Email API shortlist
Best email API for your workload
Bird brings transactional email, marketing campaigns and agent mailboxes together. Build with the API, SDKs, CLI and MCP.
This shortlist recommends a provider by workload, with the integration trade-off beside it. The pricing tables show published terms and distinguish a spendable Bird balance from bundled sending allowances.
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Which email API fits your application?
Choose Bird to send receipts and campaigns and give agents an inbox on one platform. Use the shortlist to check where another provider fits your requirements. These are editorial recommendations from documented capabilities, not measured inbox-placement rankings.
| Provider | Choose for | Check before choosing |
|---|---|---|
| Bird | Transactional email, marketing campaigns and agent mailboxes on one platform, with templates and audiences for campaigns and threads, replies and sender rules for inboxes. | Map message streams and suppressions explicitly when moving an existing application; Bird’s category field is not a stream container. Check the retry limits and bulk address-validation guide. |
| Resend | React email templates sent through the Node SDK’s react property. | Dedicated IPs are a Scale add-on; managed pools scale dynamically and do not expose their IP list. |
| Postmark | Message Streams that separate transactional and broadcast traffic, including IP ranges. | Send idempotency needs integration safeguards: Postmark documents no idempotency-key feature and recommends response-code handling and webhooks. |
| Mailgun | Inbound Routes that match incoming messages and forward or store them. | Treat the Inbox Placement test key as test deduplication, not a guarantee that an email send is deduplicated. |
| Amazon SES | An AWS application using sesv2 commands for sending, identities, configuration sets and suppression lists. | AWS pricing separates usage rates, plan account fees, attachment data and optional features. A per-email rate is not a monthly allowance. |
| SendGrid | Subusers for separate sending, statistics, permissions and credit limits. | Inbound Parse posts parsed email and attachments to your URL; plan the conversation storage your application needs. |
| MailerSend | Hosted MCP and a CLI for email, SMS, domains, templates and recipient operations. | Dedicated IPs are an Enterprise add-on with volume eligibility. Contact MailerSend to assess your account. |
| Brevo | MCP access to contacts, campaigns, templates, domains and account resources. | Batch idempotency applies to the entire messageVersions batch and has a 30-minute lifetime. |
How do Bird, AgentMail and Nylas compare for mailbox state?
These products provision hosted inboxes with stored messages and replies. The Nylas comparison covers Agent Accounts, which give an agent its own mailbox without connecting a human inbox.
| Mailbox requirement | Bird | AgentMail and Nylas Agent Accounts |
|---|---|---|
| Parsed webhook | The received-mail event includes mailbox, thread and message IDs, sender, recipients and extracted text when available, with a truncation flag. | AgentMail: message.received carries Message and Thread objects. HTML and text depend on the incoming message; do not assume both are present. Nylas: message.created reports stored mail. A message.created.truncated event omits the body; fetch the message through the API. |
| Stored content | Retained messages expose headers, extracted text and attachments. Original bodies expire separately; stored raw MIME is inbound-only. | AgentMail: Message reads expose stored content and extracted text or HTML without quoted history, with separate raw-message and attachment retrieval. Nylas: Agent Account mailboxes store messages in folders for API reads. Policy limits govern retention and storage. |
| Address provisioning | Create a mailbox to claim a generated inbox.ai address, or use your own receiving-enabled domain. | AgentMail: Create an inbox on the default domain or a verified custom domain. Omit the username for a generated address. Nylas: Provision a hosted Agent Account through the API or CLI without user OAuth. Use a registered custom domain or a Nylas trial domain. |
| Thread and reply state | Threads retain participants and unread counts. Reply joins the existing conversation; compose opens a new one. | AgentMail: Reply operations keep replies in the same Thread, whose messages can be read through the API. Nylas: reply_to_message_id sets reply headers and places the sent message in the same Agent Account thread. |
| Sender rules | Receive policies and sender rules filter envelope senders. Blocked mail is stored quietly outside the inbox; the drop policy discards it. | AgentMail: Allow and block lists filter sends, incoming mail and incoming replies at organization, pod or inbox scope. The narrowest matching scope wins. Nylas: Workspace rules control inbound and outbound mail separately. An inbound block rejects mail during SMTP, before storage. |
| Agent operations | CLI and MCP examples cover mailbox creation, thread reads and replies. Mailbox management also exposes receive policies and sender rules. | AgentMail: Hosted MCP tools create inboxes, read threads, send messages and reply to messages. Nylas: Agent Account CLI and API examples cover account creation, sending and reading replies. The grant ID identifies the account on subsequent calls. |
What gives Bird the advantage?
