This page lists the free plans of 13 email-sending services that indie developers often use. For each one we show the free send limits per month and per day, the paid entry price as the vendor shows it, whether a custom sending domain is allowed on the free plan and what the vendor's terms say about commercial use. Every figure comes from the vendor's own pricing or terms pages, which are linked in each row. Amazon SES and SendGrid have no free plan, and their rows say so. Figures were last checked on 22 October 2026. Free plans change often, so check the linked page before you decide.
Last checked
All figures are from the vendors' US English pricing and terms pages.
Free-forever plan, no free trial. Terms: "You are not required to provide billing information to use the Free Tier." Commercial-use rule not found in terms of service or acceptable use policy.
Basic $15.00 /mo (starting at 10,000 emails/month)
Yes: Up to 10 domains (comparison table "Custom sending domains" row, Free column)
Terms (all plans, free plan not named): "to access and use our Service and the AC PM Content in accordance with the Terms for (i) Your own personal use or (ii) if You are a business or organization, to communicate about your business or organization with your Contacts."
"No overages allowed in this plan." Pricing page calls it the "free Developer plan" that "never expires or runs out" but also labels the button "Start Free Trial". Limit per day and domain count read from the comparison table, whose columns are "Free Basic Pro Platform".
No SES free allowance on the pricing page. Credits only: "New AWS customers will receive up to $200 in AWS Free Tier credits, which can be applied towards eligible AWS services, including Amazon Simple Email Service." "The free plan will be available for 6 months after account creation."
Mailgun
not stated
100 emails per day
Basic Starting at $ 15 /mo (10,000 emails/mo included)
Free plan "$ 0 /mo"; "Free plans are limited to 1 user per account." Paid plans: "our paid plans offer free 30-day trials". No monthly figure stated for Free.
Trial only: "Free trial lets you send 100 emails/day for 60 days". sendgrid.com/pricing redirects to the Twilio SendGrid product page; pricing is on the Twilio Email API pricing page.
Brevo
not stated
300 emails per day
Starter: "price":"9","priceCurrency":"USD" (embedded JSON-LD only; visible price rendered by JavaScript; card text "From 5,000 emails per month")
"Free forever, no credit card needed". Limit per day applies "Once we approve your account for sending". Terms: "We may suspend, limit, or terminate the free Services for any reason at any time without notice." Visible plan prices are rendered by JavaScript; the static page shows the price only in its JSON-LD.
"You acknowledge that the Services are strictly for commercial use and that you are not authorized to use the Services for personal, family, or household purposes."
Card required on Free: "we just ask that you provide this information to prevent abuse of the platform." Free limits include "100 daily requests" (API requests, not a send limit). 2-week free trial of the Professional plan.
Loops
4,000 sends per 30 days (rolling; marketing and transactional combined, to your first 1,000 contacts)
Free sends "Up to 10 emails per second"; "Free emails include Loops branding." "no credit card required". Pricing is per subscribed contact, not per email.
"No credit card required"; "Plunk branding on emails" on Free. Terms: "Free tier available (1,000 emails/month total across all email types)". Open source and self-hostable.
Buttondown
not stated
not stated
Basic: price "9" USD, "Basic plan - Up to 1000 subscribers" (embedded JSON-LD only; billing period not stated)
Free plan is by subscribers: "Absolutely nothing for your first 100 subscribers." Prices "assume that you're sending at most one email a day to your entire subscriber base" (stated as an assumption, not a limit). Terms page's non-commercial wording covers website materials only, not the service.
SMTP2GO
up to 1,000 emails per month
not stated
Starter $ 10 /mo, $ 100 /year (page title says "Plans From $15/mo")
Our note: SMTP2GO's own pricing page states two different entry prices, one on the Starter card and one in the page title. We show both and do not choose between them.
not stated
Terms: "Free plan accounts are primarily for trial purposes and for sending low amounts of email. Businesses must not create more than 10 free plan accounts."
"No credit card required". Reporting "Limited to 14 days for the free plan." Pricing page price ($10/mo, yearly view) and title ($15/mo) differ; both shown verbatim.
Mailjet
6,000 emails/month
200 emails per day
Starter $ 9 /month (8,000 emails/month, no daily sending limit)
"EmailOctopus is built for organisations, and we ask you to use it for purposes relating to your trade, business, craft or profession. It is not intended for personal use."
Free ("Starter") plan covers 2,500 subscribers, with EmailOctopus branding on emails. No free trial; free plan has no time limit and "no credit card needed".
Notes
Region: US. Figures are the published free-plan limits on each vendor's own English (US) pricing pages in USD on 22 Oct 2026. Trials and credits are shown only for vendors with no free plan (Amazon SES, SendGrid) or in the notes column.
"not stated" means the vendor's pages that were checked did not state the value. It does not mean "no limit", "allowed" or "not allowed".
"n/a (no free tier)" is used only for Amazon SES and SendGrid. Amazon SES: the SES pricing page lists only AWS Free Tier credits ("up to $200 in AWS Free Tier credits", free plan "available for 6 months after account creation"). SendGrid: "Free trial lets you send 100 emails/day for 60 days".
Commercial use: each vendor's terms of service (and Resend's acceptable use policy) were fetched on 22 Oct 2026 and searched for a commercial-use rule. Four state one, quoted verbatim in the row: MailerSend ("strictly for commercial use"), EmailOctopus ("not intended for personal use"), SMTP2GO (free plans "primarily for trial purposes") and Postmark (licence covers personal use or a business communicating with its contacts; the free plan is not named). Seven read "not stated" (Resend, Mailgun, Brevo, Loops, Plunk, Buttondown, Mailjet); Amazon SES and SendGrid are "n/a (no free tier)". Buttondown's terms use the words "non-commercial", but only for viewing website materials, not for the sending service, so its row reads "not stated".
Units differ by vendor and are not converted: Loops counts "sends per 30 days" (rolling), Buttondown prices by subscribers (free for the first 100), EmailOctopus and Loops also cap contacts or subscribers.
Prices shown only in embedded data: Brevo's and Buttondown's paid prices are rendered by JavaScript; the static page carries them only in schema.org JSON-LD offers, which is quoted. Buttondown's JSON-LD gives no billing period.
Pages that show yearly prices by default (MailerSend, SMTP2GO, EmailOctopus) are quoted as shown. SMTP2GO's card says "Starter $ 10 /mo $ 100 /year" while its page title says "Plans From $15/mo"; both are kept.
Postmark: the limit per day ("Unlimited") and domain count ("Up to 10 domains") come from the comparison table, read by its column order "Free Basic Pro Platform".
MailerSend's free plan limit of 100 requests per day is an API request limit, not a send limit, so its send limit per day cell reads "not stated". MailerSend asks for a credit card on the Free plan.
Mailgun's free plan states only a cap per day ("100 emails per day"); no monthly figure is published.
