AFFILIATE MARKETING
7 Best Mailgun Alternatives to Boost Your Email Marketing Success in 2023
Are you an entrepreneur looking for a reliable email delivery solution? Tired of dealing with the hassles and limitations of Mailgun? We’ve compiled a comprehensive list of the seven best Mailgun alternatives to revolutionize your email marketing efforts.
From robust analytics to automation capabilities, these solutions offer powerful features that can take your business communication to the next level. So read on and find the perfect fit for you!
7 Great Mailgun Alternatives for Your Business
1. Sendinblue
Sendinblue is our top pick among Mailgun alternatives and is a perfect marketing solution for any SMB or enterprise-level business. You can send transactional emails and SMS to the desired recipient and track their effectiveness. The Detailed Analytics reports will help you fix any potential problems in email delivery or click performance.
You can use this all-in-one tool to create:
- Email marketing campaigns – design emails with the drag-and-drop editor or ready-made templates to send user-friendly emails
- Marketing automation – send responsive emails that are triggered once a condition in the workflow is fulfilled
- SMS marketing – communicate with customers on a more personal level
- Push notifications – send reminders for abandoned carts
Pricing
Sendinblue provides users with four plans to kickstart their business. The platform charges based on emails sent rather than on the size of your contact list.
Additionally, with the free plan, you can send 300 emails/day, along with the added features of SMS and Whatsapp campaigns.
The business plan is the most popular amongst entrepreneurs. You can send 20,000 emails/day for $40 a month. You will also gain access to a number of bonus features, making it a perfect choice for marketing managers and professionals.
Pros
- User-friendly interface
- Forever-free plan
- Access services in more than 6 languages
Cons
- Lower free email sending limit compared to some of the other alternatives
2. Amazon SES
Amazon SES (Simple Email Service) is one of the cloud-based Mailgun alternatives used to send bulk marketing and transactional emails to customers. Small to large-scale businesses can use the platform to send emails through different methods. These include Amazon SES API, SMTP relay, and Amazon SES Console.
Amazon SES also provides support for owned, shared, or dedicated IP addresses to provide security and fast deliverability.
You can use the platform to send automated emails based on triggers and gain insights into their performance. Amazon SES is also known for its:
- Mailbox Stimulator – test how different scenarios will affect your application
- Email receiving – complete control over which emails to accept based on IP address and domain of the sender
- Reputation Dashboard – track issues of email performance such as bounce rate and feedback loops
Pricing
Amazon SES offers a pay-as-you-go scheme for sending emails. However, users hosting their applications on Amazon EC2 can send 62,000 emails a month for free.
You can also use the platform to receive up to 1000 emails for free and use pay-as-you-go to receive any additional emails.
Pros
- Increased sender security through multi-factor authentication
- Affordable rates for sending and receiving emails
- Generous forever free plan
Cons
- You’ll have to buy separate plans for inbound emails and outbound emails
3. MailerSend
MailerSend is another alternative to Mailgun that provides a transactional email service along with a transactional SMS service.
You can use the platform to send and receive emails with SMTP relay and get hold of the following features:
- Multiple domains – manage multiple products and domains with just one MailerSend account
- Email verification – advanced verification process to ensure messages are received in the intended inbox and avoid landing in spam
- Dynamic email templates – send bulk emails that are tailored to suit different customers
- IP allowlist – make your account more secure by adding IP addresses to a whitelist
Pricing
MailerSend offers a forever free plan with 12000 emails/month. It is best suited for startups or SMBs to benefit from bulk emailing, a drag-and-drop builder, and analytics tools.
The paid plan includes a Premium plan and an Enterprise plan. The Enterprise plan is specifically designed for large enterprises and offers unlimited domains and templates along with 30-day data retention.
Pros
- Bulk email sending
- Effortlessly integrate sending transactional emails with your technology
- Efficient sender reputation management using SPF, DKIM, and DMARC security protocols
- Provides resources to get you started
Cons
- No SMS marketing service available in the free plan
4. Postmark
Postmark is an email delivery service platform that differentiates itself from other Mailgun alternatives with its email deliverability.
It uses a separate but similar infrastructure to send promotional and transactional emails. The latter is delivered through a secure and faster network.
Other features of Postmark include:
- Analytics tools – 45 days of data retention that ensures you don’t miss any detail
- Email templates – choose layouts for common transactional emails
- Webhooks – get notifications on important events such as bounces, clicks, or any spam complaints
Postmark offers a forever-free plan that includes 100 emails per month. However, more is needed for growing organizations.
