Mailgun

Name: Mailgun
Brand: Mailgun
Price: 1510000 USD

Transactional email infrastructure with the best inbound routing in the category

Mailgun is a transactional email API for application-generated mail such as receipts, password resets, and notifications, billed on monthly send volume rather than contact count, distinguished by full inbound message routing with rule-based handling, a metered email address validation service, and dedicated IP support from the 50,000-email tier; it is owned by Sinch and, unlike a marketing platform, has no campaign builder or list management.

Visit website

Overview

Mailgun launched in 2010 out of Y Combinator with a pitch aimed squarely at developers: email as a set of API primitives rather than as a product with a dashboard bolted on. It was acquired by Rackspace in 2012, spun back out as an independent company in 2019, consolidated with Mailjet and Email on Acid under the Pathwire holding company, and was then acquired by Sinch in a deal valued around $1.9 billion that closed in December 2021. It now sits inside a Swedish CPaaS group alongside SMS, voice, and WhatsApp messaging.

The product's distinguishing feature is that it does inbound as seriously as outbound. You can point an MX record at Mailgun and define routing rules with pattern matching that forward mail, store it for later retrieval, or post it to your application as parsed JSON. Very few competitors offer routing rules rather than a single webhook, and it is the reason a lot of email-heavy applications end up on Mailgun specifically. Alongside that sit the expected primitives: a REST API, an SMTP relay, official libraries for the main languages, templates with versioning, event webhooks, suppression lists, and a searchable event log.

The other genuinely useful piece is Email Address Validation, a metered service that checks deliverability, syntax, and risk on addresses before you send to them. It is priced from about $1.20 per 100 validations and is the standard thing teams reach for before importing a list they did not personally build, or before re-engaging an old one.

Pricing starts free at 100 emails a day, then $15 a month for 10,000 emails on Basic, $35 for 50,000 on Foundation, and $90 for 100,000 on Scale, with the paid tiers offering a free first month. The detail that matters more than the headline price is log retention: one day on Free and Basic, five days on Foundation, and 30 days on Scale. A one-day log on the entry plan means that if a customer complains on Wednesday about an email from Monday, you have nothing to look at. That single line item pushes a lot of small teams to Postmark or Resend.

Best for

Development teams that need transactional sending plus real inbound mail routing, particularly applications that receive and process email as a core feature, and anyone who wants list validation and sending from the same vendor.

Not the right fit for

Anyone shopping for an email marketing platform; Mailgun has no campaign builder, no list segmentation, no automation, and no signup forms, and its sibling product Mailjet exists precisely because Mailgun does not do this.
Teams on the Basic plan who expect to debug delivery problems; one day of log retention means most support questions arrive after the evidence has already expired.
Cold outreach and purchased-list senders; Mailgun's acceptable use policy prohibits unsolicited email and Sinch enforces it, with suspension rather than warning as the normal outcome.
Buyers who want a small, responsive vendor; Mailgun sits inside a listed Swedish CPaaS group and the support experience reflects an enterprise support organisation rather than a founder answering tickets.
Cost-minimising high-volume senders; past a few million messages a month Amazon SES is dramatically cheaper and the feature gap narrows because you will have built your own tooling anyway.

How it works

1
You add a sending domain and paste the TXT and CNAME records Mailgun generates for SPF, DKIM, and tracking. Mailgun distinguishes between sandbox domains, which only send to pre-authorised recipients, and verified domains, so first-time users need to complete verification before real sending works.
2
Your application sends through the REST API or the SMTP relay. Official libraries cover Python, Ruby, PHP, Node.js, Java, Go, and C#, and the API supports batch sending with per-recipient variables, tagging for reporting, scheduled delivery, and stored templates with versioning.
3
Inbound is set up by pointing MX records at Mailgun and defining routes. A route is a matching expression against the recipient, sender, or headers, plus an action: forward to another address, store the message for retrieval through the API, or post the parsed content to your endpoint. Multiple routes are evaluated in priority order, which is closer to a mail server's behaviour than to a single catch-all webhook.
4
Delivery outcomes arrive through webhooks for delivered, permanent failure, temporary failure, complained, unsubscribed, opened, and clicked, and through the Events API, which is queryable and paginated. Suppression lists for bounces, complaints, and unsubscribes are readable and writable through the API so your own database can stay in sync.
5
Deliverability tooling is layered on top: address validation is metered per check, dedicated IPs become available at the 50,000-email tier with one included on Scale, and Sinch sells deliverability consulting and an inbox placement service to customers who want a human involved.

