SendGrid: what it is, pricing, pros, cons and alternative

SendGrid is a cloud platform for sending emails at scale, both transactional and marketing. It has belonged to Twilio since 2019, and thousands of companies use it so their applications can send confirmations, notifications and newsletters.

If you’ve made it this far, you may be comparing providers. Or maybe you’ve seen “sendgrid.net” in an email and want to know what it is. In this guide we explain both, what it costs today and when another option suits you better.

What is SendGrid?

SendGrid was founded in 2009 in Colorado (United States) by Isaac Saldana, Jose Lopez and Tim Jenkins. The idea was simple: give developers a reliable sending infrastructure without having to set up and maintain their own mail servers.

In February 2019, Twilio completed its acquisition in a deal valued at around $3 billion. Since then it has been called Twilio SendGrid, and its website has been merged into Twilio’s. According to the company itself, its platform delivers more than 200 billion emails a month.

Today it offers two products that are purchased separately:

• Email API: sending via API or SMTP from your website, app or online store. It’s the option for automated emails such as a sign-up, an order or a password change.
• Marketing Campaigns: a dashboard to create campaigns and newsletters, manage contacts, segment and automate some sends.

What is SendGrid used for?

Above all, for sending emails from software. Picture an online store: every time someone makes a purchase, the system calls its API and the customer receives their confirmation within seconds. The same goes for verification codes, invoices and shipping notifications.

It can also be used to send email marketing campaigns. But its strength lies on the technical side, and marketing teams without developers tend to notice.

What is sendgrid.net and why does it appear in your emails?

Many people search for “sendgrid.net” after seeing it in an email. There’s a simple explanation.

When a company sends with SendGrid without authenticating its own domain, Gmail shows the notice “via sendgrid.net” next to the sender. It means the message is signed with the provider’s domain rather than the company’s. To remove it, the sender must set up DKIM and SPF with their domain. In addition, the platform rewrites links to track clicks, so you may see addresses with “sendgrid.net” when you hover over a button.

Is it a trustworthy email? In most cases, yes, because thousands of legitimate companies use this service. However, cybersecurity firms such as Cofense have documented phishing campaigns sent from stolen accounts on the platform. Since the domain guarantees nothing on its own, check the real sender and don’t click if you weren’t expecting that message.

SendGrid pricing in 2026

The biggest change came in 2025: the company scrapped its free plan. From May 27, 2025, free accounts had 60 days to move to a paid plan before their sending was paused. Now there’s only a 60-day free trial, with a maximum of 100 emails a day and 100 contacts in Marketing Campaigns.

These are the starting prices Twilio publishes as of September 2026:

Keep in mind that the final price goes up with volume. And if you need transactional emails and campaigns at the same time, you’ll pay for both products. Taxes and sending overages are charged separately.

Advantages of SendGrid

The main one is its infrastructure. The platform handles a huge volume of email every month and works with the major mailbox providers. It also offers deliverability tools such as domain authentication, branded links and suppression management.

For developers, it’s very convenient. It has extensive documentation, libraries for the most popular languages, event webhooks and dynamic templates. Plus, as part of Twilio, it combines easily with Twilio’s SMS, WhatsApp and user verification systems.

The higher plans add useful extras: a dedicated IP with automatic warm-up, address validation and advanced statistics.

Disadvantages of SendGrid

You’ve already seen the first one: there’s no free plan. For a newsletter that’s just starting out or a small business that wants to try it without paying, this is a big drawback.

The second is complexity. Setting up API keys, DNS records or the event webhook is easy for a developer, but not so much for a marketing team without technical support. Also, the documentation and support are designed mainly for English speakers, and on Email API plans personalized support costs extra.

There are other details worth checking before you sign up. On Essentials you can only view your sending activity for the last three days. You also don’t get a dedicated IP until the Pro plan, and in Marketing Campaigns automations are reserved for Advanced.

SendGrid compared with other alternatives

If you’re looking for a technical sending service, its direct rivals are Mailgun, Amazon SES and Postmark. Amazon SES is usually the cheapest at volume, although it requires more setup work. Mailgun, for its part, takes a very similar approach and is also designed for developers.

If you need campaigns with a visual editor, the comparison changes. That’s where platforms such as Mailjet, Brevo and Mailrelay come in, bringing together newsletters, automations and transactional email in a single account.

Mailrelay, a SendGrid alternative with a free plan

At Mailrelay we offer what many users miss in SendGrid. Our free account lets you send up to 80,000 emails a month to 20,000 contacts, with no time limit. And it isn’t a stripped-down version. It includes the drag-and-drop editor with AI-assisted writing, segmentation, custom fields, A/B tests, automations and reports with click maps.

We also cover the technical side. You can send transactional emails via SMTP or API: the free account includes a 30-day trial of this service, and paid plans include it. You also get a REST API to manage contacts and campaigns, webhooks and a WordPress plugin.

And if you run into a problem? Our team helps you by chat, ticket and phone in several languages, on the free account too. If you’re coming from SendGrid, we help you with the migration of your contacts and with setting up your sending domain.

Mailrelay vs SendGrid on deliverability

Both providers use their own sending infrastructure, and with both, deliverability depends heavily on how you authenticate your domain and on the quality of your list. Neither can guarantee inbox placement.

At Mailrelay, every account sends from our own shared IPs, already warmed up and with automatic blacklist and spam complaint monitoring. If you need to isolate your reputation, you can get dedicated IPs from €600/year. We explain it in how Mailrelay protects deliverability.

SendGrid FAQ

Is SendGrid free? Not anymore. Since 2025 it only offers a 60-day trial with a maximum of 100 emails a day. After that, you have to sign up for a paid plan.

Is SendGrid owned by Twilio? Yes. Twilio bought it in 2019, and today its brand name is Twilio SendGrid.

Is an email sent from sendgrid.net safe? Usually yes, because many legitimate companies use this service. Even so, always check the sender and be wary of unexpected messages asking for your details or for payments.

Which is better, SendGrid or Mailgun? It depends on your case. Both are designed for developers and their prices are similar. If you also want to send newsletters without coding, you’re better off with an email marketing platform that includes a transactional API.

Does Mailrelay have better deliverability than SendGrid? No provider can guarantee that every email reaches the inbox, because it also depends on domain authentication, the list and the content. Mailrelay provides its own IPs with automatic monitoring, SPF, DKIM and DMARC checks in the dashboard, automatic list cleaning and a spam report in the editor.