The paid plans start with 10,000 emails at $15/month. Any additional emails sent in the month are charged with pay-as-you-go. You can also add dedicated IPs at $50 a month to any package.
Pros
- Complete email marketing software to send transactional and broadcasted messages
- Free expert advice
- Fast and reliable email delivery
- Email and application security
Cons
- No SMS support
- Marketing automation and segmentation features are not available
- Pricey for the number of emails allowed
5. SendGrid
SendGrid is a marketing and transactional email service provider that uses web API and SMTP relay to send emails. It is trusted by startups, enterprises, developers, and high-volume senders to increase customer engagement and experience.
Other than sending transactional emails, you’ll also get access to:
- Email marketing campaigns – send crafted automated messages to build meaningful relationships with customers
- Email testing – spam test and create flawless emails that look perfect in every inbox
- Deliverability insights – scalable email delivery measured using primary metrics and trends to improve the health of your email programs
- Email templates
Pricing
SendGrid allows users to choose between Email API plans and Marketing Campaign Plans. Both categories offer forever free plans, with the email API plan starting at 100 emails/day.
Additionally, The Marketing Campaign Plans offers a free plan where you can send up to 6000 emails/day along with segmentation, email automation, and design & code editors.
However, you need to upgrade to the Advanced Plan to get access to a dedicated IP address. It will provide you with faster site speed and a secure sender reputation.
Pros
- Forever free plan
- Free resources to initiate the correct email program
- The platform supports different programming languages
Cons
- You can not receive Email API plans and Marketing Campaigns Plans under one package
6. SocketLabs
SocketLabs is an email delivery solution for IT pros, developers, and high-volume senders. It offers SMTP relay service and transactional email APIs. It’s one of the best Mailgun alternatives on the market because it offers many of the same features.
Users can trust the platform to deliver bulk emails that are fully verified and passed through strict anti-spam processes. With a tedious job cut out, the marketing teams can focus on using SocketLabs to create tailored solutions for priority accounts.
If you like SocketLabs for its ability to forward a high volume of emails, check out these best email forwarding services for even more options.
Pricing
SocketLabs offers a 30-day free trial for the Core plan. Then you can send 40,000 emails/month for $39.95.
The more expensive plans include the Pro Plan and the Concierge Plan. You can send 100,000 emails per month starting from $79.95.
You’ll also get access to “Insight History” and “Performance History” reports with all plans.
Pros
- Useful resources and code libraries to easily set up sending emails
- Integrate with any application
- Useful analytics tool to improve email performance
Cons
- No SMS marketing service
- No forever free plan
- Ongoing training and email performance review are not available for low-tier plans
7. SparkPost
SparkPost is a reliable platform for brands to send and deliver emails. You can use advice from high-level industry experts to create email programs that engage and retain customers.
SparkPost is not just like any other Mailgun alternative. It goes beyond the basic deliverability of emails to provide an all-in-one marketing tool that increases customer engagement through:
- SparkPost signals – track email health and recipient behavior to improve email performance and reduce the risk of hitting spam traps
- Taxi for email – use segmentation and personalization to create powerful email campaigns
- Recipient validation – verify email addresses before you send them
- Inbox tracker – receive a higher return on email ROI by reaching more subscribers
Pricing
SparkPost has a free test account that limits the sending volume of emails but gives unrestricted access to API or SMTP relay.
Also, as a new sender, you can choose the Starter plan that offers 50,000 emails at $30 a month. This includes alerts to increase engagement and email health.
With a Premier plan, you can send 100,000 emails at $75/month and also get access to advanced templates and snippets, AB testing, prioritized support, and a dedicated IP address.
Pros
- Easily track how consumers are responding to competitors’ email campaigns
- Affordable plans for sending transactional emails
- Integrates with different apps and websites to fit user’s needs
Cons
- Limited volume for sending emails with free test accounts
Bottom Line: What’s The Best Mailgun Alternative For Your Business?
All in all, there are a host of excellent Mailgun substitutes that can completely transform your email delivery process.
Selecting the right alternative depends on your organization’s specific needs and requirements. So be sure to do some research before making a final decision. But in general, we believe that Sendinblue is a very excellent choice for most cases.
Hope this guide helps make it easier for you to find the best Mailgun alternatives for your entrepreneurial needs!
AFFILIATE MARKETING
How to Get Beat Out Your Competition by Making a Lasting Impression
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
I’m in the public relations space, and as of last count, there are more than 48,000 other PR firms in the United States. A large fraction of these compete with my agency in the five hub cities where I operate. Yet mine consistently ranks among the highest in those cities — Nashville, for example.