Feature breakdown

25 features in 5 modules

Sending

Standard transactional primitives, done thoroughly.

REST messages API: Send with attachments, custom headers, per-recipient substitution variables, tags for reporting, and delivery-time scheduling.
SMTP relay: Standard SMTP credentials per domain so framework mailers, CMSs, and legacy applications can send without an HTTP client.
Official libraries: Maintained SDKs for Python, Ruby, PHP, Node.js, Java, Go, and C#, plus a documented HTTP API for everything else.
Batch sending with recipient variables: Send up to a thousand personalised messages in a single API call, with each recipient getting their own substitution values and their own message rather than a visible CC list.
Stored templates with versioning: Handlebars templates held in Mailgun with version history, so transactional copy can change without a code deploy and can be rolled back.
Scheduled delivery: Queue messages for future delivery through the API rather than maintaining your own delayed job infrastructure.

Inbound routing

The feature that wins Mailgun deals against every competitor.

Rule-based routes: Match on recipient pattern, sender, or arbitrary headers using expressions, with priority ordering so multiple rules compose the way mail server rules do.
Three route actions: Forward to another address, store the message for later retrieval through the API, or post the parsed content to your endpoint. Most competitors offer only the third.
Full MIME parsing: Incoming mail is decomposed into headers, HTML body, plain text body, stripped reply text, signature detection, and attachments.
Message storage and retrieval: Stored inbound messages can be fetched later by URL, which is how applications handle large attachments without processing them inline at receipt time.
Route allowances by plan: One route on Free, five on Basic, and full access on Foundation and Scale.

Deliverability and validation

Sold as capabilities you add rather than protections you inherit.

Email Address Validation: A metered API from around $1.20 per 100 validations that checks syntax, domain, mailbox existence where possible, and risk signals such as disposable and role addresses, before you send.
Dedicated IPs: Available from the 50,000-email volume tier, with one included on Scale and additional IPs at $59 per month each, plus IP pool management for isolating traffic types.
Suppression management: Bounces, complaints, and unsubscribes are suppressed automatically and exposed through the API for two-way synchronisation with your own records.
Domain authentication: Guided SPF, DKIM, and tracking-domain DNS setup with verification status, and support for multiple sending domains and subdomains per account.
Deliverability services: Sinch sells inbox placement testing and human deliverability consulting on top of the sending plans, which is an enterprise upsell rather than an included protection.

Observability and reporting

Capable at the top of the ladder, thin at the bottom.

Events API: A queryable, paginated log of every accepted, delivered, failed, opened, clicked, complained, and unsubscribed event, filterable by tag, recipient, and time.
Webhooks: Signed callbacks for delivered, permanent failure, temporary failure, complained, unsubscribed, opened, and clicked, configurable per domain.
Log retention by tier: One day on Free and Basic, five days on Foundation, and 30 days on Scale. This is the most consequential difference between the plans and the reason many small teams skip Basic entirely.
Tag-based analytics: Attach tags to messages and slice delivery, bounce, open, and click statistics by them, which is how multi-feature products separate signup mail from billing mail.
Deliverability dashboards: Domain-level reputation, bounce, and complaint reporting so a problem shows up before customers report it.

Account and platform

Sinch plumbing around a developer product.

