API_KEY;

await apiInstance.sendTransacEmail({
  sender: { email: 'hello@yourdomain.com', name: 'Your App' },
  to: [{ email: 'user@example.com' }],
  subject: 'Welcome!',
  htmlContent: '<p>Thanks for signing up.</p>',
});

Why choose Brevo: Best for bootstrappers who need to send real emails in production for free. 300/day is enough to run a small SaaS.

4. Mailgun

Mailgun is a developer-focused API with solid deliverability and a pay-as-you-go option.

Free tier: None (3-month trial with 1,000 emails) Paid: Pay-as-you-go from $0.80/1,000 emails, or $35/month for 50,000

import Mailgun from 'mailgun.js';
import FormData from 'form-data';

const mailgun = new Mailgun(FormData);
const mg = mailgun.client({ username: 'api', key: process.env.MAILGUN_API_KEY });

await mg.messages.create('mg.yourdomain.com', {
  from: 'hello@yourdomain.com',
  to: ['user@example.com'],
  subject: 'Welcome!',
  html: '<p>Thanks for signing up.</p>',
});

Why choose Mailgun: Good for variable-volume senders. Pay-as-you-go means you don't pay for unused capacity.

5. AWS SES

If you're already on AWS, SES is the cheapest option at scale.

Free tier: 3,000 messages/month in the AWS free tier (first 12 months), then... Paid: $0.10/1,000 emails

import { SESClient, SendEmailCommand } from '@aws-sdk/client-ses';

const ses = new SESClient({ region: 'us-east-1' });

await ses.send(new SendEmailCommand({
  Source: 'hello@yourdomain.com',
  Destination: { ToAddresses: ['user@example.com'] },
  Message: {
    Subject: { Data: 'Welcome!' },
    Body: { Html: { Data: '<p>Thanks for signing up.</p>' } },
  },
}));

Why choose SES: Cheapest at scale. If you're sending millions of emails, nothing beats $0.10/1,000. The setup is more complex (you need to verify domains, request production access), but the price is unbeatable.

Quick Comparison

Which One Should You Use?

• Side project / early startup: Brevo (free tier is real and usable)
• Production transactional email: Postmark or Resend
• High volume (100k+/month): AWS SES
• Variable volume, pay-as-you-go: Mailgun
• Best developer experience overall: Resend

Migrating from SendGrid

The API surface for all these providers is similar. Here's the basic pattern:

1. Sign up and verify your domain (usually 15 minutes)
2. Swap your API key environment variable
3. Update the SDK import and initialization
4. Map to, from, subject, html/text to the new SDK's format

Most migrations take under an hour. The domain verification DNS records can take up to 24-48 hours to propagate, so plan ahead.

SendGrid built a lot of goodwill with developers through their free tier. Removing it without warning was a poor decision. But the alternatives above are genuinely good — some are better than SendGrid was.