Is it because I know my industry better than my competitors? Because I land more placements for my clients? Because my team is more talented or my network of connections more expansive? As much as I’d like to think that I’m running with the front of the pack based solely on the quality of my services and the effectiveness of my methodologies, it’s far more likely that I earn rave reviews and generate referrals from my clients due to two words: personalized attention.
More specifically, my team and I go well above and beyond to create an exceptional customer experience at my firm because I’ve learned over the years of running my own business that it’s the client’s impression of you that matters most — that’s what informs all other aspects of customer relations, drives all other client decisions and determines if they’ll stay with you or not (even more so than short-term results).
Even in the digital age we all inhabit, with so many automated tasks and productivity tools that populate our workplaces, personalizing the professional is a surefire means to client retention and satisfaction. Here are five practices I regularly follow to make the most positive impression on my clients I possibly can.
1. Get a copy of your client’s org chart
When you understand the structure of your client’s business, you understand who does what, who reports to whom, and, in turn, you know who to go to for what. Not only is this an immense time-saver — as in not filling people’s inboxes unnecessarily with work that doesn’t pertain to them — but your clients will also appreciate that you did your homework on their staffing.
It’s so much more impressive to send a note that says, “Would your team like to see this before we send it up to Jeremy?” or “I believe Bettina has the final sign-off here” than “Are you the right person to contact about this?” And note the use of actual names here — learning the first names of everyone you’ll be working with moves you into first place faster than you’d think!
Related: 4 Ways to Make the Best First Impression With Your Customers
2. Use proper grammar and punctuation
Make sure that all your communications to your client — and, far more importantly, all the communications you prepare on their behalf — are written properly. Yes, it takes some extra work to eliminate errors. Still, it’s absolutely worth the effort when you consider how much just one typo can mar an entire project (ever seen “pubic” instead of “public”?) and how poorly faulty grammar can reflect on quality output, education level and attracting the intended audience.
Though it may be true that language standards are slipping in America, that doesn’t mean nobody’s noticing the shoddy quality of copy. Some people still notice and care. If your client is one of them, you’ll earn bonus points by knowing the difference between “compliment” and “complement” by not allowing both “San Antonio Riverwalk” and “San Antonio River Walk” in the same publication. Use your grammar checker. Always do a spell-check. Re-read everything you produce. And if you don’t have a language maven on staff to serve as your in-house proofreader, hire an affordable freelancer who can provide quick turnaround times.
3. Choose video over audio
Whenever possible, schedule video calls and videoconference meetings over phone calls and phone meetings. The day and age of in-person meetings is quickly becoming obsolete. Still, there will never be a replacement for face-to-face interaction, eye contact, observing facial expressions and showing your client with every head nod and eyebrow raise that you’re following what they’re saying and closely attending to your conversation.
During the pandemic, cultivating one-on-one relationships over Zoom and Teams became the new norm, and most people are entirely fine leaving it that way! Interacting over a screen instead of a conference table is just more convenient, time-effective and environmentally friendly. Nevertheless, we can’t afford to lose the “one-on-one interaction” part of business relationships. Remember the old Bell advertising slogan? Well, video is the modern-day equivalent of “the next best thing to being there,” so leverage your camera as often as possible to “see” your clients, not just talk to them.
4. Mark your calendar!
Notate birthdays, business anniversaries, baby due dates. Keep a record of your client’s big meetings and conference attendance. On those days, send a person-to-person text or email. And the more specific, the better, such as “Hope your coffee product presentation in Jersey went well and the traffic wasn’t too bad on the Parkway!” Or “Congrats on baby Elliot. That was my grandfather’s name, and I hope it serves your brand-new son as well as it did him.”
By incorporating the personal into the professional, which is a pillar of my own approach at my company, clients value your role more because you’ve actively endeavored to become part of their lives, not just an appendage of their business. In other words, when you add personal touches to your communications and conversations, your clients can’t help but think of you on a more human level rather than just a professional contact with whom they can easily cut ties.
Related: 6 Strategies for Making a Good First Impression During Business Meetings
5. Observe the line between personal and professional, but use both — often
On a related but separate note: As much as I’m saying to weave personal connections into your daily dealings with your clients, you never, ever want to go too far. You can use humor, but not off-color humor. You can show vulnerability, but you don’t want to appear weak or indecisive. You can ask questions and admit what you don’t know, but be strategic (not lazy) about trying to resolve issues yourself before coming to your clients with them. And be yourself, absolutely always be genuinely yourself, but don’t expose so much that you cross the line into overintimacy or inappropriate divulgence.