Multiple domains and subaccounts: Isolate sending per application, brand, or tenant, each with its own credentials, statistics, and IP assignment.
Scoped API keys: Keys with per-domain restrictions so an application credential cannot administer the whole account.
Single sign-on: SAML SSO available on higher-tier and enterprise agreements.
Sinch platform adjacency: SMS, voice, and WhatsApp sit in the same corporate group, though the products are less tightly integrated than SendGrid is with Twilio.

Use cases

4 documented

Application that receives email as a core feature

Customers forward invoices, receipts, or documents to a unique address per account and the product has to parse them, extract attachments, and file them correctly.

Mailgun routes with pattern matching direct each address to the right handler, store actions keep large attachments retrievable by URL rather than inline, and the parsed JSON arrives structured. No competitor makes this as straightforward.

SaaS team cleaning a list before a re-engagement send

A three-year-old contact list is about to be mailed and a high bounce rate would damage the sending domain's reputation for everything else.

Email Address Validation scores every address before the send at roughly $1.20 per 100, the dead ones are dropped, and the campaign goes out without triggering a reputation problem.

Multi-tenant platform sending on behalf of customers

Each tenant needs their own sending domain, their own statistics, and ideally their own IP reputation so one bad actor cannot poison the others.

Multiple domains with scoped keys, tag-based reporting, and IP pool management on Scale give per-tenant isolation, with additional dedicated IPs at $59 per month for the tenants that warrant one.

Growing product on Scale that needs 30 days of evidence

Support keeps getting asked to prove that a specific notification was delivered two weeks ago, and the entry plans expire the evidence in a day.

Scale's 30-day retention and the queryable Events API let support answer directly, which is the practical reason to pay $90 rather than $35.

Pricing

from $15 a month for 10,000 emails (Basic)

Volume-metered on emails sent, with four tiers that differ mainly in included volume, log retention, inbound route allowance, and dedicated IP availability. Email validation is metered separately.

Plan	Price	Includes
Free	$0 per month	100 emails a day 1 inbound route 1 day of log retention No dedicated IP A developer sandbox. The one-day log makes it unusable for anything you need to debug.
Basic	From $15 per month for 10,000 emails	From $1.80 per 1,000 overage emails 5 inbound routes 1 day of log retention No dedicated IP Priced the same as Postmark's Basic and Resend's neighbourhood, but the one-day log retention is a genuine handicap. Most teams should skip to Foundation.
Foundation	$35 per month for 50,000 emails	From $1.30 per 1,000 overage emails Full inbound routing 5 days of log retention Dedicated IP access at the 50,000 volume tier First month free The sensible starting plan. Full inbound routing is the reason to be on Mailgun at all, and it starts here.
Scale	$90 per month for 100,000 emails	From $1.10 per 1,000 overage emails 30 days of log retention One dedicated IP included, extras at $59 per month Full inbound routing First month free The retention jump from five days to 30 is the real upgrade, along with the included IP.
Custom	Quoted custom	Negotiated high-volume rates Enterprise support and deliverability services Available through Sinch sales

Add-ons

Email Address Validation (From $1.20 per 100 validations): Metered separately from sending; the standard tool before importing an unfamiliar list.
Additional dedicated IPs ($59 per month each): Scale includes one; extras are billed per IP.

Billing notes

The meter is emails sent, not contacts stored, so an inactive user costs nothing until you mail them. There is no list to prune and no dormant-subscriber hidden cost of the kind that inflates bills on Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign.
Overage is billed rather than blocked on paid plans, from $1.80 per 1,000 on Basic falling to $1.10 per 1,000 on Scale, so traffic spikes produce a bigger invoice rather than dropped password resets.
Log retention is the most important difference between tiers and the one most often missed at purchase: one day on Free and Basic, five days on Foundation, and 30 days on Scale.
Foundation and Scale are advertised with a free first month, which makes them cheaper to evaluate than the Basic plan they sit above.
Email Address Validation is a separate meter entirely and shows up as its own line on the bill.
Dedicated IPs are gated at the 50,000-email volume tier, so a small sender cannot buy IP isolation even if they want it.

