SendGrid Alternatives

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SendGrid is a reliable platform for email marketing, especially for sending emails at high volumes. It has robust data reporting and analytics.

However, there are reasons you may want to check out SendGrid alternatives. Shaky API implementation, for one. There’s a limitation on API keys and sub-users. The UI is not user-friendly for beginners.

And let’s not forget the cost. It’s not the cheapest SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) tool out there. When the free trial ends, you’ll need to pay $19.95 monthly for its Essentials Plan and $89.95 for the Pro plan.

Some customers also shared their frustrations online about the difficulty of getting refunds and that it would be more helpful if it had more detailed product documentation.

That’s why, in this article, we compiled all the best SendGrid alternatives that could potentially improve your email marketing campaigns.

Regardless of how skeptical you are about these tools, they cost nothing to try, as most of them offer a free trial. Now let's get into it.

Switching from SendGrid? Consider These Alternatives for Seamless Email Delivery

1. MailWizz

Okay, you probably saw this coming. First on the list is MailWizz!

It’s our very own self-hosted email marketing software. We included it not because we’re biased, but because it truly has a lot of features that you also see in SendGrid. It has a pleasing UI, is General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR)- compliant, and is cost-effective.

With MailWizz, you can easily build and manage your email campaign, segment your list to specific groups of customers, and design beautiful emails from our email templates. It supports any SMTP server, too.

Plus, we offer top-notch support, even when the email marketing topic is not directly related to MailWizz.

MailWizz Main Features

• Delivery servers: MailWizz allows you to create as many delivery servers as you need to act as a bridge between you and your target recipient’s inbox. You can also opt to use the servers of big known email providers or your own SMTP servers, or better yet – use them together.
• Precise metrics and tracking: It delivers precise metrics on opens, clicks, and IP location/services. Then, you can easily view these details in the overview dashboard. And as it tracks your email campaign performance, you can better optimize it for success.
• SPF/DKIM settings: In the backend area, system administrators can use MailWizz’s SPF and DKIM settings to force global DKIM signatures.

Price

MailWizz is available in regular license ($65 one-time fee), suitable for personal use, and extended license ($275 one-time fee), suitable for business use.

With the latter, you can use MailWizz as a Software as a service (SaaS). Both are for a one-time fee.

Why Choose MailWizz over SendGrid?

MailWizz is the right tool for you over SendGrid (or other email marketing services), considering its cost-to-performance ratio. Even if you avail of the regular license for personal use, it already provides top-notch support. It has great features for managing unlimited subscribers too.

Just like SendGrid, you can send mass emails with MailWizz and it will keep you updated with events (important for tracking emails) that happen through the system. Furthermore, it integrates with any provider, including SendGrid. You can integrate it with Amazon SES, Mailgun, SendGrid, and much more.

Check out our step-by-step tutorial on how easy it is to connect MailWizz and SendGrid for email delivery.

Pros of MailWizz

MailWizz is developer-friendly. You can find plenty of extensions and themes to use and you can send emails using an SMTP server, just like SendGrid, but at a more cost-effective price.

Worth highlighting as well is that it has an SPF record generator, DKIM checker, DMARC lookup, blacklist check, and MX record lookup features.

Try it out. See a detailed breakdown of all the features of MailWizz

2. Brevo (formerly SendInBlue)

Just like SendGrid, Brevo has an SMTP server for sending and receiving emails over the Internet. It’s a platform used by mail servers, working like a real-life post office for sending, receiving, and relaying messages.

Brevo Main Features

• Transactional Email Management: Designed for developers, Brevo provides free access to transactional email features. It has dynamic templates that help improve deliverability. Of course, who wouldn’t love Brevo’s email tracking and analysis features? This feature alone allows users to monitor their campaign’s performance with data-driven insights.
• Optimized Send Times: Brevo allows you to choose the best time to send an email, maximizing your campaign’s results. It also determines when your lists are more likely to engage so you can send emails at a scheduled time. This feature is ideal, especially for ecommerce businesses.
• Easy CMS Integration: Brevo integrates with major CMS tools, whether it’s SMTP relay, webhook, or plugin.

Price

Brevo’s pricing plans are Starter ($25/month) and Business ($65/month). The first option is good for growing businesses, and the price is based on monthly email volume. The Business pricing plan is built for ecommerce pros and marketing managers. They also have a free plan covering an email template gallery, drag-and-drop email editor, and SMS marketing.

Why Choose Brevo over SendGrid?

Bravo SMTP automatically relays marketing and transactional emails and allows users to keep track of their campaigns with real-time analytics. Setting it up is so simple; it comes with developer guides, code recipes, software development kits (SDKs), and API libraries.

Pros of Brevo

There are too many to mention. But some you should know about include having an email API that ensures a 99% delivery rate. It also enables users to customize their transactional templates with products, prices, and customer names.

It is a reliable email delivery provider that offers premium support, including phone support. It also has a Help Center to easily manage your Brevo account.

3. InboxAlly

If SendGrid is a transactional email service provider, then so is InboxAlly. In fact, it works for bulk sending as well. It has a real-time database where you can track your campaign’s open rates or where exactly your emails are landing – whether in your inbox or the spam folder.