By speckling your client interactions with individual touches as you simultaneously maintain proper decorum, you will put a personal face on your business name. And that name will leave more of a mark on your customers precisely because of your adept balancing act between the personal and the professional.
Part of making a meaningful impression on your clients is consciously putting your best face forward every day, in every way. Don’t let them see a messy office behind you on Zoom, but let them vent about their kid’s tonsillitis for 10 minutes if needed. Don’t bad-mouth other clients or finger-point when things go wrong, but get to know them well enough that you’d love to grab a drink next time you’re in town.
Take every opportunity you can to show your clients — and then remind them often — that “business as usual” to you means being prepared (as in learning an org chart), producing quality output (that’s been proofed), scheduling face-to-face encounters, observing special occasions in their lives and sharing your authentic self, who happens to be a multifaceted, wonderful human being with flaws who’s also an utter professional and a real pro at what you do!
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Protect Your Business Computer From Hackers and Trackers with This $70 VPN Deal
Disclosure: Our goal is to feature products and services that we think you’ll find interesting and useful. If you purchase them, Entrepreneur may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our commerce partners.
Browsing online and using public networks can make your computer vulnerable to a wide range of hackers and trackers. For entrepreneurs running a business, being bogged down or having your team members bogged down by dangerous, cost-threatening disruptions like these is unacceptable.
A good way to keep you and your team safe and working fast while online is with a reliable VPN subscription. To help, this Windscribe VPN Pro Plan three-year subscription is available for $69.97 (reg. $207) through May 12th at 11:59 p.m. PT.
Windscribe can be a great VPN subscription for entrepreneurs and small businesses because it supports unlimited devices. Going beyond typical VPN services, Windscribe offers itself as a desktop application and browser extension. All-in-all, it can be used to unblock websites, block ads, and keep you safe without expecting you to configure a wide range of complicated settings.
Windscribe’s no-logging policy will keep your team safe, and its high-end encryption methods will keep their data safe from hackers and trackers.
This service runs on a system of servers in more than 69 countries and 112 cities. It uses something called split tunneling, which allows users to choose which apps use the VPN and which ones don’t. This is a great feature for teams with remote employees who toggle between work and personal programs on the same screen.
Windscribe is rated Very Good on Tom’s Guide and 4/5 stars and above on Tech Radar, PC World, and G2.
Don’t forget that this Windscribe VPN Pro Plan three-year subscription is available for the best-of-web price of $69.97 (reg. $207) only through May 12th at 11:59 p.m. PT.
StackSocial prices subject to change.
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Get Microsoft Office Plus Windows 11 Pro for $70 This Week Only
Disclosure: Our goal is to feature products and services that we think you’ll find interesting and useful. If you purchase them, Entrepreneur may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our commerce partners.
When you run a company, you need every basic tool available to streamline your communications, content creation, and sales abilities. You also need to operate on a computer outfitted with a capable and robust operating system designed to support modern productivity.
Through 11:59 p.m. PT on May 12th only, you can get The Ultimate Microsoft Office Professional 2021 for Windows: Lifetime License + Windows 11 Pro Bundle on sale for just $69.97 (reg. $438).
Known by many for a long time, Microsoft Office Professional features a suite of apps designed to help you write, present, organize, email, and more. Unlike with Microsoft 365, there are no additional monthly fees with Office. These are the ones included with this lifetime license:
- Access
- Publisher
- OneNote
- Teams
- Outlook
- PowerPoint
- Excel
- Word
This bundle also includes Windows 11 Pro, the latest Microsoft operating system, which offers advanced security features and productivity elements that can help keep any modern professional on task and safe.
On the security front, the system uses tools like Smart App Control, biometric logins, and TPM 2.0 to help keep you protected. When it comes to productivity, it offers tools like improved voice typing and the support of AI-powered tools like Microsoft Copilot. And because Office includes Teams, you get a hub of communication for your team.
This deal has several 5/5 star ratings on the Entrepreneur Store, and Windows 11 Pro is rated 4/5 stars on PC Magazine and TechRadar.
Through 11:59 p.m. PT on May 12th only, you can get The Ultimate Microsoft Office Professional 2021 for Windows: Lifetime License + Windows 11 Pro Bundle on sale for just $69.97 (reg. $438).
StackSocial prices subject to change.
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