Value assessment: Modelled at this directory's three reference points, Mailgun is mid-market on price and top of the category on inbound capability. A product with 1,000 users receiving three emails each sends 3,000 a month and fits inside Basic at $15, or the free tier if the daily cap allows. Ten thousand users at three emails each is 30,000 sends, still inside Basic at $15 but far better served by Foundation at $35 for the log retention and the inbound routes. Fifty thousand users at three emails each is 150,000 sends, which is Scale at $90 plus roughly $55 of overage, about $145 a month. That sits between Resend at around $80 and Postmark at around $199 for the same volume, and it is roughly ten times Amazon SES. What separates Mailgun from the cheaper options is inbound routing with rules rather than a single webhook, and validation from the same vendor. What separates it from the more expensive ones is that Postmark keeps a year of full message content where Mailgun keeps 30 days of events. Buy Mailgun for inbound; buy something else if outbound is all you do.

Strengths & limitations

Strengths

The best inbound email handling in the category: pattern-matched routes with forward, store, and post actions, priority ordering, full MIME parsing, and retrievable message storage.
Email Address Validation from the same vendor, which removes a separate tool and a separate contract for list hygiene.
Volume-based pricing means dormant contacts are free, which is structurally cheaper than any contact-priced marketing platform for product notification traffic.
Mature API primitives including batch sending with per-recipient variables, versioned templates, tags for reporting, and a queryable Events API rather than only webhooks.
Dedicated IPs with IP pool management for isolating traffic types, and one included on the Scale plan.
Sixteen years of continuous operation and the backing of a listed Swedish CPaaS group, which is a stable risk profile.
First month free on Foundation and Scale makes serious evaluation genuinely cheap.

Limitations

One day of log retention on Free and Basic is close to indefensible, and even Foundation's five days is short against Postmark's 45-day default and 365-day ceiling.
No marketing capability whatsoever; Sinch's answer to that is Mailjet, a separate product with a separate account and no shared contact base.
The console is heavier and slower than Resend's, and the overall experience reads as enterprise software rather than a developer tool despite the developer positioning.
Support quality is a common complaint, particularly on lower tiers, and the enterprise support organisation is slower than a small vendor's.
Dedicated IPs are gated at the 50,000-email tier, so small senders who want isolation cannot have it.
Frequent ownership changes over the product's life, from independent to Rackspace to Pathwire to Sinch, which has meant repeated shifts in roadmap priority.
Deliverability help is an upsell rather than an included posture, in contrast with Postmark, which polices its shared pools on your behalf at no extra charge.

Head-to-head comparisons

6 alternatives

Mailgun vs Resend

from $0 for 3,000 emails a month, then $20 a month for 50,000 emails

Resend is nicer to integrate, cheaper at volume (about $80 versus about $145 at 150,000 emails), and has a far better console and log viewer. Mailgun has something Resend does not have at all: inbound email. If your application needs to receive and route mail, or you want address validation from the same vendor, Mailgun wins outright. If you only send, Resend is the better product on almost every axis except institutional longevity.

Full Mailgun vs Resend comparison

Mailgun vs Postmark

from $15 a month for 10,000 emails (Basic)

Both do inbound properly, which narrows the comparison to retention, price, and posture. Postmark keeps full message content for 45 days by default and up to 365 days, vets senders so its shared IPs deliver well, and includes support on every plan, at roughly $199 for 150,000 emails. Mailgun keeps 30 days of events on Scale, one day on Basic, and charges about $145. Mailgun's routing rules are more flexible than Postmark's single inbound webhook. Choose Postmark for deliverability and evidence, Mailgun for routing sophistication and price.