Bird combines its own sending infrastructure with campaigns and agent-managed inboxes. Your team can build across those workloads through the API, SDKs, CLI and MCP. The individual comparisons put each rival’s documented capabilities beside Bird’s.
| Capability | Bird’s advantage | What to evaluate |
|---|---|---|
| Deliverability heritage | Bird acquired SparkPost in 2021; its network carries about 40% of the world’s commercial email. | Bird’s Momentum adjusts traffic per mailbox provider. Dedicated IPs and pools support automatic warm-up and shared-pool overflow. |
| Agent tooling | Bird’s hosted MCP server at mcp.bird.com lets agents send email and manage email resources. The bird CLI sends and inspects email and manages domains, templates and webhooks; SDKs bring these operations into your application. | Run the operations your agent needs, including failure handling. Bird gives agents JSON output and semantic exit codes. Compare the rival’s actual command and tool surface below. |
| Mailboxes | Bird’s agent mailboxes provide addressable inboxes, threads, replies and sender rules managed through code. | Decide whether you need a parsed webhook, stored received messages or an agent-managed conversation. Test receiving, reply threading and sender rules as separate requirements. |
Where is each provider a good fit?
Use the documented capability and the trade-off together. Each detailed comparison includes the sending stack, agent tooling, mailboxes, migration work and the same published-price data.
Bird
Transactional email, campaigns and agent inboxes. Bird operates its sending infrastructure for transactional sends and campaigns, and develops MTA software, including PowerMTA for self-hosted sending. Build marketing email with audiences and reusable templates. Its agent mailboxes make inboxes, threads, replies and sender rules resources your application manages. Map the existing provider’s traffic separation and suppression rules explicitly when migrating.
SendGrid
Subusers and established sending workflows SendGrid subusers separate sending and account controls. Its CLI exposes email:send and email:set. Inbound Parse hands parsed email to your application; inventory that handler and its stored state before moving.
Amazon SES
Email inside an AWS application AWS CLI sesv2 manages sending and SES resources. The AWS MCP Server connects agents with OAuth or SigV4. Receiving rules can deliver to S3 or SNS; choose the AWS services that will process and retain incoming mail.
Mailgun
Inbound message routing Mailgun Routes filter incoming email and apply forwarding or storage actions. Its local MCP server covers sending, stored messages, domains, routes, templates and deliverability operations. The publisher does not offer a hosted version of that server, so include its operation in your deployment.
Postmark
Transactional and broadcast separation Postmark Message Streams keep transactional and broadcast traffic on separate infrastructure. Its MCP server covers sending, templates, search and diagnostics; its CLI sends email and manages templates. The inbound webhook delivers parsed message content and attachments for your application to process.
MailerSend
Email operations through CLI and MCP MailerSend’s hosted MCP server sends email and SMS and manages domains, templates and webhooks. Its CLI also manages recipients and suppressions. Preserve the temporary nature of On Hold suppressions: a temporary soft-bounce hold should not become a permanent block in a migration.
Brevo
Contact and campaign operations Brevo’s MCP server manages contacts, campaigns, templates, domains and account resources. Its CLI creates OAuth apps, scaffolds code and runs a local test server. Keep batch idempotency scoped to the whole batch when designing retries.
Resend
React templates and receiving Resend’s Node SDK accepts a React template through the react property. Its receiving API exposes content, attachments and threaded replies. Hosted MCP and a CLI cover sending, receiving and account resources; test those against the agent workflow you plan to run.
How do the published email plans compare?
Open a provider to see Bird’s published plans beside the publisher’s recorded offers. A funding deposit and a bundled sending allowance are different terms. Every rival amount links to its source and shows the date it was checked.
Bird / Amazon SES
Bird paid plans add a monthly deposit to a shared balance. Transactional sends use the plan's rate. The comparison below assumes the balance is used only for email; other usage and add-ons cost extra.
Pricing verdict: Not comparable. At each rival allowance, Bird's estimated monthly cash requirement is the greater of the paid plan deposit and transactional usage at its published rate. The Free plan uses its included allowance where available. Deposits are spendable balance, not an extra fee. Only matching volumes and currencies with complete rates affect the verdict.
