Mailjet vs. Sendgrid: Choose the Right Email Marketing Service

I’m sure you have reasons why you chose to use Mailjet over Sendgrid or vice versa. The reasons may be based on functionality, pricing, support, or other factors. I thought I’d list out a few of the key differences between these two email marketing services so that when you’re reading through the Sendgrid vs. Mailjet review, it will help you make the right choice for you.

Sendgrid Overview

Sendgrid is an email marketing and transactional email platform for small and large businesses. It was founded in 2009 by Isaac Saldana, Jose Lopez, and Tim Jenkins. The company is headquartered in Denver, Colorado. The current CEO is Sameer Dholakia. The company claims to have over 80 thousand paying customers globally and sends over 100 billion emails every month. Sendgrid is backed by a cloud-based SMTP ( Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) provider, which acts as an email delivery engine and allows users to send email without the cost and complexity of maintaining email servers.

Sendgrid Pricing

Sendgrid pricing is available for the Email API Plans and Marketing Campaign Plans.

Email API Plans

An Email API is an API ( Application Programming Interface) that allows applications to access the Email Service Provider’s platform for generating and sending transactional emails, manipulating templates, moving and editing folders, building drafts, etc. A transactional email is an email sent to an individual following a commercial transaction or upon a specific action performed by the individual, such as registration for your services or a password reset request.

1. Free Plan

Sendgrid offers a free plan to customers who want to try using the interface. The free plan includes the following features:

• APIs, SMTP Relay, and Webhooks.
• Delivery Optimization Tools.
• Dynamic Template Editor.
• Insightful Analytics.
• Ticket Support.
• Deliverability Insights.
• 100 emails per day.

2. Essentials Plan

The Essentials plan starts at USD 14.95 per month. It offers Guaranteed Response Times on Ticket & Chat Support plus all the features provided in the Free plan. The actual amount you will pay every month depends on the number of emails you want to send every month. At USD 14.95 per month, you get zero emails.

3. Pro Plan

The Pro plan starts at USD 89.95 per month. You don’t get any free emails at this price, but It offers the following features:

• APIs, SMTP Relay, and Webhooks.
• Delivery Optimization Tools.
• Dynamic Templates + Testing.
• Insightful Analytics.
• Guaranteed Response Times on Ticket, Chat, & Phone Support.
• Deliverability Insights.
• 2,500 Email Validations.
• Dedicated IP Included.
• Subuser Management.
• Single Sign-On (SSO).

The actual amount you spend on this plan depends on the number of emails you want to send every month.

4. Premier Plan

This is a custom plan with custom pricing. It includes the following features in addition to those available under the Pro plan :

• 5,000 Email Validations
• Segment your sending, assign permissions and credit limits, and view separate statistics programmatically or in the UI.

5. Marketing Campaign Plans

A marketing campaign allows you to send promotional emails to your target audience. Sendgrid offers marketing email plans to promote your business.

6. Free Plan

The Sendgrid Free Marketing Plan comes with the following features:

• Design & Code Editors. ( Allows you to create emails using HTML code, drag & drop editing, or a mix of both).
• Segmentation.
• A/B Testing & Actionable Insights.
• 3 Email Testing Credits.
• 1 Signup Form.
• Ticket Support.
• 1 Teammate.
• Automation.

7. Basic Plan

The Basic plan starts at 15 USD per month. The actual price depends on the number of contacts and the number of emails you choose. The Basic Marketing Campaign Plan comes with the following features:

• Design & Code Editors.
• Segmentation.
• A/B Testing & Actionable Insights.
• 10 Email Testing Credits.
• 5 Signup Forms.
• Ticket & Chat Support.
• 1 Teammate.
• No automation.

8. Advanced Plan

The Advanced plan starts at 60 USD per month. The actual price depends on the number of contacts you want to send emails to and the number of emails you want to send every month. It comes with the following features:

• Design & Code Editors.
• Segmentation.
• A/B Testing & Actionable Insights.
• 60 Email Testing Credits.
• 15 Signup Forms.
• Guaranteed Response Times on Ticket, Chat, & Phone Support.
• 1,000 Teammates.
• Automation.
• Dedicated IP Included.

Mailjet Overview

Like Sendgrid, Mailjet is another Email Service platform headquartered in Paris, France. The company was founded in 2010 by Wilfried Durand and Julien Tartarin. Mailjet offers services in Marketing Emails, Transactional Emails, Email API, SMTP Relay, and Transactional SMS. The company claims that over 130,000 companies in 150-plus countries use its services to send over 2 billion emails per month. Mailjet is owned by Sinch, which competes with Twilio ( owner of Sendgrid) in the Email Delivery Platform space.