Full Mailgun vs Postmark comparison

Mailgun vs Twilio SendGrid

from $15 a month (Marketing Campaigns Basic) or $19.95 a month (Email API Essentials)

The two mass-market transactional APIs, now owned by Sinch and Twilio respectively, and remarkably similar in shape. Mailgun's entry pricing is cheaper at $15 for 10,000 emails, its inbound routing is more capable than SendGrid's single Inbound Parse webhook, and its validation service is better regarded. SendGrid has a marketing product in the same account, a longer ecosystem reach, and the Twilio SMS consolidation story. Both share the same criticisms about console weight and support. Pick on inbound needs and on which parent you would rather bill through.

Full Mailgun vs Twilio SendGrid comparison

Mailgun vs Amazon SES

from $0.10 per 1,000 emails a la carte

SES is roughly ten to fifteen times cheaper per email and has its own inbound capability through Mail Manager, though it delivers raw messages to S3 or Lambda rather than parsed JSON with routing rules. Mailgun charges a large premium for a console, structured parsing, validation, and someone to contact. SES also pauses accounts whose complaint rate exceeds 0.01 percent, which Mailgun does not do as abruptly. Below a few million messages a month Mailgun's premium is usually less than the engineering time SES demands.

Full Mailgun vs Amazon SES comparison

Mailgun vs Mailjet

from $0 for 6,000 emails a month, then $9 a month (Starter)

The sibling product inside Sinch, and the two are sold as a deliberate split: Mailgun for developers, Mailjet for marketers. Mailjet has a campaign builder, contact lists, segmentation, and automation that Mailgun does not attempt, plus its own transactional API, and it is EU-headquartered with EU hosting. Mailgun has far better inbound routing, address validation, and raw API primitives. There is no shared contact base between them, so running both means two accounts. Most buyers should pick one job and buy the product built for it.

Full Mailgun vs Mailjet comparison

Mailgun vs Brevo

from $0 (free, 300 emails per day), then $9/mo on Starter at 5,000 emails

Brevo is the closest thing to a single vendor covering both jobs: a real marketing platform with campaigns, automation, and a CRM, plus a transactional API on the same account, priced on emails sent rather than contacts stored. Mailgun is transactional only, with better inbound routing, better validation, and better raw API primitives. If you want one bill for newsletters and receipts, Brevo. If transactional email is a serious engineering dependency and marketing lives elsewhere, Mailgun.

Full Mailgun vs Brevo comparison

Implementation & onboarding

Setup time: Half a day for outbound: add the domain, publish the SPF, DKIM, and tracking DNS records, wait for verification, and drop in the SDK or SMTP credentials. Inbound takes longer because MX changes need planning and routes need designing.
Learning curve: Moderate. The sending API is conventional, but Mailgun's route expression syntax, the distinction between sandbox and verified domains, and the interaction between suppression lists and your own database all take a session to understand properly.
Onboarding: Self-serve on every published tier including Scale, with a sales motion for custom volumes and deliverability services. Domain verification is the only gating step and it is DNS-speed rather than human-speed.
Migration notes: Outbound migration is a same-day change: repoint SMTP or swap the library, publish the DNS records for the new domain before removing the old provider's, and repoint webhook consumers. Export the old suppression list and import it so a burst of hard bounces does not damage the new reputation. Inbound migration is the harder half because it means moving MX records, so cut it over separately from sending and expect a period where both providers can receive. Historical logs do not migrate and Mailgun's short retention means there is little to lose either way.