InboxAlly Main Features

• Email Domain Warmup: Before the actual email outreach, InboxAlly warms up a new domain or email to build a positive reputation gradually. Doing so has a significant effect on your email deliverability.
• Preset Engagement Profile: The goal of InboxAlly is to get your email deliverability right from the start. Thus, it has present engagement profiles that you can use or you can dial your own setting with the goal of getting maximum engagement out of your email marketing campaigns.
• Accurate Metrics: InboxAlly provides meaningful insights into your campaign’s performance. It tracks where your emails have landed in the past 30 days, helping you know what’s working and what’s not.

Price

The Starter plan costs $149/month for one sender profile and allows you to send 100 seed emails per day. The Plus pricing plan costs $645/month for 5 sender profiles and 500 seed emails per day, while the Premium plan costs $1,190/month

Why Choose InboxAlly over SendGrid?

InboxAlly is one of the best SendGrid alternatives out there, as it helps you supercharge your email marketing campaigns. The platform helps repair or increase the deliverability of its clients on any IP/domain.

You can also use it to warm up email. It features a Broadcast Auto-detect feature that automatically senses your sending.

Pros of InboxAlly

This solution can repair damaged sender reputation and help increase open rates, which translates to higher conversions and ROI. It uses up to 8 different engagement actions modeled after human behavior for maximum effectiveness of the email marketing campaign.

4. Mailchimp

Another powerful SendGrid alternative is MailChimp. It is an email marketing automation platform that helps clients get their emails to their recipients’ inboxes quickly, avoiding the spam folder.

It optimizes emails by using webhooks, automated tags, and A/B testing.

Mailchimp Main Features

• Email Monitoring: This email delivery service allows users to download and evaluate reports easily from the transactional dashboard.
• Reporting/ Analytics: It maximizes your campaigns’ potential with its analytics, AI-assisted optimization tools, and reporting. Through the dashboard, users can also monitor trends and track performance to determine which part of the campaign makes customers likely to convert.
• Template Management: From developer APIs to drag-and-drop editors, Mailchimp is designed to help users sell more. It has different types of email templates and allows users to import a custom HTML template as well.

Price

The software is available at an unbeatable rate of $10/month for the Standard plan, $6.50/month for the Essentials plan, and $175/ month for the Premium plan. Each plan covers different features. If you want to scale fast, opt for the Premium plan, which can cover unlimited contacts and is built for teams.

Infrequent senders can opt to pay a monthly recurring charge, where they only buy email credits as needed through the Pay As You Go plan.

Why Choose Mailchimp over SendGrid?

It can make your email marketing campaign more impactful through its email builder. It also uses artificial intelligence, which analyzes millions of data points.

Moreover, Mailchimp provides suggestions for generating on-brand and professionally written marketing emails. It integrates with Canva, Shopify, WooCommerce, Google Analytics, Instagram, QuickBooks Online, and more!

Pros of Mailchimp

Intuit Mailchimp has advanced resources for advanced marketers. From marketing essentials to reporting and analytics tools, it truly has much to offer. Plus, it has 24/7 customer service.

5. ActiveCampaign

This powerful and relatively easy-to-use SaaS platform is seamless for users. It is one of the oldest in the industry, being founded in 2003.

It offers customer relationship management (CRM), marketing automation, and sales engagement tools. All messages sent from this platform go through their proprietary servers and from the ActiveCampaign API or account.

ActiveCampaign Main Features

• Sales and Marketing Automation: ActiveCampaign helps sales teams capture, qualify, and engage leads in a centralized platform. Automation is created by combining logic, actions, and triggers. Once set up, the tool can run without your input.
• Shared or Dedicated IP Addresses: The majority of ActiveCampaign users benefit from the platform’s default shared IPs when sending their marketing messages. These IPs have longstanding reputations with inbox providers and are warm. They also provide dedicated IP addresses for clients with at least 100,000 lists.
• Responsive Email Design Editor: Browse responsive email templates with ActiveCampaign. You can customize the pre-made templates with custom tools and blocks, custom file storage, and drag-and-drop editor.

Price

The starting price for the Lite plan is $29 per month. They also offer a Plus plan for $49 per month, a Professional for $149 per month (the most popular plan tier), and an Enterprise plan for $259 per month. All of these pricing plans are good for 250,000 contacts with unlimited monthly email sends.

Why Choose ActiveCampaign over SendGrid?

ActiveCampaign gives users insights with advanced data collection, tracking, and analytics. These tracking options include email opens, read, links, and reply tracking.

You can also use real-time email verification with ActiveCampaign to determine if the email submitted in the signup form is deliverable and active. Further, it has over 870 integrations with app marketplaces like WordPress, Shopify, and Zapier.

Pros of ActiveCampaign

This is ideal for small-to-mid-sized businesses that want to build workflow and automate their email marketing campaigns. Users don’t have to be an expert in coding as it is a code-free platform with a drag-and-drop campaign builder, so users can use a pre-built template and configure the options.

Canva/ Leo Patrizi

So, Which Software Reigns Supreme?

You made it here!

So, with your newly acquired knowledge, you can put it to good use by selecting the right software for your business needs. Remember that each user is unique. The software that works best for one may not be the ideal choice for another.

We recommend you compare the benefits and features of each software and choose one that you need the most. Whether you opt for the paid version or it’s worth it for your business or website, it all depends on your needs and budget.

Please share this post with anyone you believe could benefit from it.

Still unsure which email marketing software is best for your business? MailWizz is here to help.

It’s a unique cloud-based email delivery system that allows both experts and beginners to send high-quality emails to their lists. Get started with our demo options.

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• The Best Email Marketing Software Options on the Market in 2024
• SMTP Explained In Simple Terms
• MailWizz for High-Volume Senders