Mailgun vs Resend (2026): Pricing, Features, and Where SendHeron Fits

Mailgun and Resend are both email APIs for developers, and above about 12,800 emails a month Resend costs less: $20 against $35 at 50,000 emails, and $35 against $75 at 100,000. What Mailgun's price buys is more sending infrastructure in one place: a dedicated IP included from its 100,000-email Foundation plan, email validation, routing rules for inbound mail, and an EU region for your sending data. Resend answers with 30 days of logs on every plan, React Email, and broadcasts and automations in the same account. We build a third option, SendHeron, so this article also says where it fits and, just as plainly, where it does not.

Prices below are as of October 20, 2026, on monthly billing, from each vendor's own pricing page: Mailgun and Resend in US dollars, SendHeron in euros. Prices change, so check before you decide.

What you will learn

• What each costs at 10,000, 50,000, 100,000 and 300,000 emails a month
• What the free plans really allow
• Where logs, dedicated IPs, data location, inbound email and SDKs differ
• How each one handles marketing email and automated sequences
• A plain recommendation per situation, including when SendHeron is the wrong pick

Quick comparison

Mailgun pricing

Mailgun prices its sending product by the emails you send each month, on four self-serve plans.

• Free sends 100 emails a day from 1 custom sending domain, with 1 day of logs, 1 inbound route and 1 user.
• Basic costs $15 for 10,000 emails, with no daily limit. Extra emails cost $1.80 per 1,000. It keeps 1 day of logs and allows 1 sending domain, 5 inbound routes and 1 user.
• Foundation costs $35 for 50,000 emails or $75 for 100,000, with extra emails at $1.30 or $1.10 per 1,000. It adds 1,000 sending domains, 5 days of logs, full inbound routing, unlimited users with roles, automated dedicated IP warm-up, and one dedicated IP included on the 100,000 tier.
• Scale costs $90 for 100,000 emails, $215 for 250,000, $400 for 500,000, $700 for 1,000,000 and $1,250 for 2,500,000, with extra emails from $1.10 down to $0.40 per 1,000. It adds 30 days of logs, one dedicated IP, SAML single sign-on, 5,000 email validations, send time optimization, and phone and chat support.

Foundation and Scale start with one free month. More dedicated IPs cost $59 a month each. Email validations beyond what a plan includes are billed per 100 addresses, starting at $1.20 on Basic and Foundation and $0.80 on Scale, with lower rates at volume. Inbox placement tests and reputation monitoring are a separate product, Mailgun Optimize.

Resend pricing

Resend prices transactional and marketing email separately.

Transactional email is anything sent through its /emails API, to any address. The Free plan sends 3,000 emails a month, at most 100 a day, from up to 3 domains. Pro costs $20 for 50,000 emails or $35 for 100,000, with 10 domains and no daily limit. Scale starts at $90 for 100,000 and runs $160 for 200,000, $350 for 500,000 and $650 for 1,000,000, with 1,000 domains. Extra emails cost $0.90 per 1,000 on Pro and on Scale's 100,000 tier, falling to $0.46 per 1,000 on the largest Scale tier, but only if you switch on pay-as-you-go; otherwise Resend asks you to upgrade. Free, Pro and Scale keep 30 days of email and log data. A dedicated IP is a $30-a-month add-on, available on Scale to senders above 3,000 emails a day, and single sign-on is a $150-a-month add-on on Scale.

Marketing email goes through Broadcasts and is priced by stored contacts, not by emails sent: free up to 1,000 contacts, then $40 for 5,000, $80 for 10,000, $180 for 25,000, $250 for 50,000, $450 for 100,000 and $650 for 150,000. Automations, Resend's event-triggered sequences, include 10,000 runs a month; on paid plans each run beyond that costs $0.0015.

SendHeron pricing

SendHeron charges by subscribed contacts, with one monthly allowance of emails that marketing and transactional share. The full details are on the pricing page.

Only subscribed contacts count. Unsubscribed and bounced contacts are stored free, and sequences, tags and segments are unlimited on every plan. Transactional email keeps flowing even when the allowance is spent, up to 10% over the plan's pool. There is no free plan: every plan starts with a 7-day trial that takes a card at checkout, runs with reduced limits of 1,000 contacts and 5,000 sends, and converts to the plan you picked unless you cancel before it ends.

The pricing math

Transactional email only:

Both 300,000 figures are our arithmetic from the listed rates; Mailgun's per-tier overage rates are in the notes on its pricing page. Below about 3,000 emails a month, sent at no more than 100 a day, both free plans cover you. Between roughly 3,000 and 12,800, Mailgun's $15 Basic plan is the cheaper paid option. Above that Resend costs less at every volume we checked.

A dedicated IP changes the picture. At 100,000 emails Mailgun's Foundation plan includes one for $75, while Resend needs Scale at $90 plus the $30 IP add-on, which requires more than 3,000 emails a day: $120. At 300,000 emails with a dedicated IP, Mailgun stays at $260 because Scale includes one, against $270 on Resend Scale ($160 for 200,000 plus 100,000 at $0.80 per 1,000, plus $30 for the IP).

Now a SaaS that sends both kinds of email: lifecycle sequences to 5,000 contacts plus 25,000 transactional emails a month.

• Mailgun: $35 on Foundation if everything fits in 50,000 emails a month. Mailgun sends what your app tells it to send; it can store mailing lists, but the sequence logic and its timing stay in your own code.
• Resend: $20 on Pro if your app runs the sequences and sends every email through the API, which Resend allows for individual marketing emails. Storing the 5,000 contacts in Resend for Broadcasts adds the $40 Marketing plan, $60 in total, and Automations include 10,000 runs a month.
• SendHeron: €19 on Starter, which covers up to 10,000 contacts and 50,000 emails across both kinds.