Platform, API & security

Platforms: Web consoleREST APISMTP relayInbound routes and webhooksOfficial SDKs for 7 languages
API: REST API covering messages, domains, routes, events, suppressions, templates, IP pools, and validation, plus an SMTP relay, batch sending with per-recipient variables, scheduled delivery, versioned Handlebars templates, a queryable Events API, and signed webhooks for delivered, permanent failure, temporary failure, complained, unsubscribed, opened, and clicked.
Compliance: SOC 2 Type 2ISO 27001 through SinchGDPR with a data processing agreementHIPAA arrangements available on enterprise terms
Data residency: US and EU sending regions are available, with the region chosen at domain creation and not changeable afterwards. This is a genuine advantage for European buyers over providers with no EU option.
SSO: SAML single sign-on on higher-tier and enterprise agreements.
Security notes: TLS in transit, scoped and per-domain API keys, signed webhook verification, two-factor authentication, and subaccount isolation. Choosing the EU region at domain creation keeps message processing and logs inside the EU, which is the detail EU procurement usually asks about.

Support & resources

Channels: Ticket support on all paid plansPriority support on higher tiersEnterprise support and deliverability services through Sinch
Documentation: Thorough developer documentation at documentation.mailgun.com covering the API, routes, validation, and deliverability, plus a long-running deliverability blog and an annual email benchmarks report.
Community: Large third-party ecosystem and Stack Overflow presence; no strong official user forum.

Company

Founded: 2010
Headquarters: San Antonio, Texas, United States, as part of Sinch (Stockholm, Sweden)
Ownership: Owned by Sinch AB (STO: SINCH) since December 2021
Founders: Ev Kontsevoy, Taylor Wakefield
Employees: Part of Sinch, roughly 3,000 employees overall
Funding: Y Combinator backed at founding, acquired by Rackspace in 2012, spun out as an independent company in 2019 with investment from Turn/River Capital, consolidated as Pathwire alongside Mailjet and Email on Acid, and acquired by Sinch for approximately $1.9 billion in a deal that closed in December 2021.

Funding history

Round	Amount	Year	Notes
Y Combinator	Seed	2011	Part of the accelerator's early cohorts.
Acquisition by Rackspace	Undisclosed	2012	Operated inside Rackspace for seven years.
Spin-out	Undisclosed	2019	Became independent again with backing from Turn/River Capital, later organised as Pathwire with Mailjet and Email on Acid.
Acquisition by Sinch	Approximately $1.9B	2021	Announced September 2021 at roughly $925M cash plus 51 million new Sinch shares; closed December 2021.

Timeline

2010Founded by Ev Kontsevoy and Taylor Wakefield as an email API built from developer primitives rather than as a dashboard product.
2012Acquired by Rackspace and operated as part of its cloud portfolio for seven years.
2019Spun out as an independent company with backing from Turn/River Capital, later grouped with Mailjet and Email on Acid under Pathwire.
2021Sinch agrees to acquire Pathwire for approximately $1.9 billion in September; the deal closes in December.
2023EU sending region matures as a first-class option, letting European customers keep message processing and logs inside the EU.
2026Continues as Sinch's developer-facing email product, with Mailjet as the marketing-facing sibling and no shared contact base between them.

Integrations

Python, Ruby, PHP, Node.js, Java, Go, and C# official SDKs
Rails, Django, Laravel, and other framework mailers via SMTP
WordPress and WooCommerce via plugins
Zapier and Make
Segment
Heroku, AWS, and other cloud marketplaces
Mailjet and Email on Acid as sibling Sinch products
Sinch SMS, voice, and WhatsApp within the same corporate group
Inbound routes posting into any HTTP endpoint
Signed event webhooks into any HTTP endpoint

Frequently asked questions

10 questions

What is Mailgun?

Mailgun is a transactional email API for application-generated mail: receipts, password resets, alerts, and notifications. It provides a REST API, an SMTP relay, versioned templates, event webhooks, and suppression management for sending, plus rule-based inbound routing that lets your application receive and process email. It has been owned by Sinch since December 2021 and has no marketing campaign or list management features.

How much does Mailgun cost?

Free covers 100 emails a day. Basic starts at $15 a month for 10,000 emails, Foundation is $35 for 50,000, and Scale is $90 for 100,000, with overage from $1.80 per 1,000 on Basic falling to $1.10 on Scale. Foundation and Scale include a free first month. Email Address Validation is metered separately from about $1.20 per 100 checks, and additional dedicated IPs are $59 a month each.