| Bird tier | Paid-plan allowance | Bird | Amazon SES |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 1,000 | 4 plans at this volumeExpand to compare every option and its billing terms. Matching volume À la carte outbound email: $0.10 / 1,000 emails 1,000 emails No monthly fee; uncapped usage rate, not a monthly allowance; attachment data charged separately. as published Matching volume Essentials: $0.16 per 1,000 emails 1,000 emails Usage rate for the 0–10M emails/month band, not a monthly allowance. No account fee; attachment data charged separately. Tiered rates apply marginally; higher-volume rates are on the publisher page. as published Matching volume Pro: $0.22 per 1,000 emails 1,000 emails Usage rate for the 0–10M emails/month band, not a monthly allowance. $105 per account per region per month; attachment data charged separately. Tiered rates apply marginally; higher-volume rates are on the publisher page. as published Matching volume Enterprise: $0.23 per 1,000 emails 1,000 emails Usage rate for the 0–10M emails/month band, not a monthly allowance. $500 per account per region per month; attachment data charged separately. Tiered rates apply marginally; higher-volume rates are on the publisher page. as published | |
| Email Startup | None on paid plans | €15 / month to shared balance (EUR); email usage charged separately $15 / month to shared balance (USD); email usage charged separately | See published plans below |
| Email Growth | None on paid plans | €250 / month to shared balance (EUR); email usage charged separately $250 / month to shared balance (USD); email usage charged separately | See published plans below |
| Email Scale 1,000 | None on paid plans | €1,000 / month to shared balance (EUR); email usage charged separately $1,000 / month to shared balance (USD); email usage charged separately | See published plans below |
| Email Scale 2,500 | None on paid plans | €2,500 / month to shared balance (EUR); email usage charged separately $2,500 / month to shared balance (USD); email usage charged separately | See published plans below |
| Email Scale 5,000 | None on paid plans | €5,000 / month to shared balance (EUR); email usage charged separately $5,000 / month to shared balance (USD); email usage charged separately | See published plans below |
| Email Scale 10,000 | None on paid plans | €10,000 / month to shared balance (EUR); email usage charged separately $10,000 / month to shared balance (USD); email usage charged separately | See published plans below |
Amazon SES: Published plans
1,000 emails
No monthly fee; uncapped usage rate, not a monthly allowance; attachment data charged separately.
as published
1,000 emails
Usage rate for the 0–10M emails/month band, not a monthly allowance. No account fee; attachment data charged separately. Tiered rates apply marginally; higher-volume rates are on the publisher page.
as published
1,000 emails
Usage rate for the 0–10M emails/month band, not a monthly allowance. $105 per account per region per month; attachment data charged separately. Tiered rates apply marginally; higher-volume rates are on the publisher page.
as published
1,000 emails
Usage rate for the 0–10M emails/month band, not a monthly allowance. $500 per account per region per month; attachment data charged separately. Tiered rates apply marginally; higher-volume rates are on the publisher page.
as published
Bird / Brevo
Bird paid plans add a monthly deposit to a shared balance. Transactional sends use the plan's rate. The comparison below assumes the balance is used only for email; other usage and add-ons cost extra.
Pricing verdict: Mixed by volume. At each rival allowance, Bird's estimated monthly cash requirement is the greater of the paid plan deposit and transactional usage at its published rate. The Free plan uses its included allowance where available. Deposits are spendable balance, not an extra fee. Only matching volumes and currencies with complete rates affect the verdict.
| Emails per month | Bird plan and monthly cash required | Brevo |
|---|---|---|
| 5,000 | Email Startup: €15 (EUR) | |
| 50,000 | Email Startup: €40 (EUR) | |
| 100,000 | Email Startup: €80 (EUR) | |
| 250,000 | Email Startup: €200 (EUR) | |
| 500,000 | Email Growth: €250 (EUR) | |
| 150,000 | Email Startup: €120 (EUR) | |
| 1,000,000 | Email Growth: €400 (EUR) | |
| 3,000,000 | Email Scale 1,000: €1,000 (EUR) | Professional: €1,713.00/month 3,000,000 emails Monthly billing; optional add-ons excluded. as published |
Brevo: Published plans
3,000,000 emails
Monthly billing; optional add-ons excluded.
as published
Bird / MailerSend
Bird paid plans add a monthly deposit to a shared balance. Transactional sends use the plan's rate. The comparison below assumes the balance is used only for email; other usage and add-ons cost extra.
Pricing verdict: Mixed by volume. At each rival allowance, Bird's estimated monthly cash requirement is the greater of the paid plan deposit and transactional usage at its published rate. The Free plan uses its included allowance where available. Deposits are spendable balance, not an extra fee. Only matching volumes and currencies with complete rates affect the verdict.
| Emails per month | Bird plan and monthly cash required | MailerSend |
|---|---|---|
| 500 | Free: $0 (USD) | |
| 5,000 | Email Startup: $15 (USD) | |
| 50,000 | Email Startup: $45 (USD) | |
| 100,000 | Email Startup: $90 (USD) | |
| 250,000 | Email Startup: $225 (USD) | |
| 500,000 | Email Growth: $250 (USD) | |
| 1,000,000 | Email Growth: $450 (USD) | |
| 2,000,000 | Email Growth: $900 (USD) |
MailerSend: Published plans
Bird / Mailgun
Bird paid plans add a monthly deposit to a shared balance. Transactional sends use the plan's rate. The comparison below assumes the balance is used only for email; other usage and add-ons cost extra.