Feature comparison

API, SDKs and templates

Both offer a REST API and SMTP. Mailgun has official SDKs for Go, Node.js, PHP, Java, Ruby and Python, and its stored templates use a customized version of Handlebars. Resend has official SDKs for Node.js, Python, PHP, Ruby, Go, Rust, Java and .NET, plus a community library for Elixir, and supports React Email, so templates can be written as React components. Resend's API allows 10 requests a second per team by default, and one batch request sends up to 100 emails.

Logs and history

Mailgun keeps 1 day of logs on Free and Basic, 5 days on Foundation and 30 days on Scale. Resend keeps 30 days of email and log data on Free, Pro and Scale. If you debug delivery problems after the fact on a small plan, that gap matters.

Deliverability tools

Both authenticate your domain with SPF and DKIM, work with your DMARC policy and keep a suppression list. Mailgun includes one dedicated IP on Foundation at 100,000 emails and on Scale, lists automated warm-up on both, and sells more IPs at $59 a month each. Resend sells a dedicated IP as a $30-a-month add-on on Scale for senders above 3,000 emails a day, and warms it up for you. Mailgun also sells email validation, with 5,000 validations included on Scale, and offers send time optimization on Scale. Whichever you pick, a free deliverability test shows whether your domain's records are in place.

Data location

Mailgun sends through the US or the EU from a single account and keeps messages, logs, suppressions and mailing lists in the region you choose; account details such as users, billing and API keys are replicated globally. Resend sends from four regions, North Virginia, Ireland, São Paulo and Tokyo, and its documentation says account data, logs and API records are stored in the United States whichever region you send from. SendHeron is an EU company and stores contact data in Europe.

Inbound email

Mailgun receives email through routes: each route pairs a filter, such as a recipient match, with an action that forwards the message to an address or a URL, or stores it. Free allows 1 route, Basic 5, and Foundation and Scale get full inbound routing. Resend also receives inbound email, counted against the same quota as sent mail; its Inboxes feature is still in early access. SendHeron does not receive email.

Marketing and sequences

Mailgun is a sending service: it can store mailing lists and send to them through the API, and its own FAQ notes there is no send button, so campaigns and lifecycle sequences are built in your code. Resend covers marketing with Broadcasts and lifecycle email with Automations, both inside the same account. SendHeron is built around lifecycle sequences: you build them in a visual editor from the tags and events your app sets, and its AI setup reads your website and drafts a welcome, trial, win-back and cancel-save suite for you to approve.

Teams

Mailgun's Free and Basic plans allow one user, while Foundation and Scale allow as many users as you need, with five roles, and Scale adds SAML single sign-on. Resend includes single sign-on on Enterprise and sells it as a $150-a-month add-on on Scale.

Who should use what

Choose Mailgun if

• You need a dedicated IP at around 100,000 emails a month without paying for a higher plan
• You want your sending data kept in an EU region
• You want email validation and send time optimization from your sending provider
• You process inbound email with routing rules that forward or store it

Choose Resend if

• You send more than about 12,800 emails a month and want the lower price
• You want 30 days of logs on every plan, including Free
• You write templates in React or want an official SDK for Rust or .NET
• You want broadcasts and automated sequences in the same product as your API

Choose SendHeron if

• You run a SaaS and want lifecycle sequences and transactional email from one API and one allowance
• You would rather approve a drafted lifecycle suite than build one from a blank canvas
• You want to pay for subscribed contacts, not for every product email on a separate meter

SendHeron is the wrong pick if you need SMTP, inbound email, a dedicated IP, an official SDK in a language other than Node.js, or more than 500,000 emails a month. Mailgun or Resend fits those better today.

We also compare Resend vs SendGrid and Postmark vs Resend, and three lifecycle pairs in Customer.io vs Mailchimp, Loops vs Customer.io and Customer.io vs Intercom.

Frequently asked questions

Is Resend cheaper than Mailgun?

Above about 12,800 emails a month, yes: $20 against $35 at 50,000 emails, $35 against $75 at 100,000, and about $215 against $260 at 300,000. Below that, Mailgun's $15 Basic plan is the cheaper paid option. If you need a dedicated IP, Mailgun's Foundation plan includes one at 100,000 emails for $75, against $120 on Resend.

Does Mailgun have a free plan?

Yes. It sends 100 emails a day from one custom sending domain, keeps 1 day of logs and allows one user. Foundation and Scale also start with a free month.

Can Mailgun send marketing emails?

It sends any email your app hands it, including to mailing lists it stores, but its FAQ notes there is no send button, so campaigns are sent from your code. Resend has Broadcasts for marketing email, priced by stored contacts.

Which one keeps logs longer?

Resend keeps 30 days on every plan. Mailgun keeps 1 day on Free and Basic, 5 days on Foundation and 30 days on Scale.

Is Resend vs Mailgun a different question from Mailgun vs Resend?

No. It is the same comparison in the other order, and everything above applies.

Start with the one that fits

If you need a dedicated IP at 100,000 emails, email validation, routing rules for inbound mail or an EU region for your data, start with Mailgun. If you want the lower price above a few thousand emails, 30 days of logs on every plan, React templates or broadcasts and automations in one product, start with Resend. If you run a SaaS and want lifecycle sequences and transactional email on one bill, start a 7-day trial of SendHeron. It takes a card; cancel before it ends and you will not be charged.