MailerSend Pricing in 2026: Transactional Mail, Metered Fairly
MailerSend prices transactional email by volume: a free plan with 500 emails a month, Hobby at $6.30 for 5,000, Starter at $31.50 for 50,000, and Professional at $99. Here's what developers and creators get at each rung — and when transactional pricing beats marketing tools.
Verify live pricing: figures below reflect the official page at research time. Confirm at mailersend.com/pricing before purchasing.
TL;DR
- Free — $0: 500 emails/month (100/day cap), 1 domain, API + SMTP + inbound routing.
- Hobby — $6.30/month: 5,000 emails/month ($75.60 billed yearly), 1 domain, overages at $1.50 per 1,000.
- Starter — $31.50/month: 50,000 emails/month ($378 billed yearly), 10 domains, SMS API, 7-day retention.
- Professional — $99/month: 50,000 emails ($1,188 billed yearly) plus scale headroom, 30-day retention, dedicated manager.
- Model: pure volume metering — the cheapest serious transactional email per thousand.
The tiers, explained
Free — 500 emails/month
The free plan sends 500 emails a month with a 100-per-day cap, including the full sending stack: email API, SMTP relay, webhooks, inbound routing, drag-and-drop builder, and suppression management. One sending domain, one template set, one day of activity retention. Note the card requirement — a credit card is needed even for free (a no-card trial domain with 100 emails exists for testing). For an indie hacker wiring receipts and password resets, free covers the first real users.
Hobby — $6.30/month
Hobby ($6.30 monthly, $75.60 billed yearly — the same $6.30/mo either way) raises the allowance to 5,000 emails a month with overages at $1.50 per additional 1,000 — among the lowest overage rates anywhere. You get 5 seats, bulk emailing, 100 verification credits, and 24/7 email support. This is the side-project sweet spot: order confirmations, onboarding emails, and a small newsletter for less than a coffee. The single-domain limit is the main reason growing projects leave it.
Starter — $31.50/month
Starter ($31.50 monthly for 50,000 emails, $378 billed yearly, scaling on a slider to a million+) adds 10 domains, 250 templates, sender identities, SMS API, 100,000 daily API requests, and 7-day activity retention. Overages run $1.30 per 1,000. Production SaaS apps with meaningful user bases live here — the per-thousand economics beat every marketing platform's transactional add-on at volume, and built-in email verification plus inbound routing remove two paid third-party services many teams buy separately. Yearly billing matches the monthly rate ($378 ÷ 12 = $31.50), so there is no prepay discount to chase — pick the term that suits cash flow.
Professional — $99/month
Professional ($99 monthly for 50,000 emails, $1,188 billed yearly, scaling to two million) buys non-volume headroom: 30-day retention, 500,000 daily API requests, unlimited templates, 150 SMS monthly, deliverability consultation, and a dedicated account manager. Agencies, resellers, and high-scale senders who need humans on call — not bigger buckets — pay for this tier.
Volume math: cost per thousand
| Tier | Monthly price | Included emails | Overage /1k |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 500 | — (sends pause) |
| Hobby | $6.30 | 5,000 | $1.50 |
| Starter | $31.50 | 50,000 | $1.30 |
| Professional | $99 | 50,000+ | $1.30 |
The takeaway: transactional email gets dramatically cheaper with scale, from $1.26 per thousand on Hobby ($6.30 ÷ 5) to $0.63 on Starter ($31.50 ÷ 50). Creators often make the mistake of sending receipts and onboarding through a marketing tool at far higher per-thousand rates — splitting transactional onto MailerSend while marketing lives elsewhere is standard professional practice.
MailerSend vs. the alternatives on price
The honest comparison: MailerSend is infrastructure — superb APIs, deliverability, and per-thousand pricing, but no lifecycle automation and no revenue attribution. Technical teams who want best-of-breed pipes pair MailerSend (transactional) with a marketing tool: Brevo's Starter at $9/mo for 5,000 monthly emails or MailerLite's Comfort at $12/mo for 500 subscribers, depending on whether volume or editor-simplicity matters more.
Against Postmark, Amazon SES, and SendGrid, MailerSend competes on developer experience (SDKs, inbound routing, verification built in) at fair mid-market prices — cheaper than Postmark per thousand, simpler than SES, more transparent than SendGrid. Marketing-only creators who never touch APIs should skip MailerSend entirely for MailerLite or Kit.
Cost scenarios
| Scenario | Estimated monthly cost | Plan |
|---|---|---|
| Side project — ~3,000 transactional emails/mo | $6.30/mo | Hobby |
| Production app — ~40,000 emails/mo | $31.50/mo | Starter |
| High-volume product — ~120,000 emails/mo | $122.50/mo ($31.50 + 70 × $1.30 overage thousands) | Starter |
Volume is the only variable: Hobby covers 5,000 emails, Starter 50,000, and overages bill per thousand rather than blocking sends. The third scenario shows why heavy senders move up the slider — the marginal rate drops as the bucket grows.
Hidden fees & fine print
- Overages auto-bill at $1.50 per 1,000 on Hobby and $1.30 on Starter — paid plans keep sending; free plans pause.
- The free plan needs a credit card on file and caps at 100 emails/day even inside its 500/month allowance.
- One sending domain on Free and Hobby — multi-product teams need Starter ($31.50/mo).
- Activity retention is tier-gated (1 day free, 7 days Starter, 30 days Professional), so log depth scales with spend.
- Yearly billing matches monthly rates on every tier — pick the term that suits cash flow, not a discount.
- SMS API and the higher daily API-request ceilings land on Starter and Professional — confirm throughput needs in the plan comparison.
MailerSend pricing FAQs
Is MailerSend free really free?
Yes — 500 emails a month at no charge with full API/SMTP access, though a credit card is required on file and sends cap at 100 a day. A separate no-card trial (100 emails on a shared domain) exists for evaluation without payment details.
Hobby ($6.30) vs. Starter ($31.50): which do I need?
Hobby suits single-domain side projects under 5,000 monthly emails. Move to Starter when you need multiple domains, SMS, higher API throughput, or 7-day log retention — typically the moment a second product or client enters the picture.
What happens if I exceed my email allowance?
Paid plans keep sending and bill overages per thousand ($1.50 on Hobby, $1.30 on Starter/Pro). Free plans pause until the cycle resets. Set usage alerts — a runaway loop mailing your whole user base can surprise you at any per-thousand rate.
Should I pair MailerSend with a marketing platform?
Pair them when the split is deliberate: MailerSend for transactional infrastructure (inbound routing depth, multi-domain API scale, verification credits) plus a marketing tool such as Brevo or MailerLite for newsletters and lifecycle. Solo creators who never touch APIs should skip MailerSend entirely and send everything from one marketing platform.
How much does 100,000 emails a month cost?
On Starter's 50,000 bucket: $31.50 plus 50,000 overage emails at $1.30 per thousand — $65 overage, $96.50/month total — or slide the Starter allowance up to cover it directly. Either path is far below what marketing platforms charge for the same volume.
Can I run marketing newsletters through MailerSend?
You can send through the API, but the product is transactional infrastructure: no lifecycle automation, no billing triggers, no revenue attribution. Newsletter-only creators are better off on MailerLite or Kit — pair MailerSend with a marketing tool only when the split is deliberate.
Where do I confirm current MailerSend pricing?
On the official page at mailersend.com/pricing. Check monthly versus yearly billing and your expected overage volume — then compare with our pricing hub.