When should I pick Mailgun over Postmark?

Pick Mailgun if: Your app also needs to receive and parse email that users send to it.

When should I pick Postmark over Mailgun?

Pick Postmark if: Your login codes and password resets must arrive within seconds.

Which is cheaper, Mailgun or Postmark?

At emails 50k emails: Mailgun $35/mo (Foundation 50k), Postmark $55/mo (Basic 50k), at list prices.

Which do more makers use for transactional email?

Among makers' products we track: Mailgun 49, Postmark 615.

How do Mailgun and Postmark compare in cost as you grow?

At 1k emails Mailgun costs less ($0 vs $15); and still does at 5M emails ($2,250 vs $7,765). Cheapest usable plan at each scale, at list prices.

Mailgun vs Postmark for transactional email: which fits you

Which fits you

Choose Mailgun if

Your app also needs to receive and parse email that users send to it

Use it whenUsers need to reply to or email into your app, and you need to route and parse those messages.

Trade-offIts dashboard and API are older and busier than newer services, and the free tier is small.

Choose Postmark if

Your login codes and password resets must arrive within seconds

Use it whenLogin codes and password resets are arriving late or in spam with your current sender.

Trade-offStrict about transactional-only sending — marketing email goes through a separate stream — and the free developer plan is small.

At a glance

	Mailgun	Postmark
Used by	49 makers' products · 11 open-source projects	615 makers' products · 5 open-source projects
Cost at default usageemails 50k emails	$35/mo Foundation 50k	$55/mo Basic 50k
Downloads	1.1M/wk−23% vs npm	1M/wk−8% vs npm
Pricing	Free tier; paid plans by volume. · paid from $15/mo	Small free developer tier; paid plans by monthly emails. · paid from $15/mo
Free tier	Yes	Yes
Open source	No	No
Incidents, 90 daysfrom its status page	12 (5 major)	no public status feed

Cost as you grow

At 1k emails Mailgun costs less ($0 vs $15); and still does at 5M emails ($2,250 vs $7,765).

Postmark Mailgunx: emails per month (email) · cheapest usable plan at each point, list prices · try your own numbers

The numbers, plan by plan

Emails per month	Mailgun	Postmark
1,000	$0 Free	$15 Basic 10k
5,000	$15 Basic	$15 Basic 10k
10,000	$15 Basic	$15 Basic 10k
25,000	$35 Foundation 50k	$42 Basic 10k
50,000	$35 Foundation 50k	$55 Basic 50k
100,000	$75 Foundation 100k	$115 Basic 125k
250,000	$215 Scale 250k	$245 Basic 300k
500,000	$400 Scale 500k	$455 Basic 700k
1,000,000	$700 Scale 750k	$775 Basic 1.5M
5,000,000	$2,250 Scale 2.5M	$7,765 Basic 700k

From each vendor's pricing page: Mailgun, Postmark.

What makers say

Makers on using it for transactional email, from Product Hunt and Starter Story interviews, each linked to the source. Products with a page of their own and fuller notes first.

On Mailgun

Common integrations include: ● Payment: Stripe , Paypal ● Newsletter Sending: Mailgun ● CRM: Salesforce ● Analytics: Google Analytics and Tag Manager ● Videos: YouTube, Vimeo…

Tendenci, the makerApr 2022 ↗

I love using Plausible for analytics, LogSnag for event tracking, NewRelic for application monitoring, MailGun for emails, Render for hosting, Stripe for billing.

GummySearch, the makerAug 2022 ↗

MailGun is one of the best services I’ve ever used for Transactional email (like sending important emails related to a customer’s account).

Tech Lockdown, the makerMay 2024 ↗

11 more on the Mailgun page →

On Postmark

We use Postmark not only for our emails, but also to power Ply's built-in dynamic email capabilities. It's reliable, well documented and most of all - comes with awesome human support.

Ply, the makerSep 2026 ↗

We use some integrations that nowadays have become basic for our business like Postmark (for transactional emails) or Sift (to detect users with not very good intentions).

LabsMobile, the makerDec 2021 ↗

Once you get familiar with Postmark's layouts and templates, the service is great for quickly creating email templates and sending them out using their simple API. The UI is simple and intuitive.

PodSnap.AI, the makerSep 2026 ↗

22 more on the Postmark page →

Loved and watch-outs

Themes that recur in makers' words and Hacker News comments, each linked to what it summarises.

Mailgun

Most loved

Reliable transactional email that gets a SaaS sending within days or weeks of starting. PH Starter Story
The API is a cost-effective choice for transactional mail next to a separate marketing tool. Starter Story PH
Works as an SMTP relay for self-hosted servers, with a free tier for low volumes. HN HN 2 HN 3 HN 4

Watch-outs

Shared sending IPs regularly land on Yahoo and Outlook blocklists, partly because spam also flows through its network. HN HN 2 HN 3 HN 4

On Product Hunt: 5.0★, 8 reviews

Postmark

Most loved

Its reputation for transactional mail gives strong inbox deliverability. PH HN HN 2
The API is simple enough to use with plain curl, and templates and layouts speed up building emails. PH HN HN 2
Inbound email processing is built in, so apps can receive and parse replies. PH HN HN 2

Watch-outs

Opening up to broadcast mail and ActiveCampaign ownership worry some that its deliverability edge will erode. HN HN 2
There is no built-in idempotency, so preventing duplicate sends needs locks and metadata checks. HN

On Product Hunt: 5.0★, 22 reviews · mentioned most: reliable email delivery, fast performance, human support