Mailjet Solutions

Mailjet offers solutions in the following categories:

1. Email Marketing

Mailjet promotes itself as a solution that puts marketers first. It facilitates the creation of emails by marketers using the drag and drops email editor. You don’t need to know coding to use Mailjet. It also provides the Inbox preview tool to preview how your emails will appear across desktop and mobile devices. It also offers prebuilt email templates which you can modify or build entirely from scratch. It also provides advanced tools for contact management, user role management, and campaign analytics.

2. Transactional Email

Marketers and Developers can use SMTP Relay or Send API to send transactional emails. Mailjet includes prebuilt libraries in languages such as PHP, Ruby, Python, C#, Java, and others which developers can use to send transactional emails. Mailjet offers enhanced deliverability options so that your transaction emails reach the recipient’s Inbox and not the spam folder. Mailjet provides features to personalize transactional emails and track them.

3. Email API

Mailjet allows you to integrate the Email API with your applications to schedule, send and track emails via the SMTP Relay or Send API. It includes features to personalize your emails, get insights about the emails you send and ensure that your emails reach the recipient’s Inbox. Mailjet offers a highly scalable infrastructure irrespective of whether you want to send ten or 10 million emails. It also guarantees a 99.9 percent uptime. Mailjet offers Log features that enable you to pinpoint any issues with your messages. Mailjet also offers email parsing software to help you with your inbound traffic. Mailjet has dedicated API specialists to guide you through any challenges you face with your API integrations.

4. SMTP Relay

Mailjet’s Free SMTP Server integrates easily with any system. It supports a variety of ports with SMTP relay, offering you greater flexibility. SMTP Relay ensures a higher possibility of your emails landing in the Inbox faster. Mailjet provides a choice of Message Transfer Agents (MTA) such as Postfix, Exim, or Exchange to send SMTP Relay. Mailjets’ real-time dashboard facilitates easier browsing, filtering, and troubleshooting key performance indicators. Mailjet offers 24*7 support in English, French, Spanish, and German.

5. Transactional SMS API

Mailjet offers a Transactional SMS API to facilitate sending transactional messages to phone numbers worldwide by integrating Mailjet with your preferred application.

Mailjet Pricing

1. Free Plan

The Free Plan allows you to send 6000 emails per month and 200 emails per day. It allows for unlimited contacts, APIs, SMTP relay and webhooks, an advanced Email Editor, and Basic statistics.

2. Essential Plan

The Essential plan starts at 15 USD per month, billed monthly. It allows up to 15000 emails per month with no daily sending limit. It offers all Free plan features, plus:

• Online customer support.
• No Mailjet logo.
• 50 Email Previews per month.
• Email address verifications.
• Segmentation.
• One sub-account.

3. Premium Plan

The Premium plan starts at USD 25 per month and is billed monthly. It allows up to 15000 emails per month without any daily limits. It provides for all Essential plan features, plus:

• Advanced statistics.
• Marketing automation.
• Dynamic content.
• A/B testing.
• 100 Email Previews per month.
• Multi-user access and role management.
• Up to 10 sub-accounts.
• Real-time collaboration on templates.
• Locked and linked sections.
• Priority support.

4. Custom Plan

The pricing for the Custom plan is available upon request with Mailjet. It offers all Premium plan features, plus:

• Deliverability services.
• 24/7/365 Support.
• Dedicated Technical Account Manager.
• Comprehensive onboarding.
• Enterprise Response Time SLA.
• Strategic deliverability consulting.
• Enhanced monitoring & alerting​.
• Deliverability reports.
• Platform & email best practices training.
• IP performance monitoring & management.
• Advanced platform & 3rd party integration guidance.
• Blocklist monitoring.
• Content Analysis.
• Custom number of Email Previews.
• Custom number of users & advanced permissions.
• Custom number of sub-accounts.
• Activity logs.
• Custom number of email address verifications.

Final Words

Both Sendgrid and Mailjet offer comprehensive plans for their customers. Sendgrid is more widely used than Mailjet in terms of the number of emails sent every month. Both the platforms are oriented toward developers in terms of operability and ease of use, although Mailjet attempts end user-friendliness. In terms of pricing, Mailjet seems to have an advantage over Sendgrid. Mailjet offers the same features as Sendgrid at a better price point. So in terms of pricing, Mailjet appears to be a winner. Although it would be best to experiment with both the platforms or hire someone who has experience working on both the platforms before choosing which one is best for your organization.

Also, check Sendgrid vs Amazon SES.