Can I do email marketing with Mailgun?

No. Mailgun has no campaign builder, no list management, no segmentation, no automation, and no signup forms. Sinch's marketing-facing product is Mailjet, which is a separate service with a separate account and no shared contact base. If you want newsletters and automations, buy a marketing platform and use Mailgun for the application mail alongside it.

How long does Mailgun keep my logs?

One day on Free and Basic, five days on Foundation, and 30 days on Scale. This is the single most consequential difference between the plans and it is easy to miss at purchase. A one-day log means a customer complaint on Wednesday about Monday's email cannot be investigated at all. If you are choosing Mailgun and expect to debug delivery, budget for Foundation at minimum and preferably Scale.

Does Mailgun support inbound email?

Yes, and it is the best implementation in the category. Point MX records at Mailgun and define routes that match on recipient patterns, sender, or headers, with priority ordering. Each route can forward the message, store it for later retrieval by URL, or post the fully parsed content to your endpoint. Competitors generally offer a single catch-all webhook rather than composable routing rules.

Do inactive or unsubscribed contacts cost me anything on Mailgun?

No. Mailgun bills on emails sent, not on contacts stored, so there is no list occupying a pricing tier and no dormant subscriber inflating the invoice. That is the structural difference from contact-priced marketing platforms such as Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign, where records you no longer mail can keep counting toward the bill.

Will Mailgun ban me for cold outreach?

Yes. The acceptable use policy prohibits unsolicited email and purchased lists, and Sinch enforces it with suspension rather than a warning. Because the same account may also carry your transactional traffic, a marketing violation can take down your password resets at the same time. Cold prospecting belongs on a dedicated outreach platform running its own domains and inboxes.

Can Mailgun keep my data in the EU?

Yes. Mailgun offers a European sending region, chosen when you create a domain, which keeps message processing and logs inside the EU. The region cannot be changed afterwards, so pick it deliberately at setup. This is a real advantage for European buyers over providers that offer no regional option at all.

When should I buy a dedicated IP on Mailgun?

Only at meaningful volume. Dedicated IPs become available at the 50,000-email tier, Scale includes one, and extras are $59 a month. Below roughly a few thousand emails a day an IP has too little traffic to build and hold a warm reputation, and it will deliver worse than Mailgun's shared pools. IP pools on Scale are more useful than a single dedicated IP for most customers, because they let you separate traffic types.

Should I choose Mailgun or Postmark?

Both do inbound well, so the decision usually comes down to evidence and price. Postmark keeps full message content for 45 days by default and up to 365, vets senders so its shared IPs deliver strongly, and includes support at every tier, costing roughly $199 at 150,000 emails a month. Mailgun costs about $145 at that volume, keeps 30 days of events on Scale, and offers far more flexible routing rules plus address validation. Choose Postmark for deliverability and retention, Mailgun for routing and validation.

Editorial verdict

Mailgun is the right purchase when your application receives email as well as sending it. The routing engine, with pattern matching, priority ordering, and forward, store, and post actions, is meaningfully better than the single inbound webhook every competitor offers, and having address validation on the same account removes a whole separate vendor from the list-hygiene problem. The EU sending region is a real advantage for European buyers. The problem is the retention ladder: one day of logs on Basic is not a debugging surface, five days on Foundation is barely one, and only Scale at $90 gets you the 30 days that a support team actually needs. Price it as Foundation or Scale from the start and the value looks reasonable, sitting between Resend and Postmark at around $145 for 150,000 messages a month. Price it as the $15 Basic plan and you will be disappointed the first time a customer asks about an email from last week. If you only send outbound mail, Resend is a better product; if you receive mail, Mailgun is still the one to buy.

Written by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Awards, when shown, are judged against the published criteria in our methodology.