Pricing verdict: Mixed by volume. At each rival allowance, Bird's estimated monthly cash requirement is the greater of the paid plan deposit and transactional usage at its published rate. The Free plan uses its included allowance where available. Deposits are spendable balance, not an extra fee. Only matching volumes and currencies with complete rates affect the verdict.
| Emails per month | Bird plan and monthly cash required | Mailgun |
|---|---|---|
| 50,000 | Email Startup: $45 (USD) | |
| 100,000 | Email Startup: $90 (USD) | |
| 250,000 | Email Startup: $225 (USD) | |
| 500,000 | Email Growth: $250 (USD) | |
| 1,000,000 | Email Growth: $450 (USD) | |
| 2,500,000 | Email Scale 1,000: $1,000 (USD) |
Mailgun: Published plans
Bird / Postmark
Bird paid plans add a monthly deposit to a shared balance. Transactional sends use the plan's rate. The comparison below assumes the balance is used only for email; other usage and add-ons cost extra.
Pricing verdict: Mixed by volume. At each rival allowance, Bird's estimated monthly cash requirement is the greater of the paid plan deposit and transactional usage at its published rate. The Free plan uses its included allowance where available. Deposits are spendable balance, not an extra fee. Only matching volumes and currencies with complete rates affect the verdict.
| Emails per month | Bird plan and monthly cash required | Postmark |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | Free: $0 (USD) | |
| 10,000 | Email Startup: $15 (USD) | |
| 50,000 | Email Startup: $45 (USD) | |
| 125,000 | Email Startup: $112.50 (USD) | |
| 300,000 | Email Growth: $250 (USD) | |
| 700,000 | Email Growth: $315 (USD) | |
| 1,500,000 | Email Growth: $675 (USD) | Basic: $775.00/mo 1,500,000 emails Monthly billing; volume covers emails sent and received. as published |
Postmark: Published plans
1,500,000 emails
Monthly billing; volume covers emails sent and received.
as published
10,000 emails
Monthly billing; volume covers emails sent and received.
as published
50,000 emails
Monthly billing; volume covers emails sent and received.
as published
125,000 emails
Monthly billing; volume covers emails sent and received.
as published
300,000 emails
Monthly billing; volume covers emails sent and received.
as published
700,000 emails
Monthly billing; volume covers emails sent and received.
as published
1,500,000 emails
Monthly billing; volume covers emails sent and received.
as published
Bird / Resend
Bird paid plans add a monthly deposit to a shared balance. Transactional sends use the plan's rate. The comparison below assumes the balance is used only for email; other usage and add-ons cost extra.
Pricing verdict: Mixed by volume. At each rival allowance, Bird's estimated monthly cash requirement is the greater of the paid plan deposit and transactional usage at its published rate. The Free plan uses its included allowance where available. Deposits are spendable balance, not an extra fee. Only matching volumes and currencies with complete rates affect the verdict.
| Emails per month | Bird plan and monthly cash required | Resend |
|---|---|---|
| 3,000 | Email Startup: $15 (USD) | |
| 50,000 | Email Startup: $45 (USD) | |
| 100,000 | Email Startup: $90 (USD) | |
| 200,000 | Email Startup: $180 (USD) | |
| 500,000 | Email Growth: $250 (USD) | |
| 1,000,000 | Email Growth: $450 (USD) | |
| 2,500,000 | Email Scale 1,000: $1,000 (USD) |
Resend: Published plans
Bird / SendGrid
Bird paid plans add a monthly deposit to a shared balance. Transactional sends use the plan's rate. The comparison below assumes the balance is used only for email; other usage and add-ons cost extra.
Pricing verdict: Not comparable. At each rival allowance, Bird's estimated monthly cash requirement is the greater of the paid plan deposit and transactional usage at its published rate. The Free plan uses its included allowance where available. Deposits are spendable balance, not an extra fee. Only matching volumes and currencies with complete rates affect the verdict.
SendGrid: Published plans
50,000 emails
Monthly billing; published volume range is 50,000 to 100,000 emails. Taxes and overages may apply.
as published
100,000 emails
Monthly billing; published volume range is 100,000 to 2,500,000 emails. Taxes and overages may apply.
as published
How should you choose an email API?
How does Bird compare email API providers?
How should I compare email API costs?
How should I test an email API before switching?
How do I migrate to Bird’s email API?
Put it into practice.
Continue with the documentation, guides and examples for this topic.
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