A SendGrid alternative with a free plan: 3,000 emails a month

For the apps that ran on SendGrid's free tier.

Mailcheer sends your application's emails through a JSON API and your newsletters from the same account. The free plan covers 3,000 emails a month, with no end date and no credit card.

Create a free account Read the API docs

SendGrid's free plan ended in 2025

On May 27, 2025, Twilio SendGrid announced the retirement of its Free Email API and Free Marketing Campaigns plans. Free accounts kept their limits for 60 days. After that, sending paused until the account moved to a paid plan [1].

SendGrid's Email API pricing now starts with a free trial: 100 emails a day, for 60 days [2].

Mailcheer's free plan has no end date, and you sign up without a credit card.

May 27, 2025SendGrid free plans retired

Your send call, before and after

Mailcheer reads a flat JSON body, so you rewrite the function that sends. The rest of your code stays where it is. The same invoice, on both APIs:

Before, with SendGrid's v3 Mail Send [4]

curl -X POST https://api.sendgrid.com/v3/mail/send \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_KEY>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "personalizations": [{ "to": [{ "email": "customer@example.com" }] }],
    "from": { "email": "billing@yourdomain.com" },
    "subject": "Your September invoice",
    "content": [{ "type": "text/html", "value": "<p>Here it is.</p>" }]
  }'

After, with Mailcheer

curl -X POST https://mailcheer.com/api/v1/emails \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer mch_live_…" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: invoice-2026-0412" \
  -d '{
    "from": "Billing <billing@yourdomain.com>",
    "to": "customer@example.com",
    "subject": "Your September invoice",
    "html": "<p>Here it is.</p>"
  }'

personalizations[].to[].email becomes to: one address, or an array of up to 50.
from.email becomes from, with the display name written inline: Billing <billing@yourdomain.com>.
The text/html entry of content becomes html. The text/plain entry becomes text.
In attachments, content (base64) and filename keep their names, and type becomes content_type.
Idempotency-Key is optional. If your client retries the call with the same key, Mailcheer returns the first response and sends nothing.

Mailcheer answers 202 with the email's id. Call GET /api/v1/emails/{id} and you see it move from sent to delivered, bounced or complained.

What the free plan includes

3,000 emails a month, API sends and newsletters counted together.
As many API keys as you need, signed webhooks and the hosted MCP server.
One verified sending domain.
The newsletter side: block editor, segments, sign-up forms with double opt-in, A/B tests, automations and the writing assistant.

When your volume grows, the paid plans raise the monthly count: 40,000 emails for €19 a month excl. VAT, 150,000 for €49, 500,000 for €129. Subscribers stay unlimited on every plan.

Your newsletters on the same plan

SendGrid sells its Email API and Marketing Campaigns as two plans, and counts the emails of each one separately [2].

Mailcheer puts both under one plan and one monthly count. Your application sends receipts and password resets through the API. You write the newsletter in the editor, drop it on a date of the three-month calendar, and it goes out on its own, from the same verified domain.

A customer who receives an invoice from your app never joins your newsletter audience.

One suppression list for both

An invoice bounces on a dead address: Mailcheer puts it on the workspace's suppression list and takes it out of your newsletter audience. A reader marks your newsletter as spam: the next API call to that address returns 422 suppressed_recipient, with the reason.

Your code hears about each case through signed webhooks. Seven events, from email.delivered to subscriber.unsubscribed, reach your endpoint with an HMAC‑SHA256 signature and the same JSON shape for API emails and campaigns.

Your AI agent can send too

Mailcheer hosts an MCP server at https://mailcheer.com/api/mcp. Claude Code, ChatGPT, Cursor and Codex connect with that address and your key, then find 13 tools, among them send_email, create_campaign, preview_campaign_send and get_campaign_stats.

Every tool goes through the API's rules: the key's permissions, the monthly count, the suppression list. Give the agent a key without emails:send and it cannot send, whatever it decides.

Mailcheer and SendGrid, point by point

Criterion	Mailcheer	SendGrid
Free plan	3,000 emails a month, with no end date	Free plans retired, as announced on May 27, 2025; the Email API now starts with a 60-day free trial at 100 emails a day [1][2]
API and newsletters	One plan, one monthly count	Two plans bought separately, with emails counted separately [2]
What newsletter plans are sized on	Emails sent; subscribers unlimited	Email volume and contact storage [3]
Attachments	Base64 `content` and `filename` in `attachments`	Base64 `content` and `filename` in `attachments` [4]
Event webhooks	Signed with HMAC‑SHA256	Signed with ECDSA [5]

What this page says about SendGrid comes from its public pricing pages, changelog and documentation, read on September 22, 2026.

Frequently asked questions

Is SendGrid still free?

Twilio SendGrid announced on May 27, 2025 that it was retiring its free Email API and Marketing Campaigns plans, after 60 days of transition [1]. Its Email API pricing page now offers a free trial of 100 emails a day for 60 days [2]. Mailcheer's free plan gives 3,000 emails a month and has no end date.

What do I change in my code to leave SendGrid?

The function that sends. Mailcheer takes a flat JSON body (from, to, subject, html) at POST https://mailcheer.com/api/v1/emails, with an Authorization: Bearer key. You also verify your sending domain in Mailcheer by publishing its DNS records. The rest of your application stays as it is.

Does the free plan include the API and newsletters?

Yes. The free plan opens the API, webhooks, the MCP server, the campaign editor, segments and sign-up forms. Its 3,000 monthly emails cover API sends and newsletters together.

Can an AI agent send email through Mailcheer?

Yes, through the hosted MCP server at https://mailcheer.com/api/mcp. The agent works with an API key, and the permissions you ticked when you created that key decide what it can do. A key without emails:send or campaigns:write cannot send anything.

Send your first email on the free plan

Create your workspace, verify your domain, and your application sends through the API: 3,000 emails a month, no credit card.

Create a free account Read the API docs

Compare with another tool

Mailcheer or Resendthe email sending API for developers Mailcheer or Mailgunan email sending API Mailcheer or Postmarkan email service built for application email