Mailgun alternatives

Mailgun alternatives

Mailgun is a Sinch product, sold beside Mailjet under Sinch Email, and SendGrid is a Twilio product now consolidating onto twilio.com. So two of the obvious replacements for Mailgun belong to the same CPaaS parents as the SMS vendors you may already be leaving. That is worth knowing before you move.

The rest of the choice is concrete. Mailgun's API accepts multipart/form-data and puts your sending domain in the URL path; newer platforms take JSON payloads. Bird is on this list alongside the cases where another provider is the better answer.

Read the email migration guideCompare Bird and Mailgun directly

Why do teams look for a Mailgun alternative?

Two reasons recur, and neither is about deliverability. The first is the request format: Mailgun's send endpoint uses multipart/form-data with the sending domain in the URL path, a 2010 convention that newer platforms have replaced with JSON. The second is ownership. Mailgun has been part of Sinch since the Pathwire acquisition and is sold alongside Mailjet, so a team consolidating vendors sometimes finds it is still managing separate products under one parent.

Bird

Best for teams who want email beside their other channels, and agents that can operate it. Bird's send endpoint accepts JSON with built-in idempotency headers and replay detection, so a retry after a timeout does not send twice. Thirteen email webhook event types cover the lifecycle from accepted through bounced, complained, and unsubscribed, and the same workspace and key run SMS, WhatsApp, voice, Verify, and Realtime. The hosted MCP server at mcp.bird.com lets an agent send and inspect a domain after a browser sign-in. The tradeoff is scope: if you want a standalone email API with no other channels, a single-channel provider is a smaller surface to own.

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Resend

Best for a small product team that wants a fast first send. Resend positions itself as the email API for developers and offers fast onboarding with React Email for templates written as components. If your team is building an application from scratch, this is an easy place to start. It is also the youngest platform here, so the operational surface is thinner than Mailgun's on long event retention and inbound routing.

Compare Bird and Resend

Postmark

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Best for transactional email where speed to the inbox is the primary requirement. Postmark separates promotional from transactional traffic with Message Streams so bulk sends and receipts stay isolated on distinct delivery paths. The deliberate limit is the other side of that discipline: it is a focused transactional product, so a team that also wants multi-channel campaigns, SMS, or WhatsApp will need a second vendor.

Compare Bird and Postmark

Amazon SES

Best for high volume where you already run the surrounding infrastructure. SES is the lowest-cost way to put high volumes of mail on the wire and bills strictly on usage, which is why it remains the default for teams already inside AWS. What you take on is the application layer above the send: SES gives you the delivery pipe, while templates, suppression workflows, event storage, and reporting are yours to build and operate.

Compare Bird and Amazon SES

Twilio SendGrid

Best for the name a security review has already cleared. SendGrid is the most widely deployed email API in the category, which in an enterprise procurement cycle saves weeks of review. Keep the parent structure in mind: as Twilio SendGrid, its web presence is folding into twilio.com, so it carries the same parent-portfolio question that Mailgun does under Sinch.

Compare Bird and SendGrid

MailerSend

Best for a mixed team where non-engineers own the templates. MailerSend calls itself a team-friendly email API and means it: the template editing and the roles around it are built for marketers and developers working in the same account, and it ships examples in eight languages plus SMS and WhatsApp. If your bottleneck is that engineers currently deploy every copy change, this is the one that removes it.

Compare Bird and MailerSend

Brevo

Best when the real requirement is marketing campaigns and a built-in CRM. Brevo describes itself as an email and SMS marketing, CRM, and automation platform, and that ordering is honest: the transactional API exists, while the core product centers on campaigns, contacts, and automations. If your team has been using Mailgun to send marketing mail and building the audience tooling internally, Brevo replaces both.

Compare Bird and Brevo

Questions people actually ask

Is Mailgun the same company as Sinch?
Mailgun is a Sinch product. Sinch acquired Pathwire, Mailgun's parent, and now sells Mailgun beside Mailjet under its Email business unit. It matters for one practical reason: if you are moving away from Sinch for SMS or voice, moving your email to Mailgun keeps you with the same vendor, and the same is true of moving to SendGrid if you are leaving Twilio.
What actually has to change in my code?
Mailgun's send is a multipart/form-data POST to api.mailgun.net with your sending domain in the URL path, authenticated with HTTP Basic using the username api. Bird's send is a JSON POST with a bearer key and the domain passed as a field in the payload. The migration guide maps the fields and webhook events so the update is straightforward.
Which alternative is cheapest?
For raw volume with no features attached, Amazon SES is the lowest-cost option. Factor in what your team builds on top: suppression handling, templating, event storage, and reporting come built into the other platforms on this page and are yours to maintain on SES. Compare each provider's published rates against your own monthly volume.
Can an AI agent operate my email account?
On Bird, yes: point an MCP client at mcp.bird.com, sign in through the browser, and an agent can send, look up a message, and inspect a sending domain against the workspace without a static API key in a config file. Check the other providers directly if agent access is part of your requirements.
Is Bird the right answer on this page?
If you want email on the same platform and key as SMS, WhatsApp, voice, and Verify, and you want agents able to operate it, yes. If email is the single channel your team sends and you want a dedicated single-channel tool, Postmark or Resend is a strong fit. If you want the lowest raw cost per message and will build the surrounding tooling, SES wins. If the job centers on marketing campaigns and a CRM, Brevo fits.

Put it into practice.

Continue with the documentation, guides and examples for this topic.

Watch the guideGetting started with emailImplementation guideSend your first emailUnderstand the conceptWhat are bounced emails?Follow the learning pathBuild your first integration
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Where to go next

Migrate email to BirdThe field-by-field move from Mailgun, SendGrid, Amazon SES or Resend, including webhook events.Bird vs Mailgun for emailThe head-to-head: the send call, event types, inbound routing, and where Mailgun is the better pick.Email provider comparisonsSide-by-side comparisons with SendGrid, Amazon SES, Postmark, Resend, MailerSend, and Brevo.Email pricingPublished plans and volume rates pulled directly from the billing catalog.Email deliverabilityWhat actually moves inbox placement: authentication, list hygiene, warmup and complaint handling.

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